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[url= http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8aefbf52-d9e1-11de-b2d5-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1 ]Good piece in the FT here, on the nature of secrecy in science[/url]
On another note, is anyone else taken aback by the hypocrisy of 30,000 eco-evangelists (according to the Indy) flying off to Copenhagen for a tofu-knitting circle jerk? Combine that with the 20 or so thousand of politicians and fellow hangers on and that's an awful lot of air travel...! Oh, and don't think anyone's innocent in this. WTF was Cameron doing, going on a jolly to the Pole to have a photocall with huskies to show "green" credentials?
Do as I say, not as I do?
That's exactly the kind of rather patronising thinking that worries me - you are asking me to accept something I have no personal evidence for just because of near!!! universal acaceptance by the members of a "community" who know better than me.
But if you had cancer (say) then I doubt you would be hanging around arguing the toss about whether chemo or radio therapy or homeopathy was the answer would you? Or asking whether it really was cancer? You'd be doing what the doctor, a member of a "community" who knows better than you told you.
But if you had cancer (say) then I doubt you would be hanging around arguing the toss about whether chemo or radio therapy or homeopathy was the answer would you? Or asking whether it really was cancer? You'd be doing what the doctor, a member of a "community" who knows better than you told you.
Actually, I would at least question a diagnosis before starting treatment - are you saying doctors never misdiagnose?
are you saying doctors dont know more than you ?
who would you question it with another expert memeber of the same community ?
with global warming when you question it across multiple fields with multiple experts you still get the same answer than man is having an effect if not can you please exaplain why carbon release and pollution is NOT affecting the climate adversly.
Right.
With a silent "Yeah"
Only when it starts to have a significant impact will something be done about it.
And quite right too, why waste precious resources fighting something that might not have that much of an effect? In fact, it's only when we start to face the problems that it may become economically viable to research the alternatives to fossil fuels.
eplain that last point a bit better if you fancy?
Ok - the reason we don't have a viable alternative to fossil fuels is because they've been such a cheap source of energy in the past. At the moment, because oil is still so relatively cheap, it doesn't make sense to spend the huge amounts of money required to come up with an alternative infrastructure, until it actually does start to run out, when as it becomes scarcer and more expensive the economics of alternative fuels become more attractive.
When it comes to climate change, if it does exist (and I think it probably does), how much should we sacrifice today to prevent something happening tomorrow? Also, how do we know that the way that we choose to spend our money today is the most efficient way? Who knows what technological advance is round the corner, that may save us a huge amount of investment of resources? As such, the logical decision is to deal with problems as they happen, in the most efficient way possible, rather than waste loads in the fear that they may happen in the future.
Crikey do people on here really believe in all this climate change nonsense? I'm back off to pistonheads, at least they all see through the lies.
I wish all the naysayers would just admit that they don't give a **** about climate change, and are unwilling to alter their lifestyle one little bit, rather than pretending that it's not happening, or that man has nothing to do with it.
Do I take it that 2 more people have joined the thread without reading the top post?
grumm - just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they don't give a shit, perhaps it's because they've come up with their own opinions?
I've read it, not bothered with the link.
rightplacerighttime - you never did [unless I missed it] answer the question of why - if you're so passionate about doing everything you can to save the world - did you have kids?
Had a look at the link. It's propaganda served up as impartial observation.
perhaps it's because they've come up with their own opinions?
Based on what?
Mine are based on the things I've read about globalisation, economics, and global warming amongst others.
excellent give us the references then and the we can all be so informed especially the peer review ones on global warming
uplink,
At the risk of taking even more flack for my alleged "holier than thou" attitude, my fears about climate change have in fact been a factor in stopping me having more than the 2 kids I've got.
Would I be right in thinking that you don't have kids BTW?
