Ok, here is the new thread that I am attempting to move out of the "Backcountry Cookfires" thread. Flame away.

Brian James wrote:
"We're using two different definitions of Carbon Neutral. Yours is the official definition"

Well, I'm glad we agree on that.

Brian James wrote:
"whereas I'm using a functional one that I invented."

So, again, a tautology. I'm wrong because you define me as being wrong. But it does verify my suspicion that we are talking about two different things. I'm willing to bet that we actually agree, if you read the link that Arapiles cited closely enough. (In much the same way that he and I found that we were talking about two subtly different things during that argument.)

Brian James wrote:
"I'm not even trying to debate"

That's what I said: you have defined me as wrong, and you are unwilling to have a dialog. Well, maybe I'm wrong... I guess you mean 'debate' as in the classical debate-club sense. Well, neither am I. This isn't a competition. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let anyone get away with specious logic, like using ad hominem attacks or tautologies.

Brian James wrote:
"I could go back through my post and pepper it with... 80's pop psychology... but I feel that you get what I mean."

I didn't ask you to pepper your post with anything; I just asked you to back up what you said, which is generally expected of adults everywhere. And, yes, I get what you said: You said that I am a member of the Vast Environmental Conspiracy, and a pawn of some sort of agenda. Am I taking this too personally, or did I misunderstand what you said? Because it sure sounded like that crack was directed at me.

Sorry, but I do take that personally, and trying to say "Well, this is just my opinion..." is not a mitigating factor. If I say that my opinion of you is that you are an undereducated zealot, should you not take it personally? (I emphasize that I'm not calling you names; I'm trying to make a point.)

Not to mention, the very idea that one person's opinions are just as valid as any other's is ludicrous. Is the opinion of an semiliterate Indonesian drift-net fisherman regarding sustainable fishing just as valid as that of a Fish and Game marine biologist? Of course not!

As I said, for all I know you are a climatologist. And Arapiles and I agreed (I think...) that burning pine cones and twigs that will grow back in one season in something like a Bushbuddy is very sustainable with effectively no net impact on greenhouse gases. At the risk of sounding repetitious: we agreed that large-scale burning of wood for heat and power faster than it regrows is NOT carbon-neutral. My big point was that there is a very fundamental difference between freeing carbon locked in wood and freeing carbon that was fixed in oil millions of years ago. Read about the Azolla event. Before it locked away all that carbon the Earth was a hothouse with no ice at the poles. THAT is the sort of carbon (among other sources of oil) that we are freeing when we burn fossil fuels.

If you just say "You're wrong!", and I just say "No, you're wrong!", what does that accomplish?

Forums are a great place to discuss opinions. But if you have a OPINION on a SCIENTIFIC subject, then DEFEND it. (And please do it in the new thread (Chaff > The Carbon Flame War), if it concerns carbon neutrality, et al.)

On the other hand, if you say "my objection is almost totally aesthetic", well then that ends that, doesn't it? I can't say that I want to find fire rings in the Yosemite back country, either. I'd have to say that I agree with you in principle, though we may differ on exactly how rigid we are about it. (See below.)

But you can't claim some bizzare rationalization based on carbon emissions. That's what I was trying to say.

Arapiles wrote:
"But the interesting thing is I think all three of us agree that the article recommended practices that are wildly outdated and inappropriate."

In national parks, wildernesses, and wildlife refuges, yes. But as I said, I have no great heartburn over small recreational campfires and firepits on BLM or national forest land. I certainly don't want them EVERYWHERE, and I don't want Joe Sixpack going out and building bonfires, but the intended use of those lands is different than the parks. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind if all national forests were changed into parks by fiat, either. I don't understand why the US government has to keep subsidizing Weyerhauser. If that makes lumber too expensive, well, then we can build houses out of brick, like they do in Europe (or at least Germany).

Ooooh goodie, a carbon debate. Can anyone join in?

Just to pick up on what you said about the earth being a hothouse before the 'Azolla event'. It's an underappreciated fact that the earth has spent the majority of the last 500M years at a global average temp of around 22C. That's abut 10C higher than it is at the moment, we're just coming out of a major period of ice ages. Hothouse is the norm for planet earth and no matter what we try do about it, the temperature will rise to 22C and level out again, just as it has after the last 4 major ice age periods during the last 500M years. Here's the graph:



Given the way earth's temp levels out at 22C and 'recovers' from ice ages, we have to conclude that we have been in a period of unusually cool climate and it's going to get a lot hotter in the long run.

