Les Jones

Climate change! It’s all climate change now. Didn’t we send you the latest talking points? Bitter´s last blog ..Williams-Sonoma: Unjustified High Prices in a Recession

Hi Les… if I remember right, you’re a scientifically minded guy? Special interest in biology? ‘Cause if you’re not, I’m not going to bother…

But you know, radiation forcing has *long* been known to have an impact on short-term (and possibly longer term) climate… It’s not a surprise that there is more evidence for this, because it’s already pretty well established.

As for the trope that global warming somehow “stopped” in 1998, well… all I can do is refer you to this page, gleaned from the handy reference here: How to talk to a climate skeptic.

I think if you consider the evidence from a scientific rather than political perspective, you’ll probably come to accept that anthropogenic climate change - warming, that is - is a reality.
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“I think if you consider the evidence from a scientific rather than political perspective”

Well, I can concede that my position is some of both if you can. One of the issues I have is the sheer arrogance of the AGW crowd in declaring the science a done deal and that God science is surely on their side.

I’m also increasingly skeptical of the role science can play in shaping public policy on emerging issues, for reasons I’ve explained here.

One test of science is its ability to make useful predictions. James Hansen is the head of NASA’s Goddard Space Center and well-known AGW advocate. Compare Hansen’s predictions to Congress in 1988 for the next 20 years to the actual data. He didn’t do very well. This is a guy who wants trials for crimes against humanity for CEOs of gas and oil companies, yet time has shown his own predictions to be wildly wrong.

“But you know, radiation forcing has *long* been known to have an impact on short-term (and possibly longer term) climate… It’s not a surprise that there is more evidence for this, because it’s already pretty well established.”

No, most people five years ago were in complete denial about it. Check hellbender’s response even three years ago.

And not surprisingly. It wasn’t until those sharp uptrends in temperature receded that there was a reason for someone who supported pure greenhouse gas theory to reconsider their position. The end of those dramatic upturns coincided with decreased solar activity, giving new credibility to the solar theory.

Too, notice hellbender’s response to my suggestion that we won’t know for sure what’s causing global warming until global warming reverses: “We won’t know for sure what’s causing warming until it stops? Where did you come up with that?” For people committed to AGW it has been inconceivable to think the planet could get cooler.

Here’s something I learned while getting a science degree. Science isn’t just a set of facts and theories in a book. There’s a process of learning those facts and creating those theories.

Along the way science makes mistakes. People want to dismiss those mistakes as something that could only occur in the past. They want to believe that we can’t make those mistakes any more, because now we’re living in the modern age, the industrial age, the post-war age, the space, the computer age, the satellite age, the Internet age. But we’ll still make mistakes. Science only gets the answer right over a sufficiently long enough time span.

My position has both a purely scientific component (that AGW is happening) and a political component (very weakly held, that something needs to be done about it in a concerted - international treaty - fashion). Frankly, I’m not too interested in the political side. If an Ayn Rand type wants to say that the invisible hand will cause industry to clean up their act before things get too out of hand - hey - that’s fine with me. I disagree, but I don’t care.

One test of science is its ability to make useful predictions. James Hansen is the head of NASA’s Goddard Space Center and well-known AGW advocate. Compare Hansen’s predictions to Congress in 1988 for the next 20 years to the actual data

Yes, one test is useful predictions. And, from our friend with the compendium, his testimony before Congress wasn’t as bad as has been made out (In fact, the observed result has tracked his “scenario B” - the one memory-holed by the skeptics - admirably well). Even then - Congressional testimony isn’t where the real predictions are made. They are made in journals. Some climate models are better than others, some make better predictions in some areas than others (and vice versa), and all of them could use more research & work. But overall, many of the various models that show long-term AGW have also shown short-term predictions that line up well with observation.

Regardless of what hellbent (whoever the hell he is) might have or have not believed 5 years ago, climate scientists have long understood solar forcing. The issue isn’t whether it exists and impacts climate, but instead how much of the GW data of the 20th century it can explain.

Science isn’t just a set of facts and theories in a book. There’s a process of learning those facts and creating those theories.

Along the way science makes mistakes.

Oh, I agree with you completely. Part of the process of learning involves estimating confidence and potential error, and reducing it where possible. In the 80’s the uncertainty about AGW was significantly larger than it is now. And now it isn’t absolutely-beyond-a-shadow of a doubt, either. But it’s one thing to say that all of the data and rigorous analysis supports a conclusion but might still be wrong. It’s entirely different to say that the data and analasysis don’t support the conclusion.

More on solar forcing from the same guy I linked before, as part of the same compendium.
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“If an Ayn Rand type wants to say that the invisible hand will cause industry to clean up their act before things get too out of hand - hey - that’s fine with me. I disagree, but I don’t care.”

Not my belief at all, though I’ve definitely heard Randians make that claim. It’s usually of the pattern “No one who owns private property would ever abuse it.” While it’s true that public property is most abused, the argument is flawed: someone will pollute the hell out of private property, take their profits, and move on, leaving the public to deal with the mess.

It’s not that I think that private companies will solve the pollution problem by themselves. It’s that even if AGW is true the governments won’t be able to solve it. In the U.S. even our homeless people have net carbon footprints.

The estimates for Kyoto advocates is that Kyoto would at best only reduce warming somewhat. Actually stopping warming would take Draconian measures that would impoverish millions if not billions. It would be unfair to developing nations to impose those restrictions on them, so they’d get a pass. Ultimately pollution would be outsourced to third world countries, which is more or less happening now with India and China (who already refuse to sign Kyoto).

Part of my skepticism is hope. I really hope AGW isn’t true, because if it is and if some of the predictions are true we’re fooked.

It’s that even if AGW is true the governments won’t be able to solve it. In the U.S. even our homeless people have net carbon footprints.

And this is where I vaguely disagree with you - a disagreement, like your perspective, that is at least somewhat grounded in hope. But you know… political differences are what make the world go ’round. Or at least they are what make the people on TV have something to talk about while the world goes ’round. I fully respect your political opinion on the matter. Scientific disagreement, IMHO, is something that is worth clearing up if possible.
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