/sci/ - Science & Math

>Are you Libertarian?
yes
>Do you think global warming is a bunch of hocus pocus, not man-made, and so on?
it's never been proven to even exist in the first place, it's just a liberal conspiracy

and scott denning is a popscientist, ergo unreliable

>>3597944
>it's never been proven to even exist in the first place, it's just a liberal conspiracy
what

>>3597964
That's misleading. The thermometer is obviously getting out of calibration.

>>3597944

Looking up "AS Denning" under authors in Google Scholar returns 334 hits.

An example of one of his papers in which he is the lead author is "Latitudinal gradient of atmospheric CO2 due to seasonal exchange with land biota," published in Nature in 1995, and received 247 citations.

>Do you think global warming is a bunch of hocus pocus, not man-made, and so on
I am not for, or against.
We do not have sufficient evidence to determine with precise accuracy what causes what effect in the environment.
There are too many variables that we don't fully understand.
The current research on the climate does not predict results with a high enough accuracy that would be acceptable in any other real field of science.

We can't even predict the weather forecast for the next 7 days accurately. %50 chance of rain? What the fuck is that?

Fuck, if Newton's 3rd law was "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction %50 of the time" we would laugh our asses off.

>>3597981
>>3597964

Can't trust those dirty scientists. Look at how they blatantly conspired to make all their numbers line up

>>3598002
Those are liberal citations by liberals though, so of course it's unreliable, and worse than the conservatives.

>>3598030
>We can't even predict the weather forecast for the next 7 days accurately. %50 chance of rain? What the fuck is that?
Long-term averages are easier to estimate than the exact timing of weather events. Don't conflate weather and climate, you just make yourself look stupid.

>>3598030

Watch the video.

Also lrn2 statistics and chaos theory:

http://eapsweb.mit.edu/research/Lorenz/Deterministic_63.pdf

tl;dr: yes, short-term weather fluctuations are unstable, but long-term TRENDS can be identified, and the boundaries set by those trends determines climate. It's the trends and the boundaries that matter, not whether or not we can predict the weather on August 29, 2012 or something

>There are too many variables that we don't fully understand.

That's creationist bullshit. You can say that about any field of science and ignore everything we know about science. You should know better than that.

>>3598042

Too obvious. 0.5/10 because I took the time to point it out

>>3598030
Still, you've got to admit that the planet is clearly getting warmer.

>is climate change real?
yes
>do we have a complete picture of what controls climate?
no
>should we work towards reducing human output?
yes

Yes, I'm a libertian. Yes, there is overwhelming evidence that the Earth is warming up. However, there is very little evidence that the major cause of warming is due to human activities.

That being said, the current rate of fossil fuel consumption is highly unsustainable and is destroying the atmosphere. Pollution is causing rising cancer rates every year.

I dont know if I am a libertarian.

Im a bit of a sketpic, but this is what I think we clearly know:

There is more methane and CO2 in the atmosphere than there was 200 years ago. The consequences of that are unknown. Regardless of whether or not global warming exists, pollution is still bad and we should do something about it.

>do you agree with z
>do you agree with y
then put that healthy confirmation bias to work

Also OPs image looked like the Borg Earth in first contact.

i am a libertarian socialist
and i believe that humanity is mostly to blame for recent climate change

I've always wondered if anyone has done a study of carbon dioxide diffusion in the ice cores.

>>3598091
the direct consequences are known. TThe long term modeling, THE SAME AS THE FUCKING ECONOMY, are at debate.

So please go away until you realize either the economy is unpredictable or long term weather is predictable.

>>3598085

>However, there is very little evidence that the major cause of warming is due to human activities.

There's actually a fuckload of evidence if you know where to look:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us-advanced.htm
http://www.mediafire.com/?am4chb1ydli36v1
http://www.mediafire.com/?vsewt7lu0hw85je

>>3598091

About that graph from Akasofu:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-past-climate-predictions-akasofu.html

tl;dr he's full of shit

>>3598122

Google Scholar is your friend:

http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/1996/95JD03410.shtml

>>3598172

>>3598091

We are observing climate change. This is no longer disputable.

We are postulating anthropocentric causes. This is still up for discussion.