Taxing the bejeezus out of us for using cheap airlines won't make any difference, and neither will refraining from lighting small campfires or hiking in sackcloth and the ashes from Joe's bonfire.

Sorry if this is at a bit of a tangent to the original debate.

Edited by tallbloke on 04/07/2008 02:28:30 MDT.

Tallbloke,
You may, or may not, be right about what happens in the long run, but the changes illustrated by your graph play out over the course of 100's of millions of years. Life in all its myriad forms is very adaptable, given time, but the events we see playing out today are goosing the process into overdrive(if one can believe the IPCC and others), so that these changes will occur in a matter of centuries. That puts enormous stress on the ability of millions of species to adapt and survive. Some of those creatures, e.g. phytoplankton that produce most of the O2 in the atmosphere, may be critical to our own survival. Nobody knows for sure but, when the stakes are so high, why roll the dice? Maybe better to err on the side of caution?

Tom,
Humans like to believe that change is 'naturally gradual' because it's less intimidating that way. However, evidence of past events in the fossil rcord and ice core samples show otherwise. Big melts of arctic ice etc have happened over very short timescales many times before, and long before man set fire to coal. Greenland used to be green. Vineland used to support the grape.

Humans also like to believe they are a powerful and influential force on the planet, but in truth, we are pretty insignificant on the big scale of things. In the face of enormous natural forces we cannot control or even affect more than infinitesimally, 'erring on the side of caution' could be 'fiddling while Rome burns'. It could well be that the best course of action for us would be to expend large amounts of fossil fuel energy over the next few decades moving folks inland and up the hill a bit and reconfiguring the infrastructure before the coast goes under.

However, the immediate forecast put out by those who believe that the sun's cyclic changes in erruptivity are a much more important driver of climatic variation than atmospheric CO2 are saying that far from runaway global warming, we are facing a big cooldown period over the next 50 years as sunspot activity drops to a 300 year minimum. The last time this happened, folks were holding ice fairs on the river Thames and River Rhein.

Given the fact that the ice core samples show that rises in CO2 lag behind rises in temperature by several hundred years rather than precede them, I'm inclined to take them seriously. These century scale swings in temperature of several degrees gradually build into the major changes over millenia evidenced by the graph I posted above. Species are adaptable given time as you note, and they will get plenty of 'remisission periods' in which to thrive between 'stressful change periods' where natural selection will be fiercer.

Change is the norm, we have been through a long period since the bronze age of unusually stable climate and have come to regard change as cataclysmic and something to be feared. If our Neolithic ancestors were capable of migrating thousands of miles before advancing glaciers and deserts, and rising or receding seas, we should be able to rise to the challenge too.

Edited by tallbloke on 04/08/2008 03:18:54 MDT.

Rog,

Granted there is a certain amount of granularity in global temperatures. The "little ice age" just ended, and the "year without summer" was only a couple of centuries ago. But your graph shows changes in temperature by 10C over the course of 5 million years or so. What is happening now is MUCH quicker than that. Isn't a 2C change predicted in the next 50 years or so? Can I rule out that it is a part of this granularity in global temperatures? No, of course not. I'm not a climatologist, but when 90% of the scientific community (the 90% without grants from Exxon-Mobil) tell me that there is a problem I'm inclined to at least pay attention.

In support, here is a link to an essay that is much discussed, in which a literature search on scientific papers published from 1993-2003 with the keywords "climate change" found no sources dissenting the human impact on global warming:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

I will grant that this is one decade, and dissenting papers can be found. Most of them date from the 1970's and 1980's, with a pathetic few as late as 1991. I will also grant that this wan't the most rigorous of research but, heck, it was published in Science magazine.

In addition, here is a list of scientific organizations of national or international stature endorsing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change statement, to whit, that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the rise in temperature through the latter half of the 20th century:

Joint science academy
InterAcademy Council
European Academy of Sciences and Arts
Network of African Science Academies
U.S. National Research Council
American Meteorological Society
Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Physics
American Astronomical Society
American Physical Society
Federal Climate Change Science Program
National Center for Atmospheric Research
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London
American Quaternary Association
Geological Society of America
American Chemical Society
Federation of American Scientists
Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
European Geosciences Union
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
International Union of Geological Sciences
International Council for Science
European Science Foundation

Note all of those Geological societies...

