Jack Daw

The article is referring to one person: Ivar Giaever and "Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message"
- now what I've learnt to do with the mass media is to cut off the part that is not really a particular statement and cannot be verified - a general phrase without any proofs, such as "many young scientists".

Now for the Ivar Giaever. As much as I agree that he's a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, what does he have to do with all of this?


So he based his letter on a fact that he cannot live with that... That's ok. But what is he actually his field of expertise? Let's have a look at the Nobel Prize description biography:
Ivar Giaever - Biography

Where exactly did he get his qualification in Climatology? That's a question. Maybe I didn't find it. But what authority does he have in that field?

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harveyc

Jack, on what basis of expertise do you ignore the piece being signed by 16 scientists?

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

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Richard

The article Harvey has provided spurns a connection between CO2 and greenhouse effects in the last century and the first 50 years of the present century. It does not refute the measurements of global warming in terms of 1C rise per century since 1400 -- the definition that the scientific community has for global warming. Nor does it refute evidence of climate change -- an upward shift in global temperatures over the last 50 years.

The author's discussion is largely concerned with efforts to curb CO2 emissions from mechanical sources. There is some merit to this view since humans and domesticated animals are the largest sector of contributors. However, the article does not address this fact or the unpleasant remedy of population reduction.

The view that global warming and climate change are occurring is held by 97% of the members of the American Physical Society.

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Jack Daw

I'm not ignoring them. It however seems that the rest of the APS does. And I guess it isn't only 16 scientists.

Membership 50,000
src: American Physical Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually 16/50000 = 0.00032%
I mean, even if it was 10%, the VAST majority of the scientists is of another opinion.

I was just asking what relevance does mentioning of THAT particular scientist had, since he didn't even have specialization in Climatology. The only relevance was, that he was most probably the only Nobel Prize winner and thus his mentioning there would put some more weight to his claims in an layman's view. Even though I doubt I would find any succesful climatology paper he wrote.

And come on... some of these people can't even pretend to be specialized in climatology:
Quote:


Harrison H. Schmitt - a geologist

Why don't they leave this to real Climatologists?

And some REAL paperwork on the status quo of the scientific consensus on Global warming, Climate change and man-made global warming:
http://tinyurl.com/dehjun
Expert credibility in climate change

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Richard

The one thing about those 16 people we could all sympathize with: perhaps they just want a warmer climate so they can grow edible bananas outdoors year-round in their location!

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Jack Daw

They are not the only ones.
This Siberian front has brought the first below 25F temps this entire winter. Or, shall I say... it will bring. Here I was hoping for northern Adriatic Italian winter... well. Still, as far as we are in the winter, statistically it's the warmest winter on record here.

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harveyc

Well, as far as I know, they haven't taken a confidential poll to ask what the other 49,984 members think.

At one time, the vast majority of scientists believed that Earth was flat and also that the universe rotated around Earth. Didn't make it right, just popular. My primary problem with all of this is questions about the accuracy of weather stations, appropriateness of weather station locations, and bias placed on the analysis of data. This has been gone discussed enough in the past.

I think the inclusion of a geologist is to appease folks that are "mining" for the truth. Some of the scientists signing onto that opinion piece do appear qualified based on their titles, but that could be misleading as well.

Who do "real" climatologists work for? Are they all entirely objective and independent?

I'm sure not qualified to know who to believe.

Jack, please know that if you feel attacked in any way by me asking these questions, that is not my intent. Just some open and somewhat light-hearted discussion.

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Richard

Yes, the results made national news so I suppose it is on their web site somewhere. My point was that it is more interesting to look at rates (percentage) than quantities of individuals.

Again, notice that in the article you provided the author embraces the idea of global warming in his opinion that it will be good for the planet over the next 50 years. What he calls into question are mechanical CO2 emissions as a cause for the observed increase.

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harveyc

My pitaya and bananas sure would look nicer if we didn't have 28 days of frost like this year. I won't depend on warmer weather right away but will try to get a cover over them before next winter.

