British climate scientist: We're wasting billions on global warming

[Nederland]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2331057/Why-I-think-wasting-billions-global-warming-British-climate-scientist.html

<snip>

Last week, I was part of a group of academics who published a paper saying that the faster, more alarming, projections of the rate at which the globe is warming look less likely than previously thought.

That may mean we can afford to reduce carbon dioxide emissions slightly slower than some previously feared – but as almost everyone agrees, they still have to come down.

<snip>

I predict that this scientist will quickly be attacked by climate change activists and labelled a denier. This is the problem with climate change in the political arena: it has become polarized to the extent that factually accurate scientific statements about climate change are challenged by people that are ignorant of the advances we have had in climate science in the last 5-10 years. It is time to wake up to reality and listen to the more moderate voices, because if we don't the full on deniers will start to look more credible.

[byeya]

1. Let us see your data please. That's the question I would ask this scientist because most say

climate change is occurring more rapidly.

[fasttense]

2. Exactly byeya

The feed back loop has been causing more rapid climate change, not less rapid, than expected by most mainstream scientists. So, I agree with you what exactly is his evidence? And to write for the Daily Mail does NOT require much expertise, just sensationalism.

[byeya]

6. Yes. It's my understanding that the sequestered C02 and methane is being loosed into the atmosphere

faster than the concensus computer models were calling for.
Then there's local happenings with a world-wide impact like Alberta's tar sands project.

[Nederland]

11. That is true

CO2 is rising faster than projected, and yet temperatures are rising slower than projected. The fact that CO2 is higher than model projections should mean that temperatures should also come in higher than model projections, but they are not--they are slightly lower. That combination is precisely what makes scientists say that things are not as bad as we once thought.

[CreekDog]

85. People should see the other OP you wrote: "It's not as bad as we thought"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112734826

also, you changed the actual title of the article to "It's not as bad as we thought".

how misleading of you.

folks should read this about you before proceeding through this thread.

also if you call people who believe in climate change "doomers" again, I'm going to start thinking you are AverageJoe90.

[caraher]

4. His research is not about how fast climate is changing now

All it does is provide a projection whose top end is a bit lower than the top end some others have forecast. But the mere fact that the top end number is lower has apparently become fodder for the "skeptics". (The academic paper is behind a paywall, but a Google search on its title, "Energy budget constraints on climate response," should turn up a .pdf of the letter in the first page of results.)

To be clear: Allen is not "climate skeptic" by any means, and is bemused by the thought that skeptics consider his work in any way a validation of their position. Concerning one skeptic's reaction, Allen wrote,

Ridley is excited about this, because he feels it means that until his teenage children reach retirement age, they won't have to worry about global warming. And he is worried that government policies are misguided because they place their faith in climate models, like one of the Met Office models that puts the warming instead at 2.5C, almost twice our estimate.

But no one places their faith in any single climate model, and no one has done so for 20 years. Climate scienitsts are all well aware the Met's model (HadGEM2) is at the top end of the current range. The Met Office's advice to government is based on the range of results from current climate models, not just their own.

The relevant comparison is not with the 2.5C response of one model, but with the average of climate models used by the UN's climate science panel in its upcoming major report, which is 1.8C. Now 1.3C is 30% less than 1.8C, but this is hardly a game changer: at face value, our new findings mean that the changes we had previously expected between now and 2050 might take until 2065 to materialise instead. Then again, they might not: 1.8C is within our range of uncertainty; and natural variability will affect what happens in the 2050s anyway.

Despite this, our study seems to be being enthusiastically cited by Ridley and climate sceptics the world over as final endorsement of their position. If this means their position is that the most likely response is 30% lower than the average of our current models, then perhaps the debate on global temperature is indeed over: 30% is well within the range of uncertainty anyway. But that doesn't mean all debate about climate is over.

[Yo_Mama]

5. Actually, that's not what most climate scientists are saying

http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/wti/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/rss/plot/none

There are ongoing arguments about what is happening to who where, but the very high level of sun activity in the 20th century is clearly tailing off, and climate sensitivity estimates are being adjusted down as a consequence.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/pmod/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/normalise/plot/rss/normalise

There should be no way CO2-assisted warming wouldn't have a tropospheric signature - warming should show up first there - but changes in solar irradiance seem to have stopped the rise. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that a part of the earlier tropospheric warming derived from the higher levels of solar activity in the last century.