Here is a list of dissenting scientific organizations of national or international standing:


Note, there are none. I can make a list of individual scientists who dissent, but no organizations. There must be some out there, but my cursory search didn't find them. If you've got one, let me know.

Here is a list of officially noncommittal scientific organizations of national or international standing:

American Association of State Climatologists
American Association of Petroleum Geologists

So even the American Association of PETROLEUM Geologists can't muster a dissenting opinion! Here is the AAPG statement:

http://dpa.aapg.org/gac/statements/climatechange.pdf

Granted, I got this list from Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt. I did. I didn't check every organization, but I did check the position of several of the bigger ones.

By the way- what kind of a source is that chart of yours? Isn't geocraft.com a retail dealer of fossils from West Virginia? Can you cite a better source? (Preferably peer-reviewed.) I'd like to read up on this. It was my understanding that there was never a period in Earth's history before 65 million years ago or so that both poles were glaciated.

Incidentally, the original argument wasn't about global warming. It was about the carbon-neutrality of burning wood, as contrasted with fossil fuels, alcohol, etc. It got a little heated, so I tried to move it away from the innocents.

Edited by acrosome on 04/08/2008 13:32:16 MDT.

.

Edited by ChrisMorgan on 07/28/2010 09:40:05 MDT.

Hi Rog,
Dean, see his last post, and I are apparently reading the same sources. The lack of dissent among the best people we have is, I think, pretty compelling. Again, I stress the rate of change as it impacts adaptation. As for moving our collective butts to higher ground like our Neolithic ancestors, they were a relatively few millions in number. There are now ~6.5 billion and counting. Not enough high ground to go around, I suspect, never mind leaving enough to produce our food. Then again, processes already in motion may well be beyond our capability to mitigate. Nobody knows for sure...Interesting discussion in the appropriate forum. Thanks, Dean, for moving it here. It was rapidly degenerating in its former home.

FWIW solar activity as related to recent climate (temperature) changes has been eliminated as a cause.

"Our results show that the observed rapid rise in
global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified."

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

It is our collective foot that is on the accelerator. Carry on.

> Isn't a 2C change predicted in the next 50 years or so? Can I rule out that it is a part of this granularity in global temperatures? No, of course not. I'm not a climatologist, but when 90% of the scientific community (the 90% without grants from Exxon-Mobil) tell me that there is a problem I'm inclined to at least pay attention.

Hi Dean, The rise is predicted by a worthless computer model which has been shown to give wildly varying output depending on the intital conditions and unproven assumptions about the effect of CO2 on temperature you start off with. Garbage in - garbage out. Carbon dioxide is in fact a very weak greenhouse gas. The way in which the model comes up with it's scary figures is by assuming that increased atmospheric CO2 will lead to the formation of water vapour ( a greenhouse gas hundreds of times stronger than CO2) in the upper atmosphere. However, NASA's satellites show no increase of water vapour in the stratosphere over the last 20 years. This is a real empirical result, rather than a computer modelled flight of fancy.

Very few climatologists are in the pay of oil companies, compared with the estimated 3.2 billion dollar global warming gravy train funding the research of the 'pro global warming camp'. If you want a research grant these days in climatology, you have to pay lip service to the 'truth' of global warming or be left out in the cold.

>In support, here is a link to an essay that is much discussed, in which a literature search on scientific papers published from 1993-2003 with the keywords "climate change" found no sources dissenting the human impact on global warming:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

For 'much discussed' substitute 'much discredited' Naomi Oreskes is a historian of science, not a climatologist, and she was forced to admit an important disingenuity in her methodology after Benny Peiser found her results didn't match up to her stated case. Furthermore, a more recent study of the body of scientific literature discovered very different results:

http://tinyurl.com/2f8qxr

"Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research. Using the same database and search terms as Oreskes, he examined all papers published from 2004 to February 2007. The results have been submitted to the journal Energy and Environment, of which DailyTech has obtained a pre-publication copy. The figures are surprising.

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. This is no "consensus."

The figures are even more shocking when one remembers the watered-down definition of consensus here. Not only does it not require supporting that man is the "primary" cause of warming, but it doesn't require any belief or support for "catastrophic" global warming. In fact of all papers published in this period (2004 to February 2007), only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results."