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Jack Daw

Actually, the idea of Earth being flat had a dogmatic origin and most of the real scientists of any era opposed this idea... all the way from the old Greece up to Kopernikus and Galileo. The most important difference is that back then such people not only might have been, but often were publicly prosecuted, many important figures of scientific world were simply executed and proper scientific methods weren't taken into considerations.
Catholic church haS been the most significant scientific retardant in the history of the mankind in a way it supressed the most brilliant scientists of an entire era to express their "not beliefs", but observations. I disagree with you however that people always thought that the Earth was flat. Whilest relatively uneducated populus of the then known world certainly might have thought so, for instance old American Indians knew much more about the astronomy much earlier than anybody in the Europe and were aware of some cosmic processes way before the Europeans even dared to look at the skies. It is the society with freedom of scientific progress, that reaches the higher point.

As for the weather stations, I don't really know what that's about. Frankly this topic doesn't interest me that much at all. Although from the model I saw in the first post it's safe to guess that reliable (according to the scientists) weather stations are located all over the planet and the measurments are combined with the satelitte measurments.



Every real scientist works only to expand his knowledge (as opposed to the "popular scientists that only wnat to be seen and heard without actually having anything to say" - this is what a real scientist looks like and his contributions to the science will live as long as the mathematical apparatus that he worked with Grigori Perelman - Mind over money - YouTube ). Most of the real scientists don't even need that much money and acknowledgment - actually the more you see some scientist in the public and at the shows, interviews and the more he goes for the big money... the less objective work he is likely to do.

As you can see, through 1 publication the entire public was capable of identifying a talented mathematician that moved the maths one step further. Whereas there might mbe hundreds mathematicians that do not contribute to math as much and their publications are through the scientific evaluation processes valued less, if they deal with the same problems yet are unsuccesful in finding solutions and methods for them.

That is maybe inconceivable to you coming from the western world, but as for the rest of the world, being a scientist has always meant only the personal evolution and pride, especially when many of the scientists on this planet don't even work in conditions you (as a nation) would find workable.
One doesn't become a scientist to earn vast amounts of money. One becomes scientist, because it really is a calling for gaining and expanding your knowledge. Modern scientific methods and especially publishing methods have been created to ensure impartiality, objectivness..

I don't really have the time and this isn't the place, but the topic of scientific researching and publishing methods is so vast that it is dedicated a significant portion of time during the latter postgradual studies at the university.

The same techniques apply to ALL the scientific fields and ensure that the real contributors to the science are seen and the "talkers with hunches of how something might be" are labeled as such, unless they bring some evidence to their claims...

Again. I'm not expert in this field and don't even need to be. I do believe those 90%+ of scientists that what they actually observe and measure and claim is true. And I don't even dare to interfere with their observations and measurments just as I wouldn't want them to start interfering with the technological progress of computers or virology. They simply aren't qualified to solve these types of issues, that bother virologists...

And neither is the general public qualified to evaluate the work of the scientists. That's the real issue. Nobody would dare claim something to a virologist and want him to alter his techniques based on a marginal .00032% opinion in the virology and a general public opinion (needless to say how that might end). But the same doesn't apply to the climatology obviously.

And that's what I was claiming the previous post. If you click the first link to the REAL scientific publication from my previous post that set its role of defining how big the consensus really is, you will see a picture there. As you can see in the picture, the less qualified people are to talk about this matter, the less they claim Yes on the question... With public being the most unqalified and less saying yes, whilest the most qualified scientists (ACTIVELY PUBLICATING Climatologists) are in consensus as to what's going on by claiming Yes to the question.


No, I like constructive debates. As long as they are truly debates and are constructive.


Scientific method explained easy:
10 - The Scientific Method Made Easy - YouTube

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harveyc

Okay, this is wandering off-topic, but I'll acknowledge what I was taught in public school in the 1960s about the one time widespread belief of a flat earth was not correct.

Jack, in keeping this discussion constructive, I believe it is necessary to correct you in an area that I am quite sensitive to. You appear to be ignorant of the true facts around the history of the Catholic church and science. The Catholic Church did not spread the belief that the earth was flat.

See Where Did the Idea of a Flat Earth Originate?

Your retardant comment regarding the Catholic Church far from the truth. I suggest you read The Galileo Controversy | Catholic Answers on a common controversy where some of the church's historical influence with science is accurately described.

