More withdrawn 'claims'...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...etract-siddall

Apologies for not responding sooner, been sick the last week or so.

I do not feel you have made a fool of yourself at all. I can certainly understand why people in general can get confused over the issue. Most do not have a scientific background and cannot fully grasp the science involved or understand the scientific papers properly. It is not their fault, you do need training to be able to follow it well. The issue is so clouded as people try then to get their information from spokesmen and media outlets they trust. The problem is these outlets often do not understand the issues any better either and yet are trying to put their own opinions on the subject out, often due to political or financial interests which biases everything they say.

Anyhow I almost always welcome different opinions. If I disagree with them then I will challenge the person to either back them up, or consider altering their opinion. My own opinions are usually pretty flexible and will change if enough compelling evidence is presented to show that my current opinion is faulty.

You have my total agreement on that point. Though I think our population needs to drop by a couple billion to end up with true sustainability without putting undue pressure on the rest of the planet and species therein.

I certainly agree that there is way too much nonsense, fear mongering, and 3rd party crap in the whole debate. But we do have a vested interest to maintain our current global environment, financially and otherwise. If the ice melts the oceans will rise flooding large sections of densely inhabited areas. The damage will be in the trillions if allowed, and cost many billions to build dikes to protect all the vulnerable cities.

Then of course there is the ecological concerns which could have a dire impact on our own species. When I talk about the potential for mass extinction, I am being quite serious as the potential is very real. Other mass extinctions have happened in the past under similar circumstances to what we seem to be heading toward. Nature itself is highly interconnected, and loosing one or more species can have a trickle down effect taking out other species which can trigger a domino effect wiping out all but the most flexible and independent species. Depending on what happens, and which theories prove to be most correct, the consequences could well be very bad. My own worries are very well founded in my opinion based on the research I have done into it.


Did you read the article fully? Scientific papers get withdrawn all the time which is perfectly normal. This one got pulled as a few errors were discovered which rendered those calculations invalid. A new paper with corrections will probably get submitted sometime in the future.

All that shows is their own estimates are faulty. It doesn't throw off the rest of the research, or disprove anything. Just that the numbers are off as they didn't properly account for a variable, and made a calculation error.


I have to say I am getting rather tired of seeing this stuff in the media, with them drawing all kinds of completely false conclusions, then having people hold it up and say "look see I told you its all a lie and this proves it". It doesn't prove <censored> all.

Sensationalist media + science = fail

Sensationalist media + information = fail

I should have thought out my 2nd post more carefully, I had written more but I thought it was unnecessary fluff. But it may have been good to have kept it.

And the reason I felt like a fool is because I already knew about the CO2 bits, deforestation, melting ice at the poles in your reply to my 2nd post.

But I felt that I cannot add that I know about all that already, I felt like it could be portrayed that I would be seen as a kind of person who would just say: "Well yes of course I knew about that." (When in reality such a person doesn't know).

I don't know why i continously make the mistake: "They know what I already know." Well of course you don't know if I don't mention it, it's not like you could come crashing through my monitor to look into my brain and say: "Ah yes, he knows."

I remember in school when we got some assignment that we should write about ourselves. I would mention that I like this and that.
But I didn't write why.

I guess it's the same here, I fail to elaborate on the original statement.

I keep making the same mistake over and over.

And for some reason for me, a mistake means failure.

Information + science = media fail

Political agenda + environmental zealotry + manipulated data = Lie

Selective awareness + scientific naivety = GW scepticism

Political agenda + capitalistic zealotry + manipulated data + bought scientists = Lie

You see, that game works very well for the other side too.;)

Honestly, you are being too hard on yourself, trust me when I say no one is judging you with such severity as you are yourself. If you knew what I said in advance well then good (and I figure you probably did), some people do not, which is why I said it (and in case you didn't too as I wasn't sure at the time).

Anyhow I do kind of understand where you are coming from; I can be rather harsh with myself when I make a blunder, more harsh then I should be or is good for me. I place high expectations on myself, sometimes unrealistically high. I would suggest that you just try to relax a little more and try to force yourself not to worry about such things as much. Most of the people here are quite good natured and friendly. Participate and you may find the experience rewarding more often then not.

I should also add that I am an academic with scientific and statistical training (though more in the social sciences). I am quite accustomed to writing in general, and putting forth strong compelling arguments and backing them up with data as required. That makes it harder to debate against me, as then the person has to do the same as I do to have similar success. That said though I am a very friendly and helpful person by nature, and I always welcome comment or questioning which am happy to answer to the best of my abilities. So by all means make comments or question anything I say, your participation is quite welcome, and if you think I am wrong, take me on. :DL


I keep hearing that one (manipulated data), and keep asking for some solid evidence, and have yet to get any from anyone. So I'll say it again, give proof please or it isn't true. Oh and fringe 'scientists' and mouthpieces (particularly gore gaffs) don't count.