>In addition, here is a list of scientific organizations of national or international stature endorsing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change statement, to whit, that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are responsible for most of the rise in temperature through the latter half of the 20th century:

[snip long list of worthy organisations]

The IPCC isn't a scientific body, editorial control of it's output rests with politicians and policy makers. Many of the scientists cited in support of it's findings were so angry about the way their work was misrepresented and manipulated that they demanded the withdrawal of their names from the final publication of it's most recent report. They were refused...

In that report, the IPCC admits that due to the current lack of understanding of the effect of solar erruptivity on cloud formation, they cannot quantify it's contribution to global average temperature variation. Illogically, they then go on to provide a definite figure for humankind's contribution to warming as being around 3.7 watts per square meter. The sun on a clear day lands around 1400 watts per square meter on the earths surface....

>Granted, I got this list from Wikipedia

Editorial control of Wikipedias section on global climate is dominated by the 'pro man made global warming camp'. Several attempts to my direct knowledge have been made to correct assumptions and errors in it, but they get reverted and dismissed every time. Wikipedia cannot be taken as a neutral or definitive source on this issue.

>By the way- what kind of a source is that chart of yours? Isn't geocraft.com a retail dealer of fossils from West Virginia? Can you cite a better source? (Preferably peer-reviewed.) I'd like to read up on this.

This page has two seperate graphs of CO2 and temperature over the last 500m years, source for the temp one is NASA.
Note the reversed timescale.

http://www.sankey.ws/globalwarm.html

Clearly this page has an agenda, as do all pages on the net regarding the climate issue, continue your own research and form your own conclusions on the scientific evidence, rather than relying on lists of organisations to back a viewpoint which has more to do with politics than science.

Check out 'urban heat island' for a start and why NASA's temp figures for the troposphere don't match up with the supposed rise in surface temperatures. (The southern hemispheres tropospheric temp has been falling almost as much as the northern hemisphere's temp has been rising over the last 20 years. The variation of both is significantly less than the surface figures which have been 'adjusted' (manipulated) to allow (not enough) for the urban heat island effect.

Study the cause and effect issue with the ice core sample results. If rises in CO2 lag behing rises in temperature by hundreds of years, how can CO2 be the cause of temperature rise rather than an effect of that temperature rise?

>Incidentally, the original argument wasn't about global warming. It was about the carbon-neutrality of burning wood, as contrasted with fossil fuels, alcohol, etc

Alcohol is a biofuel as are pine cones and twigs, as are coal and oil. It all comes from the sun's energy in the final analysis. The argument is about the rate at which we unlock the energy from past deposition. I'd agree with you that having a small twig fire to cook your trail dinner is a harmless and enjoyable activity.

I'll back off and let you get on with the debate.

Cheers

Rog

Edited by tallbloke on 04/09/2008 03:06:22 MDT.

>"Our results show that the observed rapid rise in
global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified."

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf


Hi Rick, The Royal society's paper is talking about solar irradiance, and takes no account of solar erruptivity. There is an important distinction here. Irradiance is the amount of heat given off by the sun. Erruptivity relates to the strength of the solar wind which wards off highly energetic particles entering the solar system from outside. There is recent research which suggests that these particles have much to do with cloud formation which in turn has strong effects on the earth's surface temperature.

The Guardian and the BBC both ran informative articles on this recently, I'll try to find some links for you.

>As for moving our collective butts to higher ground like our Neolithic ancestors, they were a relatively few millions in number. There are now ~6.5 billion and counting. Not enough high ground to go around, I suspect, never mind leaving enough to produce our food.

Hi Tom, fortunately, it looks like we won't have to go to all that trouble. :-)

http://tinyurl.com/ysb7xo

"All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years."

Isn't it amazing, Bush only has to *say* he wants to reduce CO2 output, and Lo! the earths temperature plummets! ;-)

Edited by tallbloke on 04/09/2008 03:11:04 MDT.

"Very few climatologists are in the pay of oil companies, compared with the estimated 3.2 billion dollar global warming gravy train funding the research of the 'pro global warming camp'. If you want a research grant these days in climatology, you have to pay lip service to the 'truth' of global warming or be left out in the cold."


