Dink head? I don't think I've heard that term since Jr High.

Ok. So, yes, there really is a small fringe group of folks who don't think the earth is warming at all. However, most of those you seem to lump in with "deniers" are those who simply suspect a) the warming we're experiencing is likely due mostly to natural, cyclical causes and/or b) it will be far easier to adapt to any real effects of global warming than to attempt to somehow slow or reverse it.

So, your preemptive name-calling and article-linking is effectively moot. It's the "A" in AGW that's in question, not so much the "GW".

(sorry, duplicate post)

(sorry duplicate post)

Dink head stands for anyone in denial of AGW - there is simply no credible position to deny Anthro that has any basis in science
What you THINK has no bearing on either the science or the reality.

What he thinks does

Here is what Gammon had to say concerning links between humans and climate change.

This is like asking, ‘Is the moon round?’ or ‘Does smoking cause cancer?’ We’re at a point now where there is no responsible position stating that humans are not responsible for climate change. That is just not where the science is.…For a long time, for at least five years and probably 10 years, the international scientific community has been very clear.”

In case there is any doubt, Gammon went on:
This is not the balance-of-evidence argument for a civil lawsuit; this is the criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt We’ve been there for a long time and I think the media has really not presented that to the public.”

Dr. Richard H. Gammon
Professor of Chemistry and Oceanography*
Adjunct Professor Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington

email him - gammon@chem.washington.edu - tell him he's wrong and you know better.

and ask yourself why
if the fossil fuel companies knew this in the mid 90s..

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

By ANDREW C. REVKINPublished: April 23, 2009

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/scien ... .html?_r=2

you should deserve any less pejorative label. Willful blindness is simply too polite.

I agree with at least one thing you said: "What you THINK has no bearing on...the reality"

What is, is. Period. It has nothing to do with what you or I or your friend from Washington U. thinks about it. But we would all to well to have that reality represented as accurately as possible in our mental frameworks.

The thing is, there is no universal force to make us all think correctly. We each ultimately have to rely on very limited observations and pattern detection. Some people are able to go much further into the arena of knowledge through the disciplines of science. Humankind has benefited fantastically from them. I don't know of anyone, denier or otherwise, who wouldn't agree with that.

But science has always been a process. Someone observes an effect and hypothesizes a cause, then tests the hypothesis through controlled experiments. If adequate controls are enforced and other possible factors are ruled out, the hypothesis stands and is presumed proven until it at some point fails to predict an actual outcome. Then the hypothesis may be changed or further clarified--closer to the reality.

From my perspective, we'd best not declare certainty about anything--that's what religion does. I think it's entirely reasonable to hypothesize that GW could be anthropogenic. What I and my fellow "deniers" are most skeptical of is the degree of certainty with which it and every doomsday scenario related to it is being claimed. Do you honestly believe all the factors for something as immensely complex as global climate have been adequately accounted for--as good as science is?

I'll be as glad as anyone once we are able to stop burning stuff for energy. But your approach is oddly similar to religion's--repent from your evil ways or the end of the world will come. Reasonable people have a hard time taking it seriously.

RealityQuest wrote:Dink head? I don't think I've heard that term since Jr High.

Ok. So, yes, there really is a small fringe group of folks who don't think the earth is warming at all. However, most of those you seem to lump in with "deniers" are those who simply suspect a) the warming we're experiencing is likely due mostly to natural, cyclical causes

Yep, those are deniers.

and/or b) it will be far easier to adapt to any real effects of global warming than to attempt to somehow slow or reverse it.

This is not climate change denial. It is another form of reality denial, but has as much to do with "political reality" as it does science.

So, your preemptive name-calling and article-linking is effectively moot. It's the "A" in AGW that's in question, not so much the "GW".

Well, it shouldn't be in question.

