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yellow science

Pulitzer and Hearst
They think they got us
Do they got us?

no!

And the World will know
And the Journal too
Mister Hearst and Pulitzer
Have we got news for you
Now the world will hear
What we got to say
We been hawkin' headlines
But we're makin' 'em today
And our ranks will grow

When you got a hundred voices singin'
Who can hear a lousy whistle blow?
And the world will know
That this ain't no game
That we got a ton of rotten fruit and perfect aim
So they gave their word
But it ain't worth beans
Now they're gonna see
What "stop the presses" really means
And the day has come
And the time is now
And the fear is gone

Pulitzer may crack the whip but he won't whip us!
And the world will know
And the world will learn
And the world will wonder how we made the tables turn
And the world will see
That we had to choose
That the things we do today will be tomorrow's news
And the old will fall
And the young stand tall
And the time is now
And the winds will blow
And our ranks will grow and grow and grow and so
The world will feel the fire
And finally know!
 
I love Newsies!! Best musical ever.

Look at this! "Baby Born with Two Heads"... must be from Brooklyn. lol.

Anyways, I totally agree with most everything that is in the article. I think another thing to consider is that we live in a polarized society of "know-it-alls," and people will argue for days about things that have little to no supporting evidence. That certainly doesn't help, especially when we are all fed this "information" day in and day out.

xvart.
 
Wow, what a load. Seriously, could that article be written by someone who is LESS informed? I've only read a few paragraphs and it's already teeming with flat-out factual inaccuracies (such as the mythical "decline" recently).

Probably the most egregious is his assertion that global warming is unscientific and cannot be tested, when in fact, it has. When it first came to national attention, scientists had run the first climate models on computers with less power than your cell phone. Now, 20 years later, guess what? Those models were right. Predictions made 20 years ago for current climate have been proven correct.

I don't know about the moron who wrote that article, but I call "making a prediction and having it come true" pretty damned good science.

Seriously, that guy wouldn't know science if it bit him in the butt.

Mokele
 
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I think the point he was trying to make about it not being able to be tested is that you can't test the alternative, so you can't be 100% sure people are the sole cause of the current global warming. I.e., 20 years ago, someone said, "I think global warming is happening because of industrialization", and coincidentally, it has been getting warmer the past 20 years (plus a whole lot longer). However, since you can't measure the temperatures of the last 20 years without any industrialization, you really can't prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt.


Is industrialization making it a tiny bit hotter? Maybe/probably...but let's get serious here. These apocalyptic predictions that industrialization is going to lead to the end of the world are ridiculous. Anyone that knows anything about the Earth can freely admit that we have been living on a climatic knife-edge since the beginning of time. Look at the ice core samples, etc. Our global climate has looked like a roller coaster of extremes over the past 11,000 years.

Global warming has become more of a political platform unsupported by fact than anything else. "You can't do this because of global warming", "this and that cause global warming", etc, etc, etc. It's like every single thing anyone could ever possibly do causes global warming, and every single problem the world has is a result of global warming. The obesity epidemic is both the cause and result of global warming! Problems in the Middle East? Blame global warming! Oil companies not drilling enough? Probably because of global warming. Etc, etc.

Too bad a cause of it more weighty than industrialization is gases......from cow anus. One of the most abundant of those evil "greenhouse gases" is....
.....WATER VAPOR
lol @ man-made global warming.

There have been multiple ice ages. Am I the only one that ever wonders what made the ice melt? :slap:

Of course scientists are flocking to it, because that's where the money is now, since it has become more of a political agenda than anything else. Unfortunately misguided politicians control the funds, and scientists will do whatever it takes to secure said funds. I find that totally irresponsible, but hey, maybe that's just because I care about the truth; whatever it may be.

Sure, tons of funding-hungry scientists like to blame anything and everything on global warming, but the facts aren't there, and very unfortunately at the moment, the scientific community is failing to remember that the truth is not subject to a vote. It used to be general consensus that the world was flat.....
With anything, I think it would be a smarter idea to abstain from making any sort of drastic policies/judgements until all the evidence is in definitively proving GW is caused solely by humans. I'm a patient person - 100 years and counting so far....

