ManBearPig to the rescue: Gore lobbies for cap-and-tax; Update: Pelosi tells Gore to stay home!
See update below…snort…
Al Gore is traveling to Washington today to whip House Democrats on tomorrow’s cap-and-tax bill.
No word on the amount of bogus carbon offsets ManBearPig’s trip to the Hill will cost:
Former Vice President Al Gore will meet with House Democrats Thursday to appeal to reluctant lawmakers to approve the controversial climate change bill on Friday, FOX News has learned.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is rolling the dice with her plan to lug the bill to the House floor without the full confidence that the legislation will pass.
Senior Democratic leaders are whipping and cajoling skeptical lawmakers to side with them to approve the measure that could have significant economic impact on the energy bills of many Americans and even drive up the price of food.
***
Back in the real world, the WSJ looks at the cap and trade fiction:
Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won’t pinch wallets, behind the scenes they’ve acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.
The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain’s Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.
Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can’t repeal that reality.
***
Update: Via Roll Call (hat tip – reader Jeff)…
Former Vice President Al Gore had been scheduled to deliver a final pitch to the House Democratic Caucus for the global warming bill on Thursday alongside Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), but Pelosi’s spokesman said Thursday morning that Gore will stay in Tennessee.
Drew Hammill said Gore’s presence is no longer needed.
“As the list of undecided Members narrowed, the Speaker thought it was unnecessary to impose on the vice president’s schedule to travel to Washington and instead to continue coordinating efforts from Tennessee,” Hammill said.
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Trackbacks
- Cap-And-Trade: Why Lie If You Don’t Have To? « NEOAVATARA
- Don’t let Congress turn 2009 into 1984 – Stop the Global Warming Massive Energy Tax « Jim Blazsik
- Pelosi Pounding Drum Louder for Cap-and-Trade Vote This Friday, WSJ Exposes What Americans Will Pay for Waxman-Markey Energy Bill « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- Cap And Tax « Nice Deb
- Proof that Libs could care less about us – the truth hurts! « DirtyRottenScoundrels
- Climate Change Legislation – When Stupid Collides With Dogma | The Substratum
- Time To Sound The Alarm: Call Your Representative and Senators–Cap and Trade Bill to be voted in U.S. House on Friday–Kill The Cap and Trade Energy Tax Today! « Pronk Palisades
- Cap and trade, with public option health care, will harm our economy « Wellsy’s World
- No snow in D.C. tomorrow « Right Minded Online
- Time To Sound The Alarm: Call Your Representative and Senators–Cap and Trade Bill to be Voted in U.S. House on Friday–Kill The Cap and Trade Energy Tax Today! UPDATED « Pronk Palisades
- ManBearPig to the rescue: Gore lobbies for cap-and-tax; Update: Pelosi tells Gore to stay home! | JoeWebb.com
- New Documentary Explores Human Cost of Global Warming Propaganda | linkthe.com
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Excellent point. Even the most sophisticated climate models miss something related: they don’t take account of the effect of clouds. Clouds. You know, those white, fluffy things that reflect solar energy back out into space? Seems to me that clouds might change the energy dynamics a little, but those climate models that don’t ignore them completely, make some gross simplifying assumptions.
This may be why climate models don’t even accurately predict the past. Yet we’re supposed to drive industry overseas, and devote vast amounts of our income to artificially high energy costs in the name of staving off this bogus phenomenon?
Call, fax and email your congressman NOW and DEMAND they vote against Waxman-Malarkey!!! Please, for the sake of all of us!!
Errah, he’ll be right back after his tofu and hummus enema.
Scotty: “Are we going for a swim, Captain?”
Bones: “Off the deep end, Mr. Scott.”
I’ve often wondered about the wisdom of dirt bikes…
I mean, what happens when it rains…???
FruNobulux said (#95):
This is factually wrong.
It’s also arrogant. The people who make these models — climate scientists — are some of America’s top minds. They’re cut from the same cloth as those who built the atom bomb, got us to the moon, and built the internet. What makes you think you can with a casual remark invalidate their years of work?
Liberals look for a way to keep man from making rain and then taxing the hell out of us because we cannot prevent rain…
If these models are above criticism as you suggest, then why can’t they predict the present weather patterns? We know exactly what the conditions were for the last hundred years or so, yet when fed into their models, they fail to duplicate the weather that we know has occurred.
Your point would be better served if you were just to repeat that it’s settled science and hope we lose interest in discussing it with you.
Great “American” minds like Werner Von Braun? Albert Einstein? Those guys?
LOL
That’s twice LGM has used the term “American” in one day. Are you proud of your country for the first time too LGM? LOL
Or maybe you mean like the guy who has worked for the EPA for 38 years … who is obviously a deep plant for the vast right wing conspiracy since he contradicts those “great” American minds?
China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet.
China is building new coal fired plants at the rate of 1 per month.
Look in the dictionary. Next to the heading “whizzing in the wind” you’ll see a picture of the United States Congress.
Don’t you ever tire of being wrong? Your link does not suggest that clouds do not play a part in global warming. They even conceed that:
The ONLY thing you link says about clouds is:
IDIOT
If their work is demonstrable CRAP, how much dignity does it deserve?
