OFF: UK's premier green awareness festival under threat from police and local council.

[mary]

a lot of this is way over my head, I only want to relate, that the weather
in New England has been very strange over the past few years, our winters
are warmer, and summers rainier and cooler.  It's weird, I don't like it, it
feels all wrong.

Mary

-----Original Message-----
From: BOC/Hawkwind Discussion List
[mailto:BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET]On Behalf Of M Holmes
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 10:02 AM
To: BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET
Subject: Re: OFF: UK's premier green awareness festival under threat
from police and local council.


> >>> There ain't no consensus that it's the *heat* we produce that's the
> >>> problem. There is a *contention* that more solar heat is trapped by
> >>> the
> >>> *gases* we produce.
> >>
> >> Again, not if you ask the IPCC.
> >
> > OK, how about if you come up with a statement from the IPCC that the
> > heat produced by human industry is a significant factor?
>
> Why would I want to do that?

This is how argument works. You make a claim. You get asked to back it
up.

> >> Besides, the sentence, "The problem
> >> is increased solar heat, not the heat we're actually producing"
> >> heavily implies that climate change is attributable to solar
> >> variation
> >
> > It was clear from the context of the discussion that it
> > was the heat load from nuclear power that was under discussion.
>
> No it wasn't.
>
> Clear enough for you?

Did you read the prior context? I.E the part about the heat produced by
nuclear power?

> > The range of viewpoints here seem to be:
> >
> > A) There is no global warming.
> > B) There's global warming mostly caused by solar cycles or other
> >   astronomical phenomena.
> > C) There's global warming mostly caused by heat from human industry.
> > D) There's global warming mostly caused by solar insolation trapped by
> >   gases in the atmosphere mostly generated by geological pehnomena.
> > E) There's global warming caused by solar insolation trapped by gases
> >   mostly caused by human industry.

> > It looks almost certain that (B) is a factor
> > because there are few other ways to explain global warming on other
> > planets and moons except astronomical phenomenon. This will be almost
> > certainly one of the solar cycles and therefore Earth is unlikely to
> > be
> > immune.

> It is pretty much acknowledged that (B+geological phenomena) was a
> major contributor to pre-industrial climate change.  However, it is
> also a consensus that anthropogenic forcing outweighs it when it comes
> to the last 60 or so years.

I see a consensus that global warming exists. I see only an argument about
how much humans contribute to it. What I also see is that the data isn't
yet in. We need some space probes to better analyse how the Sun works.
We need space probes to investigate the extent of warming elsewwhere in
the solar system. We need space probes and other measures to analyse the
extent of geological versus human contribution. It's a real shame that a
probe to do that just failed to reach orbit.

> There have been many papers pointing out
> the bad data handling in the prominent articles in favour of solar
> variation.  But, old citations die hard.

True, just as there have been papers analysing the more spurious claims
by te other side. What is a fact though is that the Sun is a variable
star and that we do not totally understand how its various cycles work
and how they might affect all this. The only way to change that is to do
the science. Computer models may have a contribution to make, but
they're no substitute for measurement.

> As far as global warming on other planets is concerned, do you think
> their climates operate similar to ours

For some, there are some similarities, but the differences will
undoubtedly be much greater. It seems unlikely to me that both Titan and
Mars would suddenly get warmer without something external to both
being the cause. That cause is just about certain to be something to do
with the Sun.

> and so what is causing their
> global warming must be what is causing ours?

I'd only go as far as to say that if the Sun is causing warming at both,
it is likely to be causing some warming here. There's no substitute
though for getting kit out there to actually do some measurements.

> > Given that volcanoes do spew out the kinds of gases that are
> > relevant to the problem, the geophysics of the Earth has to be at
> > least
> > partly responsible. The question is whether it's a significant part.
> > Then there's human industry. It's likely that we produce enough
> > greenhouse gases to contribute to the problem. What remains to be
> > determined is how much compared to astronomical and geological
> > phenomena. We need science to answer that rather than computer models.

> Are you claiming that computer modelling isn't scientific?

Nope. I'm claiming that they're only as good as the model and that there
will be differences between the model and what happens in reality. The
longer period of time you try to predict using the model, the more those
predictions will be at variance with reality.

I'm also warning that we've had apocalyptic predictions from models
before. The risk from making these warnings based on models is that once
there's a public perception that the models don't work (as happened with
the Club of Rome and more recently with the financial "quants"), your
entire thesis is going to go down the plughole with it.

Suppose global warming is caused by humans and a couple of years down
the line these models are shown to predict nonsense (we've already got
discrepancies between what they predict for ocean and atmospheric
temperatures and what NASA have measured). The public may, in
exasperation, wash its hands of the whole idea and it will be impossible
to carry them politically to attack the real problem.

