I guess this says it all:
• If successful, bio-oils from photosynthetic algae could be used to manufacture a full range of fuels including gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel that meet the same specifications as today’s products.
Can anyone show me a chart for the past 20 years showing the price, delivered to the consumer and excluding all subsidies, of petrol and diesel from algae plants?
Even I know of David Ehrenfeld; I read “The Arrogance of Humanism” as an undergraduate.
Looks like the traditionalists are being driven out by the new-wavers.
Bringing this to a new part.
The way this started was as follows
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David Springer September 10, 2012 at 5:09 am | Reply
Bottom line: No warming for past 15 years even while CO2 increased 8%. Sensitivity ZERO. Take that and stick it in your pipeline.
tempterrain | September 10, 2012 at 8:34 am | Reply
No warming for the past 15 years is not the scientific consensus.
with a reference to a graph showing ADJUSTED temperatures
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The firat part of David’s statement is clearly correct; global temperatures have not risen for the past 15 years. What tempterrain claims is that when the temperatures are ADJUSTED, the effect of CO2 can be seen. So, the empirical data shows that temperatures have indeed not risen.
When the IPCC first presented the case for CAGW, the claim was made that the CO2 effect was so strong that it overwhelmed all other effects. When global temperatures failed to follow the IPCC prediction, we got papers like Smith et al Science August 2007 to explain why. When this explanation turned out to be almost certainly wrong, then there is a need for the proponents of CAGW to find reasons why Smith et al is irrelevant, and now we have Rahmsdorf.
What Rahmsdorf is claiming is that the CO2 signal is so weak, that it is easily hidden by other forcings. This is quite contrary to the original IPCC claim. What I predict is that in due course, Rahmsdorf will be seen to be wrong, as Smith et al appears to be. Then someone else will try and explain why CAGW is not apparent in the actual temperature data.
The second part of David’s statement is also basically correct, but not for the reason David implies. The total climate sensitivity of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero, not because there has been no rise in temperature for the last 15 years, but because the temperature trend for the last 15 years is no different for what it has been for the last 150 or more years. Despite the claims of the proponents of CAGW there is no sign of any CO2 signal in any temperature/tiem graph.
in the end, I predict that all the attempts by the proponents of CAGW to show that CO2 has any effect on global temperatures will be in vain. Mother Nature cannot be fooled
@lolwot
Do you have any empirical evidence for a pH drop of 0.2 in 100 years? Or is this another purely theoretical construct?
My paper “Limits to Maths: Correcting Some Erroneous Foundations” sheds considerable light on this very topic. The single most pervasive tool of science — mathematics — is currently falsely founded as per infinity. This matters immensely whenever and wherever there may be infinite phenomena (an infinity of things happening all together, all at once, in an interconnected fashion) for that would be a circumstance where no mathematical formula could hope to characterize the phenomena (notice the attempts to resolve infinities in advanced physics by use of mathematical renormalization, which appears at best to render ad hoc kluges, but not a generalizable theory).
If foundational phenomena were indeed infinite phenomena, then all of theoretical science could be imagined merely to be catalogues of situational observations of secondary phenomena — never characterizing the fundamental phenomenology, but only characterizing observed / observable finite phenomena!
Further, if there are two categorical spheres of phenomena — one dissipative (or entropic) the other anti-dissipative (anti-entropic, syntropic, that result in the emergence of semi-persistent observable/”physical” structures) — it may be possible that the great successes in mathematical characterizations are characterizations of observed dissipative STATIC and DYNAMIC patterns but chiefly only anti-dissipative STATIC patterns (which could be because the dynamic patterns of anti-dissipative systems are phenomenologically infinite in nature).
If this were true, then there are important and broad implications for how the conduct of science can and should shift to be more useful and productive, in ways that I believe would directly solve the “it is 30 years that we fail” problem.
Also of great import, the implications of my paper to the philosophy of science provides not only further evidence of manifest uncertainty BUT REVEALS EXACTLY HOW UNCERTAINTY COULD BE A PERSISTENT PHENOMENA WE MISS FAR TOO OFTEN BECAUSE OUR SENSE IS THAT IF WE CANNOT WRITE WHAT IS HAPPENING DOWN MATHEMATICALLY, IT IS NOT A REAL PHENOMENA — which is completely false, as my paper shows. This misperception has a term or two used to describe it: “scientism” or “scientific materialism” or sometimes “materialist scientism”. There is risk that scientific luminaries of today are increasingly falling in the errant margins of such scientism where truth is not to be found.
When a well known scientist says global warming is “nothing to worry about”, is that advocacy or a scientific opinion? If he is wrong, this could arguably be a more harmful statement than alarmism in the same way as a statement that there will be no tornado precedes one.
@lolwot
Care to expound on exactly what you think evolution has got to do with climatology? I often see it raised as an attempted diversionary tactic by alarmists. But it is such a spectacularly daft response as to be totally counter-productive.
