Have fun driving in the snow.

Herbie

Watch for it in AR5 for more doom and gloom!

7 hours ago, Proton2 wrote

@Herbie: And if the politicians do listen, what exactly are they supposed to do about naturally occurring climate change?

There is enough evidence at this point to show that the current climate change is anything but "natural".

But for some reason a lot of people like to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that the colossal amount of pollutants we are pumping into the atmosphere has no effect at all. After all, even if there was real damage done, it is unlikely to affect any of us during our lifetimes, so why should any of us even bother, right?

You can play word-games all you like.

Herbie

That is why one must use the term natural climate variability because there is no scientific evidence that the weather today is or has been changed due to mans influence.

You can read studies from the climate scientists Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.'s and Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.on how land use changes, yes caused by man, have changed local conditions.

Global Warming is still supposed to be about adding up all the temperatures throughout the world and of course some places will be cooler and some places will be warmer, but the warmer has to over compensate for the cooler in order for the theory of Global Warming to be valid.

@Herbie: I am not using word games, I am using science.

@blowdart: http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/wuwt-supports-the-sopapipa-blackout/#comment-868985

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/

When a moderator and others thought the thread should or would be locked soon, that upset me. What is it about Climate Science that is so different from every other science that has ever existed, does exist?

Why? Because every time it descends into name calling and personal attacks here. The behaviour gets unacceptable. It's got nothing to do with the science at all. I would have though that was very clear when I asked if I should lock this before it descends into "name calling". I guess some folks can't read an entire two line post.

3 hours ago, blowdart wrote

Shall I just lock this now before it descends into name calling like the last troll global warming thread?

I'd go with a big yes on that one.

Nov 22, 2011 at 9:46 AM

Here is a timely article by a weather expert:

"When the PDO turned cold, most of the meteorological and climate community understood that the pattern was turning very similar the last time of the PDO reversal, the 1950s, and it was a matter of time before the global temperatures, which have leveled off, would start falling in the same herby jerky fashion they had risen when the PDO turned warm at the end of the 1970s."

 http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/19/global-temps-in-a-crash-as-agw-proponents-crash-the-economy/

Update: There are some comments about the above article correcting some possible mistakes that can be found here:

http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/on-joe-bastardis-post-global-temps-in-a-crash-as-agw-proponents-crash-the-economy/

See, I am trying to be unbiased on the topic of Climate Science.

33 minutes ago, Proton2 wrote

I feel that you should have waited for it to descend into name calling first. Do you jump in on other topics saying "hey people, I might be locking this thread if it descends into name calling"?

Yes I do. I have a shorter tolerance for it than Charles does sometimes.

And the other thread wasn't locked. *shrug*

Its just that somebody can hijack a thread and start name calling with the objective of having the discussion shut down, and you might go on and oblige that person instead of banning that person. I have a fear that Climate Science wil not be allowed to be discussed here, I don't want to see that happen.

No the other thread wasn't locked, but I keep feeling like I am playing with a boy who keeps threating to quit and take the ball home. Can we all be adults here!

1. There      is enough evidence at this point to show that the current climate change      is anything but "natural".
             But for some reason a lot of people like to stick their heads in the      sand and pretend that the colossal amount of pollutants we are pumping      into the atmosphere has no effect at all. After all, even if there was      real damage done, it is unlikely to affect any of us during our lifetimes,      so why should any of us even bother, right?

First point 1:

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) itself says exactly what I said, there is no evidence of human involvement in climate change today:

" (p9) "Projected changes in climate extremes under different emissions scenarios generally do not strongly diverge in the coming two to three decades, but these signals are relatively small compared to natural climate variability over this time frame. Even the sign of projected changes in some climate extremes over this time frame"

http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/why-everybody-seeing-climate-changes-now-is-uninformed-or-a-liar/

On the second point, about 96% of CO2 that gets pumped into the atmosphere doesn't even come from human sources, but comes from nature herself.

global warming = colder climate. . where I live last year in February we hit the coldest temperature ever recorded. Granted -8 degrees isn't that cold compared to other parts of the country. But considering average temp in winter is 10 - 20 degrees with little variation. And this year is very warm. I'm starting to think the government is using some kind of weather manipulation. Heck, china admitted to keeping clear skies for the Olympics, if they have technology like that I'm sure we do.

If I farted, and the room suddenly smelt awful, would you believe me if I tried to claim the two had nothing to do with each other? 

1) The basis of good science is skepticism and dissent.

2) The AGW community systematically disallows for skepticism and dissent.

3) Pretty much only the AGW view is supported with government funding.

4) There is no freedom that AGW cannot be used to repress.

In light of this, I wonder how I can consider current AGW claims as 'scientific'. Skeptical views are either barely funded in comparison or otherwise repressed. What would Galileo think of this?

Since AGW could be (and is being) weaponized against individual freedom, I would not surprised that it's why governments are so anxious to promote it exclusively. Nor would I be surprised that it's why they are financially starving out skeptical and dissenting scientists. What would Jefferson think of this?

It doesn't seem like real science to me. When science gets politicized, it goes back to the Dark Ages. People with sufficient objectivity can't ignore when that happens. I would not be surprised if the AGW community's current tactics backfire against the people who remain objective. Would they?

well said,..

and with that,..

I back away,..

s l o w l y

Just because nobody's buying your BS doesn't mean you aren't allowed to speak it.  We're just not going to ignore outright fiction or blatant fallacies when we see them.

And kind sir, calling the views of other people BS is not a constructive way to convince them.

The whole issue IS politics, it certainly isnt science.

We'll see how this carbon trade war the EU has began against the rest of the world is going to bankrupt us even further. I still think the reason the EU is in this bloody mess is this whole 'alternative energy' business,. It's a money sinkhole.

17 hours ago, ScanIAm wrote

Oh, yeah, and anyone who uses the phrase 'weaponized against individual freedom' isn't arguing climate change, they're arguing politics.

It is not political to say that politics influence things. It is merely a sad fact of life, and must be accounted for. I think you're too quick to dismiss things that don't uphold your current beliefs. This is known as 'scientific bias'.

But anyways, here's just a tiny taste from a cursory search -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1545134/Scientists-threatened-for-climate-denial.html

Politics is relevant as it provides the undercurrent to the discussion. It is in fact the main source of climate change funding. It seems the AGW camp would rather hide these realities away. Why?

Why is open discussion about funding sources so anathema in this particular debate? Why are skeptical and objective researchers made to feel like they're talking to the Spanish Inquisition? Whoever disagrees is sure to face demonization (being compared to a holocaust 'denialist'), personal attacks (being accused of dishonest intentions), and even threats of personal harm. This is anything but scientific.

I don't care what side of the debate you fall on, the chicanery at play should be painfully apparent. Science is all about method, and the AGW methods are politically compromised. Until we all accept this elephant is in the living room, the debate will almost certainly not move forward.

1. Grant researchers a billion dollars a year to 'study it'.
2. Systematically deprive funding from the dissenting researchers.
3. Receive an equivalent amount of evidence that the world is flat as there exists for AGW.

The effective government monopoly on climate science is such a compromising force that it's hard to believe there are those who deny its relevance.

But who could possibly oppose government funding of science? Oh my head is spinning! This is not what they taught me in the government's school system! I must contort my perceptions to stop from having to rethink everything!!!

Phew. Just in time. I wonder what's on TV?

8 hours ago, bryanedds wrote

How to prove the world is flat, the AGW way -

1. Grant researchers a billion dollars a year to 'study it'.
2. Systematically deprive funding from the dissenting researchers.
3. Receive an equivalent amount of evidence that the world is flat as there exists for AGW.

The effective government monopoly on climate science is such a compromising force that it's hard to believe there are those who deny its relevance.

But who could possibly oppose government funding of science? Oh my head is spinning! This is not what they taught me in the government's school system! I must contort my perceptions to stop from having to rethink everything!!!

Phew. Just in time. I wonder what's on TV?

Governments spend money on climate science because it's in the best interests of humanity. Trying to prove AGW false is in the best interests of companies peddling fossil fuels. I'd rather have my tax money spent on the former.

And, dude, take off the tinfoil hat.

1 day ago, ScanIAm wrote

Oh, yeah, and anyone who uses the phrase 'weaponized against individual freedom' isn't arguing climate change, they're arguing politics.

+1

Plus your signature: "An individual is he who is saving himself from all those who are saving the world.".  This indicates that you are simply against any perceived threat to your apparent freedom, rather than concerned with the actual science of the situation.

Anti-climate change science get reduced funding for the same reasons that homoeopathy gets little funding fro government:  there simply isn't enough money to fund everything, so they go with the overall consensus. In an ideal world, I would like to see everything funded, but the world is far from ideal so I'm happy with the pragmatic approach.

Herbie

All you get is more concensus, because that is what you are paying for. So it's wasted money, you get with what you've started out with.

If you want to understand something, look it from all angles, it will provide you with more insight. Think outside the box!

This hasn't been a snap decision for science, this has been a slowly growing realisation that there is a serious possibility that something is wrong. Just because you only started to hear about it this century doesn't mean that work wasn't going on since before we were both born.

The consensus was reached before the funding started to flow.

As I said, in an ideal world everyone would get funding, but there just isn't enough money to go around, so we have to play the odds and be pragmatic.  I would like to see some money go to those trying to claim that human activity is nothing to do with it, and I expect that some money is going to them.  I doubt any claims that no government funding is going to those people.

Herbie

We don't have to be pragmatic, we just have to look into the return on investment. Big grant money, but little new facts, waste of investment. Little grant money, lots of new facts, good investment.

in an ideal world everyone would get funding

I don't like the idea that government gets to decide who is wrong and wright in science. By controlling the money they have that power. It's the goverments job to treat everybody the same, regardless of their views or beliefs, so yes equal money should be allotted to all kinds of differnt scientific opinions, cut the CO2 gravy train in half.

4 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Dr Herbie: My original point still stands. All you get is more concensus and that is meaningless. We need new fresh ideas, not 50 year old hocum!

We don't have to be pragmatic, we just have to look into the return on investment. Big grant money, but little new facts, waste of investment. Little grant money, lots of new facts, good investment.

There's scientific consensus that AGW is real. There's not scientific consensus on the degree of impact it will have. And there's certainly not scientific consensus on how to reverse AGW.

I don't like the idea that government gets to decide who is wrong and wright in science. By controlling the money they have that power. It's the goverments job to treat everybody the same, regardless of their views or beliefs, so yes equal money should be allotted to all kinds of differnt scientific opinions, cut the CO2 gravy train in half.

The scientists decide what is right and wrong. The governments back the scientists. The only reason money is even in the equation at all is because of the vast amounts of money companies make by peddling fossil fuels.

There's scientific consensus that AGW is real.

That doesnt mean they are right. Often the concensus view is wrong. On very rare occasions the concensus view is right, but I don't think AGW is one of them.

The governments back the scientists.

It's the other way around I am afraid, he who pays the piper calls the tune.

The only reason money is even in the equation at all is because of the vast amounts of money companies make by peddling fossil fuels.

Ofcourse companies are making huge amounts of money on fossil fuels. Nearly everything requires fossil fuels! From the food you eat, to this forum you see here before you, if it wasnt for fossil fuels none of it would be here.

Before we had fossil fuels, we've used horses, that was not very pretty. Even back then you had scientists tell you that if we would continue like that, the horse dung would pile up to ten feet. Why do people always buy into that end of the world crap? It's the same old story over and over and over. You are bad, but if you pay me for your sins, you are good and go to heaven,..

wake up!

But guess what, we moved on from horse power. Not because we ran out of horses, but because we found something better, coal! And that's how it shall be with the other fossil fuels, we will have moved along long before we will run out (in a couple of hundred years). And one last prediction is that it will not be solar, tidal or wind that brings the next revolution.