There's many forms of climate change denialism, ranging from the swivel-eyed lunacy of Lord Monckton, who thinks we have seen no climate change at all in the past 20 years, to various different claims about why humans aren't responsible for the changes we are seeing. That there are so many different forms of denialism is a clue to their bullshit nature. What they all have in common is the following: there's no justification for changing our behaviour. I have a denialist in the family who believes that climate change can't be being caused by CO2, because there's so much water vapour in the atmosphere. Instead, he says it is because of all the heat we release from buildings and vehicles. I don't know where he got this from, but it has nothing to do with science. This person is no idiot. He's a successful engineer and businessman, and perfectly capable of understanding the science if he wanted to. He just doesn't want to, and the reason is that he cannot incorporate this information into his understanding of the world. The implications are too huge for him to be able to accept it is real. This is the underlying cause of all climate change denialism.

Your family member is referring to two separate ideas.

1) water vapor has a stronger greenhouse effect than co2 and the atmosphere has a much higher higher concentration of water vapor than co2. Since even the current elevated levels of co2 are minuscule compared to the normal levels of water vapor, it's difficult to confirm the significance of rising co2 levels and our part in producing it--especially since we know natural causes have increased co2 levels in the past.

2) it's been suggested that a significant portion of the long-term temperature recording stations are located in areas that have become urbanized in the last 50-100 years. If that is the case, the well-documented heat island effect of cities (buildings, pavement, autos, etc) would seem to have come into play, possibly exaggerating the measured temperature increase. The question is whether that was adequately accounted for in the statistical evidence for a temperature rise.

RealityQuest wrote:Your family member is referring to two separate ideas.

1) water vapor has a stronger greenhouse effect than co2 and the atmosphere has a much higher higher concentration of water vapor than co2. Since even the current elevated levels of co2 are minuscule compared to the normal levels of water vapor, it's difficult to confirm the significance of rising co2 levels and our part in producing it--especially since we know natural causes have increased co2 levels in the past.

And if we were pumping billions of tonnes of water vapour into the air, then you'd have a point. There's a balance (of an oscillating sort) that has stablized over eons. In a short period of time, just a century or so, we've nearly doubled the CO2 ppm - had we done the same with water, we'd be having the same conversation. Further, you might want to take a look at the specific details of the interactions here. CO2 is particularly important because of the wavelengths of infrared radiation it absorbs and emits, so comparisons to water are really a non-sequitur.

Further, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt how much we're pumping into the air. It's measurable. I don't know why you're asserting otherwise.

RealityQuest wrote:2) it's been suggested that a significant portion of the long-term temperature recording stations are located in areas that have become urbanized in the last 50-100 years.

And was ruled out in the vast majority of studies. But then, this is the kind of thing you'd read in a Crichton novel, so I would like to see your source.

RealityQuest wrote:If that is the case, the well-documented heat island effect of cities (buildings, pavement, autos, etc) would seem to have come into play, possibly exaggerating the measured temperature increase.

Almost certainly the case. I don't think anyone scientifically literate is saying that CO2 is the only problem, but rather that it's the most pressing when one considers the fragile balance and the potential run-away nature of a warming planet.

RealityQuest wrote: The question is whether that was adequately accounted for in the statistical evidence for a temperature rise.

No, that's not really the question at all as it is absolutely miniscule in comparison to the observations. As I said, I would like to see your source for this as the only thing I can think of are highly outdated studies that were mis-employed by climate-change denialist Crichton in one of his fictional novels.

Personally, I think the question is: what lengths will you go to in order to keep maintaining the notion that the planet's just fine and that humans are a benign little species that has no impact on their environment?

Spearthrower wrote:

RealityQuest wrote:Your family member is referring to two separate ideas.

1) water vapor has a stronger greenhouse effect than co2 and the atmosphere has a much higher higher concentration of water vapor than co2. Since even the current elevated levels of co2 are minuscule compared to the normal levels of water vapor, it's difficult to confirm the significance of rising co2 levels and our part in producing it--especially since we know natural causes have increased co2 levels in the past.

And if we were pumping billions of tonnes of water vapour into the air, then you'd have a point.

No he wouldn't. The amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is determined by the temperature of the atmosphere. It doesn't make any difference how much water vapour we release, because any excess above what would be there anyway just precipitates out. It's called "rain." Releasing water vapour can change the local weather. It makes no difference at all to the climate.