If they have become so agendized that they willing conduct facially flawed and biased research,and falsify data…or the implications of data…they report, what right do they have to even being called “scientists”.
What they produce will be judged by people over time. This period will be a cipher to true scientists in the future. Like the academics to opposed the great minds of medical and biological science.
Did you read their midterm review?
You put forth this claim as if to imply that this simulation study produced results which helped validate the political climate change agenda. They are still building and testing the simulations and do not expect to be able to pull predictive information from it for years yet.
So while you pointlessly defend the virtue of climate scientists, you might note that this is the first such U.S. study and only second in the world.
Climate models that are used today do not account for clouds. On this point, FruNobulux appears to be correct. He did not say that the scientists themselves did not consider it.
That scientists are attempting to account for it is true. On that point, you are correct. However, there does not appear to be information from these studies yet that point to one direction or the other with regards to global warming (or is the re-branded “climate change”?).
I don’t think lgm even bothers to read what he links. The research he referenced clearly states that, “Within the next 10 years or so…” they might be able to actually use this model to operationally predict the weather. (Sounds about as good as what we have now, no?) But only if they can resolve a huge laundry list of problems with managing the vast number of computations required… Then, “Eventually, GCRMs will be used for multi-century climate simulations.” Nothing against the people doing the research. I’m sure they have the best intentions. But I know, as an engineer myself, I would love, love, love to be able to say I might finish some project in 10 years or so, and maybe eventually it will provide some benefit to something.
Anyway, lgm just proved the point that clouds are not taken into account in the current models — because they don’t know how the hell to do it!
The fact that climate scientists who buy into the global warming myth are a minority opinion on the subject? And that the actual observed data on global tempatures refutes your “experts”??
Observed data like the global ice coverage is average and growing??
I don’t know, inconvenient facts like that?
aargh!!! Salt beat me to it…
Oh, no doubt lgm won’t like this. From Australia, a shift against their own “tax and cap” policy:
I may just have to read this book
I KNOW he/she doesn’t.
lgm: They may indeed be top minds, but their models are NOT infallible.
Anyone who models must input data that is often wrong and make assumptions that are just as likely wrong.
We know that NASA’s data has been wrong:
http://www.geotimes.org/aug07/article.html?id=WebExtra081607_2.html
and:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/19/nasa_giss_cockup_catalog/
As I said, assumptions often are often wrong as well. For instance, we assume you have a brain, but you keep proving us wrong.
Sorry to steal your thunder. When I referenced the link (after checking where the URL would lead me), I figured I was looking at a project proposal site. Knowing how these things go, I figured they were nowhere near a conclusion yet.
Interesting read from a simulation/modeling perspective, though. I wouldn’t mind being the contractor building their compute infrastructure.
Aaargh — Preview is my friend! I MUST Preview!
LGM,
You still won’t address the fact this bill won’t change anything without substantial international support from countries that aren’t going to give it.
You can debate whether or not the earth is warming or cooling all you want, but you’re still not positing a solution.
All this bill does is cost us money.
This gov, which can’t run anything well, thinks that it can fix climate change! We have not confirmed that people have caused it. If we did cause it, there’s no assurance that we can change it, if we could. So, exactly how do the Washington buffoons expect that taxing energy is the answer to fixing climate change? Snake oil, anyone? It’s not about climate change; it’s about taking more of our money.
All this bill does is
cost usredistribute money…lower the standard of living, and destroy wealth.
Sorry.
Just teasin’. I found their mid-term report pretty interesting. And, yes, they are obviously nowhere near being done.
Whoever gets that job will probably make a fortune, considering all of the obstacles that will have to be overcome there… As long as you can negotiate the same “maybe someday this project will be somewhat, sort of finished” requirements in your contract!
lgm is batting, what, like 0.00000001 at this point?
Ragspierre said (#105):
If their work were demonstrable crap, the professional journals of climate science would be the place for those demonstrations. If you have such a demonstration, write it up and submit it. Otherwise, sthu.
Lan Astaslem said (#107):
Climate modeling and weather forecasting are not the same thing. (One of you “experts” who know what’s wrong with climate models please say why.) I put the link just to rebut the idea that climate modelers haven’t thought about clouds. Google “climate model clouds” and get hundreds of other links.
One reason the Global Warming Alarmists have little credibility is because so much of their language coincides exactly with the liberal agenda we have been hearing for 30 years. A few examples:
*America is the main culprit
*Americans must lower their standard of living
*less and smaller cars, more bikes and public transit
*re-distribution of wealth from rich to poor nations
*lowering of world economic output
*poor communities and nations will suffer the most from Global Warming
*creation of international bodies/treaties that will reduce sovereignty
*everybody should eat less or no meat and more vegetables
*more taxes and regulation on industry
What are the odds that any issue could embody so many of the leftists goals and be based on pure science? Of course since this is so painfully obvious to anybody with more than a third grade education some other language is thrown in to dress it up and make it more palatable for conservatives. This includes claims that is a matter of national security, caring for Gods creation, and of course protecting our childrens future. It is incredible that anybody(except liberals) cannot see through this ruse.
Ummm… Lemme think about that….
NO.