Taking actions that would forestall climate change, if they are in fact causing climate change, make good economic sense without climate change. It is wise to preserve petroleum, we'll be using it as a feedstock to make plastics and other things long after we quit burning it. It is wise to stop giving money to the regimes that control oilfields, since they just invest it right back in oppressing their people or opposing our foreign policy. And these actions while cause climate change almost always cause more mundane pollution as well. Holding the polluters accountable, rather than passing the buck on to the taxpayer, is not only economically sensible, it's the only just way to deal with it.

It comes as no surprise that the largest lobby opposing the anthropocentric climate change model are the ones who would suffer from having to change their business practices. So by turning it into a political issue, they have managed to avoid a lot of discussion about the non-climate change effects of their practices, which are indisputable.

>>3598219

I agree with all of this.

>>3598060
Hahah... Texas.

I am libertarian. I think it is a real whether it's man made or a natural cycle we should still try to protect the environment.

I'm not going to deny it's existence, I'm not sure if it does, but regardless "Going Green" might be gay as fuck but lots of good economical and health benefits can come from it.

>>3598231
As do I.

>>3598243

I agree with you about that.

>>3598241
They're going to ruin the fucking aquifers down there in the next 5 years. Then they'll be demanding water from the mississippi.

Shits all fucked.

I am a skeptic on some levels. I don't know if it's real. It most likely is by a big margin. I am unsure how much of it is man made and how much of it is natural. If the problem is real, the solution will be through technology, not through changing human nature to conserve. I really don't know enough about the self regulation of the biosphere(and I don't think anyone does with the amount of new discoveries I read about on Science daily that change predictions) to forecast accurate predictions.

If the green movement wasn't so full of shit, I don't think I would be as big a skeptic. The best view of the issue I got was from Superfreakanomics.

>>3598250
Meanwhile where I live we won't even touch water for drinking purposes unless it's pristine, has no effluent flowing into it, and isn't used for recreation. Good times, good times indeed.

>>3598219

>We are postulating anthropocentric causes. This is still up for discussion.

I disagree about that. The chances that something other than anthropogenic GHG emissions are causing global warming are exceedingly slim. Every time I see some kind of study that tries to argue the opposite turns out to be grade A bullshit, and/or funded by the American Petroleum Institute or a similar organization.

One famous "skeptic" climate scientist is Roy Spencer, who has gone on record saying:

>I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.

They also bitch endlessly whenever their studies are criticized, because that proves there's a conspiracy to suppress their views.

>So by turning it into a political issue, they have managed to avoid a lot of discussion about the non-climate change effects of their practices, which are indisputable.

Somehow, some powerful and influential people still manage to deny the possibility of peak oil.

Why do you idiots assume that climate change is a partisan issue?

The solution to climate change is through the market; an extensive system of property rights will create incentives for firms to invest in cleaner technologies.

>>3598252

>The best view of the issue I got was from Superfreakanomics.

Yeah, the guys who wrote that book aren't exactly the most trustworthy sources of information.

http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2009/10/superfreakonomics_how_did_they.php
http://www.standupeconomist.com/blog/economics/climate-change-in-superfreakonomics/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/the_shoddy_statistics_of_super.html

For the record, the original Freakonomics was also full of bullshit:

http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2005/11/long-awaited-freakonomics-post-this-is.html
http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2006/03/freakonomics-review-part-2-heterodox.html
http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2007/01/this-has-been-so-absurdly-trailed-it.html
http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2007/09/freakiology-yes-folks-its-part-4-of.html
http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2009/10/hell-freezes-over-yes-folks-its-last.html

>>3598250
>ruin the aquifers

Aquifers are annoying anyway, I like being able to dig tunnels without being flooded with water out of nowhere

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov0WwtPcALE

watch this entire thing, I think most will be skeptics afterwards.

>>3598288
>Every time I see some kind of study that tries to argue the opposite turns out to be grade A bullshit, and/or funded by the American Petroleum Institute or a similar organization.

No that's just what they say to discredit what the studies show.

>>3598305

thats because /sci/ is made up of a bunch of morons who know nothing about economics or politics.