For me, and I expect for most people, the decision to have them wasn't exactly something that my wife and I rationalised, it was just something we had to do. But having got a couple of nice ones it is easier to rationalise about not having more. The way I see it is that we are only replacing ourselves in the overall population and also that we are bringing our kids up to at least be aware of climate change, peak-oil etc, - so hopefully they will turn out to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
And of course I haven't ever, and wouldn't try telling people not to have kids. it wasn't me who said that having children was the worst thing you could do for the environment, and I don't necessarily think it is. It depends how they choose to live.
In fact I wouldn't even tell people not to drive a car, fly or leave all the lights on either. But I would ask them to think about these things very carefully.
In any case, paradoxically, if I didn't have kids, then maybe I wouldn't be so worried about the climate - but nobody said life was simple and straightforward.
Kramer said
Had a look at the link. It's propaganda served up as impartial observation.
Because?
As I already said to someone who made a similar point. The project is half way through. Did the people running it KNOW what was going to happen?
So far the glaciers have been seen retreating at an increasing rate. If they start advancing then that will be captured on film too, so how can it possibly not be impartial?
Kramer, just noticed that you didn't actually watch it, which kind of makes further discussion pointless, given that the aim of the thread was to establish some baseline of empirical data that we could all actually see and agree on, rather than (as you're doing again) spouting the same old OPINION.
i watched the whole thing and i do think that we are the cause but i allso agree with kramer about the vid.
The trouble is nonk that kramer's opinion about the vid is made up - he didn't watch it.
maybe you can answer the question I put to him a couple of posts up, before I noticed that he didn't actually watch it before telling us all how crap it was.
well its a video of melting glaciers i grant you that but what is it proof of?
excellent give us the references then and the we can all be so informed especially the peer review ones on global warming
No peer reviewed journals on global warming, I have enough trouble reading the ones in my own profession thanks.
Relevant things I've read - No Logo - Naomi Klein, a couple by Georges Monbiot that I borrowed off my old flatmate so can't look up the name of in my bookcase, The Corporation - Joel Bakan, Collapse - Jared Diamond, Freakanomics, An Appeal to Reason by Nigel Lawson, the Guardian and the Observer fairly frequently, the Telgraph and Daily Telegraph less so. That's against the background of a fairly keen amateur interest in economics and maths, that's kept me reading various popular and not so popular maths and economics texts and things.
Not an exhaustive bibliography on the subject, I'll admit, but I reckon enough that I can hold and defend my opinion on the subject without having to resort to ad hominem attacks and the like - such as trying to imply that my basic argument isn't valid because I just don't know enough about the subject, rather than addressing the argument itself.
But you haven't actually watched the video on which you're giving an opinion?
rightplacerighttime - five words for you mate - sample error and intention bias. That's why that video is propaganda. I watched enough of it to see how biased the presenter was (not necessarily a bad thing, he's an artist trying to make a political point, which he does quite subtley IMV), and that instead of being the impartial evidence that you seem to think it is, it is in fact very much biased towards the climate change camp.
You don't have to see the whole thing to realise the inherent bias in it, just as at work I don't have to read a whole paper to realise whether it's any good or not - I'd go so far to say about 99% of the research in peer reviewed journals doesn't stand up to scrutiny in my field, I wonder how much does in climate change?
And I think that the opinion that I was giving originally was on the economics of the precautionary principle, which, again IMV, don't stand up to scrutiny.
it is in fact very much biased towards the climate change camp.
Maybe he's biased because he's seen the overwhelming evidence that you didn't bother to watch?
its not evidence though is it as we dont really know what it means.
kramer certainly doesn't does he?
I don't think the CRU leak can be dismissed this easily. It now transpires that CRU lost a whole load of data at some point, and only ever kept the post-processed data.
So, not only did they screw up on their data retention, they also kept very quiet about it and expected us to just take their conclusions on trust.
On top of that there is some very strong evidence that their data was heavily tweaked to give the "right" result, while yet again refusing to divulge this (until they had no choice).
That's not right.