Insurers and reinsurers aren't debating global warming, they're paying for it - and working out what it's going to cost them in the future. And as actuaries and people with other quantitative science backgrounds they're not exactly into soft-science, they're hard-nosed number-crunchers. And their research isn't funded externally, it's funded internally for their own purposes, so it's not subject to political concerns. And I've never seen even a glimmer of a suggestion from any of the risk studies done by reinsurers that I've seen that throw even the slightest doubt on the reality of global warming. If you want an actuary's view of the evidence for global warming check out SwissRe's on-line resources.

I remember being in Melbourne in 1990 and being shown a graph of the storm insurance claims in Melbourne. Historically most storm claims were for the winter months of June and July. From the mid-80's onwards it very suddenly switched to November/December and I believe that that's still the pattern. The insurer showing me the graph said "and they say there's no such thing as global warming".

I see this meme frequently, and it always brings a chuckle and a sigh (along with the semi-popular "man's arrogance" line of thought). When a climatologist retires with a golden parachute the size of Lee Raymond's, we can talk. If nothing else, the various industries potentially negatively affected by a switch from carbon-sourced energy have taken tobacco's playbook and are engaged in vigorous and very effective rear-guard action. Every year they buy is a gift--but at what cost to the rest of us?

Speaking of Lee Raymond:

"The American Enterprise Institute, of which Lee Raymond is vice-chairman, offered $10,000 stipends to scientists for studies disputing the IPCC 2006 report on climate change."

It's silly, really, because the myriad actions required will take decades, and contemporary energy supplies will dwindle even faster with every delay, meaning ultimately a precipitous decline rather than a soft landing for big oil, et al.

Sea water acidification could be equally problematic, as the oceans' buffering capacity is used up.

Very few climatologists are in the pay of oil companies, compared with the estimated 3.2 billion dollar global warming gravy train funding the research of the 'pro global warming camp'. If you want a research grant these days in climatology, you have to pay lip service to the 'truth' of global warming or be left out in the cold.

Regarding the proposed rate of temperature increase that I mentioned, Rog wrote:
“The rise is predicted by a worthless computer model which has been shown to give wildly varying output depending on the inital conditions and unproven assumptions about the effect of CO2 on temperature you start off with.”

Well, then it must be eight worthless computer models:

***************************************
Hmm. I gotta figure out how to post pictures, huh? I've asked several times, so can somebody tell me how to do that? It rather disappoints when my graph doesn't materialize.
***************************************



Aha! I have found the "Insert Image at Cursor" button that was right in front of my face. (I maintain that it was too obvious.) Evidently I had found it once before, since I posted a picture of a rocket nozzle a while back, but it must have been during a drunken stupor, as I do not remember it.

Anyway...

Rog also wrote:
“Study the cause and effect issue with the ice core sample results. If rises in CO2 lag behing [sic] rises in temperature by hundreds of years, how can CO2 be the cause of temperature rise rather than an effect of that temperature rise?”

That statement is based upon a pretty poor scientific assumption, namely: that the mechanism of current temperature rise is the same as the historical temperature rises that you mention. I think you will agree that rising temperatures lead, through various mechanisms, to a feedback cycle that releases CO2 into the atmosphere. (This is one reason for worries about a “runaway greenhouse effect.”) The reverse holds true, as well. Thus, if other incredibly complex mechanisms initiated the temperature rises and falls in the historical record, which most people will agree with you on, that is why the CO2 levels lag. CO2 probably didn't cause these temperature fluctuations, but rather were a result of them and fed back on them, as you said. Your graph starts in the Cambrian, when there were an awful lot of differences compared to the modern biosphere, atmosphere, geology, insolation, etc. A lot of the variables were wildly different, not just CO2!
The proposed mechanism for modern temperature rise is different, and concentrates on the variable that is changing the most significantly: CO2. The IPCC statement only covers the last 50 years, after all. And I will grant that the IPCC isn't a perfect scientific body, but until you can find me a better one that has a dissenting opinion, I'll listen to what they say.

Regarding the Urban Heat Island argument, I can name papers disputing that the effect is real. For example:

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442%282003%29016%3C2941%3AAOUVRI%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2FJCLI3730.1

Sorry, those are links to an abstracts only, as I do not subscribe to the journal in question. Of course, these papers have attracted criticism, so before you post it, I will. McIntyre:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1859

I would point out, however, that McIntyre was never published on this subject in any way, let alone peer-reviewed. A better criticism is Pielke:

http://climatesci.org/publications/pdf/R-302.pdf

But, these dissenting opinions are definitely a minority. You will notice this theme throughout my post...

