Quantcast
Channel: Comments for Climate Etc.
Viewing all 147818 articles
Browse latest View live

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by A fan of *MORE* discourse

0
0

DocMartyn, not just the examples you cite, but *EVERY SINGLE ONE* of the narratives that I cited, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Avatar, has received severe criticism and/or cries for censorship, originating from the ideological left *AND* the ideological right.

Heck, that’s why I picked them!   :)   :)   :)

Now, enjoy the first twenty minutes of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight: War Comes to America , and see how many artistic details you can spot, that were anathema to the ideologues of Capra’s generation!   :)   :)   :)


Comment on The Government-Climate Complex by thisisnotgoodtogo

0
0

Steve,who didn’t do what ?

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by Robert

0
0

“The country may have achieved abolition in a decade or three without civil war.”

Well, we’re well and truly OT now, but I have to say I doubt this.

At the time of the South’s attempted secession, the President had explicitly, loudly, and repeatedly stated that he had no intention or even inclination to “interfere with the institution of slavery.”

So it is hard to see how slavery could have been left to “wither on the vine” avoiding civil war, if the mere election of someone who opposed the extension of slavery to the North was all it took to set it off.

Not related to moral imperatives, it may be that the climate wars fade away in a decade or three with no real consensus ever achieved on the underlying science around CO2 forcing:
- Human CO2 emissions may not reach projected levels.
- Atmospheric CO2 may not increase as projected in response to those emissions.
- Other cooling forcing may become more important (solar, particulates, interstellar dust cloud).

While doubtless the climate wars, like all political conflict, will eventually fade away or transmute into something different, I find the specific scenario you outline extraordinarily improbable. Atmospheric CO2 has been steadily increasing at an accelerating rate throughout the whole of the instrumental record. Emissions could end up 10%, 20%, or 40% under — or over! — what analyses project — these are based on economic projections, which are not known for being highly accurate. But even if human emissions undershot projections, they would still be far too high to prevent atmospheric CO2′s relentless rise. Only deliberate, collective action can do that.

As for “white knight” cooling influences — also very unlikely. The sun can’t do it — cf this graph of the projected effect of a new grand solar minimum: http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-minimum-solar-discussion-in-one.html. Interstellar dust clouds? No. For many reasons, no.

Much more likely that unexpected cooling in the 21st century is unexpected warming. Remember, the changes in the solar forcing that pushed the world in and out of ice ages are miniscule compared with the anthropogenic forcing. If those slight nudges can trigger 5-6C of global warming, what is the sledgehammer of AGW going to do?

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by DocMartyn

0
0

I work with a Scout Pack and was asked to do a presentation of ‘how not to be dead’. I actually look up the statistics for deaths of young males. Traffic accidents is first, then fires, drowning and then FALLS. If your home has a swimming pool or trees, these these are more likely to kill your son than a firearm.
No one appears to talk about the death toll of children caused by pools or trees.

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by David Wojick

0
0

The powerful force that abolished slavery in the USA was the Union army, backed by political will. The warmers have neither, as the movement sems to be failing. More stories will not help. People are tired of the stories.

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by hunter

0
0

Beth,
You have confused Robert’s being a psychiatric patient with being a psychiatrist.

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by Jim Cripwell

0
0

I find this post from Jim D
“Jim D | July 10, 2012 at 12:24 am |
There is a partisanship in this debate. You are either for AGW being true (2-4.5 degree sensitivity) or certain that it is not.”

As I have pointed out many times, the problem with discussions of climate sensitivity is that we have very little MEASURED data. Just about everything claimed of the numerical values for climate sensitivity is based on the output of non-validated models. Pekka claimed that there was weak empirical data to support a value for total climate sensitivity, but never produced this data.

Until we are able to actually measure climate sensitivity, we can never resolve the issue of what the proper numeric value is. And the only way that I can see that climate sensitivity can actually be meaaurred is to measure how much CO2 concentrations have gone up, and then show how much temperatures have risen as a result of this rise in CO2 concentration; that is we must identify a CO2 signal caused by increasing levels of CO2, against the background of natural noise. If there is another way of making this measurement, then what is it?

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by Dave Springer

0
0

Energy may be ramping up smoothly but it’s only 0.5W/m2. That’s enough to warm the entire volume of the ocean a mere 0.2C over the next 100 years. I’m supposed to be worried about that? Are you insane?


Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by Ian Blanchard

0
0

I think the recent Gergis paper is a great example of how a cock-up can look like a conspiracy to those who want to see it as such (particularly in light of how the paper was promoted in the MSM), and how confirmation bias of the authors (i.e. getting results that looked like their initial expectations) meant that the error in data processing didn’t get picked up.

On another note, the #4 fallacy about probability and risk evaluation is something that has an effect in many people’s day to day life – compare how many people are scared of flying (to the extent that they will refuse to board a plane) and are scared of travelling in a car. And yet where are you more likely to have an accident, and which has the worse record for fatalities?
The extensions of this one into the wider climate debate are interesting, with regard to the objections to nuclear power (too much risk of catastrophic accidents and from nuclear waste).

