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The obstructionist party, GOP, being flushed out? Healthcare
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GURGLETROUSERS



Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643

PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The report which Mac quoted is issued by The Geological Society of London. They have a long and proud tradition of integrity, and are as impartial and free of bias as possible.

It was issued as a clarification of geological history with regard to climate change, and the relevance to todays and future conditions.

I trust their presentation of facts. It is as comprehensive and as accurate as present science allows.

I believe it!
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NickB



Joined: 30 Jun 2009
Posts: 510
Location: Alameda, CA

PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:
It’s infinitely cheaper and more effective to move idiots away from the coast


... says he who never insults anyone.

Break a fin, douchebag.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

NickB wrote:
isobars wrote:
It’s infinitely cheaper and more effective to move idiots away from the coast


... says he who never insults anyone.


Never said it.

And how is anyone who chooses to build a home ON a dangerous coastal flood/storm plain not an idiot? Oooh ... ooooh ... I know ... when the government or an insurance company keeps rebuilding his home after each storm. In that case the idiots are the inland people willingly paying the same insurance premium.

As for third world hardscrabble poor people with no choice, I have to presume the reader knows they're not idiots, but it's still cheaper and more effective to move them than to control sea levels.
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17744
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2011 8:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GT--The Geological Society has been wrong before. However, they have always been committed to discovering more about the world and how it works. A couple of points. First, among my responsibilities is considering skeptical information about climate change. Skepticism is good; I studied coastal engineering, which looks pretty closely at ocean levels, and I was skeptical for over twenty years abot accelerated sea level rise. I have seen overwrought claims from global warming panickers, and I doubt the more extreme sea level rise scenarios. For many years after the issue first surfaced, we didn't see any acceleration in sea level rise, and it cooked along at 2 mm/year, as it had for about a hundred years. But more recently it has increased to 3 mm/year. There's enough data, I think, to conclude this is a real change, not an anomoly.

I have followed up dozens of links, posted by Isobars and other skeptical windsurfers in the Bay area because this is an important issue, and I want to see if I'm missing anything. It's pretty complicated stuff, and I definitely don't buy into modeling projections because they don't capture enough of the physics to be confident. They are, as all early mathematical models are, a means to test different theories. In any event, nearly all of the links trace back to a couple of professional deniers, whose funding comes from arch-conservatives like the Koch's. Hard to track money, but enough of it comes from oil to be suspicious.
Some of the stuff is innocent, at least at first. For example, satellite data isn't really a direct measurement of temperature, it needs to be transformed by a mathematical formula. Initially the wrong formula was used, and it looked like satellite data didn't support other observations of warming. But when the error in formula was found, that data also supported warming trend predictions. Denier sites continued to use the uncorrected data, despite the corrections that were in fact discovered in the magical process, peer review.

Iso was fond of quoting Lord Monckton--Margaret Thatcher's economist, not a scientist--and Singer. But he mis-quoted Singer on this forum; In an interview on PBS that Iso posted a link to, Singer acknowledges the theoretical link between CO2 and warming, but says (rightly) it is hard to tease apart anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic warming. Then he says, killing his credibilit, it won't be so bad, people like warm weather and plants will grow faster. Iso went nuts when I caught him misrepresting the conclusions, and "plonked" me so he wouldn't have to look at my posts. He also stopped giving citations, substituting a snide "Google it".

Mrgybe, who worked in the oil business, focusses on public skepticism and the two errors that the IPPC made, one the infamous disappearance of glaciers in the Himalyas, and the other a mistake taken from an official government source in, I believe, the Netherlands. Two mistakes out of hundreds of citations. Others seem to focus some irrational hatred on Al Gore, who has never been one of my sources. He's a politician, selling a position, with hyperbole.

I know probably twenty different Bay area scientists working for the US Geological Service. None of them relies on giving any administration a specific answer for funding--they worked during the Bush Administration when any scientific analysis was treated as a fairytale. One of them is one of the world experts in Tsunamis, and drops his sediment work on San Francisco Bay to respond to big earthquakes with tsunamis. Not one of them, not one, doubts climate change. Those working on terrestrial vegetation or birds have seen what they see as clear signs of earlier springs, changes in food sources, and so forth, and they are measuring the temperature of pretty stable systems like oceans to try to figure out why, and how much. I believe these folks, not the oil companies and Margaret Thatcher's economist.

And it is amusing that in his hurry (fury?) to refute me, Iso posts his rebuttal on the wrong page. I just won't let idiots like him who won't participate in a serious debate have the last word.
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GURGLETROUSERS



Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643

PostPosted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you Mac for a clear statement of your position, free from exaggeration.

Of course institutions get it wrong at times, and I never meant to infer they are infallible. We are right to be skeptical, but when the evidence piles up, from multiple sources, we have to alter our stance. I have altered mine.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

GURGLETROUSERS wrote:
when the evidence piles up, from multiple sources, we have to alter our stance. I have altered mine.


Geological Society wrote:
1. Numerical models of the climate system support such an interpretation (44).

2. In the light of the evidence presented here it is reasonable to conclude that emitting further large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere over time is likely to be unwise.