Besides, I don’t plow furrowed ground, dummy. It’s been done.
Just not much publicized.
Like his master (THE ONE), lgm is a one trick poney…
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/06/25/ramirez-and-the-answer-is/
Called the Congressional Switchboard. Busy the first couple of times, did get through. My congressional rep – Paul Ryan (Yipeee!
) – is voting against it.
You of all people have some nerve to come here and tell someone to sthu.
You are a liar and an idiot:
There are no models that can take on the task of clouds roll in climate change – none. See your link idiot.
P.S. A study that has no conclusion is not a study at all.
And he/she/it still has not addressed the Medieval Optimum and the Little Ice Age. We didn’t start coming out of that until approximately 1850. The first London Thames frost fair was held in 1607 on the frozen ice. It lasted until 1814. HELLO.
That picture of Washington crossing the Delaware River, with chunks of ice. That was true in 1776. It did freeze that much. Does it now? NO.
Natural cycles of heat and cold. Get used to it. We don’t do it.
LGM,
I still haven’t gotten a response out of you.
Ah, the typical liberal response to debate:
Shut up, they explained.
Seriously lgm,
You don’t even have to address the science issue here, it’s moot. Until Obama finds away to pass a climate bill for China India and Brazil, any cutbacks the US would make are insufficient.
My pick for quote of the week.
Here in Missouri, the heat is explained by hell being the next state over…BOOM!
From The Wall Street Journal
Same for the ABC News equivalent, when asked provide counter positions to Obama’s health care propaganda: “We already covered it.”
What Republicans should propose is throwing every one these loons out of office and announce man made global warming is a lie and any global warming at all is suspect.
In fact its now easier to prove climate change is a lie than to prove its true, actually there’s no proof at all.
Sorry for the long post this crap is getting old.
China is going to own America in a few years. They don’t have to follow any of our stupid rules about emissions control, drilling, nuclear, coal. They can pollute all they want and we can’t do a thing about it. (of course, all they will have is a country overrun by illegal aliens who need to be taken care of. There won’t be much to salvage any more.) We will just continue to go broke trying to fix the unfixable while Obama eats ice cream and Al Gore gains 50 more pounds. Every single thing this administration has done since January has been the opposite of what they should do. Every.Single.Thing. One can only deduce they are trying to destroy America. Are the morons who voted for them waking up yet?? Hello? Anyone?
You are politely invited to osculate my pubococcygeus muscle.
You want to shut me up? Not going to happen.
lgm: As ususal, you are not paying attention.
Models are a means to duplicate real events, be it climate, wars, markets, or horseraces. Computer models take LOTS of data and crunch it to help us understqand the likely outcome from certain inputs.
However, for them to work properly, they need accurate and complete data and assumptions for those thing not perfectly understood.
The data can be very, very accurate, but when it leaves out even one small, seemingly inconsequential input (like the butterfly flapping its wings in the southern hemisphere resulting in a hurricane in the northern hemisphere) then the model will produce WRONG information.
Similarly, if the modelers make wrong assumptions about cause and effects they have observed (whether intentional or not) the models again deliver WRONG answers.
There is also the probabilities involved in the calculations, such as the result of rolling a pair of dice. You can do OK at the casino with a computer when “rollin’ the bones” but as you increase the number of variables, the probability of getting it right decreases rapidly.
Suggest you read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. From Wikipedia: “The premise of the series is that mathematician Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory, a concept devised by Asimov and his editor John W. Campbell. Using the law of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone on a small scale.” Asimov postulated Seldon’s model worked because it used the trillions of humans scattered across the populated universe and all their trillions of trillions of human interactions to predict where human events would lead in the future. He got some of it right, but he also got a lot wrong.
So, given enough inputs, a model theoretically can get things correct, but, more often than not, one seemingly minor point (the butterfly flapping its wings) gets left out and the model produces garbage, i.e. GIGO — garbage in, garbage out.
Bottom line: why aren’t some of these ‘rocket scientists’ you point to making big killings in the Stock Market, winning the lottery, etc?
Follow the money.
If climate change is proven to not be man-made, there are hundreds of organizations employing thousands of people who will lose millions in donations, along with their access to power on Capitol Hill.
Scientists will lose out on gov’t research grants, professional prestige and access to power as well.
The enviro-left always uses the source of a skeptic’s paycheck as a means to discredit them, i.e. “They worked for an oil company 20 years ago, OF COURSE you can’t believe what they say”, while never asking the same question of themselves. If they lose the climate change debate, they lose money, influence and the power to control the behavior of others.
I’ve posed this question before, and I pose it now to lgm directly—
Mount Tambora was one of the greatest explosive volcanic eruptions in modern history.
It caused The Year Without Summer in 1816, which was a world-wide climatic catastrophe.
We have that model, and several others since, where a massive volcanic event has introduced immense amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Where, then is the concomitant data in the scientific record…or even the anecdotal evidence…of a succeeding warming event?
Hmmmmm….????
Soap (#125) +1
As usual, a whiny liberal (lgm) gets smacked down with the facts, and all s/he can say is “shut up.”
Speakup – I loved this part:
Yep!
lgm: Models are an attempt to take known information and extrapolate what likely outcomes might be.
