Fake Skeptics & Serial Climate Change Disinformation

[sharkman]

See what I mean, Tim? You are never going to get a truther to budge. Might as well just say, "Keep the faith, baby!"

[Michael Hardner]

Well, I suppose you have a point but isn't it a given that we're talking about CO2 since these are climate scientists?

Where did you get the idea that it could be something else?

[waldo]

...The phrase "settled science" reflects more upon a politicization element; one that doesn't, typically, associate with expressed scientific views. Certainly, there are areas of strong wide acceptance within the AGW theory... areas that are no longer subject to fundamental debate in the scientific community; equally, there are areas with recognized and acknowledged degrees of uncertainty.

This question is purely political. In science there is no single question. There are many questions that have different levels of uncertainty associated with them. The key *scientific* questions in climate could be reduced down to:

1) Is CO2 a GHG? (Yes - No Uncertainty)

2) Are humans causing the CO2 levels in the atomosphere to increase? (Yes - Small Uncertainty)

[waldo: There is NO Uncertainty... there are multiple indicators of evidence showing mankind's 'fingerprint' indicators on warming and climate change]

3) Has the planet warmed over the last 100 years? (Yes - No Uncertainty)

4) Is CO2 the cause of the warming? (In Part - Extremely High Uncertainty)

[waldo: There is NO Uncertainty... clearly, there are multiple radiative forcings responsible for the current warming; however, the principal dominant causal forcing is anthropogenic sourced CO2. Please feel free to make your case for an alternate causal forcing(s), inclusive of the W/m2 radiative forcing level(s) of your alternate source(s)]

5) How much warming will occur in the future? (1-4 degC - Extremely High Uncertainty)

[waldo: There is 'some' uncertainty as to the level of sensitivity... with a likelihood in the range 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C. Of course, this presumes upon 'some' degree of attention to address and reduce current accelerating CO2 levels. False skeptics positioning for delays discount (ignore!) the mitigating impacts positive feedbacks will have on just how much warming will occur. Please present any recognized and accepted sensitivity analysis that presumes to suggest a most likely sensitivity level less than 2°C]

6) Will the effects of future warming be good/bad/neutral? (Unknown - Extremely High Uncertainty)

[waldo: Unknown? What a purposely obtuse answer! The negatives associated with global warming far outweigh, to overwhelming levels, any positive impacts. Please feel free to present a summary consensus/accounting that shows otherwise.]

[waldo]

See what I mean, Tim? You are never going to get a truther to budge. Might as well just say, "Keep the faith, baby!"

please gather your distraction and dogma dispensing and take a hike if you haven't anything else to contribute to this thread - thanks in advance

[Michael Hardner]

See what I mean, Tim? You are never going to get a truther to budge. Might as well just say, "Keep the faith, baby!"

Sharkman, you're not really adding much to the discussion other than taking potshots, calling people religious and acting as TimG's cheerleader.

Though I don't agree with TimG, he has good points and challenges my understanding of the issues and he argues in good faith.

[Wilber]

Will they find one day that warming isn't happening ? Yes, it's possible but at the present levels of understanding we're quite certain that the CO2-warming link will be intact.

I'm not an AGW advocate and think that is probably so. However I do expect the science to change and the estimates of its severity to also change. Those estimates might just as well decrease as increase, the more is known.

[Michael Hardner]

I'm not an AGW advocate and think that is probably so. However I do expect the science to change and the estimates of its severity to also change. Those estimates might just as well decrease as increase, the more is known.

I agree that the estimates will continue to change.

I keep thinking that it's time to talk about the economics of these things, but there never seems to be as much interest about that...

[TimG]

Where did you get the idea that it could be something else?

By reading the science. Climate is affected by many things humans do. It is simply wrong to assume that a question about "anthropogenic causes" implies that any climate change must be due to CO2.

This is why Pielke Sr. insists that climate change is real and serious but he is villified as a skeptic by the believers because his research is on how factors other than CO2 can explain a large part of the warming. Believers simply cannot accept that something other than CO2 causes the problem because only CO2 gives them the justifications for their social/economic agenda.