Yes I did read your post on page 4, but I missed it at first, it wasn't until after your reply to my 2nd post that I saw it.

Politicians, don't really know what to say about them, usually nothing in nice words. :O:

- - - - -

There's that bit if the sea temperature rises enough, methane (CH4) in the sea floor and in the arctic is released into the atmosphere making matters worse.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environ...mb-938932.html

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/methane-0902.html

It seems a bit worrying about the risk of the Gulf Stream collapsing due to the water from melting ice that's caused by warmer temperatures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdow...ne_circulation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ream-hollywood


- - - - -
Sorry for OT

I only have a post-gymnasium education in "System Technics (<-?) specialized in Hydraulics".
The education form is called "KY-utbildning" or "Kvalificerad Yrkesutbildning", translated to English, it's Qualified Profession education. There's probably a more proper English term for that.

It consisted of electronics, hydraulics, technology ( mechanics and "strength of materials" ), applied mathematics and automation (Programmable Logic Controller, binary system, logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gate)

But I've been thinking a little of getting higher education but my poor grades from my time in the gymnasium puts a stop to that. I read Science there, in retrospect it was the wrong choice.
It was very difficult with all the mathematics in physics and chemistry. And all the formulas you have to remember! :o

But most of the mathematical stuff you learn there has no use what so ever for everyday life. :O:

Is that the senator who has oil companies as his biggest contributors with electricity generating companies coming close behind?

I don't disagree with you. Hell, even if the icecaps don't melt completely, the change in the ocean's salination could have devasting impacts on weather systems and even hurt the world's supply of seafood.

But see, the thing is that we really DON'T KNOW much at this point, but many in the scientific community won't admit to not knowing what they don't know. As such, we have intense alarmism based upon inaccurate or even falsified data which has gone on to do nothing but diminish the cause of environmentalism.

The fact is that, say, Yellowstone could erupt tomorrow and change the Earth's climate practically overnight. In fact any significant volcanic activity could reduce global temperatures. Most large-scale, destructive natural events throughout history have involved the ejection of a far larger mass of ash into the atmosphere that all of human history ... combined.

The point is that the planet is a constantly evolving mechanism, and its systems are far too complex for us to have developed an ability of perfect predictability. However, some in the scientific community want us to make drastic changes and spend enormous sums based upon what amounts to science that is contradictory at best.

If there's a problem, and this problem does indeed need to be corrected, we need to know as much about it as possible before we try to fix it. And if, per chance, that a SIGNIFICANTLY long term warming period is underway (which I question) we need to search for solutions other than economically singling out the nations who are willing to play ball.

We need no more half-assed data and speculation, no more Al Gore's sensationalizing the problem for their own benefit, no more sweeping aside contradictory data rather than attempting to understand it.

In other words, the politicization of climatological science needs to cease. Both sides of the scientific discussion need to be heard, and the machinations of the issue warrant further study, WITHOUT predispositions.

You mean something moving toward the following?

"At a meeting on Monday of about 150 climate scientists in the quiet Turkish seaside resort of Antalya, representatives of the weather office (known in Britain as the Met Office) quietly proposed that the world's climate scientists start all over again on a "grand challenge" to produce a new, common trove of global temperature data that is open to public scrutiny and "rigorous" peer review."

How about this?

The new effort, the proposal says, would provide:
• "verifiable datasets starting from a common databank of unrestricted data"
• "methods that are fully documented in the peer reviewed literature and open to scrutiny;"
• "a set of independent assessments of surface temperature produced by independent groups using independent methods,"
• "comprehensive audit trails to deliver confidence in the results;"
• "robust assessment of uncertainties associated with observational error, temporal and geographical in homogeneities."

The article can be found here:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/23/britains-weather-office-proposes-climategate/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaig n=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fscitech+%2528Text+-+SciTech%2529

The actual Met office proposal can be found here:

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/022410_metproposal.pdf

How much you want to bet that the "Climate Change" proponents do all they can to fight opening up the research and data?

Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain

http://www.project-syndicate.org/com...chs163/English
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...eptics-science

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-ipcc-sceptics

I am afraid my replies will have to wait till the end of the week. I do not have time right now to devote to properly answering everyone. So my apologies in advance.

