December 08, 2003

You're not trying to get a grant Acidman, or you'd understand full well what the Indian scientist was trying to say.

Actually, it's perfectly consistent to me. My job is in research, and I deal with complex systems all the time. Many times I have run into things that operate in a counter-intuitive manner. If there is indeed an increase in the heat energy retained in the atmosphere due to higher concentrations of greenhouse gases, then the effect could very well be MORE severe winters in some regions coupled with hotter summers. It's easy to throw rocks at something that you don't understand, but surely in your career you encountered processes that on the face of it made no sense but once you dug deeper into it, something that seemed bass-ackwards ended up just being due to not fully understanding everything that was going on.

I think the "not fully understanding what's going on" pretty much sums up the global warming argument. Don't ask me to change my life when the "experts" don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Earth abides, Jack.

And I remember reading in science books during Jr. High School that by the year 2000, the population of the world would be so great that we would only have room to stand up shoulder to shoulder. Still remember the map of the U.S. with just the shoulders and heads of people showing all across our fruited planes.

Mr. A -- Here in Alaska, we have lotsssss of snow for this time of year. Got dumped on about a week and a half ago, and it's still coming down. Same thing up in Anchorage, I was just up there this weekend and they have lots of snow, and freezing ass cold weather. I believe the high temp when I was there was about 7 degrees.
There are also thousands of glaciers in Alaska, I live about 3 miles from one. Every year our glaciers recede hundreds and hundres of feet, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. Can you 'splain that?

1. Inconsistencies are everywhere. They are a part of life.

2. Groups of researchers study patterns based upon their VERY DIFFERING interpretations of cycle length.

If cycle length is twenty years, then why the hell isn't everything the same as it was 20 years ago?!?!!? OMG!

If cycle length is two thousand years, then we may have trouble comparing today's stats with the scant data that can be obtained/created from that time period.

I can't give you a fact/speculation ratio. All I've got is my own bullshit opinion. I'm sure that folks like Jack won't care for it.

I agree that "not fully understanding what's going on" sums up the global warming argument, and I also agree that the data is not as consistent as one would like. I think an anology is in order here, though. We don't fully understand what causes many human ailments, but when there are symptoms that something is not right, we do look more deeply at what might be going on, and we make recommendations to "not smoke", "exercise", and "eat well" that are generic "if you do this, it won't hurt and might help".

We do have enough data to know that things are changing, but we don't know for certain (if we ever truly know anything for certain) what are the origins of the changes are. Since making changes to complex systems you don't understand is rarely a wise idea, is it really such a "wrong" to recommend we try to REASONABLY reduce greenhouse gas emissions since we DO NOT know the effect they will have on the climate?

I am NOT advocating the Kyoto protocols (those were poorly written and overall a very bad idea in general), nor am I with the radical environmental moonbats who say "nature should always be preserved." I'm all for reasonable exploitation of natural resources, and conserving as much as possible the beautiful aspects of nature (such as the parks you visit on occasion). What I am saying that we need to be reasonably careful before we fuck with the climate of the only habitable planet we know about.

I'd address this at length in my weblog instead of burning up space in your comments, but my got-damned web hosting service has been down all day (I can't get my email, either.... ARGH!!).

Lucy, I'm perfectly willing to listen to opinions, with two caveats:

1) Not all opinions are equal. Even though I've worked with acids and toxic chemicals for years, I would still listen to Rob's considered and expert opinion on how to handle an acid spill before I would listen to someone who came straight off the street.

2) Keep in mind opinions are just that, opinions, not facts. I try to keep an open mind as much as possible, and I seek out opinions that differ from my own. I discuss my views with others, and occasionally I change my mind. Occasionally, whoever I talk to changes their mind. I don't bother discussing my opinion with those who don't listen, because that's a waste of time.

As I said, it's easy to throw rocks. It's hard to listen and try to understand. Which do you do, Lucy?

Listen first.

I'm the first to throw out a touche when necessary.

I don't mind being the first to throw rocks either, when that's necessary.

I have a feeling we could go at length on this one, though.

Maybe we'll dance sometime.

-"Lucy"
(I couldn't resist earlier; he asked for Lucy...)

Oh, lovely, this from the same people who were absolutely certain we'd be out of fossil fuel by 1970 and be experiencing 90 degree winters.