> The
> Virginia Bioinformatics Institute and various other research groups
> here on campus make heavy use of large-scale computer simulation and
> modelling (large-scale network simulations; epidemiological analyses;
> etc.) and they would argue very, VERY vociferously that what they are
> doing is science.

Ask them to tell us how many avian-flu cases there will be 100 years
from now. If they're honest, they'll tell you it can't be done.

> > My skepticism as to the usefulness of models stems from the Club of
> > Rome
> > Report: The Limits to Growth.  This model drove a lot of apocalyptic
> > warnings drummed into us when we were at school.

> You know, modelling and simulation has come on a bit since you were a
> lad.

Yeah. There are folks in this very street working on 'em.

> Besides, since when do you damn an entire field just because of
> one rotten apple?  That sounds either like cherry-picking your data
> or, um..., being unscientific.

I'm not trying to damn the whole field. I am trying to encourage
skepticism. Run the models, but test them against reality early and
often. Go with reality where the measurements vary with the model. be
very doubtful of predictions 100 years out. We can do that with orbital
mechanics (in very simple systems) and with simple radiation decay. For
the weather though, I think we need to be rather more bashful in our
claims.

> > Then there's my own hobby, macroeconomic finance. I've watched the
> > modellers assert for over a decade that this and that model proves
> > that
> > this or the other financial derivative is completely safe and hedged
> > and
> > that moreover, their spread increased the stability of the whole
> > financial system. This was utterly contrary to my understanding of
> > things and as anticipated, things went to hell in a handbasket as
> > these
> > contracts turned out to have worth only as toilet paper.
>
> But isn't this exactly how science works?  You formulate a hypothesis
> and come up with a theory that you think explains it.  If, down the
> road, the actual data disprove your theory then you either have to
> junk it or modify it, but it doesn't mean the underlying method is
> bad.  It's a process that doesn't hold any given theory sacrosanct.
> That's what the creationists and intelligent design folks can't seem
> to grasp.

Indeed.

> It seems to me that what you're describing above is simply people
> advocating a theory that hasn't been rigourously enough tested, but
> that is a fault of human nature, not, ultimately, of modelling or
> science.

It's not the science of what they're up to I have a beef with. It's the
politics of their never-ending "global warming" roadshow. You and I have
bothbeen around the science community long enough to know that certain
fads take off. They then gather a scientific fan base and garner grants.
AIDS has been like that for a couple of decades and cancer research for
longer. Global warming is a more recent one. They play a great deal of
politics to get governmeent grants and making apocalyptic predictions
for 100 years out is a part of that. The more honest of them though, on
the quiet, would say just what I am: you can't predict the weather 100
years from now using a computer model. The rest isn't science, it's
hucksterism for cash.

> > So now we have the IPCC making apocalyptic predictions for 100 years
> > out
> > based on computer models. Moreover, when NASA takes atmospheric and
> > sea
> > temperature measurements to match up against these predictions, they
> > don't seem to predict very much accurately even for what's happening
> > now. You'll pardon me for skepticism. I'm going to go with the actual
> > science as real things are measured.
>
> But that, too, doesn't appear very helpful.  The NASA measurements
> tell you what is happening now, and, if you look back at the record,
> what has happened in the past.  But those data on their own don't tell
> you anything about the future.  (Prediction is a necessary component
> of the scientific method.)  So, given you believe climate change is
> happening, how do you propose to theorise about the future state of
> the climate?  Watch and wait?

Make more measurements of the three contributors. Try and come up with
better theories and models. Test them against the measurements, and for
Eris's sake, shut the fuck up with the apocalypse stuff. Sooner or later
people are going to get sick of it and then it will be politically
impossible to get anything done.

Meanwhile, let's try some geo-engineering experminets to see hwat will
work to alleviate warming (whatever the source, if it works it works)
and try a bit harder to get trading in pollution lets up and running so
that it's in the interest of everyone's bottom line to cut pollution
either where they are, or somewhere where it's even worse.

> > That said, I've recycled my shit for as long as there's been
> > recycling.
> > I make do and mend where possible, and even enjoy it. I've cycled to
> > school, university and work for my entire life so far. I don't think
> > it's a good idea for folks to shit on their own doorstep. It's the
> > sort
> > of behaviour that comes back to bite you. So I do think the human race
> > should set about cleaning up its shit. I think we should do it because
> > it's a sound idea rather than because we should worry about
> > apocalyptic
> > predictions of computer geeks.
>
> This is rather frightening but, on that, both you and I agree both in
> theory and practice 100%.  I had better stop before we find ourselves
> agreeing more. >;-)

Modulo my expressive brand of cynicism, I don't think we're all that far
apart on all this either.  One of these fine days, thee and me will no
doubt agree violently over several pints...

FoFP


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