Climategate II

[Aelfarh]

Disposal of nuclear waste is a very big problem indeed. But that's not the only non-emission power generation in debate.

[Kernos]

How is everyone's winter shaping up, btw? The cold snap seemed to disprove "global warming" for many people, but I have to tell you, it has been an unusually warm Jan here in central Canada...many days hovering around 0c, which is above normal...might have rain on the weekend! -15c is more the norm.

You do love to troll, DJ. I say that, because I know you know that local variations have nothing to do with Global warming.

FWIW (which is nothing re global warming), we are having a unseasonably warm, but wet, January. What is of importance is that 2009 was the warmest year on record in the southern hemisphere. This, in turn, creates strong El niño events which is why we are seeing all this crazy weather in the US and Europe.

See

http://wwfblogs.org/climate/content/sou ... ear-record
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/table ... s+dSST.txt (look at the AnnMean column)

RE: Merlyn's gobbledygook — a mishmash of unrelated nonsense. Nothing really there for a sentient person to consider.

[Aylyn]

In terms of environmental impact on the oceans, I would think (my opinion, not scientific), that nuclear waste has less impact than CO2. Bacteria and phytoplankton might have a higher mutation rate due to radiation, but overall thismight even be beneficial, as it creates variations that might deal better with the current situation. It would be bad for all larger animals, though, and ultimately to humans. Personally, I am against any form of nuclear energy, and would much rather have research out into localized solar energy and hydrogen creation. That, however, is currently not a viable solution as we do not have hydrogen motors, solar panels still have low conversion rates and it would cost an immense amount of money to make it available for everybody. I am hoping that,with the ongoing discussion, we might get further on that path in the next 10 years.

[Merlyn]

Disposal of nuclear waste is a very big problem indeed. But that's not the only non-emission power generation in debate.

That is very true.
Despite what Kernos might think, sentient people do think for themselves, and thankfully do not rely on everything they read as we see, often ends up not being peer reviewed or even true. No amount of money makes something true, nor does it, being on the internet. If chicken little says the sky is falling, do we all run for cover? Or can we as experienced and educated members of the debate look and see the truth for ourselves.

RE: Merlyn's gobbledygook — a mishmash of unrelated nonsense. Nothing really there for a sentient person to consider

Kernos, you seem to think that being employed as an emissions compliance officer for 15 years is just gobbldygook.
But frankly, having a very educated inside view of the entire process of emissions evaluation, compliance and effective control is simply something that gives me a much clearer view of the politics, actual science and evident disinformation you may not have.

Other non-emission power generation methods are very center stage to climategate, as is the cap and trade directly.
Past results of this kind of approach and the evident application without peer review is very obvious to anyone who knows climate emissions. Secondary pollution affects CO2 absorption directly. The politics of omission is a very large reason the climate summit failed.
This is far from news to those of us who are directly involved in emission compliance. To ignore the ocean in this debate is ignorance in it's worst.
Of all the things which affect climate, it isn't hard to see this. After all, the ocean is far more a part of earth climate than land. Your own example makes this very clear.

Of solutions to CO2 and O2 which are solar, trees do this without any needed capital investment in industrial manufacturing.
Secondary pollution of acid rain kills the living ocean, stopping the one biggest factor from being effective in absorbing CO2.
This also with fresh water lakes.


Merlyn

[DJ Droood]

You do love to troll, DJ.

I do, although I prefer to think of it as sending a hound into the bushes to see what rabbits run out. I would, however, like to thank you and the other administrators for the stay of execution on this annoying thread. Your patience is an inspiration.

[Kernos]

But so much for chit chat, the subject of this thread is re-defined and directed to be all about the peer review process, which frankly was not even considered let alone followed as protocol for these kinds of predictions.

I see you totally misunderstood my post. This and the closed thread are about the so-called 'Climategate", not peer review.

[Kernos]

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/ ... ting-away/

And so climate gate is far from over.

This has nothing to do with Climategate and is an entirely different issue. And, Fox News? Please... Fox News has about as much journalistic integrity as The National Inquirer.

FOr discussion of this topic, see:

viewtopic.php?f=314&t=35105

[Merlyn]

Yes it is far from over..
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/01/15 ... gewanted=1

The peer review process will hopefully be adhered to and real truth will rise above disinformation.
I hope so anyway, and progress will be made.


Merlyn

[Kernos]

IPCC Pondering New Steps in Wake of Hacked E-mails Episode:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsi ... g-com.html

[Merlyn]

The IPCC may be moot at this point, but I can understand their desire to reorganize.
The science behind the facts was compromised, lost to people like this.

It is sad, and having been directly involved in past battles against pollution, I can say it is par for the course.
It would be nice to separate and direct as they have tried to do, but the earth does not work that way.
Much like a Celtic knot all things are dependant and interwoven in the environment.