Please.

Mr. A -- Wellllll??? I'm waiting!

Key / aka "Lucy",

I'll be happy to dance any time you like, but I can't today because my web host and email are still down, and I don't want to burn Rob's bandwidth.

Both your earlier points (inconsistencies are everywhere and different cycle lengths are being examined by the varous groups) are very valid, and they should be kept in mind in any discussion on this topic. I have the feeling if we went on at length about this we would either realize we're both saying the same thing in different ways, or we would agree to disagree.

Either way, "dancing" is both educational and fun as long as no one stomps on feet or spits in faces.

Tell you what: I'll start believing the eco-worriers when their statistical models can predict the PRESENT (they can't).

One model used by some Canadian crew showed 45% accuracy -- in other words, you get better results by tossing a coin (50%).

Woeful. And we're supposed to change everything we do, based on this shit?

Robin nailed it perfectly: follow the [grant] money.

you "see" us digging out??? bullshit... you intended to go camping last weekend while we were getting buried in this shit. I heard on the news a little while ago, we have an icestorm on the way....

great... white shit topped with clear ice sheets.... winter in NE sucks!

Well, we'uns down here in Florida had an unusually cool summer this year. I ain't complainin'.

Florida has no dino fossils because it was underwater during that period of time. We have lots of mammoth fossils because at that time Florida had a lot more land mass than now. Yep, weather changes. I seem to recall a lecture from one of my long ago and nearly forgotten science classes that the weather that we have had over the past few hundred years has actually been unusually stable and that in itself was abnormal and we may see a tremendous change in our lifetime. (I wouldn't really mind skipping it for my lifetime, but if I had my druthers, I'd go for warm and move to higher ground.)

I would have probably had something reasonably intelligent to say on this subject, but like everyone else in the Boston area, am up to my ass in the white stuff and have no time nor energy........the next person that says, Oh I so hope for a white Christmas is going to be sorry, very, very sorry!! They will be getting up close and personal with my shovel!

You're full of shit Rob. It's not even apples and oranges it's like apples and fried chicken, they are not directly comparable. On the one hand you have broad trends and climate (which is average weather) on a global scale and on the other hand you have individual weather at one particular moment on a local or maybe regional scale. Yes, it is very possible to have both snow storms and global warming. Hell, sometimes it even snows in Mexico (it did a few years back), but that didn't stop it from being too fucking hot in Mexico for most of the rest of the year, on average.

Your point is dead on but that changes nothing. It just so happens that climatologists are also mostly full of shit, and probably to a greater extent than you are, but there's plenty of shit to go around and a pile of shit won't magically transform into a pile of truth just because it's sitting next to another pile of shit.

(An interesting side note about global climate change: nobody has any clue really how even honest-to-goodness global warming would affect the sea levels. On the one hand you might melt major land-based ice sheets, especially in antarctica, which would cause the sea level to rise. On the other hand higher temperatures mean more evaporation from the oceans which means more precipitation, which means more snowfall on ice sheets, which means lower sea levels.)

Finally, that whole "you can't put a dent in mother nature" and "Earth abides" crap is getting just a little bit passe. Earth is big and powerful compared to mankind, but Earth isn't changing much and we are. Mankind has already gained a huge amount of control over the Earth, we can scoop out mountains and build up new ones (ever seen a strip-mine?), we can trawl the oceans with nets so huge that we can catch more fish than not for any given population. And mankind's impact has already been pretty substantial in a wide number of areas, most of them by accident without really trying to flex our muscle in impacting the Earth. And us apes are getting better at it by the hour. Power comes with responsibility, end of story. If we are going to have this great amount of power we're going to have to think about it some and learn how to use it responsibly. There are plenty of chicken little idiots out there who think we've already gone too far, that's fine, the world has as great a surplus of shit as it does idiots, just ignore them, they're idiots, that's what you do to idiots. But we shouldn't pull the rebellious teen crap and do the opposite just to spite them. Similarly, there are plenty of anti-gun fools who think guns are too dangerous, but that doesn't mean that if you're against that you need to be cavalier with firearms. Do what's appropriate, ignore the idiots. Same thing goes for how much piss we want in our drinking water, how much plutonium we want in our air, and how much CO2 we want in our atmosphere.

Hi...I´m just surfed in and want to say hello!
Regards George

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