Alamrist 1: Help…them pesky sceptics are winning the argument….we’re out of ammo and they’ll overwhelm us soon.
Alarmist 2: Only one thing for it…fire our secret weapon …the Evolution argument
Alarmist 1: Will it work?
Alarmist 2: Nope. But they’ll be laughing at us so much that they’ll slow down a bit.
Alarmist 1: Argument away, boss
Alarmist 2: Nice one, lollie
Alarmist 1: Its not worked…they’re still coming after us…just wetting themselves with giggles along the way
Alarmist 2 : Bugger…another failed tactic. We surrender!
“When a well known scientist says global warming is “nothing to worry about”, is that advocacy or a scientific opinion?”
Depends. If that the the conclusion to a piece of work it is a scientific opinion, if it is the view of a scientists based upon their own understand of a field it is advocacy.
So you can see an oncologist for a specific type of cancer, at a specific stage and the expert will say resection, vinblastine and gamma knife, which is a scientific opinion.
If the oncologist states that better outcomes will become apparent in the future with microsurgery, combination drug therapy and better gamma beams its advocacy.
So you can’t imagine a situation where the CO2 signal is not easily seen at the decadal scale, but can be easily seen at the century scale? Do you know about signal-noise ratios?
During the 30 years since I completed my Ph.D., I have observed (only anecdotal, so typical caveats apply) that I was trained and many in those days were trained that science should be as objective as we could make it. The data should drive the discussion, not the other way around. This is more or less modeled after Bacon’s view of science, which I have thought is too simplistic. However, now that I see where the Kuhnian vision leads us, I have come to think that Bacon was right. Kuhn’s description may be more realistic, but it leaves almost no standards for science; no aspiration for objectivity. I expect the current climate science controversy will hurt all of science. If warming doesn’t resume in a big way in a few years, even diehard warmists will have to admit there is something wrong with the models. If that happens, the public will remember for a long time how the “experts” got it so wrong and they will assume all science is done that way. I think Judith has it exactly right. Being honest about the uncertainty and admitting that there are many things about which we cannot reach conclusions would go a long way toward preventing the damage.
in discussing scientists forfeiting their credability i’d say a link in th previous thread by Herman A Pope, Sept @ 5.06pm, ter Burt Rutan is relevant here.
Burt Rutan, the aero space legend, hey this isn’t an appeal ter authority but about a relevnt critique of climate science, says,
‘Although I have no climate credentials I do have considerable expertise in processing and presenting data…
I avoided focussing on media reports and instead, went directly to available raw data…t process their various theories about planet warming…
What really drew me into the subject was when I couldn’t obtain raw data … I was shocked to find that there were actually climate scientists who wouldn’t share the raw data, but would only share their conclusions … in summary graphs that were used…’
Well, isnt science about replication of yer tests and isn’t sharing data basic ter what yer do if yer doing science?
Hmm,so aren’t these so named climate scientists jest acting as shamen, up their on the hill in the cave, telling us… down here:
‘Trust us, we will tell you what the data means.No! other jumped up scientists and Steve Mc, yer can’t have the data, we don’t give out the data, only WE are fit ter read the message in the data.’
I think it is to do with inbred belief systems not being able to accept new external facts from science.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with advocacy from the people who understand the problem best. “Nothing to worry about” is advocacy for doing nothing, having weighed up his own view of the probabilities. “Nothing” is a strong word to use, implying certainty. Do skeptics accept advocacy based on certainty when it comes to the climate system, or only in one direction? I am not seeing consistency here.
@LA: PS. The thing about predictions is that you have to make them ahead of time. Not afterwards.
There are predictions, then there are prediction methodologies. What you say is true of the former but not the latter.
If you’ve come up with a least squares fit to the data to date based on some methodology, you can test that methodology by deleting the last n years of data and applying the same methodology to see what it predicts n years into the future, and comparing it to the data now at hand. This is a very standard technique in model construction.
So the state-funded lackeys at the NAS agree with the state-funded lackeys at the IPCC. What a surprise.
Judith,
For example, better public understanding does not necessarily lead to more rational policy making.
I wish you wouldn’t include the words “not necessarily” in every sentence where you actually get near to saying something definite.
This sentence seems completely at odds with any sort of belief in the principle of democracy. The public can’t be expected to understand climate science. They rely on people like yourself to explain it to them in a way they can understand.They might even rely on you to answer scientific question on pdf’s, or at least say that you can’t 
Those of us who do believe in democracy would argue that better public understanding does “necessarily” lead to better policy.
Well done, Wag. A quote from a climate skeptic so harmless no one has found anything bad to say about him yet. Must be a record on this blog.
Science is the dispassionate description of something. Advocacy is the passionate selling of something. Mixing the two is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Not a good idea.