The food chain, the atmosphere and ocean all depend on each other for the balance we know as our life.
If climate change was simply CO2 that would be nice, but it simply is not.

I am glad it is not over, really. And I hope real science makes progress over politics.
Personally I don't have the time I once had to devote to the meetings, active supervision and be as directly involved.
But for those who do, get to it! The odds are stacked, the real truth omitted often and it takes very direct confrontation to make any change at all.
That I can tell you from experience.

Merlyn

[DJ Droood]

Climate leak 'work of spy agency'

A highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of "climategate" emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably done by a foreign intelligence agency, says the British Government's former chief scientist.

"If it was a job done on behalf of a government, then I suppose there is the possibility that it could be the Russian intelligence agency. If it was a maverick group then I suppose it could be the Americans. I've worked within government and I've seen this in operation. It was a sophisticated and expensive operation ... Right now, the American lobbyists are a very likely source of finance for this."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/ne ... d=10623508

[Merlyn]

It is a lot more than meets the eye.
I did my time (15 years) working to clean the air. I also got an eye full of the scams, total BS and hand shaking deals.

Buy those shoes made in China, and support global warming! Its damn cold and snowing again all week!

Or we could make our own shoes...
Anything we do on a computer now is instantly accessible. This includes political climate-o-crats.

Merlyn /|\

[Greygnome]

I am not sure about the science. What I am fairly confident about is that what we think to be correct data and interpretation now will in time be found to be wanting. It is part of our building of understanding. Unfortunately, policy to decide what we should do now relies on our best current understanding and inevitably on dialogue/bargaining.

Another way to look at it is as a system. Look at the world as a sealed room. Anything we produce will accumulate because it cannot escape. So it will react or stack up. Therefore the problem is not so much whether it's global cooling or warming, but that the total product gas, liquid or solid of society must react with the rest of the closed room, and the materials used to create the product must deplete the resources of the room. I don't want to imagine this room if the production and consumption is uncontrolled. So the problem is how to reign in prod/consump. If we slow it down, at least we will have reduced the speed of the impact, giving us time to see what long term effects we get, because there will be some.

Aother frame of reference is that until human existence, natural processes have occurred to produce change in the room. Since human existence, especially recently, our understanding however imperfect of the material world has led to human engineered processes some of which are imitations of natural activity (burning, solar heating etc) or alterations eg production of materials not produced in nature or fundamental deep law engineering eg genetics, nuclear, nano tech etc.

The latter two categories are likely to more easily change for ever the nature of the room if uncontrolled.

We regroup to a simple non technology world. You may think of some downsides. We move to a world based almost entirely on technology, implementing every new method even the most advanced particle science or the most difficult to countenance genetic work. Or we view our human activities as evolution. The planet may be as a whole evolving, the nature of the room may be possible to fundamentally alter far from our imagination's scan. As different as we are from the first life....

My personal solution is to assume I have some responsibility and do what I can, what is within my means at this time to reduce production and consumption yet remain in the modern world. The end result is possibly out of our control. Possibly we can seek the Awen for inspiration as to how we as individuals should act.

Gnome

[Merlyn]

Possibly we can seek the Awen for inspiration as to how we as individuals should act.

I often reflect.. "who stole my revolution?"
We were the age of aquarius, the new age of revolutionary change.

Climategate is the politics of pollution.
The problem with career politicians is best exampled by non other than... Al Gore!
His electric bill alone would pay my mortgage!

His depth of knowledge on the subject is as deep as a pimple!
Your example of the room is great. With all the hot air of politics, the 02 is getting very thin!

We did at one time, make being green the "in" thing. It was a time of good but smeared by drugs, squandered by too many and lost to the time.
Now its a new-age spiritual movement!
And perhaps that is just what it must be.

Be careful of the religion police though...

Merlyn /|\

[Greygnome]

I can recommend David Gemmells novels if you like a good yarn with straightforward characters applying simple codes or ways of life to complex situations. There is often a bit of debate about outcomes, morals and so on but the character tends to still act by their own code, sometimes it pans out, sometimes not. My point is that our actions can be made in good faith at the time. Later on we may review the situation and find our views/actions were correct, incorrect or have made things worse. This does not invalidate the original action. I think it is ok (and what we do all the time) to take a decision based on our principles and using our built in philosopher functions, then as time proceeds, see how events unfold, re-evaluate and proceed.

I recall a Keynes quote which is along the lines of "when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, pray?" in response to some critiscism of his change of stance on some issue. In regard to climategate, this is relevant. I have signed many email petitions and written to MP etc over climate. Then I read the post by Merlyn about global cooling. I followed the links and did some research. I read some opposing views. My view is now that we are dealing with a complex system which is hard to predict into the future, not unlike seasonal weather forecasting which has come in for some stick in the UK! However, if you accept that small changes in input (butterfly wings etc) can have far ranging effects on a larger scale in complex systems like the weather, then it seems reasonable to think that fairly large inputs like pollution, fuel burning etc will have a sizeable effect.