In the graph, green is normalized Mauna Loa CO2, red is solar activity (which varies with the sunspot cycle), and blue is RSS MSU tropospheric temps.

To add to that, over the last couple of decades the effects of natural oscillations in distributing heat have been studied, and it turns out there is a high historical correlation with longer rises in observed temps when the AMO and PDO are on their rising cycles.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/sidc-ssn/normalise/from:1850/mean:24/plot/hadcrut3vgl/normalise/from:1850/mean:24/plot/jisao-pdo/normalise/from:1850/mean:24/plot/esrl-amo/normalise/from:1850/mean:24

We are now, therefore, running an accidental experiment which probably will allow us to get a better handle on "pure" CO2 sensitivity as three natural temp drivers aside from CO2 were generally on the rise and now have shifted into lower gears. And that is leading estimates of climate sensitivity to be adjusted downward.

What the climate actually will do over the next century, of course, is not known, but natural fluctuations will continue to fluctuate. The Atlantic and Pacific oscillations can be figured, CO2 levels are going to continue to rise, and we don't understand the solar activity cycles very well, so we just have to observe.

Scientists have been struggling with the climate sensitivity question for quite a while and the struggle continues:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111124150827.htm

[Nederland]

8. Here you go

Here is a plot comparing observed temperatures to model projections:



As you can see, the observed temperatures are coming in slightly below model projections. Not much below, and still within the CI, but nevertheless they are clearly below projections. It is based on this fact (and others) that scientists are saying that things are not as bad as we once thought. Further proof of this is evident from the fact that the Met office revised its warming projections downward and the IPCC AR5 report will likely (unless major changes are made to the current draft) do the same.

Since I responded to your request for data, can you respond to one of mine? What evidence do you have that 'most say climate change is occurring more rapidly'?


Here are the raw datasets so you can verify the data for yourself:

GISS:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

NCDC:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/index.php#anomalies

HadCRUT4:

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly

RSS: http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_3.txt

UAH:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt

[Edim]

13. here's some data

http://www.woodfortrees.org/

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/plot/hadsst2gl

The postulated AGW started (or became significant) sometime after the middle of the 20th century.

[Edim]

18. what most say is irrelevant in science

Nature is the only authority.

[Dash87]

3. Bool-sheet!

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. I can't take a claim of "we must bury most of the CO2 we produce from burning carbon" seriously

when no-one has buried any CO2 on a decent scale, let alone worked out how to bury a significant proportion of all the CO2 we produce. He says "just make it law, and the producers are bound to work out a way to do it; that way we can carry on burning fossil fuels". Blind faith in the ability to produce an entire new technology to be used at all the major power stations in the world, no matter what their local geology, is not a good plan to bet everything on. The alternatives - wind, solar, even nuclear - have to remain in the mix.

[Nederland]

9. I would agree

Carbon capture has yet to demonstrate anything close to feasibility, despite the millions poured into it.

[Junkdrawer]

45. Last year, one of the "I'm an engineer and you're not" (tm) types actually said....

that cars should capture all the CO2 they produce.

I asked "Do you have ANY idea how much that would weigh"? He said "why, a small fraction of a tank of gas."

And that's why he's an engineer and I'm not.

Oh, for the non-nerds: http://www.bicyclinginfo.org/faqs/answer.cfm?id=3460

[Junkdrawer]

10. This message brought to you by the Oil Industry who no longer denies AGW...

is preparing for the economically inevitable switch to Greener energy, BUT STILL WANTS TO PUMP AS MUCH OIL AS IT CAN FROM THE EARTH.

[Junkdrawer]

12. Put simply, the cancer is metastasizing, but we're taking stronger pain meds...

Read all about it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/doubling-down-on-our-faustian-bargain_b_2989535.html

Or, as one wag put it:

Armageddon delayed by poisoning China. Details to follow.

[Nederland]

16. Hansen is an outlier

His projections about how high temperatures would get have always been in the upper end of others in the field. A quick look at how those predictions have failed to materialized should tell you that he was overly pessimistic. There is nothing in that article that is surprising though. At this point so much of his career is wrapped up in the message of needing to do something "right now" I can hardly expect him to change.

[Junkdrawer]

20. Myles Allen or James Hansen? Whom to believe????

Really tough call.