They are modeling something about which they know something, but not all. Yes, they have data, but if they get even one small point wrong, the results are garbage (G.I.G.O = garbage in, garbage out).
Simply miss one, seemingly minor, point — and good luck figuring out which of the trillions of data points in modeling a global climate are inconsequential — and you get the G.I.G.O. result.
Ever hear of the ‘butterfly effect?’ From Wikipedia: “It is the technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.”
Put in simple terms, a butterfly flapping its wings in the southern hemisphere may produce a hurricane in the northern hemisphere — but you would never suspect it!
To add on Ragspierre:
There’s a current theory about a supervolcano eruption at Lake Toba about 70-75,000 years ago. Almost wiped us out. Scientists speculate there may have been only 5-10,000 survivors.
I believe that we have more to fear from asteroids and volcanoes than global warming.
Indeed. And in the same sense we have more to fear from being hit by a falling airplane engine than we do from being gored by a unicorn.
Rags: It’s not just the CO2.
From Wikipedia: Pinatubo (1991) ejected roughly 20 million tons of SO2 (sulfur dioxide)… … [and] large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere—more than any eruption since that of Krakatoa in 1883.
St Helens (1980) Over 1.5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide were released into the atmosphere.
The aerosols ejected by both formed a global layer of sulfuric acid haze. Following Pinatubo, global temperatures dropped by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F), and ozone depletion temporarily increased substantially.
Tambora, Pinatubo, Krakatoa, St Helens, etc, etc. do more to the environment than we puny humans — if anything, let Congress pass laws against volcanoes!
lgm; the consensus of people who believe in the gore pap are politicians and diplomats, not scientists. the u.n. and gore hype this crap, not the meteorology department of mit. politicians will profess to believe in anything if it means they can dip into someone’s pocket for more money. a simple look at recent history should give you questions about the theory. in 1909, virtually everyone cooked on wood, charcoal, or oil fires. heated houses with wood, charcoal or oil. road horses or carriages pulled by horses, and ate meat at least as much as today. they smoked far more than today. these are all carbon producing actions with NO pollution control. yet somehow the polar ice didn’t melt then, but will today. sure population has grown, cars burn fuel, cows fart, and airplanes burn fuel. but can those match every person in 1909 having an al gore sized carbon footprint with zero offsets.
cheapset: Good point — ever notice pictures from the US Civil War — the lack of trees around civilized areas showed we Americans were burning them to cook our meals and heat our homes with little impact on the environment.
Things I learned from LGM about science and scientists.
About a year and a half ago I was in a discussion with LGM, on this board, about the nature of scientific inquiry and he made the following statements which I have paraphrased here.
1) If evidence points to A but an eminent scientist states that B, and not A must be true then other scientists will ignore all evidence from experiment that shows A to be true and believe B.
Yes he actually said that if a respected authority stated that a new theory was not true that scientists would ignore the data they have and believe the respected aurthority.
No, scientists belive data from experiment. Every young buck in physics would love to prove Einstein wrong in some small area. They respect Einstein but they do not believe him because he is Einstein but because, so far, his theories have stood up to experiment.
As Richard Feynman once stated “It doesn’t matter whose theory it is, if it disagrees with experiment it’s wrong”
2) The speed of light is 1, just 1, no units such as m/s or ft/s.
When I called him on this he stated that indeed scientists use special units that force the speed of light to be 1. These are very special units since it would mean that in these incredible units the units of length and time cancel out and one gets a unitless 1 for the speed of light.
No, scientists use either SI or a form of the engish engineering units, most likely they use SI. They do not use some strange units no one ever heard of.
Now I have degrees in both physics and engineering and both of the above are utter hogwash and yet this is what LGM put forth in our discussion.
It is quite evident that LGM knows nothing about science.
Now let’s look at the models that climatologists use. I will state up front that I am not a climatologist I am an aerospace engineer specializing in computational fluid dynamics (CFD). With this background I am familiar with what it takes to create a computer model of complex systems and interactions.
Even to model something as “simple” as flow through a section of a jet engine that is being modified requires a lot of assumptions in the model. (This is some of the work I am currently involved in.)
I use the term “simple” in the sense that modeling the climate is orders of magnitude more complex than flow through a small section of a jet engine.
Hopefully these assumptions are made by someone knowledgable but they are still assumptions and can be biased by the experience level or other factors of the engineer. First thing to be done, after the model is ready to use is to make sure that your model will correctly model the current configuration before you change the model to model the new configuration.
You also have to know how close you need to have the model be. Does it have to be within 5%, 10%, etc. and that depends on what you are trying to find out. In some cases you may get away with a model that is within 25% in other cases you must hold the model to within 5% or even less. This is the tolerance of the model.
The model size, complexity, and tolerance will drive the computing power and computer time needed to run the model. The larger, more complex, and the tighter the tolerance the more computing power needed.
So the climate change models would be extremely complex and large. Larger than could be reasonably run on even a supercomputer without a “lot” of simplifying assumptions. As I stated before these assumptions will be based on the experience and biases of the modeller. If the modeller is biased to believe in global warming then the assumptions may be skewed that way.