56 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

*snip*

That doesnt mean they are right. Often the concensus view is wrong. On very rare occasions the concensus view is right, but I don't think AGW is one of them.

"Rare" occasions that they're right? LOL As I said, take off the tinfoil hat.

Ofcourse companies are making huge amounts of money on fossil fuels. Nearly everything requires fossil fuels! From the food you eat, to this forum you see here before you, if it wasnt for fossil fuels none of it would be here.

Before we had fossil fuels, we've used horses, that was not very pretty. Even back then you had scientists tell you that if we would continue like that, the horse dung would pile up to ten feet. Why do people always buy into that end of the world crap? It's the same old story over and over and over. You are bad, but if you pay me for your sins, you are good and go to heaven,..

wake up!

But guess what, we moved on from horse power. Not because we ran out of horses, but because we found something better, coal! And that's how it shall be with the other fossil fuels, we will have moved along long before we will run out (in a couple of hundred years). And one last prediction is that it will not be solar, tidal or wind that brings the next revolution.

We need new fresh ideas, not technology invented 150,000 years ago by cavemen.

We need new fresh ideas, not technology invented 150,000 years ago by cavemen.

So cavemen invented heating up water till it boils, driving a steam turbine wich generates electricity that could be used in household appliances?

impressive.

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

Often the concensus view is wrong. On very rare occasions the concensus view is right ...

Really?  You think that most of the time the commonest views of scientists are wrong? You think that when the majority of scientists agree on something they are 'very rarely' right?

I know of only one occasion where the scientific consensus was wrong (the existence of prions), can you point me to others?

Herbie

5 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

*snip*

So cavemen invented heating up water till it boils, driving a steam turbine wich generates electricity that could be used in household appliances?

impressive.

Setting sh1t on fire was invented by cavemen. Turbines were invented by humans, but turbines don't necessary have to be powered by setting sh1t on fire now, do they?

There are quite a few on wikipedia;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus

• the theory of continental drift proposed by Alfred Wegener and supported by Alexander Du Toit and Arthur Holmes but soundly rejected by most geologists until indisputable evidence and an acceptable mechanism was presented after 50 years of rejection.
• the theory of symbiogenesis presented by Lynn Margulis and initially rejected by biologists but now generally accepted.^{[citation needed]}
• the theory of punctuated equilibria proposed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge which is still debated but becoming more accepted in evolutionary theory.
• the theory of prions—proteinaceous infectious particles causing transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases—proposed by Stanley B. Prusiner and at first rejected because pathogenicity was believed to depend on nucleic acids now widely accepted due to accumulating evidence.
• the theory of Helicobacter pylori as the cause of stomach ulcers. This theory was first postulated in 1982 by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren but was widely rejected by the medical community which believed that no bacterium could survive for long in the acidic environment of the stomach. Marshall demonstrated his findings by drinking a brew of the bacteria and consequently developing ulcers, subsequently curing himself with antibiotic medication. In 2005, Warren and Marshall were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on H. pylori^[9]

And there are plenty more in other fields too. The concensus is that government spending in crisis is a good way to keep the economy going (Keynes view). It only plunged us deeper into a crisis. 

Change comes when you do stuff differently, not doing stuff exactly the same because you feel confortable in your zone. Science is all about falsifying theories, not reinforcing them. Like I said, reinforcing existing theories adds nothing new to the table.

So, what proportion of progress in the last 100 years has come from people bucking the trend and what proportion has come from people doggedly following on from previous work to get to the truth?  Claiming that progress is only made by going against the consensus is patent nonsense, I'm afraid.  Most progress is made by the quiet multitudes just getting on with the job and following their noses, building on what has been done before. Controversial winners just make the headlines more often, but that doesn't mean they are the majority.  Scientific research is real life, not a Hollywood movie.

Herbie

PS : I should point out that my PhD went against the consensus, but that doesn't mean it is necessarily the most likely outcome in the natural environment. It also didn't prevent me from getting funding; I actually got above average funding for a PhD student.

If any hypotheses explaining global warning as non-anthropogenic comes along and has overwhelming evidence to back it up, then it too will be accepted has scientific theory. Deniers don't want to put in the hard work to do this. They want to do an end-around like the Intelligent Design clowns want to do.

The bit that you're missing from all of your examples, Maddus, is that all of that science was controversial, but is now accepted science because of the hard evidence and good science that the founders of that subject did. They didn't achieve greatness by carefully choosing evidence (or in your case, choosing the definition of evidence) to suit their own ends, but rather by building a consistent model of the world and testing it scientifically and rigorously.

That's why your view of global warming is more like religious dogma than scientific progress.

@cbae: Herbie asked to post, so I copied from WikiPedia, case closed.

@evildictaitor: No, I am arguing that funding to validate the concensus is a bad way to bring up new ideas. As they will only do what you ask, validate the concensus. If you need new ideas, you need to fund a whole range of views as a good government should.

There are controversial ideas, backed up by good science that are in conflict with AGW. But the status quo are keeping them out "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow", because they dont agree with the concensus. Hell, even people who agree with the concensus get rewritten, because their predictions are not scary enough for the public.

It is indeed more of a religion then a science. You have your saviour "Al Gore". You have the path to enligtenment "carbon free economy". You have hell "death, desease, floods, starvation, etc, due to AGW". You have a holy scripture "The AR of the IPCC". And you have followers "the green movement". How is that not a religion?

15 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Dr Herbie: All concensus will fall, eventually.

All? I'm just going to sit around and wait for somebody to prove we were wrong to think the earth isn't flat then....

No, I am arguing that funding to validate the concensus is a bad way to bring up new ideas. As they will only do what you ask, validate the concensus. If you need new ideas, you need to fund a whole range of views as a good government should.

Science can't validate anything. It tries to prove beyond reasonable doubt. It there is reasonable doubt, it has to try harder. Finding something out that you already know is true is boring, and science doesn't do it. That's why climate skeptics are so boring, because they're trying to keep scientists busy "proving" something where there is no longer any reasonable doubt.

It is indeed more of a religion then a science. You have your saviour "Al Gore". You have the path to enligtenment "carbon free economy". You have hell "death, desease, floods, starvation, etc, due to AGW". You have a holy scripture "The AR of the IPCC". And you have followers "the green movement". How is that not a religion?

I don't care much for Al Gore, and relying on academic panels of internationally recognised climate scientists for a report about science seems thoroughly sensible. It's certainly more sensible than asking, say, a historian for their view on science or a greengrocer for their view on atmospheric models.

But anyway, you've already decided that AGW isn't true and blocked out all of the evidence that might disprove you as fake and all of the scientists who disagree with you as frauds. Sadly science has been held up by that "I don't believe it, so it isn't so" kind of stupid thinking for hundreds of years - before it was religion, now it's just stupidity.

and relying on academic panels of internationally recognised climate scientists for a report about science seems thoroughly sensible

They are not scientists, but politicians.

What evidence? The models? They can hardly count as evidence, as they do not fit observations. There is no tropical hotspot, the troposphere isn't warming, none of them predicted the lack of warming in the past 15 years, so the models are out.

9 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Dr Herbie: All concensus will fall, eventually. Maybe someday consensus will fall on Darwin's theory, because we find out it's all been planted by aliens and intelligent design turns out to be true,.. who knows?

So you think that Homoeopathy will eventually be proven right?  You think that Chiropractors will eventually be shown to be able to cure all diseases (as D D Palmer the inventor of the practice claimed)?

You might also like to consider the fact that the original consensus was that humans had no effect on the climate. Then new studies came along and went against that consensus, giving us evidence that actually humans do have an effect on the climate.

Herbie

My point is, that in the future we will laugh about stuff we think is true now. Same as we now laugh about the theory that the earth is flat. Same as that we now laugh about that the sun revolves around the earth. Those consensus views change over time.

AGW is no different. We can't imagine that we are too small to have any impact on the climate, so it must be true. We can't explain something, so by deduction we are to blame. That sounds to me like a lack of imagination.

I've said it before and I will say it again, if you look at the big picture, our impact is next to nothing. The earth is 4 billion years old, we've only been around for a few thousand, the planet is doing just fine, will continue to be doing just fine and will be fine long afther we are gone. It doesnt require us to save it. I know it's a tough nut to crack and it goes against all you have been fed via your government, schools and your media, the fragile blue planet, but the earth is tougher then you think.

Next we have to move on to probability.

It is absolutely true that occasionally consensus is dramatically overturned, it's just that it doesn't actually happen very often.  This is why, in all fields of research, the bulk of the funding goes to the consensus.  Some money is given to research that appears to go against the grain, because the people awarding the money are smart enough to know that such research occasionally bears fruit. But, just like any investor, they put their limited resources where they are most likely to get results.

As an analogy: If a friend gave me money to bet on horse-races for him, I wouldn't be betting on long-shots I would be betting on the odd-on favourites; it's not my money so it would be irresponsible to take excessive risks.

Herbie

5 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Dr Herbie:

AGW is no different. We can't imagine that we are too small to have any impact on the climate, so it must be true. We can't explain something, so by deduction we are to blame. That sounds to me like a lack of imagination.

Except that, as pointed out previously, the consensus used to be that we were far too small and insignificant to have any impact on the climate. Then that consensus changed as the evidence started to indicate to the contrary.

21 minutes ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

Except that, as pointed out previously, the consensus used to be that we were far too small and insignificant to have any impact on the climate. Then that consensus changed as the evidence started to indicate to the contrary.

OMG you're right. And since Maddus proved that anyone who disagrees with the consensus must be right, we've concluded that the first people who thought of AGW are right (that AGW exists), and hence that Maddus is wrong when he says that it doesn't, or that Maddus was wrong to say that anyone who disagrees with the consensus must be right, in which case Maddus is wrong.

So there we have it. Whichever is the case, Maddus is wrong.

So, what happens if I am wrong, 2 degree warming, wooptiedoo.

What happens if you are wrong, whole world bankrupt because a carbon free economy means no more industry, living in the stone age and a 2 degree warming.

If you're wrong, catclysmic events caused by AGW, massive loss of life, potentially end of life as we know it.

If you're right, we find and implement cleaner and more efficient replacements for fossil fuels a few years earlier than necessary. The cost of doing so works out less than the cost of doing the same thing when the pressure is really on us to replace them. Wooptiedoo.

See how that works?

Germany pays an exces of $100 billion to solar panel subsidies alone (edit: not anually), see http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,809439,00.html, killing jobs in sectors that buckle under the tax required to fund it all.

Spain is on the verge of bankrupcy and is cutting subsidies, killing the sector.

Other EU countries will follow suit.

Meanwhile EU commision has instigated a carbon tax on airtravel, that will kill jobs in that sector aswell, driving us deeper into a economic crisis (not to mention the carbon trade war that will break out with the rest of the world).

And did all this lessen our thirst for fossil fuels? Nope,. We've (and especially the USA) has been trying to get of fossil since the 1970-ies and it has failed.

Meanwhile, money that should have gone into adapting to the changes of our climate, went into controlling the climate, so we are less prepared if actual disasters happen, costing lives.

And did all these measures even make a dent in the CO2 concentration? Not really,.. It's still going up, like it has been doing since we started measuring.

So, all pain, no gain.

7 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@AndyC: Not really, the effects of decarbonisation are allready bankrupting Europe.

There are some people who blame massive national, corporate or personal debts, others who blame the housing crisis, some who blame the financial posturing of governments or the inability of leaders to properly understand economics. Others blame the greed of the top 10% or the laziness of the bottom 10%, and some blame the whole stock exchange's malice or the whole government's procrastination.

But I've yet to hear anyone seriously claim that this has anything whatsoever to do with the environment, or green taxes.

http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf  -- University of Juan Carlos and the Juan deMariana Institute.