People have been hawking this anthropogenic GW thing for a long time, which has resulted in nothing but Draconian policies. The world is much "greener" now than it was in the mid 90s, but guess what...it's still getting warmer. Oops!

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Also some good links at the bottom of the article

http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html

http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=79
 
A pretty good article, which makes some good points to muse over:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121433436381900681.html

Yeah, the article has a lot to say. I read it earlier and agree with much of what was said. As a scientist myself, I couldn't agree more . . .

The notion of a scientific "consensus" is a terrible one and flies in the very face of the scientific method; the only appropriate arena for consensus is a voting booth. A bunch of tenured professors living in a "publish or perish" Darwinian arena, attempting to steer public policy is unpleasant at best. Only the most apocalyptic scenarios for "climate change" (when was it ever the same anyway?) get the grants or public attention. Most researchers cannot organize their desks, me included for that matter.

When other scientists bring up the fact that the earth has been warming for the last ten thousand years and that there is a great amount of vulcanism in the Antartic which may be contributing to the loss of some glaciation (all the while its becoming far colder inland), we are simply directed to the shrine of the new Jeremiah, Al Gore, and his psychophants.

Perhaps, I should bloat up to 275, grow a beard, and pursue the Nobel . . .
 
Al Gore is a great man and we wouldn't be where we are today if he had won. Oh.. wait.. well, you know what I mean. I'm really not into the green lifestyle (don't really care that much. I don't litter, so leave me alone :p) but I really like Al. I think it's his voice.


At least the dems and and repubs can agree that it's warming finally. Now we just disagree about why. Even if you think it's natural, you can't possibly say that the pollution isn't speeding it up.
 
I think the point he was trying to make about it not being able to be tested is that you can't test the alternative, so you can't be 100% sure people are the sole cause of the current global warming. I.e., 20 years ago, someone said, "I think global warming is happening because of industrialization", and coincidentally, it has been getting warmer the past 20 years (plus a whole lot longer). However, since you can't measure the temperatures of the last 20 years without any industrialization, you really can't prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt.

That's actually a misunderstanding of science - you don't need to test *alternative* hypotheses (as none my exist), but rather test the hypothesis in a way in which it is possible for it to fail.

To use a short example, the hypothesis "this bag is entirely full of red balls" can be tested (by taking balls out) and falsified (by pulling out a blue ball) without ever invoking the alternative hypothesis of "the bag is entirely full of blue balls".

Now, it's *good* to test alternative hypotheses, but not always possible.

Our global climate has looked like a roller coaster of extremes over the past 11,000 years.

Um, no, actually, it hasn't. The past 11,000 years have been mostly stable, and the current peak is by far the largest and fastest deviation.

Prior to that, it was the Wisconsonian glaciation, which lasted for about 100,000 years and ended about 11,000 years ago.

Too bad a cause of it more weighty than industrialization is gases......from cow anus. One of the most abundant of those evil "greenhouse gases" is....
.....WATER VAPOR
lol @ man-made global warming.

You do realize that water vapor acts only as a passive amplifier, right?

The amount of water vapor in the air is primarily controlled by temperature. In other words, something else has to start the warming, allowing water vapor levels to increase, resulting in more warming, etc.

There have been multiple ice ages. Am I the only one that ever wonders what made the ice melt?

Yes. Everyone else knows the ice ages are due to the Milankovich cycles, a complex interaction between the eccentricity of Earth's orbit, orbital precession, and obliquity.

We aren't at a time when the cycles predict warming.

Of course scientists are flocking to it, because that's where the money is now, since it has become more of a political agenda than anything else. Unfortunately misguided politicians control the funds, and scientists will do whatever it takes to secure said funds. I find that totally irresponsible, but hey, maybe that's just because I care about the truth; whatever it may be.

You are aware that scientists care more about stabbing each other in the back than any political agenda, right?

Seriously, if scientist A can damage scientist B's career by undermining global warming, they'd do it in a heartbeat, consequences be damned.

People have been hawking this anthropogenic GW thing for a long time, which has resulted in nothing but Draconian policies. The world is much "greener" now than it was in the mid 90s, but guess what...it's still getting warmer. Oops!