[Nederland]

29. Not a tough call at all

All you have to do is look at who has had the most accurate predictions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/27/climate-change-model-global-warming

The paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Geoscience, explores the performance of a climate forecast based on data up to 1996 by comparing it with the actual temperatures observed since. The results show that scientists accurately predicted the warming experienced in the past decade, relative to the decade to 1996, to within a few hundredths of a degree.

The forecast, published in 1999 by Myles Allen and colleagues at Oxford University, was one of the first to combine complex computer simulations of the climate system with adjustments based on historical observations to produce both a most likely global mean warming and a range of uncertainty. It predicted that the decade ending in December 2012 would be a quarter of degree warmer than the decade ending in August 1996 – and this proved almost precisely correct.

[Junkdrawer]

34. Hansen has been warning us that The Faustian Bargain sits out there since at least 2009....

what he missed was that we would be stupid enough to double down....

There are riots in China over dirty coal. I honestly can't say what I fear most:

1.) China/India stopping quickly the burning of dirty coal/asphalt

2.) China/India burning even more

[Nederland]

67. Irrelevant

In science the bottom line is does your theory of how things work match reality. Hansen's didn't.

[byeya]

25. This is most interesting information you are posting and I thank you for doing so.

I am still under the impression that if warming were to stop where it is now, then the tundra would still melt and the CO2 and methane would be liberated - it's unstoppable. There's more CO2 in the tundra than in the rainforests.
With methane, the total volume liberated is mediated by the methane-eating bacteria. The warmer the temperature at the site of methane release, the more of it is eaten by the bacteria. At 3C and below, it's my understanding the bacteria are dormant.

[Nederland]

30. Yes, that is one theory

However, the bottom line is that history has shown that climate is a lot more complicated than we thought and our understanding of all the different factors is rather primitive. The idea that we can correctly predict temperature rise over the next 90yrs is pure hubris.

[CreekDog]

50. you're saying not to do anything until we can verify exactly what will happen

which is the same as saying don't do anything.

thanks for playing.

[GliderGuider]

63. Yes, let's just wait and see. That's the ticket.

Ironically, it's what we will most probably do. I'm practicing turning a necessity into a virtue though, by withdrawing from activism altogether and becoming purely a witness to the unfolding Climate Clusterfuck. Just call me the Psychopomp of Civilization.

I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning, and the four sweetest words in the English language are "I told you so..."

[Junkdrawer]

64. For a friend....

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/love-and-the-apocalypse/radical-is-the-new-normal

[GliderGuider]

65. Thanks! I'm re-posting this previous reply to that article, because it deserves to be said again

Unfortunately, Jensen's bright-eyed, roll-up-the-sleeves enthusiasm is still a form of denial - especially in the face of what he already knows. Here's the situation and the prognosis as I see it:

1. There are currently 7 billion human organisms on the planet. We use the equivalent of 12 billion tonnes of oil a year to do what we do, maintain what we've built in the past and provide a (small and shrinking) margin for growth. That's the energy equivalent of four cubic miles of oil. Every year.

2. A truly sustainable human population is one that would be able to live here in perpetuity without damaging the non-human portion of the biosphere. Even on a pristine planet (which this is manifestly not, any more) such a human population could not safely exceed 35 million people - but ONLY if they don't ever grow beyond that number or use any fossil fuels whatsoever. Given that our actions have already severely damaged the biosphere (as Jensen notes) the upper limit for true sustainability is possibly no more than 20 million humans.

As far as I can tell, getting from Point 1 (ecocidal species) to Point 2 (safe planetary citizens) within a couple of hundred years just isn't something that can be done voluntarily, or without enormous coercion, resistance and pain.

The most probable outcome is going to be that we'll all do our best, but nothing will really change our trajectory until we hit some limits to growth. Those limits will likely be a combination of rapid climate change and energy or food shortages of different degrees around the globe.

I used to think that a vast monolithic global crash would be the likely outcome. I don't think that any more. As I say in the linked article above,

As time has passed I've become less confident in this particular dystopian vision. It now seems to me that human beings may be just a bit tougher than that. We would fight like demons to stop the slide, though we would potentially do a lot more damage to the environment in the process. We would try with all our might to cling to civilization and rebuild our former glory. Different physical, environmental and social situations around the world would result in a great diversity in regional outcomes. To put it plainly, a simple "slide to oblivion" is not in the cards for any species that could recover from the giant Toba volcanic eruption in just 75,000 years.