Taking money away by force and throwing it into a sinkhole is bound to create a crisis. You cannot spend money like we spend on decarbonisation and not ultimately pay the price. All the public and private trillions of dollars will go up in smoke once the green bubble bursts. Leaving us in shatters and China, India and Barzil peaking up the pieces.

We need to start thinking again with our heads, not with our hearts. Don't let these doom mongers cloud your judgement, they are after your freedom and your money.

Congratulations on working it all out. Now quick - go and fetch your tin foil hat before they brain capture you!

Still baffled that you think it's a good idea to fuel your car with corn, when people in Africa go hungry.

I would rejoice with this victory, but at the end of the day when my wage and the bills come in, your side of the argument still wins.

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@evildictaitor: w00t!

Still baffled that you think it's a good idea to fuel your car with corn, when people in Africa go hungry.

I would rejoice with this victory, but at the end of the day when my wage and the bills come in, your side of the argument still wins.

Yep. Me and Al Gore go chuckling all the way to the bank with our bags of swag that we got from bankrupting the world economy, starving african children and stomping on orphaned kittens. Thank god we build the giant brain controlling ray gun that we used at the last world scientific summit that all scientists must yearly attend.

Why didnt I get that memo!?

9 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

And did all this lessen our thirst for fossil fuels? Nope,. We've (and especially the USA) has been trying to get of fossil since the 1970-ies and it has failed.

And yet not quite trying hard enough to stop giving tax breaks to one of the most profitable industries on Earth. That, apparently is a perfectly good way to further run up the national debts.

13 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@evildictaitor: AGW exists! We are all going to die (if we don't buy carbon credits, or hand over personal freedom to people that know best)!!

So, what happens if I am wrong, 2 degree warming, wooptiedoo.

What happens if you are wrong, whole world bankrupt because a carbon free economy means no more industry, living in the stone age and a 2 degree warming.

Instead of arguing science, you should go ahead and admit that the real problem you and a healthy chunk of the rest of the AGW deniers have with AGW is summarized by your above sentiments.

You could care less if the science is right or wrong, you just can't stand it when a bunch of eggheads, nerds, and sciency blowhards suggest that 1 way (of many) to handle the issue is to implement an artificial carbon market.  Your issue is with policy, and when it comes to policy, there is, indeed, no consensus.

I'm here to tell you, though, that if you come up with a better way to manipulate people at the micro and macro level so they don't pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, you'll win a Nobel. 

I do agree that tax breaks should be uniform for all.

@ScanIAm: I've a problem with that the science is being manipulated to give a green light to instigate policies that hurt us, rather then help us get to the next stage of energy production.

6 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@AndyC: tax breaks? What are you talking about? I pay 75% tax on my fuel!

I do agree that tax breaks should be uniform for all.

@ScanIAm: I've a problem with that the science is being manipulated to give a green light to instigate policies that hurt us, rather then help us get to the next stage of energy production.

What "next stage"? Putting up the next drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico? LOL.

As long as the petroleum industry has us by the nutsacks, there's no "next stage of energy production".

7 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@ScanIAm: I've a problem with that the science is being manipulated to give a green light to instigate policies that hurt us, rather then help us get to the next stage of energy production.

In that case you should probably stop doing phoney science to instigate the policy of doing nothing rather than help us get to the less carbon-dependent stage of energy production.

So, what happens if I am wrong, 2 degree warming, wooptiedoo.

Oh don't worry, you'll likely get far more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2073686/Fountains-methane-1-000m-erupt-Arctic-ice--greenhouse-gas-30-times-potent-carbon-dioxide.html

The Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev conducted a survey of 10,000 square miles of sea off the coast of eastern Siberia.

They made a terrifying discovery - huge plumes of methane bubbles rising to the surface from the seabed.

'We found more than 100 fountains, some more than a kilometre across,' said Dr Igor Semiletov, 'These are methane fields on a scale not seen before. The emissions went directly into the atmosphere.'

7 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@evildictaitor: We didnt move away from horse power by taxing horse dung emissions.

We moved away from horsepower when we discovered how to harness fossil fuel on a commercial scale.  The impetus was that we could go faster, farther, and with less hassle, so of course we turned to using it. 

You've made this statement multiple times in this thread, but it makes no sense in this context.  There was never a need to move away from horse power.  We aren't running out of horses. Horses aren't f*cking up our environment.  Horses are, in a sense, a renewable resource.  We moved away from horses because it was more convenient to spent 5 minutes filling up our gas tanks every couple of days or weeks than it was to take care of a horse.

This is the exact reason why carbon taxing schemes are being proposed: if we make it less convenient to use fossil fuels when compared to renewable energy, we'll stop using fossil fuels.

We also wont move away from a carbon be taxing it, infact progress will be slower.

You simply made that up.  We haven't taxed carbon yet, and in fact we've been subsidizing all forms of fossil fuel energy exploration and production for at least a century.  Yet, amazingly, we don't seem to be getting any closer to non-polluting fuel alternatives.

We will run out of fossil fuel.  It's not a question of if, but when.  And the longer we avoid this fact, the less of it will have to work with later on when we actually need it.  It will be a bit ironic if one of the needs we have, once it's running low, is to manage the problems we've created by dumping that much carbon into the atmosphere.

But sure, Al Gore sucks and all...

Plants, and hence all carbon based life on earth need a minimum of 150 - 180 ppm just to keep alive, below that and everything dies. The pre-industrial levels of CO2 are somewhere around 280 ppm.

The logarithmic effect of additional CO2: It is generally agreed, one can call it a consensus, that from the radiative scientific knowledge (lab experiments) that a doubling of CO2 causes about 1.2 C of extra warming. What is not know is what the amount of feedback is. Some climate scientists say it is a 3X factor, others say it is a 0.5X factor. Nobody at this time knows for sure and it may be decades before we know. All we can do is keep recording the earths temperatures and keep observing, and waiting to accumulate this new data. We don't have reliable, unbiased temperature data until the satellite era began.

Some people do not understand the importance of the logarithmic calculations, or even understand what it means. For the mathematically challenged, its an inverse exponential function. (Does that help at all ?).

Doubling from 280 ppm (pre-industrial) to 560 ppm = 1.2 C extra warming (excluding feedbacks). We are presently at about 392 ppm.

Doubling again from 560 ppm to 1120 ppm = another 1.2 C extra warming (once again excluding feedbacks).

Our observed current rate of increasing CO2 = 2 ppm per year. It seems that it will take a very long time to get the ppm up high.

The next couple of decades will greatly add to our knowledge of what the feedback factor is. If global warming is proven, it will be very easy to convince people to reduce their use of ancient carbon fuel and find alternatives. It is very difficult to convince people today because the global temperatures are not increasing as fast as the scientists had predicted they should be due to high values of feedbacks. And the satellite data shows no global warming yet this century despite the increased levels of CO2.

So at the end of the day, America and Europe have only one choice - get back on board the train of economic progress and abolish this environmental crap, or lose out to their hungrier competitors. World-wide carbon counts will increase all the same.

I, for one, am betting on China.

The West can enjoy biding its new-found downtime in bread lines

Herbie

EDIT : see here.

"While China has moved into the role as largest CO2 emitter, eclipsing the USA, China is also committed to reducing its carbon emission intensity by 40–45 per cent by 2020 compared with 2005, and to raising the proportion of renewable energy in total primary energy consumption to 15 per cent. China has now become the world's largest investor in renewable energy, followed by the United States and Germany.

The USA, the second largest global emitter, and the country with the highest carbon equity debt from past emissions, still lacks a comprehensive policy to reduce carbon emissions."

And let's not forget all the other countries in Asia and around the world who are modernizing. I specifically mentioned more than just China. The West simply no longer has the stomach for competition (or the back, for that matter).

But, I suppose I should grab my tin-foil nightcap before I go off to bed. Fortunately I got it dirt-cheap since it was made in you-know-where.

Night all!

We moved away from horsepower when we discovered how to harness fossil fuel on a commercial scale.

Agreed, we moved away from horse power because there was a better alternative, so develop that alternative to fossil and we will move away. No need for taxation or governmental push.

This is the exact reason why carbon taxing schemes are being proposed: if we make it less convenient to use fossil fuels when compared to renewable energy, we'll stop using fossil fuels.

Still with all the increased taxation on fossil and all the subsidies for the alternatives, we are not moving away from fossil, our demand is increasing like it has always done.

You think the alternative is pouring corn into your gastank? Or rely on an intermittent power source such as wind as solar? Go figure. The alternatives are not better, they are worse.

Horses are, in a sense, a renewable resource.

Horses were extremely hazardous to our living environment, because living in a city full of horse dung is extremely unhealty.

We haven't taxed carbon yet, and in fact we've been subsidizing all forms of fossil fuel energy exploration and production for at least a century.

Yes we are taxing CO2. That's why we have an ETS here in the EU and in Australia. We have not been subsidizing fossil fuels, we have been taxing it heavily. If you are talking about tax breaks, I agree, but then you would have to stop tax breaks and subsidies for the alternatives aswell.

You simply made that up.

The amount of money we put into the sinkhole that is called 'green energy' is gone. Windmill manifacturors and solar companies are going belly up, dispite their multi trillion governmental investments. This money cannot be used to develop real alternatives. So we have to use more fossil to make up for the money lost in this green scheme. So therefore, by developing these non alternatives, we're stuck with fossil longer.

We will run out of fossil fuel.

We have natural gas for three hundred years, even with the increased demand. Oil supplies are at an all time high, with new fields being discoverd annually and with new drilling techniques current fields can yield even more barrels. We have coal for thousands of years. So yes we will run out. But we will have moved on, long before we do.

So the only pressing reason we should move away, is the fairy tale of carbon (wich is the building block of life on Earth) is hazordous to life, because of the climate changing (wich will change, regardless of CO2),.

8 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@ScanIAm: Thanks for proving my point.

I did no such thing.

Agreed, we moved away from horse power because there was a better alternative, so develop that alternative to fossil and we will move away. No need for taxation or governmental push.

We have multiple alternatives that aren't subsidized like fossil fuel.  You know this and yet you continue to 'forget' it.

Still with all the increased taxation on fossil and all the subsidies for the alternatives, we are not moving away from fossil, our demand is increasing like it has always done.

What increased taxation on fossil fuel and what subsidies on the alternatives?  Just because you type it out doesn't make it actually true.

You think the alternative is pouring corn into your gastank? Or rely on an intermittent power source such as wind as solar? Go figure. The alternatives are not better, they are worse.

At no point did I or anyone else suggest 'pouring corn into a gastank'.  This is what is commonly referred to as a strawman.

Horses were extremely hazardous to our living environment, because living in a city full of horse dung is extremely unhealty.

That sounds 'extreme' to the max.  I'm not sure of the point.

Yes we are taxing CO2. That's why we have an ETS here in the EU and in Australia. We have not been subsidizing fossil fuels, we have been taxing it heavily. If you are talking about tax breaks, I agree, but then you would have to stop tax breaks and subsidies for the alternatives aswell.

You are now playing a game I'd like to call 'pedantic semantics' in order to dodge admitting to the fact that Oil companies receive more advantages in the economy than alternative fuel sources.  And they do so through the use of governmental policies and laws.

The amount of money we put into the sinkhole that is called 'green energy' is gone. Windmill manifacturors and solar companies are going belly up, dispite their multi trillion governmental investments. This money cannot be used to develop real alternatives. So we have to use more fossil to make up for the money lost in this green scheme. So therefore, by developing these non alternatives, we're stuck with fossil longer.

That made no sense.  Companies succeed or fail, and if you compare the size of the windmill industry to the oil industry, it's pretty obvious which one is larger.  Here's a though experiment:  If the entire windmill industry was to fail financially, do you think it would be bailed out?  Now, how about the oil industry? 

They aren't even playing in the same game.