That's because carbon emissions are even higher now than ever before. We've reduced them below what they could have been, but not enough.

but the facts aren't there

What facts do you think are missing?

The notion of a scientific "consensus" is a terrible one and flies in the very face of the scientific method;

So you don't think evolution is scientifically supported because Michael Behe disputes it? One versus everyone else?

You don't think birds evolved from dinosaurs because Alan Fedducia refuses to accept it, in spite of the massive piles of evidence?

"Consensus" is simply a way to convey to the public that most scientists who have seen and are qualified to evaluate the evidence are convinced by it.

Anyone who thinks all of these scientists are just "going with the flow" has never met a scientist. Science is fueled by gigantic egos crashing into each other like atoms in the heart of a star. They'll pick fights over miniscule details *just for the sake of it*.

Trying to get consensus out of scientists is like herding cats. Seriously, do you know that we don't even know what "running" is? I kid you not, 100 years after the origins of biomechanics as a field, we have two factions squabbling about kinematic vs kinetic definitions. Not to mention just about every other subject.

"Consensus" is an argument precisely because it's so incredibly rare to actually see it in the scientific community. If it happens, something must have been very clearly demonstrated.

When other scientists bring up the fact that the earth has been warming for the last ten thousand years and that there is a great amount of vulcanism in the Antartic which may be contributing to the loss of some glaciation (all the while its becoming far colder inland)

Sources, please. Peer-review journals only.

It used to be general consensus that the world was flat.....

Um, no. The "Scientific method", and thus science, did not arise until the 16th century, while in 240 BC Eratosthenes not only determined the Earth was round, but calculated the diameter to within a few hundred miles.

Mokele
 
I think it's kind of a weak argument to say that scientists only point to global warming because it's profitable. Global warming was an unpopular crackpot theory (with lots of solid, compelling evidence) for a long time before lobbyists and energy companies turned it into a revenue-generating buzzword.
As much as I've heard arguing against the evidence for global warming, I've never heard a single refutation (sensical or non) of the theory. It's already known that increasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will increase its reflectivity and insulating capacity; that's simple chemistry. You can complain all you want about previous climate trends but that won't change anything about the nature of the phenomenon; you could also argue that because you've never crashed a car while drunk, alcohol only negligibly impairs your ability to drive. Who cares if the world isn't ending in 20 years? 20, 100, 1000 - it doesn't matter. I don't want to do anything that hastens the process, even if it's only by a few months against thousands or even millions of years. I've just got this stupid sentimental notion that it might be nice for my genes to be around for more than three more generations. For centuries, it didn't matter that we just dumped garbage outside of town, but more recently there's more people and more garbage, and now waste management is a real problem. (The same could be said of sanitation, but the scale is even more disproportionate.)
The only evidence that can be said to support this so-called scientific consensus is the supposed correlation of historical global temperatures with historical carbon-dioxide content in the atmosphere. Even if we do not question the accuracy of our estimates of global temperatures into previous centuries, and even if we ignore the falling global temperatures over the past decade as fossil-fuel emissions have continued to increase, an honest scientist would still have to admit that the hypothesis of man-made global warming hardly rises to the level of "an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure."
The problem here is that global warming is hardly a hypothesis. I don't have to come up with some speculative hypothesis to assert that dropping potassium metal into clean water will cause an explosion; we can already infer from the known rules of physics and chemistry that this will happen. Likewise, heating an insulated body is already a well-understood phenomenon. I'd like to see a scientist enumerate the ways that we could continue to heat and insulate the earth without appreciably altering local and global climates. (My hypothesis would be that there are many more ways for global warming to be true than there are for it to be false.)
Another example; driving a few miles over the recommended distance between maintenance probably won't kill your car. So, you could say that the recommended distance is, say, 3005 miles instead of 3000. But then, the chance of something bad happening doesn't change much as you go from 3005 to 3010, either. So why is there a limit at all? Even if you don't notice the difference, human activity does add to the total amount of heat going into the earth's atmosphere. Assuming, for the moment, that the greenhouse effect is utter hogwash, we still have to deal with the additional energy that comes from all the stuff we burn; there were no combustion engines, iron smelters or nuclear reactors going 10,000 years ago, and that's a lot of extra heat. The air in your garage is constantly in a state of chemical and energetic flux; the gas mixture changes, the temperature changes, etc. So why don't you stay shut inside when your car engine is running? There's still a chance that there will be a spontaneous increase in oxygen and decrease in carbon monoxide that will balance out the contributions of the exhaust; besides, you could still breathe fine when you first started it up. Two minutes later, why worry? You've already been coughing for a while; that's probably normal. And dizziness is known to come and go - it'll pass this time too. But then, what do you know? You've killed yourself.
~Joe