RealityQuest wrote:
From my perspective, we'd best not declare certainty about anything--that's what religion does. I think it's entirely reasonable to hypothesize that GW could be anthropogenic. What I and my fellow "deniers" are most skeptical of is the degree of certainty with which it and every doomsday scenario related to it is being claimed. Do you honestly believe all the factors for something as immensely complex as global climate have been adequately accounted for--as good as science is?

All of the factors? Of course not.
Enough of the factors to declare that AGW exists and is a real threat? Absolutely.

If we wait until everything is known for certain then we'll be relocating people away from the coasts and having food riots as those millions of refugees seek alternative accommodation.

Let me put it another way. We don't know for certain that cigarette smoke causes lung cancer, we don't know for certain that CFCs caused the ozone hole and we don't know for certain that sulfur containing aerosols cause acid rain. However, in each of those cases, action was taken because the evidence showed beyond reasonable doubt that there was strong cause for concern.

We are in the same position with AGW and are facing precisely the same arguments as the tobacco lobby, the CFC manufacturers and the coal plants used to attempt to block the other legislation.

I'll be as glad as anyone once we are able to stop burning stuff for energy. But your approach is oddly similar to religion's--repent from your evil ways or the end of the world will come. Reasonable people have a hard time taking it seriously.

Then reasonable people should go learn some science. The basic principles behind climate change really aren't that hard to grasp.

Exactly - they were determined in a lab and can be shown in a lab experiment and have been know for over 100 years.

Background/history
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm

[img]I'll%20be%20as%20glad%20as%20anyone%20once%20we%20are%20able%20to%20stop%20burning%20stuff%20for%20energy.%20But%20your%20approach%20is%20oddly%20similar%20to%20religion's--repent%20from%20your%20evil%20ways%20or%20the%20end%20of%20the%20world%20will%20come.%20Reasonable%20people%20have%20a%20hard%20time%20taking%20it%20seriously.[/img]

Informed people do not take ill-informed people seriously at all....stop trying to pretend you have any idea what you are talking about - you don't.
You are regurgitating right wing disinformation - you are not reasonable....you are ignorant of the climate science which is very straight forward and trying to defend your ignorance with an equally ignorant comparison to religious codswallop.

Learn something or stop trolling for the fossil fuel companies........that is IF you are reasonable as you claim.

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

RealityQuest wrote:Your family member is referring to two separate ideas.

1) water vapor has a stronger greenhouse effect than co2 and the atmosphere has a much higher higher concentration of water vapor than co2. Since even the current elevated levels of co2 are minuscule compared to the normal levels of water vapor, it's difficult to confirm the significance of rising co2 levels and our part in producing it--especially since we know natural causes have increased co2 levels in the past.

And if we were pumping billions of tonnes of water vapour into the air, then you'd have a point.

No he wouldn't. The amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is determined by the temperature of the atmosphere. It doesn't make any difference how much water vapour we release, because any excess above what would be there anyway just precipitates out. It's called "rain." Releasing water vapour can change the local weather. It makes no difference at all to the climate.

Releasing billions of tonnes of water vapour would have no effect on the atmosphere?

You might want to try reviewing the world's history.

Macdoc-- I'm not sure how you can say I've been pretending to be some kind of expert on global climate. I've only offered two empirically-based arguments and that was to clarify a point UndercoverElephant made. I tried to state them as briefly and as neutrally as possible, because I really didn't know how valid they were. For the record, I'm just a lowly a Sr Systems Analyst with only a Bachelors degree. I don't have the background nor the time to adequately understand how human-released co2 could be so disruptive to all earthly life as we know it.

You say the science is so straightforward that anyone can understand it... No. It's not. I've waded through portions of the IPCC report and have read numerous articles (some scholarly) on both sides. You can continue to insult my IQ all you want, but it appears I can still hold down a decent job of some intellectual challenge and generally get by in life.

