Skepticism about Climate Change

[Alan Klein]

Exactly right.  The 2014 agreement provided for 10 years for all members to get to the 2% target.  It also doesn't calculate the value of land used to provide facilities and bases (on any basis, economic cost, market value, opportunity cost, etc.).

Stop with the legalese.  Ten years is too long.  If bankrupt Greece can make the 2%, certainly rich Germany and France can meet it within a year or two.  These countries are sponging off the American taxpayer.  If they don't move up their 2% quickly, there is nothing in the NATO agreement that says we can't rotate a division or more back to America to save money.  Then Europe can deal with paying for more of their own troops.  Maybe you can make it up by buying more American arms.  I'm sure that's on Trump's mind too.  Look, I know you're use to taking advantage of America.  But Trump isn't the usual pushover American President.  I know from personal experience he drives a hard bargain.  You'll have to get use to it too. 

[pegelli]

Stop with the legalese.  Ten years is too long.  If bankrupt Greece can make the 2%, certainly rich Germany and France can meet it within a year or two.  These countries are sponging off the American taxpayer.  If they don't move up their 2% quickly, there is nothing in the NATO agreement that says we can't rotate a division or more back to America to save money.  Then Europe can deal with paying for more of their own troops.  Maybe you can make it up by buying more American arms.  I'm sure that's on Trump's mind too.  Look, I know you're use to taking advantage of America.  But Trump isn't the usual pushover American President.  I know from personal experience he drives a hard bargain.  You'll have to get use to it too.

Bullshit Alan, it's not legalese, there was never an agreement to do it faster. If Trump is serious he indeed should rotate a division back to save cost but he should stop the nonsence and the childish tantrum "I want in now" and "I want more". You think he's driving a hard bargain, but he's not and just making himself look like a clown. You think other countries have taken advantage of the US but there's no real proof for that (your import duties are even higher then Europe) so stop playing the victim and face up to the fact you need to increase the efficiency within the US rather then blaming others for your problems.

[Alan Klein]

There's no data to substantiate this as far as I know. Even you say it's an assumption.

Secondly, a deal from 2014 to move up to 2% in 10 years is something totally different then demanding and calculating 30 years back as if the 2% has been a agreed commitment from the start and then sending a pseudo invoice for that. That's childish, uncalled for and counterproductive and the main point I'm objecting against. It's just a big mouth to get more support at home and as a secundary objective to get more orders for the US military industry but it has very little to do with the actual defense situation in Europe.

Forget all agreements then.  America is telling Europe we need you to spend more on your own defense.  We need to cut our expenditures.  We can't afford it any more.  I'm sorry if you don't like it.  But that's the way it is.  It's like telling your wife who you promised that real fox fur coat  that sales have gone down.  Now, she'll have to accept faux fur instead. 

[Alan Klein]

Somehow we got into NATO and VAT taxes.  Those should really be in the "Trump" thread. 

Regarding CO2, it seems that something the entire plant world needs for life could hardly be called a pollutant. It may retain heat in the atmosphere, but we'd probably freeze without it.  No one is suggesting we should pollute the air, or water for that matter.  America has instituted some very good anti-pollution measures and we want to keep them, including Trump.  He's stated that we will continue to burn clean coal using scrubbers.  We've switched a lot of our energy production to less polluting gas.  People don't want nuclear.  I don't see that changing anytime soon.  Despite dropping out of Paris, Americans will continue to develop and produce energy alternatives and cleaner methods of energy use.

I heard something the other day that maybe our Australian friends know about.  Some sort of project there where they're spreading CO2 to encourage vegetation growth.  I looked on the web, but still can't find articles.  Does anyone know about this? 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I heard something the other day that maybe our Australian friends know about.  Some sort of project there where they're spreading CO2 to encourage vegetation growth.  I looked on the web, but still can't find articles.  Does anyone know about this?

It's called a greenhouse.

Cheers,
Bart

[PeterAit]

You are feeling crummy, so you go to the doctor. She says you have diabetes. Doubtful, you go for a second opinion. He also says you have diabetes. You go on and on, seeking new opinions, until you have seen 100 doctors. 99 of them say you have diabetes. One says you don't. What will you do?

[Alan Klein]

You are feeling crummy, so you go to the doctor. She says you have diabetes. Doubtful, you go for a second opinion. He also says you have diabetes. You go on and on, seeking new opinions, until you have seen 100 doctors. 99 of them say you have diabetes. One says you don't. What will you do?

Ah.  Reduce greenhouse gases.  They seem to be causing all sorts of problems today. 