Edited November 30, 2011 by TimG

[sharkman]

please gather your distraction and dogma dispensing and take a hike if you haven't anything else to contribute to this thread - thanks in advance

I suggest you take a hike if you don't like it as I am not going to. Suit yourself...

[waldo]

... However I do expect the science to change and the estimates of its severity to also change. Those estimates might just as well decrease as increase, the more is known.

"might" just as well decrease? Might? There is nothing... nothing... than can account for the current accelerated warming other than mankind's continued and most significant reliance on the burning of fossil-fuels. If one aligns your reference to 'severity' with the amount of associated warming estimated, that sensitivity to CO2 increase is well recognized with calculated degrees of uncertainty relative to the range and most likely amount of warming expected. Your "might decrease" gambit presupposing less severity presumes upon some currently unknown negative feedback mechanism that will act to partially counter the positive forcing/positive feedbacks responsible for continued warming... emphasis on partially because the positive CO2 forcing and it's related positive feedbacks will not magically disappear. If you extend your "might decrease" gambit to actual impacts... current impacts and extensions of same... you presuppose on a turn-over of a significant body of peer-review study that has gauged (with included uncertainty) severity impacts in terms of changes associated with/to, the environment, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, ice-sheet melting, agriculture, polar ice melting, human health, economic damage, etc., etc., etc.

given the most significant impacts we're currently observing in response to only an approximate 0.7°C accelerated rise in observed global temperature over the most recent 50 years... just how confident do you feel in holding firm, doing nothing, amplifying carbon-cycle positive feedbacks, waiting for "something" currently unknown to be discovered as an alternate warming causal link, one other than anthropogenic sourced CO2? The accepted most likely degree of expected warming has been estimated as 3°C... possibly up to 4.5°C. Do ya feel lucky... well do ya?

[waldo]

This is why Pielke Sr. insists that climate change is real and serious but he is villified as a skeptic by the believers because his research is on how factors other than CO2 can explain a large part of the warming.

nonsense... aside from your expected turn to playing the victimization card, Pielke Sr.'s positions can't stand on their scientific veracity. Aside from that, in recent years Pielke Sr. has taken on a sense of playing the 'crazy uncle', particularly given his association with and lobbying for, the charlatan TV weatherman, Anthony Watts and his ridiculous crusade against the surface temperature record.

Believers simply cannot accept that something other than CO2 causes the problem because only CO2 gives them the justifications for their social/economic agenda.

more nonsense... radiative forcings are well known/established. No one knowledgeable discounts the positive forcing affects of methane, of nitric oxide, of ozone (troposphere), of water vapour, of black carbon albedo... however, none of these approach the level and positive forcing impact of CO2. Just a few posts back in this thread, I requested you, "Please feel free to make your case for an alternate causal forcing(s), inclusive of the W/m2 radiative forcing level(s) of your alternate source(s)". You've received like challenges in the past. I expect you will ignore this latest one, just as you've ignored all the others. Or, perhaps you could take a cue from your guy Pielke Sr...... oh wait, apparently he's had a bit of numbers difficulty in recent weeks, hey?

[Michael Hardner]

By reading the science. Climate is affected by many things humans do. It is simply wrong to assume that a question about "anthropogenic causes" implies that any climate change must be due to CO2.

This is why Pielke Sr. insists that climate change is real and serious but he is villified as a skeptic by the believers because his research is on how factors other than CO2 can explain a large part of the warming. Believers simply cannot accept that something other than CO2 causes the problem because only CO2 gives them the justifications for their social/economic agenda.

Sorry but the question about anthropogenic causes means what then ? If they believe that man-made causes are making it happen OTHER than CO2 then what are they ?

[Guest Manny]

Will they find one day that warming isn't happening ? Yes, it's possible

Whoosh! There goes another glacier...