1. The only thing I believe from the IPCC (reference 44) is the recent admission, cited and discussed earlier, from their primary GW committee that they were wrong.

2. "Reasonable to conclude" ... "likely to be unwise"?
How sane does it sound to spend scores of trillions of dollars on a statement that vague? I can see $100, or even $100M, but scores of trillions ... on a problem literally 100-1000 times more effectively solved a century sooner by direct action on specific problems than by trying to control the globe?

I see nothing new in this report, nor in its bottom line conclusion. The earth may get warmer before it cools again, man has some influence on it, and the seas will continue to inexorably rise, as they always have on average. The issue is the folly of bankrupting the U.S. under the assumption that it owes the rest of the world scores of trillions of dollars infinitely better spent at 0.1 cent on the dollar in direct action such as relocating people from vulnerable shorelines.

The more I see of sources and debates like this, the more I become convinced that no layman who hasn't read "Cool It" -- written by a man who supports AGW based on the consensus of nations around the globe -- is qualified to even discuss the issue. Read it and you will change your tune yet again on the relative urgency of AGW.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 11:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

GURGLETROUSERS wrote:
Thank you Mac for a clear statement of your position, free from exaggeration.


One teensy, tiny exception I found when I picked my jaw off the floor to see if mac had posted something without exaggeration.

mac wrote:
Iso was fond of quoting Lord Monckton --Margaret Thatcher's economist, not a scientist


• I've never read anything by Monckton, so am unlikely to cite specific facts from him.
• mac very frequently accuses me of citing Monckton often, yet the SEARCH function verified what I thought: I have never mentioned or cited Monckton. This is just mac's usual deliberate misrepresentation of what ACTUALLY was posted, which is the reason he was PLONKed.
• Mrgybe cited Monckton once or twice, Carles mentioned him once, and mac mentioned him at least 6-8 times.
• Besides, Monckton can't read? It doesn't take a professional climatologist to understand data. Can an economist not understand data"


mac wrote:
[Iso] mis-quoted Singer on this forum; In an interview on PBS that Iso posted a link to, Singer acknowledges the theoretical link between CO2 and warming, but says (rightly) it is hard to tease apart anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic warming. Then he says, killing his credibilit, it won't be so bad, people like warm weather and plants will grow faster.


That's mac's exaggerated interpretation of what I may have said. In fact, cold kills far more people than heat, and plants go grow faster at higher temps, consuming more CO2 in the process.

mac wrote:
Iso went nuts when I caught him misrepresting the conclusions, and "plonked" me so he wouldn't have to look at my posts.


No exaggeration, you say? I have explained many times at great length why I PLONK people. The one time I was proven wrong (about something I thought Harry Reid said) led to my concurrence and apology, not "going nuts" or PLONKing anyone. mac's earthshaking accusation that I misrepresented Singer's conclusions isn't proof that I did, it's just that; another accusation he makes with no proof.

Is it any wonder he's PLONKed?
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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 11:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

" The issue is the folly of bankrupting the U.S. under the assumption that it...
This is the underlying lie used by lobbyists to oppose any attempt to mediate environmental damage on any scale.
You idiots don't realize that saving the planet can only be done with massive public works which Isos company is bidding at" scores of trillions of dollars...."
The lobbyists main point, being made by their front man, is that the US can not afford it so we should not try. Now it is GW, it used to be recycling, before that reducing acid rain, safer cars.....
They pretended every scientist in the world is on their side in all these issues. They are fooling fewer folks these days with the idea that any small effort to reduce human contribution to heat on this planet will bankrupt anything but the coal companies credibility.
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GURGLETROUSERS



Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643

PostPosted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The fact that everyone is getting all hot and bothered and hurling insults about, simply underlines the uncertainty of the future our children are likely to face.

Whatever the cause of global warming it has happened, somewhat catastrophically to life forms, in the past and may well be starting to happen yet again.

If it is beyond our means to prevent, then we need to plan to mitigate its effects on the WHOLE of the worlds population, not just in our own backyards.

To that end concensus on action is necessary, and that action should preferably be sooner rather than later.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GURGLETROUSERS wrote:
1. If it is beyond our means to prevent, then we need to plan to mitigate its effects on the WHOLE of the worlds population, not just in our own backyards.

2. To that end concensus on action is necessary, and that action should preferably be sooner rather than later.


1. That's the bottom line of the Copenhagen Consensus, with the addition that those effects rank about 18th among the world's humanitarian needs.

2. Absolutely. About 0.1% of the cost of fighting AGW is projected to save 100-fold to 1000-fold more lives, a century sooner, than trying to modify the climate.

Really, Gurg, you'd love "Cool It". It and its Lomborg* prequel bring this whole AGW issue into such sharp perspective that it should be required reading for all legislators. I don't understand why this group here is so afraid of books. I'm a slow reader, but study several dozen per year on a wide variety of topics. Just this winter I've studied at least 15 on exercise physiology and nutrition alone as they relate to windsurfing.

* I think I brain-farted "Borg" recently; ignore.
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