Oh ya there are a pile of things that could happen. Many scientists based on past events believe it operates kind of like a seesaw with a weight in the center, a few little tips one way or other don't matter, but go to far and the changes will start getting very big and happening very fast, spiraling out of control until hitting a fixed point. The Ice ages are an example of this.

Education level does not prove intelligence or intellectual capacity. There is a relationship at the higher levels (graduate studies for example). There are plenty of morons who made it into university, and plenty of bright people that never did.

Anyhow I would certainly encourage you to pursue a higher education. Can you retake a couple of classes to boost your marks? I don't know about there but here in Canada we have mature student status at universities which give people (like myself) a second chance at it.

We know a lot more then you suggest from what I know personally about the science. The models are not perfect and we don't know everything (nor will we ever), but they are good enough to give us a pretty good picture of things. I do agree though that there is a lot of sensationalism going on too. Notice all the catastrophe based programing on tv now?

Yep that is true, so could an asteroid smack us. But in our case its not ash that is the problem it is co2 and other greenhouse gasses.

As I said in a previous post, the basic science is very simple and easily confirmed. We are pumping out vast amounts of co2, co2 is a greenhouse gas, we are also destroying what takes co2 out of the air (forests and other stuff). co2 levels are on the rise across the globe, and accordingly so is the temperature, particularly in the poles where co2 tends to accumulate due to air currents. This is rock solid absolute science. We need to do something that either reduces our emissions drastically, or create something that sucks out the vast amounts of co2 in the air. We as a species all need to do something, and fast or we will pay dearly for it.

Oh I agree totally, I don't like Gore either (do a search on me and the word gore if you like), I also hate how the topic has been split along democratic/republican lines. This is not a political decision, never has been.

As for sweeping aside contradictory data, well a lot of it is pure junk and is discarded for very good reason. Because the data is questionable, because the source and funding suggest a very strong bias (which almost always comes out in the sponsored research, just look at the tobacco lobby and all their studies). Of the scientific community, almost all reputable scientists are on the side of man made climate change. Those that are not are for the most part either bought and owned scientists by certain interest groups, or outliers (crackpots pretty much). There are a few respected scientists who disagree and those may be worth listening to.

Thing is though is if we wait too long, the seesaw effect will happen and it will be nigh impossible to divert it by then.

Ok I read it. I find it interesting that I could only find the document referenced on 'climate gate' sites, and the document itself on fox's website. That article from fox itself is biased garbage and full of speculation, assumption, misquotes, half truths, and claims that have already been thoroughly debunked. I could very easily rip apart the entire article, but I won't waste my time as media sources count for zip in a scientific debate. If you want to debate science, you need counter with proper science and scientific sources of your own.


Anyhow on to the only thing worth looking at, the Met document itself. I am curious, did you take the time to read it in full, or did you just go by what fox news said? I get the feeling that you probably did not (I know the person who wrote the article didn't, they just skimmed and cherry picked to quote out of context).

So what is the article about? Well its about..

1. improving the tools of measurement to allow for more precise results (particularly to better asses the risks of changes in extremes of climate).
2. there are some problems with the CRU (climate research unit) land surface dataset due to large IPR (intellectual property rights) issues. They want to make that data publicly available, but it is owned data so they can't.
3. cleaning up and recalculating the available data so that it is more reliable (and to verify the findings once again)

Basically they want to modernize the available data, increase the strength of data gathering, and move away from IPR data, so that the data itself can be made fully public. This is a good thing, not a cover-up or scientific fraud or anything. It is also perfectly normal and reasonable.

Here is the full quote
So what does that all mean? Simple, they want to make everything public and open to eliminate all accusations of fraud and cover-up. They want to set up a public database with independently verified data from multiple sources. They want it to follow the peer reviewed system (the gold standard for all scientific discourse), and open to be examined for faults. They want to make sure the data is conclusive and as error free as possible.

They are pretty much trying to shut down the other side (the deniers) by eliminating all the valid points of contention. So what is the problem?

They won't. All of the completed research is available to anyone with university or research affiliations, or is willing to subscribe to the databases which store the articles. The papers have the data used in the research contained within as well (though not the raw data, just calculated data). This is the way it works and is nothing new. So its already wide open for those that have access to the databases. The problem is the databases are private companies and want people to pay to be able to view this stuff (so it is still available to the public, they just gotta pay).

Good God in heaven, now they start to link whaling to carbon pollution.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8538033.stm

I'm against whaling. And I am against mindlessly polluting the environment, and mindlessly wasting fossil fuels.