"Go learn something"? I thought that's what I was doing when I joined this thread. I learn best when my own ideas are directly challenged, so I put them out there where they can be.

SpearThrower--as I just stated above, I offered the comment about %water vapor vs co2 as a clarification to someone's earlier comment, not necessarily as my own view. I couldn't remember where I heard it so I googled it to see what came up. Here's an article on NOAAs website
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories201 ... vapor.html

co2 makes up .035% of the atmosphere and WV makes up around 3% of surface air (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor), so that's 85:1 WV over co2. But that's only accounting for less than 1% of atmospheric WV. 99+% is in the troposphere and, according to the NOAA link, its highly variable. Some climate models assumed positive feedback between co2 and tropospheric WV, but in the last decade, a drop in WV may have countered the expected temperature increase due to co2. What if instead of being slightly positive, the feedback is slightly negative?

Spearthrower wrote:Further, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt how much we're pumping into the air. It's measurable. I don't know why you're asserting otherwise.

Really? Beyond a shadow of a doubt we've measured with reasonable precision how much co2 has been released or absorbed by every factory, every motorized vehicle, all forest fires, all living biomass and all decaying biomass? For the last 180 years? Add it all up and, sure enough, it matches perfectly with co2 levels doubling over that timeframe? I'd have to see the spreadsheet to believe that. Link?

Urban Heat Island effect: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_dat ... 2-2-2.html

I don't see how the IPCC addendum provides the numbers to do the math that would conclusively negate its significance. It says 270 stations worldwide showed no statistical variance between calm nights and windy nights, which they interpret to mean they had no UHI effect. 270 out of how many total? (Isn't 270 a pretty small sample to represent something global?) Why not do a site inspection of the 270 + ? sites and determine conclusively whether they might have been impacted by UHI?

Plus I always thought calm air releases more heat into space than turbulent air (according to TV weatherman). So what math allowed them to claim there was no statistical variance at those 270 locations when windy nights should naturally trend higher than calm nights?

You all probably have great answers to these questions. They're just the kind of things that make me wonder.

It's kind of difficult to quote your post RQ because of the formatting.

Points to note though: the link you provided shows that, were we to piss about with the water vapour content of the atmosphere as we've been doing with CO2, it would have just as catastrophic effects. That's the problem with the thin blue line - it's extraordinarily fragile, and nigh on all the things that live within it are entirely reliant on it for their well-being. This is not something we have a right to gamble with.

As for measuring carbon - we don't need to go and check every factory, we can use numerous techniques to measure the ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere 200 years ago and then measure it now: necessarily, that shows the increase. Ice cores are one of many techniques that produces consilient data. Bubbles of air trapped in the ice are 'frozen' in time, so yes, perfectly measurable.

Regarding the urban heat effect, I requested that you cite the source for your claim, not the IPCC account and the fact that you are not convinced by it. The reason I ask this is because I know where the data comes from on these, and that it's long since been addressed. The only place that seems to continue to spawn such claims is in the denialist literature, which includes Crichton's propaganda fictional novels.

Incidentally, who do you think would have more scientific authority with respect to the climate and climatic interactions? The TV weatherman, or the IPCC?

Spearthrower wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

RealityQuest wrote:Your family member is referring to two separate ideas.

1) water vapor has a stronger greenhouse effect than co2 and the atmosphere has a much higher higher concentration of water vapor than co2. Since even the current elevated levels of co2 are minuscule compared to the normal levels of water vapor, it's difficult to confirm the significance of rising co2 levels and our part in producing it--especially since we know natural causes have increased co2 levels in the past.

And if we were pumping billions of tonnes of water vapour into the air, then you'd have a point.

No he wouldn't. The amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is determined by the temperature of the atmosphere. It doesn't make any difference how much water vapour we release, because any excess above what would be there anyway just precipitates out. It's called "rain." Releasing water vapour can change the local weather. It makes no difference at all to the climate.

Releasing billions of tonnes of water vapour would have no effect on the atmosphere?

You might want to try reviewing the world's history.

?