>>3598054
>>3598052
Thanks for reassuring me about my stupidity.

>That's creationist bullshit.
No, it isn't. It is simply the unveiling of our ignorance. Sure we can identify trends, and sure through the process-of-elimination you could assign humans as the cause.
HOWEVER, whatever action we choose to take now we can not predict with precision. (lol chaos theory)
The only thing we can predict is if we keep doing what we are doing.

>>3598305

The left seems to have latched onto some very strange ideas about protecting the environment. Legislation works, up to the point that legislators can be bought. After that, it's counterproductive.

And the right has it's fingers in it's ears over the whole situation. They think the market will work, and it would, but that even this side seeks to enact legislation that favors their paymasters.


We can agree that if polluters had to pay to clean up the pollution, the market would act rapidly to bankrupt those with environmentally unsound business practices. But it's the tragedy of the commons writ large. And regulations often serve to obfuscate who exactly is responsible for which patch of commons.

>>3598314
Heh. You could try digging them where tthere isn't mounding groundwater or ocean.

You know, they don't sneak up on you. The aquifers not gonna hold back until youre 20 feet deep then say "SUCKA."

Perhaps you need bettter hydro maps.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

>>3598338

Exactly, it's government which is the problem. What i do hate is how Republicans and libertarians are often categorized simply as 'the right', when conservatives are still denying that global warming is taking place.

Wasn't the rainforest supposed to be gone like 10 years ago and acid rain was supposed to kill us, weren't we supposed to be heading towards and ace age just a few years ago?

>>3598325

No, not really. The most prominent examples include the most recent Lindzen and Choi paper and Spencer's latest paper. That actually have pretty severe errors in methodology that completely undermines their conclusions. In their cases, they did not receive funding from political sources, but that didn't stop their research from being a pile of crap.

Critiques of the Spencer paper:

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/just-put-the-model-down-roy/
http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/roy_spencers_six_trillion_degree_warming
http://www.skepticalscience.com/spencers-misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedback.html

etc.

And for the think tank-funded stuff, look no further than Soon and Balliunas 2003, two nearly identical papers with flaws so severe that they would have received a failing mark if they were undergraduate assignments.

>>3598348
Right, cause corporations are just rays of sunshine.

I am a Libertarian and i accept the evidence of Climate Change and of the human influence in it ( though i think the problem is exaggerated by the media).

Only, i also accept the fact that only new technologies and market-mechanisms making them widely used will solve the problem. Shitty policies by the Government will help enrich the Corporations with good political connections but they won't even lower our CO2 emissions in 1%.

>>3598305
because its creates artificial scarcity, its about control of industry by a governmental regulatory body based on bad climate models.

>>3598350
regulation likely slowed both acid rain and rainforests.

Thats the problem with sociology, the implementation of perceived problems alters the existence of the problem, such that no one can tell whether society even did anything to stop a problem.

It's a sad state of philosophy that people have never bothered tto learn.

>>3598344

Speak of the devil, it's Roy Spencer.

>All climate models are complete bullshit. All the scientists are wrong and they're out to get me with their fake models!

>LOOK I HAVE A GREAT MODEL THAT PROVES GLOBAL WARMING IS CAUSED BY NOT HUMANS

>>3598364

Expand upon this point, what do you mean by artificial scarcity?

>>3598360

Nice straw man

>>3598360
Why not just corporations why not any business? It's the government that creates the special advantages the corporation gets, it doesn't matter if they lobby, every group lobbies, white supremacists lobby its up to the government to do what is right.

>>3598372
CO2 cap = artificial scarcity, who determines how much CO2 can be produced a governmental regulatory body, The UN wanted to do it then the were found to be altering data to fit their disastrous projections.

>>3598360

Let's see. Because we don't like monolithic, unresponsive power structures, we must be in favor of other monolithic, unresponsive power structures?

Corporations are buffered from the negative effects of their practices by the government. What do we think the bail-outs are?

>>3598396

But libertarians aren't in favor of a government imposed C02 cap. If a corporation pollutes then they should be held accountable if property rights are assigned to the environment

>>3598334

>The only thing we can predict is if we keep doing what we are doing.