We have natural gas for three hundred years, even with the increased demand. Oil supplies are at an all time high, with new fields being discoverd annually and with new drilling techniques current fields can yield even more barrels. We have coal for thousands of years. So yes we will run out. But we will have moved on, long before we do.

Awesome, we've got plenty of polluting to do for the next millenia.

So the only pressing reason we should move away, is the fairy tale of carbon (wich is the building block of life on Earth) is hazordous to life, because of the climate changing (wich will change, regardless of CO2),.

Cool. 

Since we're conflating the presense of raw atoms in our bodies to how innocuous they are in other things, I'm interested to know if you'd eat raw sodium or breath chlorine gas. 

I'll take your answer with a grain of salt...

9 hours ago, ScanIAm wrote

Since we're conflating the presense of raw atoms in our bodies to how innocuous they are in other things, I'm interested to know if you'd eat raw sodium or breath chlorine gas. 

I'll take your answer with a grain of salt...

You just won the Interwebs (9 hours ago)

We have multiple alternatives that aren't subsidized like fossil fuel.  You know this and yet you continue to 'forget' it.

You continue to use the wrong term for tax breaks, they are not called subsidies. Show me where they are supposedly getting subsidies. And mind you subsidies is where you take money from A and give it to B. If you take money from A and give a portion back to A, you have a tax break, not a subsidy.

What increased taxation on fossil fuel and what subsidies on the alternatives?  Just because you type it out doesn't make it actually true.

Two thirds of my energy bill is tax to fund the alternatives and our parlement just recently announced that it could increase by 200 euros anually.

I pay two thirds tax on every litre of petrol I pour into my car.

I have to add 21% of the new value of my car to my total wage and pay tax over that, because my car emits more then 100 g of CO2 per kilometer. I would love to get a smaller car and only add 14% to my income or better still drive electric so I dont have to add anything to my income, but those cars don't suit my needs (kids don't fit in it and I have to drive a lot, so electric is out).

Every windmill in Holland get's 100.000 euro's anually as subsidy and they get all kinds of tax breaks. Private home owners are allowed to deduct the output of their solar panels directly from their energy bill, making my energy more expensive.

Need I go on?

Oil companies receive more advantages in the economy than alternative fuel sources

Show me where fossil get's treated better then the alternatives?

Say I wanted to start drilling for gas near a natural resort, I would be stopped dead in my tracks by my goverment. But they didnt do anything when they put up 600 windmills near the natural resort I live close to.

do you think it would be bailed out

They are bailed out from the start. They got massive amounts of subsidy money and laws that favoured them above other sources of energy. Check Germany, where there is a law that 'green' energy takes precedence on the electricity grid over fossil energy and they've poured more then a 100 billion euros into it. Check Holland where hybrid cars get tax breaks and even tax exemptions, because otherwise they would be too expensive. Check England where they are obliged by law to drop their CO2 emissions. Check Spain, wich is in essence now bankrupt due to the massive subsidies.

They aren't even playing in the same game.

Agreed, the alternatives are being pushed by goverments and law while fossil is being pushed by the consumer market. If something better comes along, the consumer market will move on. The government market will not.

Awesome, we've got plenty of polluting to do for the next millenia.

Oh I agree, we should defenitely put a stop to pollution. And we are doing a great job. Air never been so clean, Earth never been so green and you can actually swim in the Rijn nowadays. But, to treat CO2 as a pollutant is absolutely nonsense.

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

*snip*

I have to add 21% of the new value of my car to my total wage and pay tax over that, because my car emits more then 100 g of CO2 per kilometer. I would love to get a smaller car and only add 14% to my income or better still drive electric so I dont have to add anything to my income, but those cars don't suit my needs (kids don't fit in it and I have to drive a lot, so electric is out).

Every windmill in Holland get's 100.000 euro's anually as subsidy and they get all kinds of tax breaks. Private home owners are allowed to deduct the output of their solar panels directly from their energy bill, making my energy more expensive.

Need I go on?

No, I think I get it now.

The problem is your own because you failed to get with the program. Those that did are reaping the benefits.

24 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

*snip*

You continue to use the wrong term for tax breaks, they are not called subsidies. Show me where they are supposedly getting subsidies. And mind you subsidies is where you take money from A and give it to B. If you take money from A and give a portion back to A, you have a tax break, not a subsidy.

If you need $100 to finance the government, and A gets to pay $40 instead of $50 because of a subsidy, then B has to pay $60. The net effect is that it's a tax break for A. Therefore, subsidy = tax break = hand-out = corporate welfare. You're just arguing semantics.

*snip*

Two thirds of my energy bill is tax to fund the alternatives and our parlement just recently announced that it could increase by 200 euros anually.

I pay two thirds tax on every litre of petrol I pour into my car.

I have to add 21% of the new value of my car to my total wage and pay tax over that, because my car emits more then 100 g of CO2 per kilometer. I would love to get a smaller car and only add 14% to my income or better still drive electric so I dont have to add anything to my income, but those cars don't suit my needs (kids don't fit in it and I have to drive a lot, so electric is out).

'Dems the breaks. If you drive a lot, you should pay a higher rate for fuel. That's the way it works with electricity. This idea of discouraging wasteful behavior through higher prices seems lost on you.

Every windmill in Holland get's 100.000 euro's anually as subsidy and they get all kinds of tax breaks. Private home owners are allowed to deduct the output of their solar panels directly from their energy bill, making my energy more expensive.

Get yourself some solar panels and stop whining.

Need I go on?

You should quit while you're behind.

*snip*

Show me where fossil get's treated better then the alternatives?

Say I wanted to start drilling for gas near a natural resort, I would be stopped dead in my tracks by my goverment. But they didnt do anything when they put up 600 windmills near the natural resort I live close to.

Drilling and refining are environmentally destructive and cause pollution. Would you rather have a windmill put up next to your house or an oil refinery? Please tell you me you'd rather have an oil refinery, because that would explain everything.

Personally, I would rather look at this in my "backyard":

Besides, we're not even talking about where you can build infrastructure. We're talking about the billions of dollars in tax breaks, subsidies, and hand-outs that the oil industry receives, not about where you can put up an oil rig, an oil refinery, or windmills. That's strictly a zoning issue.

*snip*

They are bailed out from the start. They got massive amounts of subsidy money and laws that favoured them above other sources of energy. Check Germany, where there is a law that 'green' energy takes precedence on the electricity grid over fossil energy and they've poured more then a 100 billion euros into it. Check Holland where hybrid cars get tax breaks and even tax exemptions, because otherwise they would be too expensive.

These are all cases of subsidizing the consumer side to encourage purchasing of alternative fuels, which don't have the economies of scale to compete with the petroleum industry. Subsidizing the production of oil on the front-end and subsidizing the consumer-side of alternative fuels is a completely asinine scenario. But that's what we're stuck with because the petroleum industry is the pig that's been sucking on the government's t1t for decades, and it's grown so big, it can't be pulled off.

Check England where they are obliged by law to drop their CO2 emissions.

Uh, so?

Check Spain, wich is in essence now bankrupt due to the massive subsidies.

So Germany should be bankrupt because they "wasted' so much on green energy, right? But why aren't they? Why are they in the position to practically bankroll Greece?

*snip*

Agreed, the alternatives are being pushed by goverments and law while fossil is being pushed by the consumer market. If something better comes along, the consumer market will move on. The government market will not.

What's the government market? Is that the market that enjoys all kinds of tax breaks like the petroleum industry? I sure hope we move on from that market.

*snip*

Oh I agree, we should defenitely put a stop to pollution. And we are doing a great job. Air never been so clean, Earth never been so green and you can actually swim in the Rijn nowadays. But, to treat CO2 as a pollutant is absolutely nonsense.

What's your definition of pollution? Carbon dioxide isn't treated like a pollutant, and maybe that explains the existence of the tinfoil-wearing AGW denialists. They just aren't able to connect the dots in the case of carbon dioxide's effect on the planet, whereas in the case of pollutants like sulfur dioxide, there aren't as many dots to connect.

If you need $100 to finance the government, and A gets to pay $40 instead of $50 because of a subsidy, then B has to pay $60. The net effect is that it's a tax break for A. Therefore, subsidy = tax break = hand-out = corporate welfare. You're just arguing semantics.

Oh, I agree with you, it should be 50/50.

But,.. Of that $100,-, $50,- is going to C wich pays no tax at all. So, A and B pay tax and do not get subsidy, A get's a tax break, wich leads to B paying more tax, but C gets the subsidy.

This idea of discouraging wasteful behavior through higher prices seems lost on you.

So warming my house, so that my children don't freeze to death is wastefull?

Get yourself some solar panels and stop whining.

Wish I had the money to burn on that. But as you so often pointed out, it's the top 1% that feeds of the 99%. Solar panels are only an option, like buying new cars when a new program is introduced, for the top 1%. So solar panels are basically only for the higher class.

don't have the economies of scale to compete with the petroleum industry

Ahhhhh,.. boohooo,.. we can't compete through the free market, therefore we just create some legislation.

Please tell you me you'd rather have an oil refinery,

Ok, fair enough, I would rather have 1 coal fired plant in my backyard (wich I do, as backup for the 600 windmills) then the 600 windmills.

Here is my windmill picture;

 But why aren't they?

The closing of the nuclear power plants is estimated at a loss of 1700 billion euros. The cost of solar alone in Germany YTD is etimated at 100 billion euros subsidy alone. So they will go bankrupt eventually if the follow this course.

But because they have a strong fossil based industry, they are able to keep it up.

What's the government market?

Money taken by force, tax, get's spent because the government knows better then the consumer. In Holland the government makes up for nearly 50% of the economy.

What's your definition of pollution? Carbon dioxide isn't treated like a pollutant, and maybe that explains the existence of the tinfoil-wearing AGW denialists.

Haven't you been watching the news? They all call it carbon pollution.

Hell, it's even on the EPA's list of pollutants.

18 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@cbae:

Ok, fair enough, I would rather have 1 coal fired plant in my backyard (wich I do, as backup for the 600 windmills) then the 600 windmills.

You would rather have a coal-fired plant in your back yard, over 600 windmills??

Well, to each his own I guess.

Still, did chance up on interesting article on Ars Technica which I thought would be relevant.

That's bad how?

Production is flat because the largest oil producers want more per barrel and stopped flooding the market with cheap oil. We've also had some nasty wars the last decade in the largest oil producing nations.

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Ray7: Cooling towers emitting wator vapor,..

That's bad how?

Because with the windmills I can at least see the sky? The impact on the environment goes much further than pollution: those things are damn ugly.

Production is flat because the largest oil producers want more per barrel and stopped flooding the market with cheap oil. We've also had some nasty wars the last decade in the largest oil producing nations.

According to the article, the problem is that it's getting increasingly expensive to extract the stuff, which kind of makes sense when I see Russian subs planting little flags on the ocean floor. And even if you're right, the effect is the pretty much the same for the chap in the street: fossil fuels are becoming increasingly expensive  and it has nothing to do with being charged more to subsidise alternatives.

2 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@cbae:

*snip*

Oh, I agree with you, it should be 50/50.

But,.. Of that $100,-, $50,- is going to C wich pays no tax at all. So, A and B pay tax and do not get subsidy, A get's a tax break, wich leads to B paying more tax, but C gets the subsidy.

Quit trying to complicate things. I'm talking about subsidies being exactly the same as tax-breaks and having the same net-effect on the government's revenues. Go ahead, and tell me that they don't. Stop trying to weasel out of it.

Because with the windmills I can at least see the sky? The impact on the environment goes much further than pollution: those things are damn ugly.

Oh I agree, that's one hell of a nasty picture. Whomever put those houses as close to the industry needs a checkup. But then again, we need that industry to make money, create jobs and whealth.