When you talk about solar irradiation vs erruptivity, you're taling about the Solanki paper, right? Well, I think I recall that Solanki says in his paper that he has no idea what is causing global warming, and specifically doesn't attribute it to solar activity of any kind. So I would propose that it is neutral on the subject, not dissenting.

Regarding criticisms of the solar hypothesis for global warming, I'd be interested in your critique of this other paper that disagrees with it, and concludes that the observed changes in solar activity have minimal effect:

http://cc.oulu.fi/%7Eusoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf

Regarding the Oreskes paper, Rog Wrote:
“Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte recently updated this research.”

And also pointed out the Ms Oreskes is, in fact, a science historian, not a scientist. Well, yes, she is a science historian. I wasn't trying to sneak anything past anyone, and in fact called her work an “essay” for that reason. I could have been more explicit but, shucks, my posts are too long already. (Can I hear an "Amen!"?) I would propose that she is somewhat qualified to perform literature reviews, since that is basically what a science historian does. And, in her defense, she was published and peer-reviewed.

Which is more than can be said of Dr Schulte's work. First, he is an endocrinologist, as you hinted at, so he's not really any better a source than Oreskes, and probably a worse one. (I'm a surgeon, so my opinion of internal medicine specialties is, of course, low. *humor*) Second, the paper in question was never published. Regarding your link, note that it is from a blog, and is a sort of a “heads up” about a paper that will be published soon. Well, it wasn't. I am forced to resort to another blog entry to give the brief story to those who are interested:

http://www.desmogblog.com/schultes-analysis-not-published-not-going-to-be

In short, Dr Schulte's proposed study was apparently about some sort of psychological patient population who were experiencing angst and anxiety about global warming, and the statistics that you quoted were a by-product of trying to “prove” that such anxiety is irrational. I would thus propose that Schulte may have been biased, since if these fears are not irrational then he has no reason to treat these patients. (And his study covers a different, more recent time period that Oreske's, as you said.) Apparently he and Oreskes got a little heated with each other, and Schulte published a rebuttal to her statements. Here:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_reprint_series/open_letter_in_response_to_namoi_oreskes_criticisms.html

An exerpt: Schulte reviewed all 928 papers included in Oreske's paper, and he found a grand total of five that he thinks were mis-categorized in it and should have been analyzed as discounting anthropogenic climate change. That's still only 5/928! And one of them was an AAPG paper- an organization which, as I mentioned earlier, revised it's statements in 2007. Another is obviously more neutral than contradictory (Fernau et al. 1993).

And agin, it wasn't reviewed or published. So, Shulte: not a great source, either.

But BOTH Oreskes and Schulte are individual researchers. I still maintain that consensus from large organizations is a better metric. You will always be able to find someone on the fringe to disagree with even the most obvious conclusions. (Though obvious conclusions HAVE been proven wrong in the past, I know. Look up H. pylori some time...)

Regarding publishing bias, Rog wrote:
“Very few climatologists are in the pay of oil companies, compared with the estimated 3.2 billion dollar global warming gravy train funding the research of the 'pro global warming camp'. “

I refer you to another blog (unfortunately) discussing how the U.S government is subtly pressuring scientists to minimize support for anthropogenic global warming:

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11074-us-climate-scientists-pressured-on-climate-change.html

IF you want a more formal report, here is the one discussed in the blog entry, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists:

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/FTG-written-testimony.pdf

Rog wrote:
“Wikipedia cannot be taken as a neutral or definitive source on this issue.”

Well, duh. That's why I said “granted, I got this list from Wikipedia” by way of warning. I think I made my disclaimer obvious, so criticisms by you and others aren't terribly productive. (Agreement and a friendly jab, there, not hostility.) In fact I would go further to state that it isn't a definitive source on ANY issue. But, I find it a good place to start, and then follow the references, and google them, and find dissenting opinions, etc. Realistically, what else are you going to use in a timely fashion? Google- where you can PAY to have your site listed first in the search results?

DISCLAIMER! My graph, above, is from a Wikipedia site! (But, it's such a pretty graph...)

Regarding the sankey website you linked regarding historical CO2 levels: again, a private website, so not a great source. (note my caveats, above, whenever I link a blog, and I always try to find the primary sources.) And not many sources are referenced. Still, it is interesting. I did, despite my protestations, know roughly how the global climate has changed in the past few hundred million years, but I'm learning from this reading. Do you have anything published and peer-reviewed?