There's a pretty simple way to see if our predictions turned out to be true. Make a prediction. Or more accurately, a forecast or a projection. Note the measurements and trends that follow. Then after 20 years, see if you were right.

Turns out skeptics are often very wrong.

>>3598318

There are a lot of problems with that "documentary":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2B34sO7HPM
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle

Also some scientists he interviewed were edited to make it seem as if they said the opposite of what they meant. Even a scientist skeptical of global warming (Friis-Christensen) called Durkin out on it, accusing him of twisting his words.

Durkin's response:

>You're a big daft cock

>Never mind an irresponsible bit of film-making. Go and fuck yourself.

>>3598367
They didn't. Did regulation stop the oncoming ice age?

I would just like to clarify, what is the definition of "corporation" that most people are using in this thread and in general?

because I have seen some confusion over this term

>>3598376
corporations are governments.

next question.

>>3598350

>Wasn't the rainforest supposed to be gone like 10 years ago

No, who said that rainforests would completely disappear by 2001?

>and acid rain was supposed to kill us

No, who said acid rain would kill us?

>weren't we supposed to be heading towards and ace age just a few years ago?

No, who said we were headed for an ice age? Was it the Daily Mail?

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

>>3598429
are you gay?

What if I think that global climate shift is real, and has occurred naturally since the beginning of this planet, and while it is inconclusive that industry is the direct cause of it, firmly believe that industry still does an awful effect on the natural ecosystem of earth?

>>3598426
A corporation is a person.

>>3598414
How can you make a prediction about something influenced by humanity in the future, when humanity will take the prediction and their behavior will be changed by the prediction, thus necessitating a different prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction that necessitates another prediction that includes the human knowledge of the different prediction?

Scientific consensus is that current climate change is anthropogenically driven. Your opinions have nothing to do with it.

>>3598414
The positive feedback loop with CO2 is probably the biggest bullshit I've ever heard of, warming cause CO2 to rise from the ocean then CO2 causes warming which causes more CO2 to rise, It can't be true simply because heating would never end until every last bit of CO2 had left the oceans.

>>3598446

>>3598445
Nah there is no consensus.

also Al Gore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SfWdDP5v_A

>>3598443
you would have to into grammar first

Ill let u retarded fuckers in on a little secret, if we wanna decrease the CO2 polution in the future then coal is the thing to focus on. Some facts
1. There are a fuckton more coal than oil on earth.
2. The remaining oil will in a 100year perspective contribute about nothing to the CO2 emissions since it will be depleted (for comercial drilling) in roughly 25 years (if i remeber correctly) if we do not sanction the use of it.
So fuckfaces lets make sure China and India does not build its infrastructure around coal, cuz that is what will matter, not oil.

>>3598444

Oh u

>>3598469

>It can't be true simply because heating would never end until every last bit of CO2 had left the oceans.

Let's take this everyday example of a positive feedback: putting a mic near the speaker that it's connected to.

You get closer and closer until it emits an ear-piercing shriek. That's a positive feedback. But does it get infinitely loud and blow up the planet? Of course not. It's constrained by physical limits like the electricity input, the maximum loudness of the speakers, and so forth. The planet is the same way: there is a limit to the amount of carbon dioxide that could feasibly enter the atmosphere, before it is drawn down by geologic processes.

If positive feedbacks were physically impossible, the climate on earth would <span class="math">never~change.[/spoiler] So contrary to positive feedbacks being bullshit, it's the opposite of that which is completely absurd.

>>3598477
Is it not?

>>3598481
>Nah there is no consensus.

This is what deniers tell themselves to justify believing wrong things in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.

>>3598520
Heh. There is however a consensus that god exists.

>>3598481

How does this even prove your point? Al Gore is pretty much accurate in all his statements in this video.

>pay pseudo-scientists

Look up Willie Soon and the sources of his funding.

>... it may be volcanoes. Bullshit!

That's correct, volcanoes cannot be driving global warming. Eruptions actually cool the Earth due to sulphate particles reflecting sunlight back to space, and in one year anthropogenic CO2 emissions are two orders of magnitude larger than volcanic emissions.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf

>... sunspots. Bullshit!