Still, there are those physical limits I mentioned above. They are looming ever closer, and it seems a foregone conclusion that we will begin to encounter them for real within the next decade or two. In order to draw a slightly more realistic picture of what might happen at that point, I created the following thought experiment on involuntary population decline. It's based on the idea that our population will not simply crash, but will oscillate (tumble) down a series of stair-steps: first dropping as we puncture the limits to growth; then falling below them; then partially recovering; only to fall again; partially recover; fall; recover...

[center][/center]

Even this rather dire scenario takes 2000 years to get us close to "true sustainability", and still leaves plenty of room during the next few hundred years for further degradation of the planet's carrying capacity.

Human intelligence is the very best limit-avoidance mechanism that has ever evolved on this planet, by many orders of magnitude. Unfortunately, humans overall appear to see opportunities far more clearly than consequences. As a result, even on the down-slope we will continue to chew away at the essential support systems in nature. That means that by the time we get to a population and consumption level that was previously sustainable, the planet's carrying capacity will have been eroded to below that level:

[center][/center]

We have no way of telling where the equilibrium point will be. All we can tell from here is that it will be at a population level that is drastically lower than it is today.

To be absolutely clear, after ten years of investigating what I affectionately call "The Global Clusterfuck", I do not think it can be prevented, mitigated or managed in any way. If and when it happens, it will follow its own dynamic, and the force of events could easily make the Japanese and Andaman tsunamis seem like pleasant days at the beach.

The most effective preparations that we can make will all be done by individuals and small groups. It will be up to each of us to decide what our skills, resources and motivations call us to do. It will be different for each of us - even for people in the same neighborhood, let alone people on opposite sides of the world.

I've been saying for a couple of years that each of us will each do whatever we think is appropriate to the circumstances, in whatever part of the world we can influence. The outcome of our actions is ultimately unforeseeable, because it depends on how the efforts of all 7 billion of us converge, co-operate and compete. The end result will be quite different from place to place - climate change impacts will vary, resources vary, social structures vary, values and belief systems are different all over the world.The best we can do is to do our best.

Here is my advice:

• Stay awake to what's happening around us.
  
• Don't get hung up by other people’s "shoulds and shouldn'ts".
  
• Occasionally re-examine our personal values. If they aren't in alignment with what we think the world needs, change them.
  
• Stop blaming people. Others are as much victims of the times as we are - even the CEOs and politicians.
  
• Blame, anger and outrage is pointless. It wastes precious energy that we will need for more useful work.
  
• Laugh a lot, at everything - including ourselves.
  
• Hold all the world's various beliefs and "isms" lightly, including our own.
  
• Forgive others. Forgive ourselves. For everything.
  
• Love everything just as deeply as you can.

That's what I think might be helpful. If we get all that personal stuff right, then doing the physical stuff about food, water, housing,transportation, energy, politics and the rest of it will come easy – or at least a bit easier. And we will have a lot more fun doing it.

Good luck to us. We're going to need it.

[Junkdrawer]

68. I share the fears...I see the wisdom....

But add to your list something one of the brightest persons in my life told me once:

Always keep this in the back of your mind: "I could be wrong."

[GliderGuider]

77. My assumption is that I'm always going to be wrong on something.

The important thing for me is not necessarily to get as close to "right" as possible, but to define the problem space as thoroughly as possible. That means not letting my own self-protective psychology get in the way when I encounter either optimistic or pessimistic possibilities. In other words, I am trying not to fall victim to confirmation bias, as I have in the past.

I think such self-protective reactions are behind a lot of the technophilia and hopium I see on this topic, as well as behind the deeper forms of doomerism. I tend to present more extreme downsides because the upside is already so well represented by the Pollyannas, diminishers and deniers.

I'm convinced that we need to give the dark side its due if we are ever going to respond realistically to what is actually happening around us.

[Junkdrawer]

78. At this point, inventing our way into a full continuation of our current lifestyle....

is probably not possible.

I'm thinking "controlled crash". I'm thinking "where's a good spot on the Hudson River?"

Instead, I'm seeing the wealthiest of the wealthy surround themselves with a Security State and hunkering down in an insane, machine gun protected version of Lost Horizon.

Or, to switch analogies:

[Nederland]

74. No I am not

I am saying that the author is correct and that our current climate policy is flawed.