PS - Since when was the WSJ a trustworthy source of scientific objectivity? Even when it comes to finance, half their content is editorial.

PPS - Anybody check the credentials of the author? I don't find it very assuring that Googling him leads to a refrigeration business and discovery.org...
 
  • #10
That there is no dissent and that there is a "scientific fundamentalism" circulating around is hard to deny. Some of the arguments against "man-made " global warming stem from the problems associated with climate models. There was even one comment, admitting the por results but suggesting that when all the spurious models were combined, there was some suggestion that global warming was occuring . . .

Also, the role of the sun is seldom considered. Most seem to think its a ******* lightbulb.

There are skeptics and lettered one to be found, among them:

http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v14n01_climate_of_belief.html

They have no love of dogma -- no matter from whom -- there . . .
 
  • #11
That there is no dissent and that there is a "scientific fundamentalism" circulating around is hard to deny.

Then you won't mind providing proof to back up your claims that the acceptance is due to anything beyond evidence.

Some of the arguments against "man-made " global warming stem from the problems associated with climate models. There was even one comment, admitting the por results but suggesting that when all the spurious models were combined, there was some suggestion that global warming was occuring . . .

Um, no. Wrong. Very, very wrong. No climate model has *failed* to predict global warming unless massively erroneous figures were used as input (inputs are based on actual measurable physical constants, so you know).

Oh, and how do you account for the 1988 computer model that *precisely matches* the 20 years of temperature records since?

Also, the role of the sun is seldom considered. Most seem to think its a ******* lightbulb.

Where are you getting your information? The Children's Coloring Book Guide to Climatology?

We have extensively examined the sun's effects, and there are several satellites out there right now measuring just that.

Oh, and so you know, the sun's output (as measured DIRECTLY by satellites) hasn't significantly changed in 20 years.

They have no love of dogma -- no matter from whom -- there . . .

And I have no love of willful ignorance. Their "expert" is a chemist, not a climatologist, and is no more qualified to critique global warming than he is to perform open-heart surgery.

On top of that, for all his petty and inaccurate gripes about clouds and models, he neglects to note that a model made in 1988 predicted the subsequent 20 years of global climate change PERFECTLY. We're talking within one percent accuracy. And that was a model run on computers with less power than you cell phone.

So, if models are wrong, how can they predict the future with such accuracy?

Mokele
 
  • #12
I think it's kind of a weak argument to say that scientists only point to global warming because it's profitable. Global warming was an unpopular crackpot theory (with lots of solid, compelling evidence) for a long time before lobbyists and energy companies turned it into a revenue-generating buzzword.
As much as I've heard arguing against the evidence for global warming, I've never heard a single refutation (sensical or non) of the theory. It's already known that increasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will increase its reflectivity and insulating capacity; that's simple chemistry. You can complain all you want about previous climate trends but that won't change anything about the nature of the phenomenon; you could also argue that because you've never crashed a car while drunk, alcohol only negligibly impairs your ability to drive. Who cares if the world isn't ending in 20 years? 20, 100, 1000 - it doesn't matter. I don't want to do anything that hastens the process, even if it's only by a few months against thousands or even millions of years. I've just got this stupid sentimental notion that it might be nice for my genes to be around for more than three more generations. For centuries, it didn't matter that we just dumped garbage outside of town, but more recently there's more people and more garbage, and now waste management is a real problem. (The same could be said of sanitation, but the scale is even more disproportionate.)

