And so it begins . . .

I don't think anyone's doubting that information, Poutsos; I certainly don't. However, the presence of lie-spreading climate change deniers does not imply the absence of lie-spreading climate change doomsayers, who have repeatedly exaggerated the severity of the situation, sometimes even under the guise of academic legitimacy.

It seems obvious to me that there is a climate change denial lobby trying to manipulate opinion for their own, rather transparent interests. But it also appears to me that there is a climate change exaggeration lobby, and what bothers me is that I cannot quite discern whom their lies benefit.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

It seems obvious to me that there is a climate change denial lobby trying to manipulate opinion for their own, rather transparent interests. But it also appears to me that there is a climate change exaggeration lobby, and what bothers me is that I cannot quite discern whom their lies benefit.

Dem media d'oh!

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

I don't think anyone's doubting that information, Poutsos; I certainly don't. However, the presence of lie-spreading climate change deniers does not imply the absence of lie-spreading climate change doomsayers, who have repeatedly exaggerated the severity of the situation, sometimes even under the guise of academic legitimacy.

It seems obvious to me that there is a climate change denial lobby trying to manipulate opinion for their own, rather transparent interests. But it also appears to me that there is a climate change exaggeration lobby, and what bothers me is that I cannot quite discern whom their lies benefit.

Since in the rest of the world climate change is accepted, and even in the US the biggest portion of the population supports the idea, i think it's mostly used by democrats to buy votes. Also the 1% crowd that supports the Democrats seem to be in investing, software design, financial sector etc. and not so much on the actual production, as in Engery Corporations which historically have supported the Conservatives, so they do not care as much for the issue.

Other than that Dalai flat out doubt that in his posts. He even implied that there is more money and influnce on the acceptance part, which to me is absurd.

I do not disagree with your post though. I do think that several non profits like Green Peace and shitloads of neo hippies and hipster vegans might Over Exaggerate the issue, since scientists do not have any conclusive enidenve on the degree that human activity affects the enviroment.

However i do not really care. By putting regulations on oil and coal and investing more into alternative energy sources, humanity is NOT loosing anything. If anything there are more "jobs" created, both in the research deparptment and in the actual labour. The only ones tha are actually lossing are CEOs and oil industry buiseness tycoons. Of course if they start firing people or lowering wages to China levels there will be a negative effect on society as whole, at least for some time, but that has always been the problem with an (almost) unregulated capitalist system.

Well I'm very pro-capitalism and anti-regulation, in general. (I wonder how many people get into environmentalism because of misguided anticorporatism.) But even then, the basic concept of property rights implies that damage sustained to one's property by others entitles one to damages under tort law. Essentially, pollution is vandalism, and warrants treatment as such.

Forget climate change and moron activists (those are motivate more by fear, paranoia and stupidity than profit), investing in alternate energy sources (included stuff like Nuclear, that seems taboo in some places), would reduce the influence of Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries and prevent wars like in Iraq for fun and profit. From a strategic point of view, it would be the best thing to do.

"

Poutsos wrote:

since scientists do not have any conclusive enidenve on the degree that human activity affects the enviroment.

About that degree, the IPCC has published a graph where they show the many possible scenarios following different models. There is uncertainty but it's bounded.



Again, I can't say how true it is because I don't know about that branch of physics, but word on street is that it generally fits reality. You don't need to be 100% accurate before it becomes reasonable to do something about it. It's not a end world scenario but it will be shitty to clean the mess.

"

Poutsos wrote:

DalaiLamas post in the previous page is a perfect example of a conspiracy theory. I mean, comparing climate change to eugenics.....

I didn't compare the two, I said the history of the movement was linked, not that the ideology is still linked. It is that thought process - thinking that they have THE ANSWER to all that ails the world, and must push that idea through at any cost - that is still linked. It is a modern version of Gnosticism.

I'm not sure the following would be more apropos, but I haven't yet seen a term emerge that describes the current trend of ruthless culling of any idea that isn't on the approved agenda: Eumemics

"

Poutsos wrote:

In the scientific literature, there is a strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.[2][3][4][5][6][7] No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view,[8]

So....... Let's take a look at source # [8]

"The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is an international organization with over 38000 members in 100-plus countries.

And what does ye olde Wikipedia say about them?


The new statement formally accepts human activity as at least one contributor to carbon dioxide increase, but does not confirm its link to climate change, saying its members are "divided on the degree of influence that anthropogenic CO2 has" on climate.


So, the "No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view"
has been invalidated, and is untrue, and the editors of wikipedia should know this because the very information is on their own site.

Its all just fine though. The next generation will be using Facebook and Tumblr as their source of scientific proof.


I'm sure I could dig further and find more faults. Why am I so sure? Because they are assertions, based on group opinions. They might be very well informed opinions, but that doesn't make their opinions science.