[Edim]

14. Believe it or not

the oil industry (and others including bankers, academia, politicians, greens) has been on the AGW bandwagon big time. We're wasting trillions IMO, on the non-existing problem.

[MattBaggins]

19. What non existent problem are you referring to?

[Edim]

22. AGW. nt

[MattBaggins]

24. Enjoy your time at DU

[Edim]

26. why do you say that?

Is it such taboo to be skeptical of AGW? That's how we've got here, by suppressing any dissent.

[CreekDog]

59. so you echo and support the OP yet you don't reply to him once

he doesn't reply to you.

you just post in his thread, in total agreement without a single reply to him. and he doesn't interact with you at all either.

either you both agree nearly 100% on this topic and don't have any arguments with each other, but also feel no need to support each other's arguments.

or you don't agree and yet you don't argue, you don't question each other, you don't have curiousity about the other's position.

that seems odd.

[Edim]

62. I don't find it odd.

I don't know all about his opinion, but he calls AGW skeptics deniers and I disagree strongly. I think the AGW convinced are climate change deniers - it's a projection. You have to deny climate change in order to believe in AGW.

I feel no need to support his arguments.

[Nederland]

36. Unless we start acknowledging reality...

...people like Edim will win the argument.

The reality is that global warming is a problem, it's just not as bad as we thought. To say otherwise is to pretend that the past 15 years didn't happen.

[Edim]

73. Nature will win the argument.

It's the only authority. IMO, global cooling will be a problem in the next few decades, everything points to that (weak solar cycle, multidecadal oscillations...). The temperature plateau will be over, at the latest after the current solar cycle (#24) maximum (~2015).

[CreekDog]

83. finally replied to the OP after all this time, you took my advice!

[CreekDog]

48. already blocked from the Environment and Energy group for climate denial nonsense

as is Nederland.

[Edim]

55. it only shows

the taboo about AGW skepticism. Climate, Climate Change or Global Warming denial is just a projection and Orwellian language. As I said, all the 'Bigs' (Energy, Banks, Bureaucrats...) have been on the AGW bandwagon and profiteering, and liberals/progressives should be very skeptical.

[CreekDog]

57. scientific consensus isn't a "bandwagon"

i don't hear you complaining that most liberals believe in plate tectonics and should be skeptical of that do i?

[Edim]

60. There's no hysteria about plate tectonics

But scientists should always be skeptical. Remember, the consensus suppressed, ridiculed and attacked the plate tectonics hypothesis for a very long time.

That's how science progresses, by overcoming paradigm paralysis. No wonder Feynmann said that science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

[Nederland]

76. True

Yes, there is broad consensus around the fact that CO2 causes warming and that human activity is increasing CO2 level. However, there is considerable debate around how bad things will get.

[Apophis]

95. Surely you're not a troll out to disrupt this website.

You sound like an upstanding liberal.

[CreekDog]

49. perfectly timed to echo the OP's message almost word for word

so convenient.

whenever he posts climate change denial, someone will pop up and echo his thoughts.

gosh, i wish i had that luck when i posted on DU.

[Junkdrawer]

17. Oh, and in case anyone says this is a convenient NEW theory:

From November 1st LAST YEAR:

We're already doing poorman's GeoEngineering...

The US is switching from Coal to Fracked Methane. Meanwhile, the Coal is being shipped to China where it will be burned with little or no smokestack cleanup. While this will aggravate an already awful public heath problem in China, the short-lived particulates and sulfur aerosols should mask some of the warming caused by the vast increases in global CO2 levels.

Hansen refers to this in his "Storms of my Grandchildren" as the great Faustian bargain.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=27062

On Edit:

"Storms of my Grandchildren" is from 2009

[Takket]

15. better safe than sorry........ let's reduce them as much as we THINK we might need -nt-

[Edim]

21. no one is reducing anything

It's just bureaucratic verbiage.

[Takket]

23. pffft yeah i kind of forgot that point...

if no one is reducing anything this argument is meaningless

[Edim]

27. it's not meaningless

[ananda]

28. This is from the Daily Mail

Consider the source.

[Nederland]

31. Yes, consider the source

It's far easier than considering the data...

[Viking12]

41. What data?

There's nothing but a bunch of naked assertions in that article.

Typical denier bullshit from the usual suspects.

[Nederland]

43. The data in post #8

What data do you have to show that temperatures are rising faster than predicted?