The problem here is that global warming is hardly a hypothesis. I don't have to come up with some speculative hypothesis to assert that dropping potassium metal into clean water will cause an explosion; we can already infer from the known rules of physics and chemistry that this will happen. Likewise, heating an insulated body is already a well-understood phenomenon. I'd like to see a scientist enumerate the ways that we could continue to heat and insulate the earth without appreciably altering local and global climates. (My hypothesis would be that there are many more ways for global warming to be true than there are for it to be false.)
Another example; driving a few miles over the recommended distance between maintenance probably won't kill your car. So, you could say that the recommended distance is, say, 3005 miles instead of 3000. But then, the chance of something bad happening doesn't change much as you go from 3005 to 3010, either. So why is there a limit at all? Even if you don't notice the difference, human activity does add to the total amount of heat going into the earth's atmosphere. Assuming, for the moment, that the greenhouse effect is utter hogwash, we still have to deal with the additional energy that comes from all the stuff we burn; there were no combustion engines, iron smelters or nuclear reactors going 10,000 years ago, and that's a lot of extra heat. The air in your garage is constantly in a state of chemical and energetic flux; the gas mixture changes, the temperature changes, etc. So why don't you stay shut inside when your car engine is running? There's still a chance that there will be a spontaneous increase in oxygen and decrease in carbon monoxide that will balance out the contributions of the exhaust; besides, you could still breathe fine when you first started it up. Two minutes later, why worry? You've already been coughing for a while; that's probably normal. And dizziness is known to come and go - it'll pass this time too. But then, what do you know? You've killed yourself.
~Joe

PS - Since when was the WSJ a trustworthy source of scientific objectivity? Even when it comes to finance, half their content is editorial.

PPS - Anybody check the credentials of the author? I don't find it very assuring that Googling him leads to a refrigeration business and discovery.org...

Then you won't mind providing proof to back up your claims that the acceptance is due to anything beyond evidence.



Um, no. Wrong. Very, very wrong. No climate model has *failed* to predict global warming unless massively erroneous figures were used as input (inputs are based on actual measurable physical constants, so you know).

Oh, and how do you account for the 1988 computer model that *precisely matches* the 20 years of temperature records since?



Where are you getting your information? The Children's Coloring Book Guide to Climatology?

We have extensively examined the sun's effects, and there are several satellites out there right now measuring just that.

Oh, and so you know, the sun's output (as measured DIRECTLY by satellites) hasn't significantly changed in 20 years.



And I have no love of willful ignorance. Their "expert" is a chemist, not a climatologist, and is no more qualified to critique global warming than he is to perform open-heart surgery.

On top of that, for all his petty and inaccurate gripes about clouds and models, he neglects to note that a model made in 1988 predicted the subsequent 20 years of global climate change PERFECTLY. We're talking within one percent accuracy. And that was a model run on computers with less power than you cell phone.

So, if models are wrong, how can they predict the future with such accuracy?

Mokele


Relax, pal, you're simply going to pop a vein. I don't wish to argue your faith any further You're quite convinced and I am agnostic at best . . .

I've been a field biologist for ten years and a commercial diver for scientific institutions for over twenty, know a number of experts on both sides of the coin, and to simply suggest there is no debate to be had is plain ignorance. We argue, everyone argues all of the time . . .

Pretend I am from Missouri. Show me! That it wasn't a climatologist or specialist enough for your tastes crunching the numbers in the first article I had handy, is tantamount to arguing Luther's view of the Bible as unreliable from that of the Vatican. "Everything must be handled by the clergy." The centuries old Galileo quote still stands. Had he believed in scientific consensus, we would be living in an Aristotelian universe . . .

There is simply debate to be had and may I suggest a hypertension medication?
 
  • #13
Try here.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/index/

It's not the end-all-be-all, but it's the best, most detailed source outside of the primary scientific literature, and all of the maintainers of this blog are climatologists, so they actually know what they're talking about.

Also, if there are experts on both sides, where are the papers? A 2004 review of all prior literature found a total of zero papers which disputed anthropogenic global warming.

Once again, you completely misunderstand scientific consensus. Nobody is pressuring anyone. Do you think evolution is flawed because there's a 100% consensus among biologists? Do you think gravity is flawed because there's a 100% consensus? Climatologists have seen the evidence and have the expertise. That non-climatologists buy various arguments to the contrary has no more relevance than that a depressingly large chunk of the public buys into creationism.