[TimG]

Sorry but the question about anthropogenic causes means what then ? If they believe that man-made causes are making it happen OTHER than CO2 then what are they ?

I told you. Black carbon aerosols and land use changes are the big ones. SO2 and Ozone also have a big effect. These things are detailed in the IPCC report but their significance is played down because they distract from the anti-CO2 political agenda.

There are plenty of peer reviewed papers on the topic:

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=pielke+land+use+changes&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=black+carbon+changes&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=1

The bottom line is: anthropogenic causes do not necessarily mean CO2.

[Michael Hardner]

The bottom line is: anthropogenic causes do not necessarily mean CO2.

Well that makes sense to me.

And did you come up with this criticism yourself, or does it come from something you've read online ?

I'm not asking to disparage your criticism, but if it's something being said by skeptics en masse, then we will be expecting a new survey asking specifically about CO2 in the future. The science is getting better at responding to these types of grouses.

[TimG]

And did you come up with this criticism yourself, or does it come from something you've read online ?

Obviously I read about it online. Pielke Sr is constantly posting peer reviewed papers on his blog that support his view that non-CO2 forcings are way more significant than the alarmists claim.

That said, these kinds of surveys are a perfect example of the 'bait and switch' tactics used by alarmists to push their myth of consensus. I have no idea if someone will ever do a more specific survey. I don't see the point. Science is not decided by a vote and the results are largely irrelevant.

[waldo]

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=black+carbon+changes&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=1

could you be any more evasive and non-specific? What's the atmospheric 'lifetime' of black carbon versus CO2? Rather than an all encompassing google scholar drop, why not pick your study and associated black carbon radiative forcing number... you know, the one you feel actually overrides what you, without any supporting qualification, state as the IPCC "significant play down of black carbon".

Edited November 30, 2011 by waldo

[Michael Hardner]

That said, these kinds of surveys are a perfect example of the 'bait and switch' tactics used by alarmists to push their myth of consensus. I have no idea if someone will ever do a more specific survey. I don't see the point. Science is not decided by a vote and the results are largely irrelevant.

But... you have a suspicion that the respondents are attributing other factors than CO2 so why jump to the conclusion that this is definitely the case, and furthermore that the surveyors knew this and rigged the survey ?

Science isn't decided by vote but consensus does matter.

[waldo]

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=pielke+land+use+changes&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

much to Pielke Sr.'s ongoing consternation, few give any consideration to smaller, more regional focused land use being... or ever becoming... a 'first-order' climate forcing, or of ever having a significant impact on global mean temperature. Is there a particular Pielke gem you'd like to trot out, rather than drop your wide-open googly?

[waldo]

But... you have a suspicion that the respondents are attributing other factors than CO2 so why jump to the conclusion that this is definitely the case, and furthermore that the surveyors knew this and rigged the survey ?

because, quite obviously, this fits a repeat past pattern of devolving into conspiracy.

[TimG]

But... you have a suspicion that the respondents are attributing other factors than CO2 so why jump to the conclusion that this is definitely the case, and furthermore that the surveyors knew this and rigged the survey ?

The survey was not rigged. It just does not say what many would like it to say but that does not deter alarmsist from falsly claiming that it does.

[Guest Manny]

The survey was not rigged. It just does not say what many would like it to say but that does not deter alarmsist from falsly claiming that it does.

What I don't understand is, why you think they would lie about the real cause. Not addressing the real cause would put the environment in jeapordy, and we all lose. What's in it for them?

[Michael Hardner]

The survey was not rigged. It just does not say what many would like it to say but that does not deter alarmsist from falsly claiming that it does.

What does 'bait and switch' mean ? Are they trying to trick us or no ?

[TimG]

What does 'bait and switch' mean ? Are they trying to trick us or no ?

I was talking about the people that try to use the data. Not the people who gathered it. I have no idea why they worded the question the way they did.

[sharkman]

What does 'bait and switch' mean ? Are they trying to trick us or no ?

Well, there sure is some tricky stickhandling going on in this thread...