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by David Wojick

0
0

Robert, CAGW is the action issue, the reason we are here. AGW looks at the past, while CAGW looks at the future. It is so simple I marvel at your inability to grasp it. But then you seem to object to the language.

Both are only rock solid in your mind. Outside there is a great debate.

Comment on The Government-Climate Complex by hunter

0
0

Your ignorance of pipelines and pipeline leaks is profound.
It is matched by your ability to echo extremist enviro bs.

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by Peter Lang

0
0

Wagathon,

In the end the key fallacy is that we have been in a cooling trend for 2,000 years

May I suggest a small correction to your figure of 2000. According to James Hansen’s Figure 1 here::
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
We’ve been in a cooling trend for 50,000,000 years:
We’ve been in a cooling trend for 800,000 years
We’ve been in a cooling trend for 8,000 years
We’ve passed the peak of the glacial-interglacial cycle and in a 80,000 year cooling trend towards the next glaciation.

Therefore, risk analysis should consider whether or not an improvement in Earth’s ‘insulation’ might not be a good thing.

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by Dave Springer

0
0

Steve Milesworthy | July 10, 2012 at 4:35 am | Reply

“Brandon, people will always be irresponsible. If they are irresponsible when there are no guns around, less harm will come about.”

Steve, people will always be irresponsible. If they are irresponsible when there is no beer around, less harm will come about.

“I’m from the UK. We’re funny about guns.”

That’s because you’re a bunch of drunkards and have leaders who are sane enough to know that guns & beer don’t mix.

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by lolwot

0
0

“So, for example, the error in the surface statistical models is larger than the warming they claim to measure, so we do not know that it has warmed”

So you are questioning global warming, not just the cause.

And you use the word “we”.

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by DocMartyn

0
0

In 1927 the KKK was was allied and controlled by the Democratic Party; it was not a right wing group by any means.


Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by Peter Lang

0
0

gbaike,

You speculate about something hitting the Sun. I guess it wouldn’t matter if it hits at night, would it?

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by A fan of *MORE* discourse

0
0

Hector Pascal: “I would argue that the actual abolition of slavery in the British Empire was a more powerful force than publication of a novel. It depends on one’s historic perspective, I guess.”

Hector, are the British narratives of writers like Mary Prince, Olaudah Equiano and Ignatius Sancho unfamiliar to you?

How I envy the broadening of historic perspective that awaits you. Please let me commend in particular Jonathan Israel’s A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (2009), as an outstanding overview of history that (let’s face it!) is far too rich for most public schools, and for most politicians too.

Do you have any further historical queries, Hector Pascal?   :)   :)   :)

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by WebHubTelescope

0
0

Springer, Drill sergeants are never wrong. They must always be obeyed. A few of us find your frothing at the mouth entertaining.

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by A fan of *MORE* discourse

0
0
DocMartyn, the ideological left, the ideological right, and the dogmatically religious *ALL* have a predilection for censorship. Appreciating the universal appeal of censorship as a means of sustaining political power, the bedrock principle of free speech is among the most important checks-and-balances that the Framers embraced. According to the American Library Association, at present the most vehement calls for book censorship are coming from the religious right group <i><b><a href="http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2009/09/4274/" rel="nofollow">Focus on the Family</a></i></b>. My main quarrel with <i>Focus on the Family</i> is that they have *not* (yet) tried to ban Sherman Alexie! C`mon  … Alexie needs the sales boost attendant to banning!

Comment on 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think by A fan of *MORE* discourse

0
0

Gee, what is it that Climate Etc. folks are objecting to?

Mann says: I think people, you know, who read my story will be surprised to learn that one of the greatest heroes in this story was a Republican.

It was the Republican chair of the House Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert, an old-school pro-science, pro-environment Republican who actually stood up and defended my colleagues and me when we were under attack by his fellow republican, Joe Barton of Texas.

And it wasn’t that many years ago when this really wasn’t a partisan issue, when politicians of conscience on both sides of the aisle recognized that we needed to have a good faith discussion about what to do about the problem.

 … I have friends who are Republicans and Democrats, and I absolutely believe that my Republican friends care every bit as much about their children and their grand children as my Democrat friends

Gee, Mann like a pretty cool dude to me!   :)   :)   :)

As for climate-change hockey sticks, isn’t there a new one pretty much every week? The evidence looks strong to me!   :)   :)   :)

As for tobacco companies being criminal liars, isn’t that provably true? The evidence looks strong to me!   :)   :)   :)

So can’t we all just accept the established scientific fact that climate change is real, serious, and accelerating … as recognized by Republicans and Democrats alike … and the established legal fact that tobacco companies are convicted lying racketeers … and all just get along?   :)   :)   :)

Viewing all 147818 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images