This site also has information and references to the church's involvement in the modern scientific method and development of the college system: http://pseudo01.hddn.com/vod/cchvide...Epic_proof.pdf

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Jack Daw

As for the flat Earth - I said it had dogmatic origins, not Catholic! Careful about mixing those together.


I won't be discussing religion and religious institutions. I believe in everybody's free choice in this matter, but I can respond to your links with this link:
Catholic Church and science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is supposed to be without any bias and was edited by many people from what I can gather in the discussion section. As for me, the Catholic Church (and other religious institutions) topic is closed.

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Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

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harveyc

Okay, even the dogmatic comment is not correct. Most church leaders and scientists taught that the earth was a sphere and I can only find where individuals with religious affiliations had theories that the earth was flat with no official church teaching (dogma) on the matter.

I read the Wikipedia article and didn't find anything that contradicted the information in the sources I posted, though my sources included more examples of church involvement in science. The Wikipedia article, however, does appear to be much a work in progress document as many statements are still in need of a citation.

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Nicolas Naranja

I'll state again that there is a great risk in extrapolating trends. Climatologists did this in the early 70s and they probably thought that we would keep getting colder. If you took the trend line from 1980-2000 you would find out that we are far below where we should be according to that trend line. It's also important to note that as the atmosphere warms there is necessarily an increase in CO2. Here's the question you need to ask yourself. The causes of increased CO2 are largely anthropogenic, but the increase in CO2 only explains at most 25% of the increase in temperature during the industrial era. So what explains the other 75%?

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Richard

Ok Nicholas, I agree that there is a great danger in extrapolating trends. And likewise I don't find much merit in statistical studies that seem to be jumping on the bandwagon to show something is true or false. I think you are also aware that the paper that started this thread topic is a discussion of what was measured between 1880-2011, how reliable the measurements where, and what the measurements show. The authors conclude that for the continental U.S. there is no trend one way or another in average yearly temperatures. The continental U.S. is of course a minor portion of the global average temperature referred to in "global warming" studies.

I don't think about climatology in terms of statistics at all, but instead in terms of complicated interacting dynamical systems. Over the years I have developed a high respect for some of the teams involved in these kinds of studies. When these folks say "there is a problem" I think more people should take notice. This is why over the last two decades the consensus in the scientific community towards "global warming" and "climate change" has gone from the low twenty percentile to well over ninety percent.

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harveyc

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Richard

Harvey -- you're aware that DailyMail is a UK tabloid?

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harveyc

Yeah, but I think it was fun to read. And it did quoting folks that seemed to have some expertise but I posted it mostly because it made me smile.

I also posted it without any comment and correctly predicted you'd be the first to respond.

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harveyc

I still say how can I take any of this very seriously. Al Gore has been the biggest promoter of having to take drastic actions. However, while he's proposed big government action he's set a terrible example of taking personal responsibility with his huge mansion and use of a private jet. Also, I was also in a group that once promoted an international conference about dealing with global warming and the conference fee include a charge for carbon impact fees. I saw no reason why they just didn't hold an online video conference. These are mostly folks just trying to justify their jobs, IMO.

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Nicolas Naranja

I'm not going to disagree with climate change or global warming. Climate changes and the world is definitely warmer than it was 100 yrs ago. I do have a problem with the people who insist that CO2 is the driver of this change. I've had 2 climatology classes over my education, both taught by men in their 60s, that basically said that CO2 cannot explain all the warming. And explained the chemistry behind their assertion.

So what do I think.

I think you have a group of scientist who have figured out their gravy train. Scare people with thoughts of coastal flooding, mega-hurricane and dead polar bears and your grants get funded. Then you get a marketing team to figure out how to make money on it. Finally, you dismiss skeptics as lunatics.

People have an impact on the planet, what do you want to do about it. A plowed field heats up more than a forest or grassland, concrete holds heat, and when you add up the effects of each and every little thing that we do the only way to stop global warming is to stop having children and start killing people. We can compost the bodies and use them in our organic garden.

Eat a plant based diet, ride your bike to work, buy carbon credits and pray to Al Gore for salvation. An explanation to the warming based on sun spots or natural ENSO cycles just doesn't sell movies and books, so to hell with them. Just hope that this warming last long enough so that we can make emeritus status before it goes bust.

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