Take a look at these plans for a windmill park in a town near my hometown;

http://www.windparknoordoostpolder.nl/pdf/100616-gebkrtwinnop-86molens.pdf

They even left some room for the birds not to get chopped up. I think they are going to place signs or lit up arrows.

It will look like this for the countryside, but then multiplied by 20-30 and in rows of two to three.

http://www.windparknoordoostpolder.nl/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/4705925220_ce67aeac5f_b1.jpg

I'd rather have one mega factory on a industrial complex, like Tata Steel in Ijmuiden, then endless rows of these massive windmills. But that's just my taste.

and it has nothing to do with being charged more to subsidise alternatives.

Chap in the street, atleast in EU and Australia, has to pay a tax on everything that emits CO2. That's why we have the ETS programs. So, it does increase the cost of everything, because everything takes energy to produce. The companies don't give a hoot, they just all increase the price of their products and let the consumer pay the fine.

And if that isn't true, then where does the money come from to fund this all?

If government needs $100,- and A pays $40,- instead of $50,- and B pays $50,-, the income is $90,-. Then the government loans $10, why do you think you have a deficit?

17 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@cbae: They don't.

If government needs $100,- and A pays $40,- instead of $50,- and B pays $50,-, the income is $90,-. Then the government loans $10, why do you think you have a deficit?

Show me how a subsidy doesn't yield a deficit whereas a tax break does.

Let's say we have company A, B and C. They all make the same product, that costs roughly $100. A pays $50 in tax but gets a break of $10, B pays $50 in tax and C has no tax, but because it seperates cans and paper waste it get's a subsidy for $50.

The product with company A will cost $140,-, giving him a competitive edge of $10,- over B. Wich I agree is messing up the market, but hey.

The product with company B will cost $150,-, making it the most expensive product.

The product with company C will cost $50,- making it the least expensive product.

So now, money from A and B will pour to C, that's the definition of a subsidy. No money from B goes to A, so that's a tax break.

In the real world, no money will go from A and B to C, because nobody would buy the product and the we will end up loaning money from banks to pay C the $50 per product in subisidy.

3 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@cbae:

*snip*

So warming my house, so that my children don't freeze to death is wastefull?

Strawman much? You said you have to drive a lot. Go move to where you don't have to drive as much. Or at all. And go buy your kids a sweater. Besides, if it's a matter of whether or not your kids freeze to death, crying over a few pennies per kWh seems kind of ludicrous. Get your priorities straight, good man.

*snip*

Wish I had the money to burn on that. But as you so often pointed out, it's the top 1% that feeds of the 99%. Solar panels are only an option, like buying new cars when a new program is introduced, for the top 1%. So solar panels are basically only for the higher class.

You just made the case for subsidizing solar. Thanks for making this so easy.

*snip*

Ahhhhh,.. boohooo,.. we can't compete through the free market, therefore we just create some legislation.

It's not an issue of feeling sorry for a nascent industry. It's an issue of the existing industry becoming fat, greedy, and too stupid for its own good. When has the free market ever shown enough restraint to prevent absolutely wiping out the natural resources on which it depends or even destroying the environment while they're at it?

And another thing, should the government prevent monopolies from forming or just stay out of "legislating" the free market at all? Should we just say "boohoo" if a start-up can't compete with a monopoly? And speaking of start-ups, what's wrong with the government investing in start-ups? That's pretty much what they are doing through subsidies, and instead of pocketing all the gains by unloading all their pre-IPO shares when the start-up IPOs, the public reaps the benefits on the lower prices from that company's products.

*snip*

Ok, fair enough, I would rather have 1 coal fired plant in my backyard (wich I do, as backup for the 600 windmills) then the 600 windmills.

IOW, the "favoritism" that you claim that the wind industry receives is the same "favoritism" that you show to windmills over having petroleum refineries being in your backyard.

*snip*

The closing of the nuclear power plants is estimated at a loss of 1700 billion euros. The cost of solar alone in Germany YTD is etimated at 100 billion euros subsidy alone. So they will go bankrupt eventually if the follow this course.

But because they have a strong fossil based industry, they are able to keep it up.

What fossil based industry? I don't see Germany having any Exxons, BPs, or Royal Dutch Shells of the world being based there. The funny thing is that the Netherlands DOES, and yet you claim that the green industry is going to destroy your nation's economy. You would think Germany's economy would be dead and buried right now for embracing renewables.

*snip*

Money taken by force, tax, get's spent because the government knows better then the consumer. In Holland the government makes up for nearly 50% of the economy.

The Netherlands has an aging population and a bunch of social services. At least be happy that you'll be getting something in return.

*snip*

Haven't you been watching the news? They all call it carbon pollution.

Hell, it's even on the EPA's list of pollutants.

I'm talking about how deniers view it. You think it's completely innocuous and even beneficial to the environment in large quantities. That's where there's the disconnect, and that's why tinfoil-wearing deniers exist.

34 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

*snipped irrelevant scenario*

The petroleum industry receives tax-breaks, subsidies, and handouts that companies in other industries like, say, the computer software industry, does not. Still with me? Because of the shortfall in tax revenues from such a hugely profitable industry, the computer software industry, every non-petroleum industry, as well as individual tax payers have to pay more in taxes, or the government has a budget deficit. It doesn't matter what financial benefit the petroleum industry receives. The net effect is that they pay the government fewer taxes, and there is a revenue shortfall. You can slice it anyway you want, call it whatever you want, the result is fewer taxes paid by the petroleum industry.

Then I could fill up my car for 75 eurocents the litre.

I'll respond to the first post later.

3 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Ray7:

*snip*

Oh I agree, that's one hell of a nasty picture. Whomever put those houses as close to the industry needs a checkup. But then again, we need that industry to make money, create jobs and whealth.

Well, you can create wealth by building wind farms. You can create wealth by employing people to install solar panels. There are other ways to create wealth besides relying on fossil fuels, which is just as well because they won't be there forever.

Take a look at these plans for a windmill park in a town near my hometown;

http://www.windparknoordoostpolder.nl/pdf/100616-gebkrtwinnop-86molens.pdf

They even left some room for the birds not to get chopped up. I think they are going to place signs or lit up arrows.

It will look like this for the countryside, but then multiplied by 20-30 and in rows of two to three.

http://www.windparknoordoostpolder.nl/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/4705925220_ce67aeac5f_b1.jpg

I'd rather have one mega factory on a industrial complex, like Tata Steel in Ijmuiden, then endless rows of these massive windmills. But that's just my taste.

Mmmm. No. I much prefer the wind farms.

Chap in the street, atleast in EU and Australia, has to pay a tax on everything that emits CO2. That's why we have the ETS programs. So, it does increase the cost of everything, because everything takes energy to produce. The companies don't give a hoot, they just all increase the price of their products and let the consumer pay the fine.

And if that isn't true, then where does the money come from to fund this all?

Sorry, but we've been paying subsidies on fuel long before alternative fuels got trendy, and that still doesn't solve the problem of increasing costs of extraction. 

Oh, I know there are subsidies, but I also happen to think they're a great idea. If you pollute you should pay.

Well, you can create wealth by building wind farms. You can create wealth by employing people to install solar panels. There are other ways to create wealth besides relying on fossil fuels, which is just as well because they won't be there forever

Show me how spending tax dollars on something that is not economically viable, otherwise we wouldnt need the subsidies, is creating wealth? As the report that I posted shows, it's destroying wealth. And also windmills only last about 15 years, offshore ones even less. So, it's not exactly renewable.

Mmmm. No. I much prefer the wind farms.

Fair enough, too each his own.

Sorry, but we've been paying subsidies on fuel long before alternative fuels got trendy, and that still doesn't solve the problem of increasing costs of extraction.

What subsidies? Where does the government pay the fossil fuel industry to drill somewhere?

@cbae:

Strawman much? You said you have to drive a lot. Go move to where you don't have to drive as much. Or at all. And go buy your kids a sweater. Besides, if it's a matter of whether or not your kids freeze to death, crying over a few pennies per kWh seems kind of ludicrous. Get your priorities straight, good man.

Don't have the money to move, otherwise I would. Go buy my kids a sweater? You must be joking, right? Or do you think a sweater will suffice when it's minus 15 outside? I think I have my priorities straight, I think you need to reevaluate yours. I would NEVER EVER force someone else to live their lives according what I feel is politically correct.

When has the free market ever shown enough restraint to prevent absolutely wiping out the natural resources on which it depends or even destroying the environment while they're at it?

That's where government should step in my opinion. To stop pollution and to make sure we do not destroy our environment. But that does not mean it should solve the 'problem'. It should govern, not lead. That's where you and I disagree, you have a fanatic faith in the government that it should solve all the challenges we face. It's just not capable. All policital solutions are half assed. You would require either communism or a dictatorship to drive for the changes you would like.

It's an issue of the existing industry becoming fat, greedy, and too stupid for its own good

First it's about CO2, then it's about pollution, then it's about peak oil, then it's about greed, now it's about their physical apprearance?

And don't tell me you dont have any plastics, do not drive a car. You are a spoke in this aswell.

 what's wrong with the government investing in start-ups?

Government should govern, not play the investment banker with tax money.

What fossil based industry?

Go visit the Ruhr area. Been there? I have. It's all coal that enables the industry there, solar and wind just cant deliver the power they need there.

You think it's completely innocuous and even beneficial to the environment in large quantities

Glad my point got across. Can you show me where it's not beneficial for the environment?

Oh, and even Obama has seen the light now;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2012/01/25/state-of-the-union-apparently-hugh-hefner-is-responsible-for-abstinence/

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Ray7:

*snip*

Show me how spending tax dollars on something that is not economically viable, otherwise we wouldnt need the subsidies, is creating wealth?

Well, actually, I don't have to show you that at all. The National Health Service never has been and never will be economically viable, but has kept the the UK in reasonably good shape since the end of the war. Costs millions and the benefits go beyond money. If you really can't see beyond your wallet then there's not really much else to say.

As the report that I posted shows, it's destroying wealth.

Destroys wealth, saves the planet. Sounds like an okay trade-off to me.

And also windmills only last about 15 years, offshore ones even less. So, it's not exactly renewable.

You are assuming of course that the materials from the windmill cannot be scrapped and reused.

What subsidies? Where does the government pay the fossil fuel industry to drill somewhere?

You mean like here?

You pay tax on something, it is used to subsidise something else. That's how it works. You seem to think that if not for alternative fuels, your petrol would be cheaper. Wrong of course, because tax on fuel goes into the tax pot with all the other taxes and duties and is then shared out. Without alternative fuel subsidies they would just put the money somewhere else. 

Where does the government pay the fossil fuel industry? Well, it (we) pay whenever an oil company fouls up the environment then fights tooth and nail to pay as little as possible for the cleanup. We pay for the loss of fishing industries, we pay for the health problems that follow on from it. 

Yup, the oil industries are subsidised plenty.

3 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@cbae:

*snip*

Don't have the money to move, otherwise I would. Go buy my kids a sweater? You must be joking, right? Or do you think a sweater will suffice when it's minus 15 outside? I think I have my priorities straight, I think you need to reevaluate yours. I would NEVER EVER force someone else to live their lives according what I feel is politically correct.

I'm not forcing you to live where you do. I'm making some suggestions so I don't have to hear you * about your situation.

*snip*

That's where government should step in my opinion. To stop pollution and to make sure we do not destroy our environment. But that does not mean it should solve the 'problem'. It should govern, not lead. That's where you and I disagree, you have a fanatic faith in the government that it should solve all the challenges we face. It's just not capable. All policital solutions are half assed. You would require either communism or a dictatorship to drive for the changes you would like.

Actually, I don't have faith in government. Nor do I have faith in the private sector. What I do have is principle. I think there are certain things that government should be responsible for whether they do it inefficiently or not. I understand we can get morons working for government. Good 'ole 43 is living proof of that. But morons exist in the private sector too. Throw in greed on the private sector side, and I'll take the lesser of two evils any day of the week.