It would be more helpful if you actually responded to what I posted. You've responded with a rhetorical question that doesn't convey any information, and a very general comment that could mean almost anything.

UndercoverElephant wrote:The mainstream news is busily ignoring Doha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwjC-MMKwRY

Published on Dec 7, 2012

Posing as a delegate from Myanmar, the climate skeptic, Lord Monckton, spoke at the UN climate change negotiations in Doha, Qatar. The impostor was later expelled from the conference.

"Despite all the scientific warnings, we have seen no climate change", he says. Hmmm.....

Why aren't the deniers all up in arms over this? I mean, when Gleick faked being someone else he got a lot of crap from the denialists and even a lot of science-minded people. But now Monckton falsely presents himself as representing an entire nation, and no one seems to care?

I would say that falsely claiming to represent and entire country is a million times worse than pretending to be some individual somewhere. The consequences of fake representative could be extremely severe.

iamthereforeithink wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:"Despite all the scientific warnings, we have seen no climate change", he says. Hmmm.....

Except that we have? But yeah, its December, and Lord Monckton hasn't experienced summer temperatures in London yet, so obviously climate change is not happening

I thought one of the main denialist arguments was that climate is always changing. So how can the climate both be changing and not be changing at the same time? Mind-boggling.

Edit: Are you sure he didn't say "global warming" rather than "climate change"?

UndercoverElephant wrote:
?

It would be more helpful if you actually responded to what I posted. You've responded with a rhetorical question that doesn't convey any information, and a very general comment that could mean almost anything.

I would have thought it was perfectly transparent: the notion that pumping billions of tonnes into the atmosphere would not have extreme climatic effects is a non-sequitur.

RealityQuest wrote:Your thread here is about deniers. The average person just doesn't have the background to logically verify all the arguments. It ultimately comes down to who's expertise people trust--and people who are freedom-oriented (sane or otherwise) will find it hard to trust people who feel duty-bound to limit the options to which they've grown accustomed.

This is easy, though, because all the experts are firmly on the side of AGW. Even corrupt liars like Lindzen have been unable to show through actual research that the scientific consensus is wrong. He only makes bogus claims in the speeches he's paid to do by right-wing fascist groups.

Also, are "freedom-oriented" people completely fucking insane? Are they completely unable to think rationally? That seems to be the case you are making.

And why are these "freedom-oriented" people always backing Big And All-Powerful Government types like Bush, Romney, etc.? You can't claim to be freedom-oriented only to support someone who is anything but.

johnbrandt wrote:Another quick question...has anyone ever honestly explained why it was changed from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change"...?

It wasn't. Both are still being used.

But you know this because you have asked this several times in the past, and received several replies:

johnbrandt @ Fahrenheit 104 (40 degrees C)
johnbrandt @ Climate can Kicked down the road

More info here:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post1 ... l#p1108412

Why the fuck are you asking questions you already know the answer to, for fucks sake?

johnbrandt wrote:Fortunately people find articles like this and save them...the good professors page has been deleted by his university...for some reason...after all, a truly inconvenient truth is that some people just can't stand alternative views and would like to silence them for good...

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/prof-richard-parncutt-death-penalty-for-global-warming-deniers/

Nice bloke...

Now...I wonder how many people agree with his sentiments...?

And yet Monckton's plans to lock up everyone suffering from HIV/AIDS and separate them from the rest of the population on a permanent basis (and regular, mandatory tests of the entire population to find new cases) are fine with you?

You say the science is so straightforward that anyone can understand it... No. It's not.

maybe your failure to understand some simple science is rooted in your right wing ideology and swallowing Dear Anthony's codswallop rather than any valid attempt on your part. You can't seem to get by the skydaddy bit which most people shrug off in their tweens. Seems to go with the turf. You dredge up debunked nonsense like some ritual.

Background/history
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm

Do you think the fossil company's own scientists were in error??

and the fossil fuel companies knew this in the mid 90s..

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

By ANDREW C. REVKINPublished: April 23, 2009

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/scien ... .html?_r=2