In all honesty, one of the biggest things that swayed my decision on the subject was the similarity. In both evolution and global warming, unqualified members of the public would voice "sound-bite" objections which at best are missing data and at worse display fundamental misunderstandings of the system. These objections ae dealt with, but that is never acknowledged, and the very next time the debate arises, the same objections appear as if they had never been dispatched.

In *real* science, once someone disproves your point, you stop claiming that point. Hell, that's what any intellectually honest person does. That it doesn't happen with either objections to climate science or evolution is indicative of the political, rather than scientific, basis of those objections.

Go on, read the link I posted. Think of an issue, then scroll around until you find the relevant links. You'll find everything answered. As such, I expect to see no future argument in this thread than I cannot answer via that link.

Mokele
 
  • #14
Their "expert" is a chemist, not a climatologist, and is no more qualified to critique global warming than he is to perform open-heart surgery.
The first link in my second post is from a climatologist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMFn4D6RH3k

Here's your peer-reviewed journal articles:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/yx67836q6007k586/
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=272455 (actually a book)
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/RobinsonAndRobinson.pdf
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713849842~db=all
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f5uhmcp0qx4l81dj/
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mscp/ene/2003/00000014/F0020002/art00008
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v89/i2/e028501
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;243/4892/771 (points out large uncertainties in models)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/citation/247/4950/1529
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020607073439.htm (basically a reprint/discussion of a referenced article)

The past 11,000 years have been mostly stable, and the current peak is by far the largest and fastest deviation.
To quote you, if I may; "um, no." Take a look at the graph on page 4 (and the rest of the article as well): http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles 2004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf
Oh actual data, lol.

And there were plenty more I couldn't see the abstracts or full texts for.
 
  • #15
I'm with PK on this one. He's made some very good points, some I have even raised before in other threads. I think the Global Warming Theory itself is melting away... or is it cooling down for the next 8 years and then that's when the theory kicks in...
 
  • #16
Hey,

Congratulations. You stole my thunder before I could return from producing more anthropogenic CO2 . . .

As a scientist myself, I greatly value dissent and I feel that in academia, it has become as rare as hen's teeth; and that, where great amounts -- no, obscene amounts -- of money is to be had (with unltimately little or nothing concrete to show for it), the arena is absolutely rife with fraud. I worked in / for environmental labs for years and results -- especially for high-priced clients were routinely "finessed" -- so much so that I was scarcely able to recognize any of my own work. If practice is as corrupt on the small scale, simply imagine the converse where billions is to be had . . .

The further boondoggle of carbon credits immediately comes to mind. If there were any doubt that Global Warming (no, "Climate Change" - "Dianetics" in lieu of "Scientology", please) has ascended to the heights of religion and balks at dissent, the True Believers also have their own form of Papal indulgences -- a twenty-first century answer to the "sin-eaters" of the Middle Ages. Nevermind that Gore is intimately involved with one of the companies (I did vote for he and Bubba the first time, much to my chagrin) . . .

Alas, there seems little room for the doubters and agnostics anymore and nevermind how many sources you come up with to debate; True Believers will simply balk at their bona fides and claim they either have nothing to say as trained fellow scientists or maybes the dissenters have simply pledged the wrong fraternity, or followed the wrong macrobiotic diet to raise such ire . . .


 
  • #17
I think we're all insane. We all participate in these threads, they often go on for ten or more pages, we all say the same thing every single time, and I can't count how many times we have done this. It's always the same people on the same sides, and we always do it expecting different results apparently, otherwise we wouldn't do it. We're insane.


And very soon, especially soon since it's an election year and perhaps the most important election in our lifetimes thus far, there will be another thread and we'll do it again and say the same things and be on the same sides and we'll all get pissed off until the next thread. We're insane.
 
  • #18
Will someone please explain to me how buying a carbon offset decrease the "Actual" amount of carbon admitted into the atmosphere? You produce your carbon then buy something that says that carbon you just produced is negated? How is that so? Apparently I do not understand the concept.

To me it just looks like you buy the "offsets" to reduce the number of carbon you produce on paper, but the actual amount stays the same. Or am I missing a very big part of it?
 