*snip*

First it's about CO2, then it's about pollution, then it's about peak oil, then it's about greed, now it's about their physical apprearance?

Ever heard of a metaphor?

And don't tell me you dont have any plastics, do not drive a car. You are a spoke in this aswell.

I have tons of products made of plastics, and I drive a car. It's even gasoline-powered. The difference is that I WANT there to be alternatives, and I want those alternatives to be successful at the cost of the status quo.

*snip*

Government should govern, not play the investment banker with tax money.

Why the f*ck not?

*snip*

Go visit the Ruhr area. Been there? I have. It's all coal that enables the industry there, solar and wind just cant deliver the power they need there.

Sounds like a hell hole. Why would I visit there? And the entire region's €136.3 billion economy in a country with a nominal GDP of  €3.6 trillion is not very impressive. Nice try though.

*snip*

Glad my point got across. Can you show me where it's not beneficial for the environment?

You still hanging on to the ludicrous idea that because increased carbon dioxide in isolation makes some plants grow bigger, that it's good for the entire planet, huh? Bwahahahaha!

Oh, and even Obama has seen the light now;

http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2012/01/25/state-of-the-union-apparently-hugh-hefner-is-responsible-for-abstinence/

tldr. 

"You still hanging on to the ludicrous idea that because increased carbon dioxide in isolation makes some plants grow bigger, that it's good for the entire planet, huh?"

I am pasting it below:

"C3 plants (all broad leaf type plants) loss roughly 50% of the water to transrespiration. When atmospheric CO2 increase C3 plants reduce the number of stomata and hence can make more effective use of water. Plants are moving into arid, desert regions due to the reduction in transrespiration. There is a reduction in desertification."

(h/t William @ http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/28/open-thread-weekend-6/#comment-878077)

In other words, plants are more drought resistant with higher levels of CO2.

Update: An additional related comment from Burt  Rutan:

"CO2 is not a pollutant. When the Dinosaurs roamed, the CO2 content was 6 to 9 times current and the planet was green from pole to pole; almost no deserts. If we doubled the atmospheric content of CO2, young pine trees would grow at twice the rate and nearly every crop yield would go up 30 to 40%. We, the animals and all land plant life would be healthier if CO2 content were to increase."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/28/burt-rutan-on-schooling-the-rogue/

And please stop quoting whackjob AGW denialists. It just kills your argument.

1 hour ago, cbae wrote

And please stop quoting whackjob AGW denialists. It just kills your argument.

And you wonder why you only lose ground with rational skeptics...

Anywho, I think it's time to lock the thread as it has devolved into the AGW camp's typical bile-spitting. As objective observers know all-too-well, they only get worse from here. Otherwise, don't say I didn't warn you

1 hour ago, bryanedds wrote

*snip*

And you wonder why you only lose ground with rational skeptics...

First, I'm not in any position to care if I gain or lose ground with anybody. Second, the self-proclaimed "rational skeptics" are anything but. They've already come to a conclusion, and no amount of evidence will sway their opinion. That's why they're called "denialists". I added the "whackjob" part for accuracy.

Anywho, I think it's time to lock the thread as it has devolved into the AGW camp's typical bile-spitting. As objective observers know all-too-well, they only get worse from here. Otherwise, don't say I didn't warn you

Just because you call yourself an "objective observer" doesn't make you one. After all, how do you observe ANYTHING at all with your head firmly planted in the sand?

"Anywho, I think it's time to lock the thread as it has devolved into the AGW camp's typical bile-spitting. As objective observers know all-too-well, they only get worse from here. Otherwise, don't say I didn't warn you "

@moderators: Do what you gotta do, I wont complain.

@cbae: See, with compelling evidence I can change my mind.

Destroys wealth, saves the planet. Sounds like an okay trade-off to me.

Wealth and pollution go hand in hand. The more wealth, the less pollution. Because when you have money to burn, you clean up your environment. If you have nothing, you will do anything just to get to your next meal. So destroying wealth, is not going to save the planet, it's going to seriously damage our environment.

Where does the government pay the fossil fuel industry? Well, it (we) pay whenever an oil company fouls up the environment then fights tooth and nail to pay as little as possible for the cleanup. We pay for the loss of fishing industries, we pay for the health problems that follow on from it.

As far as I know BP has had to pay to clean up the spill, it's allready in the price of the product. So please show me how 'we' have 'paid' for the spill,..

To the Nigerian issue that you raise, would you rather have that we didnt touch their natural resources? Would you rather keep them poor? Or would you rather have that we make them rich? So that they can buy better houses, waterwells, sewer, roads, etc. etc.. I do agree with you that pollution is bad and exploiting people is bad, I've stated that many times in this thread, but that's where government comes in, to protect it's people. But not digging up their oil, is going to make them dependent on foreign aid and that will cost you more and will not help them in the long run.

Let them exploit it, let them pollute, when they are rich they will clean up their act. To not let them exploit and pollute is condeming them to poverty and a bit naive, because we've done it ourselves and are now forbidding it for others. And if any of our western companies have been found cheating (paying off government officials), we should shut them down immediatly.

And the first article you linked contradicts itself. First they talk about tax breaks and subsidies, but when you dig deeper you'll find that it's only about tax breaks. Why do I have to pay two thirds tax per litre when up in the chain they get a tax break? I'll tell you why, the domestic product would be to expensive compared to the international market. And the US government would lose the rest of the income through tax.

Without alternative fuel subsidies they would just put the money somewhere else.

That's nonsense, spend it because it's going to be spent anyway! Maybe with the extra cash, you can pay off some of your debt, you owe your creditors a whopping $15.293.310.000.000,-. You really think you have cash to burn on these green jobs?

@cbae:

Why the f*ck not?

Because you end up with stuff that nobody has asked for and it's twice as expensive and twice as inefficient. Like the ports the EU built in Greece, that are turning to dust. Like the $500.000.000,- USA has poored into a solar company, wich can be made cheaper elsewhere.

If the business case is that bad, that you can't get any private investors to invest, it's probeply not a good idea for the government to step in. That's so simple it's stupid.

You can't spend your way out of a crisis and certainly not by goverment spending, it's just going to create a double dip.

Because when you have money to burn, you clean up your environment ...

To the Nigerian issue that you raise ... would you rather have that we make them rich ... So that they can buy better houses, waterwells, sewer, roads, etc. etc.. 

Let them exploit it, let them pollute, when they are rich they will clean up their act. 

Wow. Sounds like you think rich people transform into jesus when they get wealthy.

I'm not sure reality works quite like how you think it does.

Surely the solution that will make everyone happy is to just pay AGW taxes to someone who will become rich enough that he will immediately have money to burn and clean up the environment. Then everyone will be happy.

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Ray7:

*snip*

Wealth and pollution go hand in hand. The more wealth, the less pollution. Because when you have money to burn, you clean up your environment. If you have nothing, you will do anything just to get to your next meal. So destroying wealth, is not going to save the planet, it's going to seriously damage our environment.

That would be the case if wealth was equally distributed, which it isn't. A handful of companies have a hell of a lot money and intent on keeping the status quo so they can make even more money. Taxing them to help find alternatives is fine by me.

As far as I know BP has had to pay to clean up the spill, it's allready in the price of the product. So please show me how 'we' have 'paid' for the spill,..

The point is that BP didn't pay enough. They seem to be spending more on lawyers to get out of doing the right thing.  That means the people whose livelihoods are destroyed will have to foot the bill. And then when they offer them work to help clean up the mess, they fail to provide adequate equipment to protect them. This leads to long term health problems which have to be paid for.

To the Nigerian issue that you raise, would you rather have that we didnt touch their natural resources? Would you rather keep them poor?

They're still poor, my friend. Now they're poor and sick.

And the first article you linked contradicts itself. First they talk about tax breaks and subsidies, but when you dig deeper you'll find that it's only about tax breaks. Why do I have to pay two thirds tax per litre when up in the chain they get a tax break? I'll tell you why, the domestic product would be to expensive compared to the international market. And the US government would lose the rest of the income through tax.

You're just splitting hairs. The point is that the goverment helps to prop up the oil industry. Whether they do it fiscally or through handouts makes no difference; we're still paying for it.

11 minutes ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

Wow. Sounds like you think rich people transform into jesus when they get wealthy.

I'm not sure reality works quite like how you think it does.

Good point. I think history demonstrates that they tend to get greedier the more wealth and power they acquire.

edit;

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTo

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Ray7: @evildictaitor: So, Bill Gates is a greedy SOB?

That analogy is the intellectual equivalent of saying "hitler was a vegetarian therefore all vegetarians are evil".

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTo

I'll see your 16 business leaders (only two of which are even scientists, never mind climate scientists) and raise you an open letter with 255 scientists, almost all of them climate scientists:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/689.full.pdf

and for free I'll quote mine from a peer-reviewed journal, not a newspaper

1 hour ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

That analogy is the intellectual equivalent of saying "hitler was a vegetarian therefore all vegetarians are evil".

Right back at you, you claim that history tought us that wealth leads to greed. I show you one example where it doesnt, and I am generalising? Chapeau!

If you take a look at who cares the most about the environment and helping other people, it's the middle to upper class. They are wealthy enough not to worry about their own survival and take on projects like AIDS, cancer, Africa, environment, etc etc. Making people poor again, means that we don't have the money to deal with these issues.

I see your 255 scientists and raise you 31.487,. http://www.petitionproject.org/

Number of supporters is meaningless, it's about finding the truth. And I am convinced that history will judge that you have the short end of the stick.

1 hour ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

That analogy is the intellectual equivalent of saying "hitler was a vegetarian therefore all vegetarians are evil".

ROFL!

2 days ago, evildictaitor wrote

*snip*

I'll see your 16 business leaders (only two of which are even scientists, never mind climate scientists) and raise you an open letter with 255 scientists, almost all of them climate scientists:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/689.full.pdf

and for free I'll quote mine from a peer-reviewed journal, not a newspaper

There isn't a single scientists amongst that list of 255. And if you contradict my statement, first explain how they could be scientists if they pull stuff like this:

http://www.john-daly.com/stations/badwater.htm

------------

For some good related reading see:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/01/briggs-schools-the-bad-astronomer-on-statistics/

53 minutes ago, Proton2 wrote

*snip*

There isn't a single scientists amongst that list of 255.

Erm, OK. Who knew that you didn't have to be a scientist to be member of the National Academy of SCIENCES? 

And if you contradict my statement, first explain how they could be scientists if they pull stuff like this:

http://www.john-daly.com/stations/badwater.htm

OMG! NASA Ames Research Center installed its own weather station in Death Valley! Hold the presses! This fraud must be exposed!!!!!

My eyes are rolling like the wheels of a slot machine right now.

@cbae: This sums it up pretty good; 

http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/02/wsj-publishes-collective-letter.html

The punchline for tldrs -

An astrologer could tell you: "I am the only expert in astrology. I have been doing horoscopes for 40 years and earned millions of dollars by doing so. The astronomers and biologists who wrote an article that disagreed with me aren't really certified experts in astrology. You should better listen to astrologers when they're talking about the impact of planets and about the horoscopes; everyone else is a layman."

``The climate alarmists try to compare themselves to the legitimate scientists in various fields while the climate skeptics are being presented as counterparts of those who don't believe in the HIV-AIDS relationship and many other crazy things. However, they don't have any evidence whatsoever that these ad hominem attacks and comparisons are the right ones. They don't seem to care. They believe that the readers of the Wall Street Journal are gullible enough that they will just accept whatever is written in the daily.''

And they wonder why their credibility is eroding faster every day...

So true, 97% of Climate Change Climatologists pseudoscientists akin to astrologists believe in Global Warming.

Only 2.38% of Climate Scientists believe in Global Warming.