That is also right. Sunspot frequency shows no long-term trend. 2010 was the hottest year on the instrumental record, but it was also close to record lows in sunspot and other solar activity. See image.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.0515

>It's not getting warmer. Bullshit!

True. This was already discussed in the thread and agreed upon.

>You hear them washing back at you.

Again, this is accurate. Tomorrow, many of you will forget that you read this post and think that volcanoes or something causes global warming. This is supported by many psychological studies on the denial of facts that contradict your deeply held beliefs and ideologies.

>>3598502
>there is a limit to the amount of carbon dioxide that could feasibly enter the atmosphere, before it is drawn down by geologic processes.

Where is that limit, and if there is why do we care about global warming, if it has been keen enough to stop this feedback loop in the past. We haven't reached the limit yet and it hasn't in the past but what the idea states is that it will warm endlessly till that limit is reached which is falsified by the past.

>>3598532
>This is supported by many psychological studies on the denial of facts that contradict your deeply held beliefs and ideologies.

pot calling kettle black.

>>3598477

A corporation is a legal construct that is equivalent to a human individual, and thus has the right to free speech, to contribute to political campaigns, to negotiate and sign contracts, must pay taxes and so forth.

But a corporation can't get married, vote, or join the army.

>>3598483

So if I had used good grammar you would have answered my question?

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/new-paper-on-the-misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperatur
e-feedbacks-from-variations-in-earth%E2%80%99s-radiant-energy-balance-by-spencer-and-braswell-2011/


NASA, one of the strongest supporters of Global Warming, are now claiming that CO2 is in fact not responsible for trapping heat as much as it was believed. Essentially that the Green house effect, the backbone of the AGW, is not the reason behind warming.

Vaccines cause autism guys, they are just a way for evil corporations to make money.

>>3598533

>Where is that limit, and if there is why do we care about global warming, if it has been keen enough to stop this feedback loop in the past.

Remember the key words:

>geologic process

Geology takes <span class="math">millions~of~years[/spoiler] to affect significant change. Needless to say this is simply not relevant on human timescales.

Where is the limit? Probably the feasible limit is in many thousands of ppmv of CO2, as it was back during the Jurassic Era, although theoretically it is possible (however very unlikely) to reach a state similar to that of Venus.

Now before you say

>AH HAH! SO LIFE SURVIVED EVEN WITH MASSIVE GLOBAL WARMING

Remember that those changes back then took tens of millions of years. The changes we are seeing now are occurring on a decadal scale. Not enough time for evolution to adapt organisms to the new conditions. Also, the paleoclimate and fossil record shows that sudden global warming (i.e. 10-100 times slower than it is occurring now) was followed by mass extinctions. The PETM was a pretty small one, mainly affecting only marine organisms, but the P-T event killed off perhaps 90% of all species.

>>3598572
>Geology takes millions of years to affect significant change.

Why are you dodging the logic, what stops the positive feedback loop, it should go to maximum every time the sea warms up by an somewhat significant amount.

>>3598561
>>3598541

>pot calling kettle black.

One of us knows a little bit about climate science, and it probably isn't you. Who's the pot and who's the kettle?

>>3598561

Spencer's paper has been roundly criticized for making some pretty severe errors in methodology. This was discussed earlier in the thread.

Also, take a look at the journal he published in. It wasn't Science, Nature, PNAS, PTRS, Ambio, Tellus, GRL, JGR, Journal of Climate, GBC, or BAMS. It wasn't even published in a C-list journal like Climate Research. Spencer published his paper in Remote Sensing, a journal whose focus is not climate change, but, well, remote sensing. Their editorial board and the likely peer reviewers probably aren't the best-equipped people to judge a paper on climate science.

>>3598591

I didn't answer your question? What did I miss?

>what stops the positive feedback loop, it should go to maximum every time the sea warms up by an somewhat significant amount.

What eventually stops a positive feedback loop is chemical reaction with the Earth's crust. The CO2 is actually drawn down by the rocks. Richard Alley explains it very well:

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

Yes, it's a long video, but it's well worth watching when you have the time. I also recommend his popsci book, Earth: The Operator's Manual.