I'd go so far to say about 99% of the research in peer reviewed journals doesn't stand up to scrutiny in my field, I wonder how much does in climate change
hell you have dim view of your own field ...but hey economics not a proper science now is it 😉
luked2 just check it out - see what people say about it ...not deniers but neutral people or hell lets assume all you say is true every last word that CRU said is an utter lie, a total distortion, a complete fabrication...now what about the 99% of evidence still left. those form other fields , other measures were they all in on it?
nonk,
But actually I posted the link for a very specific reason - please READ my first post - what I didn't really want to do was rehash the same arguments again with people who hadn't even bothered to watch the video.
What it is proof of (and all that it is proof of) is that most glaciers are currently retreating. But it does show that with absolute certainty for anyone to see for themselves with their own eyes. No dispute, no arguments about computer models or interpretation of statistics.
What I hoped it might make people question though are arguments for example like the "global temperatures have been dropping since 1998 therefore there is no global warming" one that we hear trotted out so often. If that is the case, then why do you think that glaciers are retreating at the same time that temperatures are supposed to be dropping?
Surely one of those things is probably wrong?
Would I be right in thinking that you don't have kids BTW?
No - I have 4
Isn't somebody somewhere thinking 'OK we've got a population of eleventy thousand with this general skills and socio economic profile, what can we do with them?'.
Good idea. They can all move to a small area of the middle-east. That's been done before and it worked lke a charm last time.
uplink,
so why did you have yours?
hell you have dim view of your own field ...but hey economics not a proper science now is it
Actually I'm a medic, and even taking account of the poor reputation medics have for research, in most scientific disciplines that I have friends who work in, they consider the majority of published research to be filler and grant justification, little more. To qualify this, I probably have five good friends who work in university departments doing research, and most of them in biomedical sciences.
To my understanding though, there's quite a lot of scepticism about the quality of most research in many disciplines.
If it gets in 'Nature' it's probably decent (which is why a Nature paper will pretty much set you up for life in research), most other journals (even the peer reviewed ones) just aren't that good.
I read economics books for fun. 😳
[url= http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0912/full/climate.2009.122.html ]Nature report on Greenland ice loss[/url]
[url= http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0912/full/climate.2009.116.html ]Nature report on Kilimanjaro ice loss[/url]
[url= http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0908/full/climate.2009.69.html ]Nature on thinning Arctic sea ice[/url]
[url= http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0901/full/climate.2008.136.html ]Nature report on retreating Himalayan glaciers[/url]
A few recent Nature articles about ice loss. But probably it can all be accounted for by sample error and intention bias. Probably not worth doing anything about it yet.
All I know is that the Mer de Glace is now a right hoof up the stairs/ladders compared to what it used to be a 100 years ago.
rightplacerighttime - actually what you've linked to are stories from the news section of Nature, not actual Nature papers.
Rightplace - I've watched your video - I suggest you might be so kind as to read this and watch the video, then offer your opinion:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/aug/21/greenpeace-sea-ice-mistake-climate-sceptics
"As a pressure group, we have to emotionalise issues and we're not ashamed of emotionalising issues."
Among those of you that do think CO2 emissions are responible for changes in cliamte that will adversly affect humanity how many have you have done anything significant such as:
1.Choosing to live near your work and the services you use.
2.Using public transport, a bike or your feet to get to work.
3.Investing in insulating your house and heating system to the point your heating consumption is below 3000 kWh/year.
4.Having a solar hot water heater or heat pump.
5.Producing enough electricity to have a negative electricity bill.
6.Changing your eating habits in favour of local produce.
7.Using the train for long distance continental travel.
8.Reducing your general level of consumption of goods and services.
9.Deciding to limit your family size if you still have the choice.
10. Composting your bio waste.
11. collecting rain water for toilet flushing and garden use
Score yourselves out of the number of points that apply to you giving half marks if for example you do more long distance miles by train than car but still own a car. I'm at 8.5/11
The first step is understanding the issues, the second actually doing something. A flash new car often takes priority over a heat pump or solar panels.
I score a paltry 4.5, in my defence I'd add that I rent which rules out the house changes, though under cross examination, I'd probably have to admit that it probably wouldn't make a difference to my score 🙂