Funnily enough, the solutions to global warming are the same solutions to global cooling:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/02/terrifying-new-book-about-climate-change/

And indeed, the world did see global cooling last month (January), not to mention no warming for 15 years now:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-january-2012-0-09-deg-c/

[Just to be clear here, when I say Global Warming, I mean "CAGW".

Definition of CAGW : Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming; AKA: runaway global warming, climate catastrophe, climate disruption, and similar fairy tales intended to alarm the populace]

(h/t Anthony Watts: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/31/quote-of-the-week-always-happy-to-help/)

And Willian Briggs the statistician has a timely post explaining Temperature Trends statistics:

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5154

Herbie

Which gets to the real discussion that should be taking place.

The only useful evidence is in the modelling. If both sides want to make a useful case, they'll both build their own predictive computer models and open source them for comparison. They must also reveal all their funding sources.

Everything else seems to be a distraction.

Right,.. So if cooling doesnt disprove it, what does?

2 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@Dr Herbie:

Right,.. So if cooling doesnt disprove it, what does?

I would be more worried about being £100 down on my finances month-on-month than being a couple of thousand pounds down after paying my mortgage but just before receiving my paycheck. What matters isn't the super-zoomed in micro-fluctuations, but the overall trend.

Last year's Summer in London was record breakingly hot. This year's winter is record breakingly cold. The worrying trend here is that weather is increasingly record breakingly extreme, which is sort of what climate scientists were saying would happen about a decade ago.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/30/bitter-cold-records-broken-in-alaska-all-time-coldest-record-nearly-broken-but-murphys-law-intervenes/

Oh, and look sea levels are falling:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/03/quantifying-sea-level-fall/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/31/a-japanese-puzzle/

another IPPC failed prediction.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

"an increased probability of extreme warm days and decreased probability of extreme cold days"

Further confirmation of what I said.

If you talk about extremes, you do that based on what the 'normal' should be. If you don't know the 'normal' you can't claim something to be extreme.

So can you please tell me what 'normal' is?

I would much like to have a graph for the next ten years, telling me what you expect the 'normal' temperature to be, the 'normal' cloud cover, where the 'normal' wind should come from and how hard it would 'normally' blow, where the 'normal' weather events should take place and what amount the 'normal' rainfall would be.

So that when we know the 'normal', we can start emit CO2 or stop emitting CO2 to drive the climate to this 'normal' state. Ofcourse in good EU fashion, we should put a commitee in place to guard this 'normal'. So that they could tell us how to lead our lives so that the 'normal' is safe guarded.

P.S. Can you please decide that it's 'normal' for this summer in Holland to be 25C, we had such a crappy summer last year.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/science-behind-the-big-freeze-is-climate-change-bringing-the-arctic-to-europe-6358928.html

Global Warming is to blame!1!1one!

Through the delicate interconnected nature of the climate, broken off ice sheets (caused by global warming, why else would they break off, that's not normal) can create pressure zones wich can make storms wich can drive cold air to europe and that's why we have snow!

This is getting more rediculous by the day.

Imagine a world where CO2 was our friend, fossil fuels were a miracle we should cherish, and economic growth made the planet cleaner, healthier, happier and with more open spaces.

Actually, there's no need to imagine: it already exists. So why do so many people still believe otherwise? "

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096277/How-green-zealots-destroying-planet.html#ixzz1lQRAiybF

See also:

 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100133247/children-just-arent-going-to-know-what-sun-is/

and

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2012/02/they-never-give-up.html

12 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

This is getting more rediculous by the day.

It's nothing new. FWIW this is why climate scientists have moved away from the phrase "global warming", which was intended to indicate the expected change on a global scale but was often misleading, to the more acceptable "climate change", which better reflects the consequences at a more localized scale which may be extreme changes in either direction.

As to what is "normal", it should be reasonably obvious that continually hitting "record breaking" levels of temperature simply cannot be "normal".

16 hours ago, bryanedds wrote

@AndyC: Continual record breaking temparatures in isolated regions is normal. What we're talking about it an overall warming. Warming, not change, as again, change is normal. It is, after all, the only constant.

???

If in any given region it gets hotter during the hot season than ever before and colder during the cold season, such that new record extremes are being set, then that is by very definition not normal. The climate for that given region is clearly changing, hence "climate change"

Warming, as in "global warming", is a reference to the overall planentary temperature, not to warming in a localised region.

There is no 'normal' in climate, it's always on the move. Who are we to decide it's going to wrong way?

2 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@AndyC:

There is no 'normal' in climate, it's always on the move. Who are we to decide it's going to wrong way?

Of course there is a 'normal', not over a short space of time, of course, but the typical figures over the course of a year don't deviate significantly. Until more recently, where they are becoming more extreme.

19 hours ago, Proton2 wrote

@AndyC: There is no increase in extreme events. The historical records show no trends. There is nothing unusual going on with the weather.

I see you've adopted the Bart Simpson defence.

1 day ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@AndyC:

There is no 'normal' in climate, it's always on the move. Who are we to decide it's going to wrong way?

Fine. Let's apply your argument to something different.

There is no "normal" in terms of taxes - they are always on the move. Who are we to decide it's going the wrong way?

Hence I conclude that green taxes going up is an entirely natural event that is entirely not caused by human activity (it's part of a natural solar cycle, don't 'cha know) and not something that you should seek to avoid.

Indeed I can provide numerous citations for this entirely ficticious argument:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Slip-Sliding-Away-The-Joys-of-Global-Cooling/c6d67e8d73054fc7808d9fef016d3a99

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Slip-Sliding-Away-The-Joys-of-Global-Cooling

2 days ago, evildictaitor wrote

Fine. Let's apply your argument to something different.

There is no "normal" in terms of taxes - they are always on the move. Who are we to decide it's going the wrong way?

It's called an election. We have it sometimes.

And comparing apples to oranges isn't an argument. Normal is a reference of frame, if you claim extreme you have to name the normal.

Instead of attacking the argument I made, provide me with some credible source where they describe for the next ten years what the 'normal' is.

Well evildictaitor, I have a very low carbon footprint. If you have read my comments from that other thread I created in November, you will know that. Anyways, Here are some scientific graphs that show CO2 didn't do it either:

----------------------------

logarithmic net downward IR forcing effect of carbon dioxide relative to atmospheric concentration:

-------------------------

 carbon dioxide's contribution to the whole greenhouse effect:

(h/t http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/08/support-for-the-saturated-greenhouse-effect-leaves-the-likelihood-of-agw-tipping-points-in-the-cold/ )

Graph 1: e^x * lg(y) is still exponential if x > y.

Graph 2: There isn't a tipping point in radiative forcing for carbon-dioxide. Nobody is claiming that. There is a tipping point with things like the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide which isn't included on that graph.

11 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@evildictaitor:

*snip*

Instead of attacking the argument I made, provide me with some credible source where they describe for the next ten years what the 'normal' is.

It's called history. When you start consistently hitting record temperatures (high or low) then you are clearly deviating from the norm.

12 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

Instead of attacking the argument I made, provide me with some credible source where they describe for the next ten years what the 'normal' is.

Science is all about attacking arguments - that's how science works.

Also, given that your definition of "credible" is "agrees with you", I doubt anybody could come up with "credible evidence" that you wouldn't immediately dismiss as part of your big climate change conspiracy theory.

There is a tipping point with things like the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide which isn't included on that graph.

The Ocean contains 50 times as much CO2 as the entire atmosphere. If all of it suddenly ended up in the ocean, CO2 content would only increase by 2%.

Here is an article that will ease your mind about CO2 and the ocean:

"Human beings have indeed placed marine ecosystems under terrible pressure, but the chief culprits are overfishing and pollution. By comparison, a very slow reduction in the alkalinity of the oceans, well within the range of natural variation, is a modest threat, and it certainly does not merit apocalyptic headlines."

Scripps paper: Ocean acidification fears overhyped

14 hours ago, AndyC wrote

*snip*

It's called history. When you start consistently hitting record temperatures (high or low) then you are clearly deviating from the norm.

Why it seems that severe weather is "getting worse" when the data shows otherwise – a historical perspective

See also Global and US Climate History reference pages:

Global Climatic History Page

US Climatic History Page

From a historical view, there is nothing abnormal with current climate or temperature.

Only if you look at the data from the 1940's (Proton2 has provided many graphs in this thread allready), we've hit record temperatures, but that's just cherry picking. I'm fine with that, but then I get to pick cherries aswell. Then the temperature has been flat for the last 15 years and AGW has halted and we can get back to business as usual.

@evildictaitor:

So, you can not or you will not?

The IPCC has allready posted their predictions for the upcomming decades and they are all wrong. They cannot predict the climate because their understanding of it is next to zero. So should we continue to trust their expert judgement on climate,...?

I think it's time to put this, we are responsible for the destruction of the planet, fase behind us and move on with more important issues. Like provide clean drinking water, sanitation and cheap energy (from fossils) to third world countries.

33 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

The IPCC ... cannot predict the climate because their understanding of it is next to zero. 

I think they understand it a whole lot more than you do.

36 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

The IPCC has allready posted their predictions for the upcomming decades and they are all wrong. 

How can you tell they're all wrong when they're predictions of future events? Are you clairvoyant, or are you just letting your anti-IPCC bias run riot over your basic reasoning?

Herbie

No doubt, all of wich has to do with politics and none with the climate.

@Dr Herbie:

There are a number of assesment reports published in the past. They contain projections for future temperature development, see;

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/predictions-of-global-mean-temperatures-ipcc-projections/

In the example they have declared three bandwiths, most horrible scenario (being most warm), most likely scenario (forecast based on temperature trend) and least likely scenario (a stagnation of the warming). Those are at the heart of the report, the rest deals with adaptation and mitigation (the what if's).

As none of these forecasts have come true (the climate doesnt work the way they figured it should), the measured values are even below their least likely scenario, how should we value their next report? 

For AR5 they will ofcourse abandon these predictions like they never happend and focus on something more vague like man made extreme weather events or blame China and India for not signing up with Kyoto.

1 day ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

blah blah blah wattsupwiththat.com blah blah blah

You know, quoting the same denialist website all the time isn't really helping your argument. It's like arguing that the CIA killed kennedy by continuously quoting www.theciakilledkennedy.com, or "proving" aliens exist by showing hundreds of posts on UFO websites.

That's just so easy, it isnt helping your argument either to just dismiss a good article just because you think they don't agree with you.

It's like a toddler putting his fingers in his ears; 'na na na na na na na not listeling to you na na na na na'. That's not a mature to debate.

1 hour ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@evildictaitor:

That's just so easy, it isnt helping your argument either to just dismiss a good article just because you think they don't agree with you.

There's no point arguing with you about graphs you got from a website that is known to fabricate evidence (http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/03/29/207776/wattsupwiththat-attack-fabrication/?mobile=nc)

And anyway, there's already an entire website dedicated to attacking the flawed arguments at wattsupwiththat.com - http://wottsupwiththat.com/page/33/?pages-list

2 hours ago, Proton2 wrote

@evildictaitor:The graphs used from WUWT actually come from government science institutes such as NASA and NOAA, not usually referred to as "denier" organizations. 

The graphs reflect cherry-picked data from other sources. Huge difference.

8 hours ago, Proton2 wrote

@evildictaitor:The graphs used from WUWT actually come from government science institutes such as NASA and NOAA, not usually referred to as "denier" organizations. 

Then please refer to the scientific papers or datasets in question.  There's no point me arguing with graphs drawn by a denialist website go up rather than down (or vv) when he's been known to fabricate evidence, because he might have just made up the data.

There's no point arguing with you about graphs you got from a website that is known to fabricate evidence (http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/03/29/207776/wattsupwiththat-attack-fabrication/?mobile=nc)

That article doesn't mention fabricated data at all. Even Joe Romm knows making such an acusation would bring a libel lawsuit upon himself.