[Viking12]

44. LOL. Nice dodge.

Where's the economic analysis to support the economic, technical, and policy assertions made in the article? You got nothing, instead you refer to a graph that shows current warming is well within the margins of predictions.

[Nederland]

71. I think you are confused...

...about the central point the article is trying to make.

[Viking12]

79. Nope.

Allen's central point is that he published a paper that suggests the transient climate Response may be marginally lower than the consensus and now he thinks he's and expert in economics, technology, and policy.

Please tell me about this magical sequestration machine Allen propses! How much will it cost per tonne of carbon? How will it work? Where will we put the carbon?

[Nederland]

92. Wrong

Allen's central point is that he published a paper that suggests the transient climate Response may be marginally lower than the consensus and now he thinks he's and expert in economics, technology, and policy.

Wrong. Allen's central point is the consensus on what the transient climate response is has changed. His paper is not the only one saying that transient climate response is lower than originally thought, it is merely one of many. Given this fact, it should be obvious that we need to rethink our approach.

[Viking12]

93. tell me about this magical sequestration machine Allen proposes

You sure do have some reading comprehension problems.

[Factfriendly McFact]

32. Sourcewatch says Daily Mail "publishes articles promoting a climate change skeptic view"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Daily_Mail

[Nederland]

40. Ad hominem fallacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

[CreekDog]

86. Credibility of the source (or lack thereof) is relevant, which is why you refer to us as "deniers"

when we are the opposite.

don't pretend that credibility is not an issue you consider when you deal with an argument.

if that were true, you wouldn't work so hard to continually say WE, who believe in global climate change, are the deniers and that you aren't.

[blogslut]

33. Can I ask you something?

Renewable energy sources reduce waste, save resources and cost less. How is that a bad thing?

[Nederland]

35. If they really cost less...

...why do governments have to subsidize them?

[joeybee12]

38. Why do governments subsidize the oil companies? nt

[Nederland]

42. Politics

What is your point?

Renewables receive far far more money per unit energy generated than oil...

[CreekDog]

47. because non renewables aren't as cheap as their pricetag

if we wreck our climate, oil and other fossil fuels will be the most expensive thing we ever saved money on.

you seem to veer between thinking global climate change is 1) not happening and 2) not a big deal.

[Nederland]

75. True

However, do you really believe, for example, that the subsidies that solar receives in Germany merely "levels the playing field"?

[CreekDog]

84. because the damage burning non renewables is not factored into the cost of them

the damage is something we all pay for in other ways, which makes fossil fuels look cheaper than they are.

[joeybee12]

37. Thanks for the post from one of Murdoch's rags...those always have

intelligent people makeing comments and writing columns, certainly not people without any evidence to back up their claims.

[Viking12]

39. Scientists do science, not economics

Being an expert in climate science does not make him an expert in economics, technology, and policy. His recommendations on the latter 3 are completely void of any substantive backing.

[CreekDog]

46. more denial?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=about&forum=1127

[Junkdrawer]

52. Extraordinarily interesting.....

You made my day.

[CreekDog]

61. thank you

can't waste a good memory.

[Egalitarian Thug]

56. This one has been making "contributions" here for a very long time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=104387

[CreekDog]

58. and he seems to have a new friend here to echo all his skepticism of climate change

which is a good thing because AverageJoe, who usually does that, seems to be here today, but too busy i guess.

[Nederland]

69. I tried to get the folks in EE out of their denial

I failed.

I just hope the environmental community as a whole doesn't follow suite. Scientists like Allen are very comfortable changing their position when the facts change. Unfortunately, activists aren't.

[NickB79]

51. The Arctic is projected to be ice-free in 10 years

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/08/13/arctic-ice-melting-faster.html

Arctic sea ice is melting at a pace so much faster than once thought that the latest projections say it might disappear by as soon as 2022, according to measurements from the European Space Agency.

An analysis from the CryoSat-2 probe, launched two years ago as a purpose-built satellite for studying the thickness of Arctic ice, suggests that 900 cubic kilometres of ice have disappeared every year since 2004.

At such a dramatic rate, scientists say it's possible in 10 years that the Arctic could be ice-free for at least a day.

"Very soon we may experience the iconic moment when, one day in the summer, we look at satellite images and see no sea ice coverage in the Arctic, just open water," Dr. Seymour Laxon, with London's Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, told The Guardian newspaper.