  • #19
You give money to a company by buying a credit, and the company that produces a negative carbon footprint offset your carbon footprint so the end result is no carbon footprint (depending on how many credits you buy). This is how Al Gore can fly around in a private jet and not be a hypocrite, because his footprint is offset. It's kind of like eating an entire pie, but it's OK if you exercise every calorie off in addition to your normal workout routine. In the end it doesn't matter because the damage is nullified.

That's the nice answer. The frank answer is that it's just a way for rich people to pretend their real environmentalist (Although Al really is, but he can't be bothered to share jets apparently) and feel better about themselves. It's always easier to throw money at a problem than actually do something. That's why there are so many of those Feed the Children commercials. People would rather send 50 cents (or whatever ) a month and sleep well at night instead of doing something. Of course I can't judge. I don't do anything, either. I'm far too busy being delicious.




That was a Judge Fudge reference in case you missed that :)
 
  • #20
No, you're not missing the point. The notion is that somehow with offsets, somewhere, someone will either plant a tree or invest in some furturitic Wellsian fusion technology to compensate for the oil your VW bus is currently spewing and the CO2 from your interminable breathing.

Carbon offsets are simply the environmental equivilent of white liberal guilt; and it will soon be up to the UN and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to ultimately determine global policy. This panel from the UN is considered to be experts in the climatological field -- and their influence, globally, will be in the trillions of dollars. One of their models for Tb change to the year 2100 (crap, they cannot predict an oceanic swell with any accuracy) ranges from one-point five to six degrees of change -- about four times or a 400% uncertainty range. I never was allowed that much latitude with the IRS. Here are a few of their assessments . . .


“Climate variations and change, caused by external forcings, may be partly predictable, particularly on the larger, continental and global, spatial scales. Because human activities, such as the emission of greenhouse gases or land-use change, do result in external forcing, it is believed that the large-scale aspects of human-induced climate change are also partly predictable. However the ability to actually do so is limited because we cannot accurately predict population change, economic change, technological development, and other relevant characteristics of future human activity. In practice, therefore, one has to rely on carefully constructed scenarios of human behaviour and determine climate projections on the basis of such scenarios . . .

“The state of science at present is such that it is only possible to give illustrative examples of possible outcomes . . .

“While we do not consider that the complexity of a climate model makes it impossible to ever prove such a model “false” in any absolute sense, it does make the task of evaluation extremely difficult and leaves room for a subjective component in any assessment . . .

“The long term prediction of future climate states is not possible . . ."

Will someone please explain to me how buying a carbon offset decrease the "Actual" amount of carbon admitted into the atmosphere? You produce your carbon then buy something that says that carbon you just produced is negated? How is that so? Apparently I do not understand the concept.

To me it just looks like you buy the "offsets" to reduce the number of carbon you produce on paper, but the actual amount stays the same. Or am I missing a very big part of it?

Hey,

Congratulations. You stole my thunder before I could return from producing more anthropogenic CO2 . . .

As a scientist myself, I greatly value dissent and I feel that in academia, it has become as rare as hen's teeth; and that, where great amounts -- no, obscene amounts -- of money is to be had (with unltimately little or nothing concrete to show for it), the arena is absolutely rife with fraud. I worked in / for environmental labs for years and results -- especially for high-priced clients were routinely "finessed" -- so much so that I was scarcely able to recognize any of my own work. If practice is as corrupt on the small scale, simply imagine the converse where billions is to be had . . .

The further boondoggle of carbon credits immediately comes to mind. If there were any doubt that Global Warming (no, "Climate Change" - "Dianetics" in lieu of "Scientology", please) has ascended to the heights of religion and balks at dissent, the True Believers also have their own form of Papal indulgences -- a twenty-first century answer to the "sin-eaters" of the Middle Ages. Nevermind that Gore is intimately involved with one of the companies (I did vote for he and Bubba the first time, much to my chagrin) . . .

Alas, there seems little room for the doubters and agnostics anymore and nevermind how many sources you come up with to debate; True Believers will simply balk at their bona fides and claim they either have nothing to say as trained fellow scientists or maybes the dissenters have simply pledged the wrong fraternity, or followed the wrong macrobiotic diet to raise such ire . . .


 
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