Rog wrote:
“Clearly this page has an agenda, as do all pages on the net regarding the climate issue, continue your own research and form your own conclusions on the scientific evidence...”

You got that right, Brother, and I always do. That's why I take everything you say with a grain of salt, too. Note how I check sources. I've discovered that a lot of people posting on fora like this try to bully their way around with inconceivably bad sources. Not all, but probably a majority, and I choose to call them on it. I'm not a geologist or climatologist but I am a scientist, so I at least have a chance of reviewing most scientific papers on global warming with a critical eye. I do not, however, have the time to devote my life to it.

Anyway, we can go back and forth like this FOREVER.

My position in a nutshell:
I think all this discussion is moot. We can argue degree, but the truth is that a VAST majority of scientific organizations AND individual scientists support the anthropogenic hypothesis for global warming. As you mentioned I got that list from Wikipedia, but I also CHECKED it. Can you find me dissenting statements from reputable national or international organizations? Seriously. I haven't had much chance to look, since I have now spent all of my free time on this post so far, but I'm going to try.

I'm willing to agree to disagree if you are. Frankly, I work VERY long hours and this is cutting into quality time with my daughter. Unfortunately I am almost incapable of backing down from an argument, but my knowledge base on this subject isn't as comprehensive as on carbon emissions specifically, so eventually I'm going to tire of the effort that I have to put into this "he said- she said" stuff. (I lay claim to the masculine side of that metaphor, by the way...) (*humor* again)

P.S.
Glad to hear your concurrence about burning wood. But then again, if you are a “global warming is hogwash” guy, I can hardly imagine that you'd disagree...

Wow. Isn't this fun ???

Edited by acrosome on 04/09/2008 14:05:34 MDT.

Rog,
A one year blip is just a blip, not a trend, and a statistical "zeroing" of the account doesn't put ice back on the glaciers, stop the melting of the permafrost which releases methane in ever increasing quantities, etc. Stay tuned.

Hi Tom, the antarctic has been accreting more ice than it has been losing off its edge for a few years now. I know weve all seen the emotive pictures of chunks dropping off the edge of the Llarson ice shelf in high summer when its film crew season but answer me this:

Where did glaciers used to flow to before man set fire to coal?

Hi Arapiles, I dont deny that there was a period in the second half of the C20th/start of the C21st when the global average temperature rose 0.6C or so. I jus doubt that it has much to do with human activity. The increase of CO2 in the atmoshere doesnt correlate particularly well with temperature for one thing, whereas it correlates very closely with sunspot activity. I will dig out the graphs on my pc when I get home.

Hi Arapiles, I dont deny that there was a period in the second half of the C20th/start of the C21st when the global average temperature rose 0.6C or so. I just doubt that it has much to do with human activity. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere doesnt correlate particularly well with temperature for one thing, whereas it correlates very closely with sunspot activity. I will dig out the graphs on my pc when I get home.

Yo Rog,
The chunk that dropped off was what, about the size of Massachusetts or so? Can't remember the exact state used for comparison, but it was a pretty hefty chunk of ice. Takes a lot of accretion to offset that. Meanwhile, the Arctic icecap and Greenland ice caps are hemorrhaging, the Himalayan glaciers are melting and, anecdotally, I can assure you that the glaciers here in the PNW are receding further every year. However, while we are focused on warming another, potentially devastating, phenomenon is unfolding; As Rick mentioned, above, the Ph of the oceans is falling due to increased absorption of atmospheric CO2 and the impact on the microorganisms that populate the oceans, often overlooked, is starting to show up; they play a critical role in the maintenance of life as we know it on this planet by anchoring the marine food chain and maintaining atmospheric O2. They operate within fairly narrow ranges of Ph and temperature. Given time, perhaps they could adapt to warmer and more acidic conditions, which brings us back to rate of change; but if they dont, we're in a world of hurt. As I said earlier, why roll the dice when there's so much potentially at stake. Better to back off on our consumption and population growth, and error on the side of caution until we're absolutely sure we understand what's going on. We can always get back to partying hearty later if all of us "Chicken Littles" are wrong. Matter of fact, I'll buy the first round of drinks for us all at that Great Watering Hole in the Sky" if that turns out to be the case.
Not sure what you mean with the glacier flow before man started burning coalreference.