[Farmer]

Stop with the legalese.  Ten years is too long.  If bankrupt Greece can make the 2%, certainly rich Germany and France can meet it within a year or two.  These countries are sponging off the American taxpayer.  If they don't move up their 2% quickly, there is nothing in the NATO agreement that says we can't rotate a division or more back to America to save money.  Then Europe can deal with paying for more of their own troops.  Maybe you can make it up by buying more American arms.  I'm sure that's on Trump's mind too.  Look, I know you're use to taking advantage of America.  But Trump isn't the usual pushover American President.  I know from personal experience he drives a hard bargain.  You'll have to get use to it too.

So first you want them to honour the agreement then when you find out that you had the details of the agreement wrong you want to stop with the details of the agreement?  Right out of the Trump play-book.

As to buying more arms or not, guess what, part of that agreement says 20% of expenditure should be on equipment.  There's nothing wrong with the agreement, just Trump's interpretation of it.

Sure, if Trump has decided that America has changed their mind that's fine, but come out and say it and don't blame Euro-NATO for "not meeting it's obligations".  That's just a lie.  Have the guts to come out and say "Sorry, guys, we can't afford this - we need you to increase funding faster than we agreed, can we look at some options here?".  But, no, he blundered his way into a lie and a baseless attack on NATO partners.  That's not negotiating, that's comedy, but everyone is laughing at him, not with him.

[Ray]

You are feeling crummy, so you go to the doctor. She says you have diabetes. Doubtful, you go for a second opinion. He also says you have diabetes. You go on and on, seeking new opinions, until you have seen 100 doctors. 99 of them say you have diabetes. One says you don't. What will you do?

What I would do is learn as much as I could about the causes and symptoms of diabetes, from the internet and from books, and engage the one doctor who claimed I didn't have diabetes, in a discussion and conversation about the reasons for his views and his alternative diagnosis.

In order for anyone to seek opinions on such a condition from 100 different doctors, such a person would have to have had serious doubts in the beginning that he really was suffering from diabetes. If the reasons for such doubts were not addressed by the other 99 doctors, and the advice from the one dissenting doctor made more sense, then one should follow the advice with which one feels more comfortable, (intellectually of course, not more-food-comfortable in the sense of eating more ice cream).

Another aspect of your analogy, comparing a 99% consensus of medical opinion with an imagined 99% consensus among climatologists, is that it's very doubtful that such a consensus exists in reality.

The issue is not either/or. Even skeptics such as myself would agree that human emissions of CO2, plus human activities in general, will reasonably have some effect on climate. Everything is connected to some degree. Nothing exists in complete isolation.

The crucial question is to what degree current levels of CO2 have influenced the current slight change in climate, and to what extent such changes could be harmful to our well-being in general, considering that there are usually winners and losers in any change of circumstances, and both advantages and disadvantages.

[LesPalenik]

Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton scientist and longtime observer of UN climate talks, says that the world has lost its last shot at staving off dangerous global warming.

I’m upset and troubled—as I rarely am, because I’ve been involved in this issue for 35 years. I’ve seen a lot of ups and downs, but this is the most discouraging. It is more discouraging than when George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol.

The reality is the clock has been ticking all this time, all those 35 years the clock has been ticking. And because the clock has been ticking, Earth is already a degree warmer than it would otherwise have been. We don’t have much time to avoid the two degrees of warming that would destabilize ice sheets, entail extreme heatwaves, and potentially undermine food security. And this decision is just enough to push us over the edge, in my view.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/oppenheimer-interview/529083/

[Ray]

Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton scientist and longtime observer of UN climate talks, says that the world has lost its last shot at staving off dangerous global warming.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/oppenheimer-interview/529083/

Sounds to me like some very unscientific statements from a scientist. I guess he's wearing his political hat. Right?

[LesPalenik]

Sounds to me like some very unscientific statements from a scientist. I guess he's wearing his political hat. Right?

I don't know this scientist and can't comment on his credentials. TheAtlantic.com is quite an ecclectic agency, usually centrist, but publishing also some left and right leaning commentaries. Below is Michael Oppenheimer's CV, lifted from the quoted article. He certainly sounds more qualified than most of the posters on this thread.

Michael Oppenheimer has been thinking about climate change about as long as most Americans have been alive. For almost four decades, he has worked on answering the phenomenon’s two most pressing questions: How dangerous will climate change get? And what can humanity do about it? So after President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Thursday, Oppenheimer was one of the experts I most wanted to hear from.