In other words, there is some uncertainty in the modeling process. It isn't because the scientists are trying to disguise the truth, it is because they don't (yet) have observations or an experiment that will let them rule that uncertainty out and make their models more accurate.

You don't hear ANY of that uncertainty at top level of AGW fear projecting though.

Science isn't good or evil. It must be verifiable, or it ceases to be science.

So, my stance on this is simple - we need more science, and less opinions. No, I don't care if person X has 12 Nobel peace prizes, his opinion is still an opinion and isn't science.

There needs to be less "modeling" and more data gathering.
Knowledge can be converted into power, and more importantly it can be used to gain power other people for good or for bad. People who want to limit what other people are allowed to think and say, have a bad historical track record.

I am against those who would control what people are allowed to say or think. If you choose to align yourself with the thought control crowd - that is your choice.

"

NeroNoah wrote:

"

DalaiLama wrote:

They are still relying on ground blasts, and extrapolating plastic usage and relying on heavy plastic soot for their scenario. They don't really have any new data, just extrapolation, and they have 24,000 nuclear weapons at >1 megaton in their calculations.

Can you tell me where it is that assumption (the abstract talks about 100 bombs)?

The introductory paragraph of the .pdf you linked had this:

"1 Introduction

The casualties from the direct effects of blast, radioactivity,
and fires resulting from the massive use of nuclear weapons
by the superpowers would be so catastrophic that we avoided
such a tragedy for the first four decades after the invention
of nuclear weapons. The realization, based on research conducted jointly by Western and Soviet scientists (Crutzen and Birks, 1982; Aleksandrov and Stenchikov, 1983; Turco et
al., 1983, 1990; Robock, 1984; Pittock et al., 1986; Harwell
and Hutchinson, 1986; Sagan and Turco, 1990),"


I had seen analysis of the 1984 and previous stuff, so I knew what the modeling flaws were in those. The 1990 one, I don't recall if I was still actively following the issue at the time. The 1986 one was a grey area. So I looked up the 1986 Harwell and Hutchinson study and that's where the quoted part came from. I thought it was apparent what I was citing. Gah - sorry about that.

My apologies for not making it more clear that I was looking up some of the foundational research that the paper you linked relied on, and not the pdf itself.

OK - back to real world research for me, on a completely different subject.

"

Poutsos wrote:

more money and influnce on the acceptance part, which to me is absurd.

TL/DR version (see the end for relevant bit) "the carbon market would become the largest commodity market in the world,"




The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a federal agency that regulates commodities and futures markets, estimates that the carbon market eventually could become one of the largest commodity markets in the United States.

It is little wonder, then, that big manufacturing isn’t alone in the lobbying mix. Some of the financial world’s biggest players are keeping close tabs on climate change legislation, which is being debated this week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.



Among the financial firms lobbying on the issue this year are: Zurich Financial, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., the Reinsurance Association of America, Swiss Re, Deutsche Bank, UBS America and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.



Estimates of the potential market size vary widely. New Carbon Finance, a private consulting firm, puts the market for derivatives, futures contracts and anything related to emissions allowances at $860 billion by 2020. The CFTC said the carbon market could reach $2 trillion five years after it starts.

“It wouldn’t be as large as some of the financial markets — Treasury bills — but it would be larger than any physical commodity market,” said CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton, head of the agency’s energy and environmental markets advisory committee.

Kevin Book of the firm ClearView Energy Partners agreed that the carbon market would become the largest commodity market in the world, creating revenue streams for financial firms through the purchase and sale of allowances, transaction fees and market research services. 





http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/4085-bill-on-climate-change-offers-hope-to-wall-st


So, yes, there is a LOT of money involved, and there are sound financial reasons why more of it is going towards pro AGW research.

"

NeroNoah wrote:

Forget climate change and moron activists (those are motivate more by fear, paranoia and stupidity than profit), investing in alternate energy sources (included stuff like Nuclear, that seems taboo in some places), would reduce the influence of Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries and prevent wars like in Iraq for fun and profit. From a strategic point of view, it would be the best thing to do.

You are obviously not Haliburton.

@Dalai: I don't normally do this, but: TL;DR. Summary, please. Edit: oh you kinda added one.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

NeroNoah wrote:

Forget climate change and moron activists (those are motivate more by fear, paranoia and stupidity than profit), investing in alternate energy sources (included stuff like Nuclear, that seems taboo in some places), would reduce the influence of Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries and prevent wars like in Iraq for fun and profit. From a strategic point of view, it would be the best thing to do.

You are obviously not Haliburton.

@Dalai: I don't normally do this, but: TL;DR. Summary, please. Edit: oh you kinda added one.

I tried to clean it up a bit, but I'm thinking that each subsequent clean up effort is making more of a mess rather than helping. :-(