Global warming is dead, long live climate change

[woodchip]

So vacuum tubes like at a drive up bank window will be the new green tech.?

[Isaac]

No... we'll probably go back to horses and walking.

[Pandora]

First you are ridiculously vague, then you're overly specific (ol' Thorne just doesn't want to pay taxes). Talking with people who maneuver through a discussion like that really grates on me.

Sorry for the late reply, Thorne. To be quite honest, I am a bit puzzled by what you have written above. I have no idea where I have been 'ridicously vague' --- I was actually taking offense with your vague of the word 'Freedom', as if it should be clear for everyone what you are talking about. It wasn't to me. Thanks for clearing it up below.

Taxes would be used, by some, as a tool for social engineering. That's wrong. That's unAmerican. We're not free if we're being *manipulated* by a minority (by any entity), no matter the face that's put on it--no matter the pretense.

Not sure if I understand correctly. Do you mean a tax on specific products that discourage people from buying them? If yes, I can see how this would be a form of social engineering, but I am not sure that I would see social engineering in a general tax that applies the same to everybody.

Global taxes and laws would infringe on our national sovereignty. Giving a global entity power to levy taxes and enact laws that the citizens of this country must pay and follow is not only contrary to our freedoms--being under a government that is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people--it's treasonous.

I can see your point here.

I am a scientist by profession and I belief firmly in the role of scientists in finding out about - and communicating - the truth about what goes on in the secular world. Global warming is foremost a scientific topic, as are the predictions arising from further CO2 emissions. In a way, I am not really interested in how societies will deal with them, I just want the scientific facts to be accepted as neutrally as possible. What to do about them is for others to decide. To simply ignore (or exaggerate them) them for political reasons is deeply offending to me.

But since you asked: my preferred solution would be based on the marked. At the moment, the price of products that lead to further greehhouse gas emission does NOT include the price society will ultimately pay for it. So, in a way, the government is *subsidizing* these products and encouraging their use --- which is also a form of social engineering, if you will. In an ideal world, the prize of products should include the costs societies will pay for them.

At the moment, the situation is a bit like the housing market before the crash. People are buying products that do not reflect their actual prize. If the scientists are right, it is just a matter of time before the bubble bursts.

[Pandora]

Analyzing that, I can't help but wonder if some people are being overly simplistic is assuming that the Earth's temperature can be so readily understood and projected. There are a sh**load of variables that are glazed over in assumptions, if we are to assume this as evidence for Global Warming, even taking into account the extreme brevity of the quote.

I don't understand your problem here. What unknown variables might affect our knowledge about recent warming?

[woodchip]

I am a scientist by profession and I belief firmly in the role of scientists in finding out about - and communicating - the truth about what goes on in the secular world. Global warming is foremost a scientific topic, as are the predictions arising from further CO2 emissions.

Then how do you juxtapose the following over bringing ruin to vast areas of the worlds economy's:

"This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

In short, if CO2 has been steadily rising over the last ten years why has not temperature?

[Pandora]

oh come on, Woody, we have been over this so many times already. 1998 was an extreme outlier caused by a very strong el Nino. If you have a noisy pattern you can't just pick one spot you like and shout: look! look! it stopped! You have to take the whole pattern into account.

look here: i plotted the two major global temperature indices (GISTEMP & HADCRUT). Tell me if you think 1998 is representative of the timecourse.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistem ... /normalise

edit: here's an interesting Realclimate post on this matter.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... ing-pause/

[TechPro]

You mean like this

You know, I'd hate to be on one of those right after someone who'd eaten too many beans ...

[Gekko71]

You mean like this

You know, I'd hate to be on one of those right after someone who'd eaten too many beans ...

...Or had motion sickness

[Isaac]

You know, I'd hate to be on one of those right after someone who'd eaten too many beans ...

yeah! Fart joke in the E&C!