So rather than specific doom eg we will flood/fry/freeze I now think in terms of vague doom, eg something will happen, it will probably be big, we will probably notice it, we don't know the timescale, buffer systems may exist to moderate it and hopefully we will adapt. The exact science is irrelevant. It's the wanton consumption and production that's the input problem. Nature may affect the balance too in terms of ice ages, volcanoes etc but the bit we can control is ours to deal with, our responsibility. We don't just need law to solve it, we need common sense. It is sensible to work out how to consume/produce less, or design buffer systems to ofset/recycle etc. It would be reasonable and humane to help nations that are flooding, regardless of whether it can be blamed on global warming.

As for the green revolution, I don't think it has gone, but unless people take it on and act on it individually no amount of politics well intentioned or not will help.

Gnome

[DJ Droood]

I recall a Keynes quote which is along the lines of "when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, pray?" in response to some critiscism of his change of stance on some issue.

That is a good quote...for awhile, it was a political mantra to "stay the course" and not "flip flop", as if being flexible and pragmatic and adaptable to changing conditions was somehow a weakness, and slack-jawed inertia was a virtue.

[Merlyn]

The ideas were herded into a political frenzy, and for reasons of political gain.
In the rush a lot was omitted, fudged and given value added disinformation.
Over-all the core message of green living was made into a apocalypse, and a wide ranging reason to tax.

What a mess.

However, to heal is most often the simplest thing to do, not the most complex.
Even so, the ways to capture and recycle are not rocket science. Some of the more complex answers to the problem can be, but over-all impact can be made simply.
Politics however has become a mass overstatement of the problem ignoring the most vital and basic answers. Climate gate takes advantage of the "stage". That soap box which calls attention. In doing so most follow like lemmings, easily ignoring anything else.

Then we have the man made us vs them argument for tax and small minded solutions like happened to the automobile.
In the narrow view, gas mileage was made over-important, and pollution secondary. The result of political mind setting trashed the zero emission system in favor of the high mileage allowing billions of automobiles to be manufactured that needlessly pollute for the sake of the soap box efficiency.

The same is happening with climate gate.
Rather than deal directly with the true problems facing us with actual climate change, man made or not, we are deliberately focused on our own contribution to it.
This totally ignores much more urgent problems and compounds them with financial burdens rather than cutting out the cancer so to speak.

Pointing to glacier melt as example, is real, but not from the causes by those who will be taxed for it.
This kind of political abuse is nothing new.

What is left unsaid is artfully spoken by politicians.

Merlyn /|\

[Greygnome]

So, keeping it simple, plan for the possible whether it's from us or nature and in the meantime deal with pollution/consumption and system buffer building (eg recycle, re-use etc) because it is the bit that we know we are resposible for? We don't need to know the exact science to know that we need to deal with pollution etc. I think what we need (in addition to politics which is unfortunately not going to go away) is small scale action. Every house reduces. Every house generates via wind, sun etc.

Gnome

[DJ Droood]

It is like a sinking ship, and people are wondering if we hit an iceberg or if someone drilled a hole in the hull. She is going down, and the shipping company doesn't provide lifeboats, so they are getting the band to play louder and telling everyone over the PA system that nothing is wrong.

[Binky]

I didn't even know anything about climate gate and I do usually try to keep up to speed with the whole global climate change debate, so I have done a little bit of reading about it. I do believe that it is misinformation calling it global warming; it should be referenced as either global climate change or climate destabilisation.

I do however think there is too much emphasis and time spent worrying about whether we are causing climate destabilisation or not. In my opinion that is totally irrelevant. It is happening, it is likely we can do something to affect the longterm outcome; though the science community will always be divided about any topic. Politics often seems to get in the way. There is too much bickering about seemingly insignificant things considering the possible larger longterm picture.

I have no specialist knowledge in any area concerning climate change or science; but I do understand the concept of risk management, we don't need to know the truth. The whole debate should be looked at from a new angle; one we can control. Whether we are causing it or not is out of our control; though I am sure we are having an impact, if we aren't the primary cause. Should we commit and do something about global climate change or not; and what are the consequences of both action and inaction.

I particularly like the simple way Greg Craven explains it in his original youtube video he posted 2 years ago. He is a science teacher who has since done another 7+ hours of videos including revising his original on the same topic. He doesn't tell you what to think, just how... but it's hard to avoid the simple logic presented. He enlisted the critiques of dozens of leading scientists, economists, authors, and analysts in the climate change debate, as well as reading and using many of the thousands of comments people posted to improve upon his original video. The first video is under 10 mins long, the rest go into much greater detail on different aspects of the topic. There are also (almost) word for word transcripts with each video. His site if you wish to look: http://www.gregcraven.org/en/the-videos/introduction