So it must be asked, what assumptions went into the models? Also what is the tolerance of the models? Do they predict within 5% or 50% of the actual numbers or in between? What about predicting the current or past cimate. Can the models take any, say 1000 year period in the last 100,000 years, and accurately predict the climate over that 1000 year period with in the tolerance of the model? If it cannot then it cannot be assumed that the model will predict the climate into the future.
Before turning any part of this economy over to climate change legislation these models must be explained to the public and the questions in the last paragraph answered. We need to know all the assumptions in the model itself and in the inputs to the model before going forward with any possibly damaging changes to the economy
englishqueen01 said (#128):
He was saying he could give a technical argument that GW climate models are wrong. I said that he should either do so or quit claiming to do so. That’s hardly stifling his freedom of speech. It’s calling his bluff. The way to make a technical argument is to write a technical paper and submit it for peer review by a technical journal. He should do that or quit claiming he’s smarter than the people who do. That’s what the “Otherwise” in your quote was about.
taylork said (#129):
China says the same thing about us. Reducing our greenhouse gas production is just one of the things we have to do, and maybe not the hardest. We also have to help China reduce theirs. Interestingly, China is taking real steps in that direction. They have issued fuel efficiency standards for cars.
nail49 said (#140):
Somebody thinks climate scientists don’t know about clouds. You think they don’t know about model uncertainty. Is there anyone on this list who thinks they don’t know about oceans?
jah (#146)
Here are some answers to your points:
Some people have heard of natural units.
I don’t think I said scientists ignore data in place of big shot claims. Unfortunately, that has been known to happen.
Your jet engine is a great example. As you know, turbulence modeling is essential in modeling a jet engine. Yet turbulence models are notoriously unreliable. Any conservative (or liberal) who wanted to discredit turbulence models would have lots of material. Yet it is possible to model jet engines. You would laugh at a post here that claims to discredit turbulence modeling because, say, it ignores the effect of compressibility. But that’s exactly the kind of objections we get on global warming.
I know about oceans. Does that make me qualified to model them on a level that would allow politicians to write laws that effect all of us? Would you bet your house on that?
“Is there anyone on this list who thinks they don’t know EVERYTHING about oceans?”
Oh, yeah. That would be the country lawyer in the corner.
That’s just one of your bald-faced lies.
I made no such claim. I don’t have those chops, and I know it. Another distinction between us.
I implore you to call your representative as I just did.
I asked where the esteemed Al Green, D-TX9, stood on the legislation. “He is still evaluating the bill”
When does vote? “Tomorrow I think”,
and he has no feel for which way he is leaning? “No, they are still amending the bill”
Really?, will he be putting out a statement? “Mr. Green will put out a statement when he has finished evaluating the bill and listening to his constituents.”
Go ahead and do it because if this is close in the house it will make a difference in the senate.
Exactly and typifies the liberal non debate (robust because we say it is), we’re all to stupid so shut up and
dopay what we tell you.lgm,
Yes I have heard of natural units, but as an engineer and physicist with over 25 years experience they are rarely used in calculations done on real phenomenon. This is because they do lack the units and therefore make it much harder to do a calculation unit check at the end. In my experience I have never used them even early in my career when I was doing pure physics.
Yes you did make the claim that scientsts would ignoe data, but I will concede, since I do not have the verbatim transcript of our discussion, that there is no way to resolve this he said/she said argument.
I never made the claim of discrediting the model by asking these questions. I said that we need to know what goes into those models before we start legislating economic changes. Any legislation that will fundamentally change our economy needs to be based on sound science.
No legitamate scientist with out an agenda would be afraid to answer the questions I brought up. Can you answer the questions? If not you are basing your belief in those models on faith, not science and science does not work on faith it works on evidence.
If I cannot show that my jet engine model accurately predicts the current configuration then my client (GE, Rolls, PW) would have every right to question how I can predict the new configuration.
What is wrong with having the scientists who created these models run the scenario that I proposed? If they balk then maybe they do not have the correct model, if they don’t and the model can make the prediction as I outlined then we can go forward. Scientists are not gods, they make mistakes and make bad assumptions in models, engineers do too, believe me I have made some beauts.
Let’s put it this way. I am not sure what math level you teach but, if you had a student do a proof in geometry and all he gave you was the first and last step with no steps in between to show how he got there would you accept that the student knew what he was doing?
The EPA was caught SUPPRESSING ITS OWN INTERNAL REPORTS that were contrary to the IPCC!
The only real ‘consensus’ among goverment scientists is that they had all better stay in line and support this scam .. OR ELSE!
“Science” is now something that is dictated by liberals to suit whatever agenda they happen to be pursuing at the moment. Experiments? HA! Why conduct experiments when you can just declare a theory proven as scientific fact by trumpeting the support it has from the hacks working for you?
God, please strike down the evil people destroying my country.
Ragspierre said (#150):
Then you are relying on the opinions of other experts? Who? (Richard Linzen is the unique top scientist who disbelieves global warming.) Why don’t they publish their critiques in refereed technical journals?
jah said (#154):
I think it was implicit in what you said, and still is. Let’s see.
All that is in the open literature on climate modeling. There are detailed papers on every aspect of the models used.
