"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
snip
Wasting everyone's money in the pursuit of non-issues, while people
die as a result, is wrong. Peter Huber puts that facet in context in
_Hard Green_. Highly recommended reading.
A "Manichaean sump of bad faith and Potemkin science," says Tom Gogola. I
guess that blurb didn't make it onto the book jacket, eh? d8-)
Who the hell is Tom Gogola?!? Oh, I found it:
http://archive.salon.com/books/featu...een/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village
By jove, I believe I dislike this Gogola character.
"Further on, Huber points to God's instructions to Noah to 'subdue' nature,
declaring the Judeo-Christian imperative that humanity shall ride herd over
all species. When he invokes Darwin in the next breath, Huber's relativistic
moral universe allows him to have his creator and eat him too!" -- Tom
Gogola
Did you like the passage in which Huber extolls the wonders of free
markets
with his example of starving African children picking the undigested
morsels
of corn out of human excrement? Now, THERE's a no-holds-barred
free-marketeer for you. Did he include traditional recipes?
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww! Interesting excerpt, Mr. Little.
Page 121, about two-thirds of the way down. No illustrations, however.
I'm sure that I do not have a full understanding of the physics. I'm
relying on scientists who do and have made their similified data
available.
Could you try a partial understanding of the physics? Because if you can,
you'll see what's driven the research and how the antis are doing an
end-run
around the basic science. Again, it's clear that Crichton either didn't
understand it, or he was pulling a fast one on his audience.
Are you confusing Crichton's fiction with his stance?
Who knows? How does one sort them out? When he writes a polemical novel with
umpty-ump references to support the technical points he presents in the
story, a list that would make the bibliographies of some professional
scientific books look like they came from high school term papers, and then
gives lectures about how global warming is a hoax -- happily signing his
books all the while -- how does one keep them seperate?
It's important because it's essential in sorting out a lot of the
propaganda. Again, do you feel that you understand it? I'm not asking
you
to
demonstrate it, only if you feel you understand the implications, for
example, of raising the CO2 level in the atmosphere from, say, 270 ppm
(what
it was at the start of the Industrial Revolution) to 400 ppm, which it
will
be very shortly.
Well, that's disputable. On one hand, the alarmists say it's a linear
thing, where x amount of increase in CO2 gives you x effect.
I have no idea where you heard that, but no climatologist worthy of the
name
is going to say any such thing.
sigh No, of course not...
Even the most basic description will explain that there are positive and
negative feedbacks, and there's the little matter of the math, which is
anything but linear...unless you mean linear algebra and you're comfy with
transforms (I'm not).
On the
other hand, the skeptics say it would take an order of magnitude more
gas to make the same incremental effect. Then we have the possibility
that CO2 is merely the indicator, not the cause. Hmmm, what to do?
What to do is to study the basics of it. You'll see what the argument is
about, and where the skeptics are simply denying the science. Again, this
is
nothing new. It's been understood in principle since at least the 1920s.
The
antis are just playing a shell game on you.
I got crosseyed (and got a headache after several hours) the last time
I tried to delve into it. It requires a new language before you can go
very far.
You don't have to go very far to recognize the nature of the argument, which
is all we mortals are going to get out of it, anyway. You can skip the math
entirely. If I have some time one day I'll see if I can find something
appropriate. Maybe Mark has something.
Why have they been adding so many new calculations to the models and
tweaking the existing calcs for so many years if they've know all
about it since the 20s, Ed?
Because it's a complicated subject, and because models involving complexity
and chaos are very hard to make.
I'm not suggesting that you try to understand the scope and depth of
climatology. Just look at this basic, deterministic bit of physics and
look
at what a mess the antis have made of the facts. You don't have to solve
the
complexities, which are enormous. You don't have to engage chaos theory or
fluid dynamics. It won't solve the net-radiation equations for you. It
won't
hand you a conclusion about whether we're getting hot or cold. But it will
give you a better idea about whom to trust.
Ed, do you feel that the computer models they're working with are
running true, producing factual output which can be tracked backwards
in time for proof, and are -complete- in their scope?
It's not something about which I'd trust a "feeling," but it's unlikely the
models will be complete for a long time to come, if ever, in the sense
you're suggesting. The question, if you think models are something worth
contemplating, is how reliable the current predictive models are. And for
you and me, that's a matter of faith, or lack of it, in the sources we're
reading.
If so, you're
as lost as you think I am, so go ask a climatologist to run his model
for you. Let me know what you find.
I think you're letting too much rest on models.
Additionally, I believe the skeptics when they say that not all of the
greenhouse gases (GHGs) have been researched fully, i.e. we weren't
measuring global water vapor way back when, and it makes up the vast
majority of the GHGs.
How can you "believe" that when you don't even know how the gas greenhouse
effect works? It isn't chaos theory. Jesus. Is this your idea of "logic"??
The discussion and "crisis" would be moot if the PTBs would simply let
everyone generate power via nuclear fusion, recycle the fuel rods,
etc. Electric cars will become the main transpo for local driving,
coal will be abandoned (removing the worst pollutant used by man
today) and everyone would live happily ever after.
What does that have to do with the science of global warming? Are you just
going to punt?
What portion of "moot" do you not understand?
Regardless of what short-term fixes we may accomplish, the subject will
never be moot.
The alarmists say that
the massive injection of CO2 into the atmosphere is causing warming,
and the massive reduction of said injection by turning off the coal
burning will effectively reduce that by 66% (WAG)
Notice that we started going around in circles when you reached for the
technical evidence. I warned you. d8-)
So, we're right back where we started, with the conclusion that the only
basis we non-specialists have for judging this whole thing is which
scientists we believe. In terms of making decisions, I'm more than 50% with
the mainstream; over the tipping point, if I have to vote or do anything at
all about it. You're not. End of story, I think.
--
Ed Huntress
"I'd rather die hugging a tree than humping a stump." -- Tom Gogola