And Mr. Allen thinks we can afford to slow down our efforts to combat climate change

[XemaSab]

53. That's a really optimistic projection

[CreekDog]

54. Do you really expect us to believe you meant these words sincerely?

It is time to wake up to reality and listen to the more moderate voices, because if we don't the full on deniers will start to look more credible.

are you now saying you aren't a denier.

or are you just raising a concern that you really are worried that deniers might somehow win the argument? (when you've been supporting them all along)

[Nederland]

72. I've never been a denier

It's only the extremists in EE that call a person that refuses to say "we're all DOOMED" a denier.

[CreekDog]

81. Sure you have been a denier and here you are trying to mislead by calling believers deniers

with the help of a brand new, low post count DU account, which is arguing the same thing.

this is quite sophisticated.

what you both are doing is saying black is white and white is black. your goal is to muddy the issue and create confusion about it where scientists have little.

you and Edim are both doing that, almost in lockstep and ironically --you are both careful not to respond to each other even though you seem to agree perfectly.

[Nederland]

90. Are you saying I have a sock puppet?

Then I suggest you report it to the admins. It is against DU rules, and they have ways of detecting them. If you are right, it will result in my being banned from DU entirely.

[CreekDog]

91. what an odd response

If?

presumably you would know one way or another, I sure don't.

If you are right, it will result in my being banned from DU entirely.

[CreekDog]

96. I'm sure people with socks know how to escape techological detection, but what they can't do...

is stop detection by people's BS meters when they all team up to advance the cause of some Libertarian think tank and/or mega fossil fuel company or lobbyist.

[marmar]

66. When you can't serve up the denial BS in E&E.......

...... Move it to GD !!!!!

[Nederland]

70. Classic example of what is wrong with EE

An OP that says this:


Do I think we’re doomed to disastrous warming? Absolutely not. But do I think we are doomed if we persist in our current approach to climate policy?

I’m afraid the answer is yes. Subsidising wind turbines and cutting down on your own carbon footprint might mean we burn through the vast quantity of carbon contained in the planet’s fossil fuels a little slower. But it won’t make any difference if we burn it in the end.


is considered "denial BS".

[SomethingFishy]

80. Funny, I don't see "BILLIONS" being spent..

What I see is a bunch of idiots ignoring the facts.

And really, The Daily Mail? Might as well have posted an article from the NY Post...

[KurtNYC]

82. yes. If anything we are wasting billions by ignoring it and

rebuilding in areas that are being reclaimed by the sea.

[Nederland]

88. Areas that are being reclaimed by the sea?

What areas have been "reclaimed by the sea" as a result of global warming? Please be specific and back up your claims with peer reviewed papers. Thanks.

[KurtNYC]

94. A couple

http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/rising-seas.html

Honolulu, New Orleans, NYC, Miami, Barrow AK, and San Diego:

http://grist.org/cities/screwed-by-climate-change-10-cities-that-will-be-hardest-hit/

[Nederland]

97. Three Points

1) These articles talk about what might happen, not what has happened.
2) The first is mostly about erosion, not sea level rise.
3) These are newspaper articles, not peer reviewed studies.

[Nederland]

89. You must not be paying attention

Do you honestly believe that Europe's cost of complying with Kyoto via the cap and trade system was zero?

[Iterate]

87. The phrases "banality of evil" and "willing executioners" come to mind.

In fact, I'd have to rate this post, it's supporters, and its defense as one of the most contemptible that I've seen here. This brand of denialism, obfuscation, foot-dragging, and minimizing has run its course, and it's time to own what you are doing:

13,600 net cubic kilometers of arctic sea ice melted in a little more than thirty years, continental-sized ecosystem disruption, more species lost per day than anyone can count, all of it, and more, led by the US with approximately double the CO2 output per capita of any major nation and with no coherent plan to do anything about it.

And then earlier this month there was the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh Mohammed Shahidul Haque who mentioned in passing that climate change mitigation is currently costing Bangladesh 2-3% of its GDP. He expects that amount will rise.

It won't be long until the deaths start rolling in and the phrases that came to mind are a little more tangible, and by the end of the century many, many millions of times more tangible. And then we can call denialism what it is: a crime against humanity.

Don't worry though. I've taken the liberty of covering your ass by emailing the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh and explaining that nothing will be done because Nederland is upset, and the projections aren't good enough, and it might be expensive, and inconvenient, and just too damn hawrd.