Not a popular position at MM.
The models have been debated in climate science meetings and workshops for years. Do you want Isaac Held to write you a personal letter with the answers to your specific questions? Do you want Richard Feynman to answer your questions about QED? Either make a specific argument or stop pretending.
RUBBISH! Really simple… we can BUILD A JET ENGINE AND TEST IT!
Since well before 1998 CO2 has been steadily climbing all along but global temperature per FOUR independent data sets since then has declined CONTRARY to the prediction of the IPCC and James Hansen.
We are in global COOLING right now. The IPCC predicted the OPPOSITE so they were WRONG!!!! What part of the word “WRONG” is it that you fail to understand lgm?
Here is LGM’s and IPCC’s “climate model”:
T = T1 + (C-372)/ 3
T1 is the average global temperature of 2001
C is the CO2 concentration for any day after 2001
T is the predicted temperature for that same day.
If you use that equation and the actual CO2 concentrations since 2001 you will actually get something resembling the IPCC’s dire global warming prediction.
.. and it’s just as WRONG as theirs was!
lgm said:
So are some of the scientists who disagree with the current models. Who are we to believe? One thing’s for sure, I’m not going to accept the word of scientists with a vested interest in this debate when they say “the science is settled”.
Even “top minds” are human. They know that if the world loses interest in climate change, their grant money and research will dry up. That’s why many of them are willing to exaggerate the data to convince people the end of the world is near. As Al Gore knows, scare tactics keep the money flowing in.
When the world loses interest in climate change, these same scientists will “discover” another coming disaster that will require extensive scientific research to prevent. It could be a comet or asteroid that is approaching too close, or it could be a new swine flu mutation. It worked for DDT, acid rain, the ozone hole, etc. They will always be trumping up some reason for the government to fund research to avoid pending doom.
Real scientists always question their assumptions and theories and invite others to do the same. Those who say the “debate is over” or “the science is settled” are politicians first and scientists second.
You can add democrat and Obama supporter Warren Buffett to that list. Yesterday, when he said the economy will “be in a shambles this year and probably well beyond.” He also said a few other things that the MSM skimmed over. I had to read the actual transcript to find this quote:
A “regressive tax” impacts the poor most. Didn’t Obama mean it when he said:
Of course, they’ll claim that drastic increases in food and utility bills are not really a “tax” even though the government is receiving all the revenue from cap and trade. But even Warren Buffett isn’t buying that.
I sent the following to my Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger.
I also sent a similar to Frank Kratovil who is my parent’s rep in MD-1. See what good it does.
Danceswithdachshunds #158,
That’s pretty good I had never seen that one before, did you determine it or find it?
LGM #156,
So questioning of assumptions and models is now trying to discredit those models. Stupid statement, science is a questioning of every assumption and model that is how knowlege is moved forward. I can see me the next time I have a project telling my boss and the client that they cannot ask questions of my model or assumptions because they are only trying to discredit me not find out information about what I put together. You know in those question and answer sessions I have found problems I missed and I was never, ever, upset about the fact that a problem was found. I was grateful that we did not move forward with a faulty model. I have found problems in others work and found that those who got upset by my or others questioning were the most insecure and less capable engineers.
So what, when I present my work I give a complete background of what went into oit. Including a copy of the work a few days before the meeting and a powerpoint during the meeting and guess what — I still get questions, and so does every other engineer I have worked with when it was there turn in the hot seat.
Again, so what? I have seen projects where the engineers thought they had covered all aspects of the problem, even talked it over with other engineers not on the project just to get inputs and still things get missed.
No, I have read the literature and I go back to my original premise. We do not have the computing power to fully model the climate. Even if we had the computing power we do not know all the variables to input into the model. Simplifying assumptions are made and tolerances are accepted. Now on a jet engine, since we have been building them for 70 years, we pretty much know how to model them and what assumptions to make and still it is an iterative process to get the final model together. On the climate we do not have that luxury, we need to be reasonably certain that the model is right and that means testing it on the only examples we have and that is historical climate data. If it cannot accurately predict the past it cannot predict the future. Show me in the literature where tests on time periods have been done and that they are accurate to within the tolerance.
And as Danceswithdachshunds reminds us the model was already wrong. It predicted warming when there is actual cooling. Guess what, someone let their bias in when they either wrote the program or put the assumptions and initial conditions in.
Science is not done by concensus but by experiment and analysis. If you are going to make statements that the concensus is there that global warming is a fact then I must remind you that you can never prove anything in science right, you can only prove it wrong.
and
Wholeheartedly concur with your analysis covering the CFD problem dilemma/assumptions in relationship to accuracy. I use COMSOL for this area of study, which software are you utilizing?
Excellent points on real world applications and presentations.
lgm apparently is still stuck in the quagmire of theoretical realm and has not made the leap to reality in critical applications.
Exactly right. If you should happen to read them, you will find out that they don’t take into account the effect of clouds, except with perhaps some gross simplifications. Those scientists who do explore the effect of clouds seem to get shut down when their research contradicts the foregone conclusion (as per the WSJ article).
Think about it for a minute: the article to which you linked earlier said that the climate researchers were working hard on a general cloud model, and may have one that works within a few years.