And sure as hell I am also against sciences loosing all sanity and all scruples.

I'm quite a follower of science, and from a data standpoint, we do know quite a bit about the RAW data. However, we are still quite ignorant with regards to how that data impacts world climate as a whole. Saying that our models are not perfect doesn't do justice to the reality that our models are completely theoretical and have, to this point, accurately predicted NOTHING with certainty.

We're not even talking about an accuracy RATE ... at this point, our models are so far across the board that science can claim to have predicted ANY event, despite such events contradicting other events.

Snows a ton? Climate change. Snows a little? Climate change.

Considering that averages merely mean out the extremes, this isn't reassuring.I have to stop you there. Volcanos emit VAST amounts of greenhouse gasses, including CO2. Indeed, ash is a primary factory in dimming sunlight, yet volcanic activity produces large quantities of greenhouse gasses.

Yes, humans emit quite a magnitude of gasses over volcanos collectively, but generally speaking climate change throughout history has been brought upon by massive events. In some circles, this suggests that the Earth reacts more regarding the extreme events and has been able to adapt more readily regarding more steady changes.

In fact, that is one of the most controversial topics in the scientific community. The suggestion that a slow-but-steady outpouring of greenhouse gasses would have the same effect as an instaneous deluge of the same is fundamentally flawed. However, many of our models base the 1-1 impact of the same gasses simarly, which is fundamentally flawed. Furthermore, many of our models exclude other factors ... for instance, the claims that X amount of CO2 has shown to be Y amount of climate change has not necessarily accounted for the other factors that may have contributed to Y.

This is the primary reason for the minority dissent of the scientific community. They believe the majority is rushing to judgement. I happen to agree.Al Gore would make you think such science is simple and easily confirmed, but it is not. What you say, at face value, is true. However, the IMPACTS that we've attempted to historically draw from such increases is still unclear, due to most models not including other factors.

But also quite intriguing, over long term models, is the decreasing energy gained from the sun. Ultimately, over the long term (speaking in terms of eons), the Earth NEEDS to increase its greenhouse effect in order to pace the decreasing solar energy. Because our models have not contemplated evolutionary aspects as well as solar energy changes, we still don't have quite an idea as to the effect of increased CO2. Furthermore, I submit that we haven't even bothered to calculate the evolutionary difference occurring in flora faced with rising CO2 levels. Some scientists have suggested simply that plants may ultimately "breath faster", helping to offset some of the increase in CO2 levels.

By and large, however, as you have stated the system which provides life on Earth is quite interconnected. There are so many factors, many offsetting, which assist in sustaining life as we know it, that most climate models are wrong due to merely excluding that very concept.

Like I said, we really don't know squat.In my opinion, that conclusion is premature and that sense of urgency that you display is a reason as to why our science has rushed to judgement rather than making sure they have it right.

I agree that, likely, carbon emissions need to decrease. However, due to other factors, I believe that we don't really know the science behind it. So instead of making sensational yet unfounded predictions claiming that the end is nigh, we may as well simply encourage people to live as responsibly as they can, without the rhetoric.

Indeed, after awhile of making broad claims and the public seeing them not come true, people start thinking of such "science" as no more valuable than the guy on the corner wearing a sandwich sign screaming "THE END IS NEAR!!!!".Now damn, if this isn't one of the smartest things (although it should be obvious) I've ever read on here. Kudos.See, I disagree with that concept and find it irrelevent in any case. There are plenty of well-reputed scientists who have data suggesting other than what the alarmists claim. Sure, there are people on both sides that are bought and paid for, yet ultimately science isn't democratic.

Heh, there was a time in which the Earth was the center of the universe, according to scientific consensus. The fact is that we still don't know what the hell to think, and we've rushed to judgement. And, historically, the record of the predictions stemming from the models of that rushed judgement are not very good.See, here's my angle: there are so many things that are likely to happen during human civilization that will be nigh impossible to divert, we had better be DAMNED SURE that this particular issue is spot-on before the public gets truly interested.

Think rationally, for a moment: say Yellowstone erupts and causes mass death and destruction. Okay, fine, the ash becomes the problem, and not so much the greenhouse gasses. Well, when you wipe out say, 25% of the Earth's population, CO2 emmissions are bound to decrease anyway.

People should naturally just turn off their lights when not in use. Most environmentally friendly concepts are economically advisable as well. We need to focus on that, rather than an alarmism based merely upon clearly incomplete models.

You're right but I'd like to see them pushed because they're economically advisable reasons not make people think they're saving the earth from climate change. The only thing that is going to do that is actually reducing the worlds human population.