WUWT does not censor comments, unlike realclimate.org, skepticalscience and thinkprogress which are notorious for not allowing inconvenient questions. SkepticalScience has a special category " Unreliable* " *Due to (1) deletion, extension and amending of user comments, and (2) undated post-publication revisions of article contents after significant user commenting.

WUWT welcomes discussion and debate from all sides.

Provide even just one example of fabricated data at WUWT.

--------------------------

Here, read this : Understanding the Global Warming Debate So you will understand why you should stop using the Denier label.

Ever since climategate it has been clear that the review process in climate science is broken. A handfull of authors has a vice grip on the review process and they are actively keeping out papers that do not agree with their agenda. That's why I think there has been no significant progress in climate science and that's why they come up with this bogus explanations like aerosolls from China and broken off ice-sheets to explain the current cold climate.

So peer review is out of the question for sceptic views. That's why I am a great supporter for peer-to-peer review such is now taking place in the blogosphere. Where scientist can debate openly about their research and that's why you should take wattsupwiththat more serious then realclimate, watts does peer-to-peer review and realclimate does pal-to-pal by editing out comments that they don't agree with.

40 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

@evildictaitor:

Ever since climategate it has been clear that the review process in climate science is broken. A handfull of authors has a vice grip on the review process and they are actively keeping out papers that do not agree with their agenda. That's why I think there has been no significant progress in climate science and that's why they come up with this bogus explanations like aerosolls from China and broken off ice-sheets to explain the current cold climate.

So peer review is out of the question for sceptic views. That's why I am a great supporter for peer-to-peer review such is now taking place in the blogosphere. Where scientist can debate openly about their research and that's why you should take wattsupwiththat more serious then realclimate, watts does peer-to-peer review and realclimate does pal-to-pal by editing out comments that they don't agree with.

I don't take wattsupwiththat seriously, and frankly I don't take realclimate seriously either. Real science does not happen on blogs, and contrary to what Proton seems to think, having "uncensored" comments on a blog doesn't make up for not bothering to peer review your findings.

If you have findings, publish them properly. It's not hard to get peer-reviewed - the peer review process only weeds out nonsense and statistical BS that people like Watts consistently try and peddle as science.

If he or anyone else has real evidence, they should publish it properly. Otherwise they should just sit down and shut up.

I agree with you, but it has been shown that skeptic articles are being deliberately delayed or even flatout refused in the review process without any ground. And it's also been shown that proponent articles have been given unfair advantages, such as publishing a paper that had not been properly been peer reviewd in order to get it into the next assesment report, or being able to respond to skeptic papers even before the skeptic paper was published. So the skeptic views are being spout mainly in the underground blogosphere.

Until the time that they clean up the review process with the large journals and even within the IPCC, the blogosphere is the place for this debate.

14 hours ago, WilyHank wrote

Does atmospheric CO2 warm the oceans? No! Direct sunlight does. The energy from the sun hitting the Earth is in the petawatt range. Given this amount of that energy, how could CO2 affect the climate if it does not warm the oceans? It displaces water vapor, a much more substantial GHG. This displacement of a warmer GHG with a cooler GHG means that CO2 increases should cool the planet (it does in the upper Troposphere, does it not?) The last question is: Why did the rising CO2 not lead to rising temperatures onward and upward? Ahh! That answer is due to the saturation affect. So, I declare we are nearly at that point now, because increasing CO2 has not substantially increased the global temperatures above that which is occurring naturally.  

Does a blanket warm my body?  No!  Body heat does.  The energy from the food I eat is in the kilowatt range.  Given this amount of energy, how could a blanket affect my body temperature if it does not warm my body?

5 hours ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

I thought we were done with this thread?

You were the first one to say that you were out. Then you came back. Several times.

The Associated Press

Date: Wednesday Mar. 28, 2012 11:41 AM ET

WASHINGTON — A new scientific report warns that global warming is causing more extreme storms and droughts and that the world should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly disasters.

The report says the greatest danger is in highly populated, poor regions of the world, but no region is immune. The document by a Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists forecasts stronger tropical cyclones and more frequent heat waves, deluges and droughts. The 594-page report released Wednesday blames a combination of man-made climate change, population shifts and poverty.

The scientists say that some places, particularly parts of Mumbai in India, could become uninhabitable from floods, storms and rising seas. Other cities at lesser risk include Miami, Shanghai, Bangkok, China's Guangzhou, Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City and India's Kolkata.

Then when you download and read the report for yourself, you find its completely different than reported:

IPCC Confirms: We Do Not Know If The Climate Is Becoming More Extreme

The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC — they have gotten the issue just about right, where "right" means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest — sometimes it just takes a little while. –Roger Pielke Jr, 28 March 2012

FAQ 3.1 Is the Climate Becoming More Extreme? [...]None of the above instruments has yet been developed sufficiently as to allow us to confidently answer the question posed here. Thus we are restricted to questions about whether specific extremes are becoming more or less common, and our confidence in the answers to such questions, including the direction and magnitude of changes in specific extremes, depends on the type of extreme, as well as on the region and season, linked with the level of understanding of the underlying processes and the reliability of their simulation in models.–IPCC Special Report on Extreme Events and Disasters

There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change... The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados... The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses.  –IPCC Special Report on Extremes, Chapter 4

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/29/newsbytes-the-srex-feeding-frenzy/

-----------------------

Do channel niners think today's computer models can accurately determine what the climate will be like 100 years from now?

1 hour ago, Proton2 wrote

Do channel niners think today's computer models can accurately determine what the climate will be like 100 years from now?

Well, do we compute all possible values of all variables involved? What are all the variables?

C

When you write about climate change, you get even more angry emails than when you write about Muslims. Last time I tried, one reader berated me for mentioning "fictional pompous Al Gore's enriching scheme of global warming" in my "ridiculous article". This man ended with a quote from Einstein: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Another reader, whose sign-off cited his PhD, explained to me that all the international summits weren't "about man-made climate change 'science' ... but really about a larger 'global wealth distribution scheme'."

It's tempting to blame "climate sceptics" for the world's inaction on man-made climate change. (The United Nations' latest summit, starting in Durban on Monday, won't save the planet either.) Greens often talk as if the enemy were not climate change itself, but a self-taught band of freelance sceptics. No wonder, because fighting culture wars is the fun bit of politics. However, this fight is pointless. The sceptics aren't the block to action on climate change. They just wish they were. Instead, they are an irrelevant sideshow.

Sceptics and believers quarrel about the science because they both start from a mistaken premise: that science will determine what we do about climate change. The idea is that once we agree what the science says, policy will automatically follow. That's why the Nobel committee gave Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a peace prize.

Mysteriously, though, the policy still hasn't followed the science. Almost all scientists already agree on the science. An article in the PNAS, journal of the US National Academy of Sciences, last year found that 97 per cent of actively publishing climate scientists believe man-made climate change is happening. Nonetheless, the world hasn't acted.

Clearly then, science doesn't determine policy, concludes Daniel Sarewitz of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes in Washington. Yet the pointless quarrel about science continues.

It's pointless first of all because what most people believe about climate change has little to do with science. After all, hardly any layperson understands it. Rather, people's beliefs about climate change follow from their beliefs about the world. "We disagree about climate change because we have different belief systems," writes Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the UK's University of East Anglia.

American sceptics, for instance, are disproportionately likely to be conservative white males, say the sociologists Aaron McCright and Riley Dunlap. Conservative white males don't like governments interfering with business. They don't like global co-operation. Nothing will convince them that we need global co-operation to interfere with business and tackle climate change, especially not if Al Gore says so.

Conversely, liberals who do like global co-operation and interfering with business are going to believe in climate change, even though hardly any of them understand the science either. "Climate change has joined gun control, taxes and abortion as a form of social identity marker," writes Matthew Nisbet, social scientist at American University in Washington. In this debate, and not just in the US, almost nobody is open to persuasion.

Beating the sceptics around the head with the science just gives them attention. It also allows them to roar in triumph whenever the believers get any bit of science wrong, as when the IPCC exaggerated the melting of Himalayan glaciers. The squabble also creates a one-dimensional argument about climate change: do you believe it's real or not? I've found to my cost that many people can only read articles about climate change as statements of either belief or scepticism. This obscures better questions, such as what exactly we should do about climate change.

The quarrel with the sceptics is additionally pointless because they are a small minority – under a fifth of the 35 million Americans who actively engage in this issue, estimates Jon Krosnick, social psychologist at Stanford University. In a poll sponsored by the World Bank in 15 countries in 2009, "in each country the public believed climate change to be a serious problem," writes Roger Pielke Jr, political scientist at the University of Colorado. He adds: "The battle for public opinion has essentially been won." Admittedly, he cautions, most people who believe that climate change exists feel only lukewarm concern. However, trying to convince them with even more science is probably pointless too.

The sceptics and the apathetic will always be with us. There'll never be full consensus on climate change. But if governments could only act when there was unanimity, no law on anything would ever be passed. The US invaded Iraq, bailed out banks and passed universal healthcare with much less consensus than exists over climate change. In short, the sceptics are not the block to action.

Rather, the block is that the believers – including virtually all governments on earth – aren't sufficiently willing to act. We could do something. But shouting at sceptics is easier.

Off the top of my head:

One of the main models used for short term analysis is the General Circulation Model that consists of the atmosphere and ocean.

The Milankovitch cycles which causes changes in the amount of insolation (sun light) that hits earth from changes in orbit amongst other cyclic variables (for example elliptical orbit around the sun causes variability).

Changes in albedo (reflectivity) from snow cover, sea ice, clouds to name a few.

 Then there is the resolution used. One person I know was told a few years ago that the grid resolution they used was 10 thousand square kilometers. The computers back then couldn't handle anything smaller. Added variables since then have made computing power of even today inadequate.

 "In a "past life" I worked for a major computer manufacturer. While in Hamburg meeting with the people from the German Meteorological Center, I asked one of the scientists what the resolution was for paleoclimate reconstructions – answer 10000 Km^2. I quickly moved on in topic, as he appeared embarrassed to discuss it."

Today they don't even have microbes in the climate models.:

"The sum total of microbial activity is enormous, but the net effect of microbes on climate-relevant gases is currently not known," says Edward DeLong of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who co-chaired the report with Caroline Harwood of the University of Washington."

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/14/microbes-and-their-impact-within-climate-models/

Clouds are currently not well understood or well represented in the climate models.

The grid resolutions even today are very coarse. They can't determine local effects.

Here is a link to a page listing potential climatic variables, and there looks to be well over 1 hundred, though I haven't counted:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/potential-climatic-variables/ 

14 minutes ago, Proton2 wrote

@evildictaitor: There is no science in that article, it just appears to use ad hominem. Making up excuses why people aren't buying instead of the real reason, which is that there is no science supporting the idea of catastrophe. Don't get me wrong, there is science showing that there is a green house effect, but no indication that it presents a problem.

It seems you just read everything with your denialist-goggles on full. The article isn't about how AGW is a real or not. It's merely stating that whether we do something about it has nothing to do with science.

How the world will respond to global climate change, or whether or not is happening will not be solved here on C9.

I kindly suggest we give this thread a rest.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Show-Us-Your-Tech/High-Performance-Computing-with-Wenming-Ye

or maybe it was this one:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Cloud+Cover/Episode-67-Techical-Computing-with-Windows-Azure-and-Wenming-Ye

I have an developing interest in high performance computing ever since I upgraded my math skills while taking a "sabbatical" from the ongoing continuous learning of new programming techniques and technologies. I am glad I bypassed the early versions of for example silver-light. The math skills I have acquired will never become obsolete

@evildictaitor : I would like to give this threads topic a rest, I just wish the MSM reporting on the topic was more accurate. My apologies if I misunderstood you.