But if their models are so accurate, what’s the point of that? If they don’t believe there’s a possibility that they might get a different outcome, why would they bother?
Your link demonstrates that the climate researchers know that their models are flawed. If I knew that airplane designers were using, to make design changes, models that can’t predict the behavior of the current design, I certainly wouldn’t have a lot of confidence in them, and wouldn’t risk the lives and livelihoods of other people on blind faith in those particular engineers, regardless of how many of them there were or what their CVs said.
If you were a scientist whose living depended on the continuation of your research, wouldn’t you want the body funding you to think there’s a compelling reason to keep funding you?
I’m not interested in somehow “invalidating”, I think may be the term you used, the work of anybody, but I’m not afraid to use a little elementary logic to question whether their conclusions necessarily follow from their analysis.
As you would know, he “appeal to authority” is a debating technique, a rhetorical tool, that generally disappears with the increasing sophistication and maturity of the debater. Your insinuation that I should set aside my own ability to read and reason because “America’s best minds” are working on a particular problem is not particularly compelling.
I think I have detected something here that may in fact be at work in the GW debate. LGM points out that anyone who wishes (I assume, anyhow) can present a paper to any of the scientific publications for peer review and analysis.
What if the reviewers are in the tank for a certain point of view, and they cannot or will not put aside their prejudices to print a critique of their pet theory? No dissent gets published, that’s what happens.
As has been pointed out in this and past threads, the “climate scientists” have a vested interest in keeping the debate going and attaining legislation that puts more money into the research.
You know, at least the scientists that work for the “big oil” companies are honest with themselves and us about their motivations. As a matter of fact, we don’t really know that scientists working with oil companies are wrong, the current establishment just assumes they are and moves on.
BTW LGM, I have read th einformation you linked in the past, because I will not make a determination based solely on rhetoric. However, I find the IPCC’s conclusions short on hard facts. They seem to indicate that many contributing factors “may” be causing the warming effect. I stand by my own reading of the temp charts provided by such places as NASA, which indicate a curent cooling trend rather than a warming trend. If the GW alarmists were right, we should be considerably warmer even right now.
Maybe Algore can explain why it has NOT been hot in the North East. So far this year it has been one of the most cloudy and cool years on record. In mud June it would be only on the 60’s for days on end.
Sorry guys, but all it takes is just good ol, plain common sense.
CO2 is NOT a pollutant. It is something that every living thing on this planet requires to continue living.
Athing that uses photosynthesis REQUIRES CO2. Trees, plants, grass…they all require it to “breathe”. And what is the byproduct of their “breathing”? OXYGEN.
The current CYCLE the planet finds itself in has more to do with SUNSPOTS than it does with anything else. ESPECIALLY the fact that there is a SERIOUS LACK of sunspots right this very minute.
I would like to know just when computers became infallible? the thing about computer models is that any scientist or basic hacker can change the outcome to any damn thing they want simply by the information they use to program their models. In fact, rather than being infallible, they are the most unreliable source of information in regards to climate change imaginable.
The planet and it’s climate runs in cycles. PERIOD! There is not a damn thing that you, the alleged scientists or anyone else can do about it, and to suggest otherwise is so amazingly arrogant that it defies definition.
Now, if you want to clean up pollution because humans require, live better and function better when we have clean air, water, dirt etc., that’s fine. When it comes to that, the planet, or at least the United States, is now far cleaner than it has been since the dawning of the Industrial Revolution, and I, for one, am all for things that create less pollution.
But don’t be so arrogant as to lie about what is going on in order to fund all these purely for-profit “Green” initiatives and programs, causing an unnecessary panic amongst idiots who not only cannot think for themselves, but who believes whatever is on television without question or personal research.
LGm is a PRIME example of just that type of person. LGM has fallen into this trap, something that is nothing more than a popular fad, a fad where it has somehow made those who believe this crap into the “cool kids”.
Man-Made Global Warming is a hoax, a lie, the biggest example of a flim-flam this world has ever seen, and the more REAL science is done on the subject, the more this lie is being exposed for what it is.
And Algore can take his fat, bloated, hypocritical butt and go to hell.
lgm: No, we want Al Gore and his minions to debate the FACTS. And the politicians need to stay out of it.
When His Hugeness was called to testify before the House recently, Lord Monckton was invited by the Republicans to also testify. However, the Dimmocrats wre afraid of the possible outcome and disallowed it. Now, how is that reasonable and balanced debate?
Also, you need to understand the IPCC and how it operates. From their website they state, “Review by governments and experts are essential elements of the preparation of IPCC reports.” There you have it, the politicians want power, they control the purse strings, guess which projects get funded and which don’t?
LGM, you have a computer model, I have observed data.
Guess which is more acurate???
That is exactly correct–if the journal is ‘in the tank’, as you say, SHoward, you’ve just gotta publish your minority report yourself!
jah said:
Danceswithdachshunds #158,
That’s pretty good I had never seen that one before, did you determine it or find it?
LGM #156,
I think it was implicit in what you said, and still is
So questioning of assumptions and models is now trying to discredit those models.
Sorry, hit “Submit” too soon.
jah said (#162):
No. But if you want to question the models, have some respect for the people who made them, and for the technical nature of the subject. Don’t pretend that they “forgot” to take into account clouds. Don’t write stupid things like “CO2 is NOT a pollutant. It is something that every living thing on this planet requires to continue living.” Which is like saying it’s impossible to drown because water is natural. Recognize that much of the criticism of global warming is written by people who are not experts and do not understand the models.
Here lgm has proven that “global warming” is a “religion” like islam.
“…and DEATH to the unbeliever!!”
And yet the sideshow is trotted out around the world by an non-scientist huckster named Gore.
lgm: Your correlation is idiotic. CO2 is NOT a pollutant, it exists naturally. Drowning happens when you get in over your head, and you, obviously are there.
Someone throw lgm a lifejacket!
nail49 – Can we fill the lifejacket with bricks?
JHSII: Whatever works!
Obviously if it were an inflatable lifejacket he wouldn’t take it because whoever blew it up would fill it with that dreaded pollutant CO2 along with a good measure of that deadly dihydrogen oxide!
LGM: you said you want a specific argument. Well, here is mine.
Someone else was talking about the Medieval Warm Period and the fact that it, along with the Little Ice Age and other numerous warm/cool periods, shows that climate can rapidly change without the anthropogenic addition of CO2.
This is true but it gets more interesting.
Most AGW scenarios, like the IPCC projections, rely on positive feedbacks to produce the levels of warming they predict. This is because the forcing from pure CO2 is known and it doesn’t really cause a huge warming. So the theory is, the CO2 provides the initial warming and then positive feedbacks start, and you get this “runaway” warming that they like to talk about now.
The positive feedbacks come from things like water vapor, methane being released, etc.
My question: why didn’t the positive feedbacks didn’t lead to runaway warming in one of the other warming periods?
CO2 IS NOT a polutant!
Not anymore than Oxygen is a pollutant, you immature sycophant.
For the Record: I am still a skeptic that AGW is occuring. I have read the information, both for the general public and hard science. I remain highly skeptical that we are warming the planet.
However, there is one truth: CO2 does have the ability to absorb and retain heat. That has been proven in countless laboratory experiments.
I do NOT believe that its presence in our atmosphere at 385 ppm is enough to affect the felt temperature, but it really does trap heat.
I opine that the whole AGW scenario began when someone years ago looked at the natural warming trend experienced from the 30’s to the late 90’s (70’s at that time), then a chart of increased CO2 output and thought (incorrectly) that the two were a cause and effect relationship.
Now that the temp is going sideways, even while CO2 production continues to increase, that theory cannot stand to the observable temperatures.
But CO2 can trap heat. That isn’t fiction.
nail49 said (#175):
The amount of CO2 we have now is not bad for us we’ve evolved to (or were created to) live in it. 100% CO2 would be less fine. Even a few percent more CO2 (scientists believe) would raise the temperature of the earth enough that we would be very unhappy in that brave new world.
JHSII said (#176):
To facilitate this post, I want everyone to know that JHSII in reality is Jonas Hieronymus Socrates II and lives at 1776 Revolution Ave., Chicago Il. Death to all who doubt the one true G-d and his natural born sun (which causes global warming).
Zoot skipped a groove again.
That may be…but it is NOT a pollutant.
Eliminate CO2…go ahead, LGM, and eliminate it. See what happens to all life on this planet.
Pollutants, if eliminated, are BENEFICIAL.
Go ahead, you immature little sycophant…develop one of your precious little computer models and eliminate CO2.
Does it hurt when you think? Because it hurts everyone else when you think.
From the Wall Street Journal today:
LGM, these are just a few, but they are definitely “qualified” to speak on these matters. But here’s the part that addresses your earlier assertion about dissenting papers:
<blockquote>(Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)
Is that your idea of scientific debate? Refusing to print the opposing view? It’s really easy to win an arguement when you don’t have to let the other guy speak. It becomes even easier to convince the masses of your position if yours is the only one they hear.
I agree with you, RetFireman. Completely. The issue afoot, however, is that the AGW alarmists aren’t exactly calling it one, just saying it should be treated as one, a position I disagree with.
Treating it as one…calling it one…six of one…
These are nothing but knee-jerk reactions from people that have no concept of history beyond what their own experiences on this planet are. They remember colder winters, hotter Summers or vice versa, thus there must be something that us evil humans, especially here in America are doing. Ignore the millions and millions of years of history of the planet’s climate.
Again, the world went from being covered with water, to a tropical clime, to being frozen over in upwards of a mile thick sheet of ice to where we are today. Was it Dinosaur farts? Did Mammoths drive SUV’s? Maybe it was all those coal burning plants that the Cro-Magnans operated…right LGM?
The “proof” is NOT fact. Science is NOT a “conscensus”. It is FACTS…undisputed FACTS!
Not hypothesis, not theories, FACTS!
And the FACTS do NOT add up to man-made global warming.
It has more to do with the SUN and the current amount of SUN SPOTS than whether or not we are being inundated with cow farts and SUV’s.
As it is, it is already swinging back in it’s CYCLE past the point that caused so much knee-jerk reactions in the first place.