It helps that Oppenheimer, a Princeton professor since 2002, has worked on or in some of the most important environmental programs of the modern era. He is currently a coordinating lead author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and he edits the journal Climatic Change. From 1981 to 1996, he worked as the senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, where he helped frame the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act that reduced acid rain.

Along with other scientists, he lobbied the United States to start negotiating the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which President George H.W. Bush signed 25 years ago this week. Since then, he has attended the major UN climate negotiations, including Paris in 2015.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Sounds to me like some very unscientific statements from a scientist. I guess he's wearing his political hat. Right?

HEADLINES: Ray disqualifies Princeton Professor Michael Oppenheimer

Ray's academic credentials in the field of climate science are unknown.

Michael Oppenheimer is Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He is the Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) at the Woodrow Wilson School and Faculty Associate of the Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program, Princeton Environmental Institute, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.

Oppenheimer joined the Princeton faculty after more than two decades with The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a non-governmental, environmental organization, where he served as chief scientist and manager of the Climate and Air Program.  He continues to serve as a science advisor to EDF

Oppenheimer is a long-time participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, serving recently as a  coordinating lead author of both the IPCC’s special report on extreme climate events and disasters (called SREX) and the Fifth Assessment Report.

Oppenheimer has been a member of several panels of the National Academy of Sciences and is now a member of the National Academies’ Board on Energy and Environmental Studies. He is also a winner of the 2010 Heinz Award and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Prior to his position at The Environmental Defense Fund, Dr. Oppenheimer served as Atomic and Molecular Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Lecturer on Astronomy at Harvard University. He received an S.B. in chemistry from M.I.T., a Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Chicago, and pursued post-doctoral research at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Oppenheimer is the author of over 120 articles published in professional journals and is co-author (with Robert H. Boyle) of a 1990 book, Dead Heat: The Race Against The Greenhouse Effect.

Tough call to judge credibility between the two.

Cheers,
Bart

[Ray]

HEADLINES: Ray disqualifies Princeton Professor Michael Oppenheimer

Ray's academic credentials in the field of climate science are unknown.


Tough call to judge credibility between the two.

Cheers,
Bart

It's not so much a question of who to believe but what to believe. Those who have little or no understanding of the methodology and history of science will tend to accept  the authority of any reported consensus, whether such consensus is true or not, simply because they don't have the ability to question it and/or appreciate the counter arguments.

Some of those who would appear to have the understanding to appreciate counter arguments might still go along with the consensus view because they are psychologically overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the problem and/or are obsessively concerned about their grandchildren.

Others who also appear to have the scientific understanding to appreciate the uncertainty and counter arguments might make a rational decision to exaggerate their confidence about the dangers of CO2 because they see it as the only way to convince the politicians and members of the public to take action, and because they think that no harm will be done if the hypothesis about AGW is eventually proved to be wrong by future generations.

This last point has some merit. Developing clean and sustainable sources of energy is definitely something we should do, but in an orderly and efficient manner which doesn't lead to significant increases in the cost of energy and expensive power outages, as has occurred in Australia.

Decisions based upon irrational fears can have bad or expensive consequences.

China has the most to gain from the development of clean and renewable energy. They have raised themselves out of poverty in a spectacularly short time by exploiting fossil fuels in the cheapest manner, causing a huge problem of real pollution. They now have the industrial capacity and the human skills to clean up their act and add price-competitive solar panels and electric vehicles to their list of exports.

Countries like America and Japan, who refuse to demonize CO2, could take advantage of the best of both worlds; a solid and reliable back-up energy supply based upon the cleanest, modern coal and gas technology, plus the eventually cheaper, but still less reliable, solar power.

[LesPalenik]

Others who also appear to have the scientific understanding to appreciate the uncertainty and counter arguments might make a rational decision to exaggerate their confidence about the dangers of CO2 because they see it as the only way to convince the politicians and members of the public to take action, and because they think that no harm will be done if the hypothesis about AGW is eventually proved to be wrong by future generations.

I didn't mention anything about CO2, but Michael Oppenheimer observed a global warming of one degree which is dangerously close to destabilizing the whole world. No doubt, there are also other factors beside CO2 at play.

[Farmer]

Ray has already told us that when presented with 99 opinions he doesn't like, he'll keep going until he gets one he does like.  It's the very antithesis of the scientific method.  It's pure quackery.  He believes (and there's a key word) that his lay interpretation is superior and when he finds someone, anyone, who might vaguely have some sort of qualification in the relevant field, who agrees with him or disagrees with those he also disagrees with, he will latch onto that as proof positive of his opinion (another key word).

[Ray]

Ray has already told us that when presented with 99 opinions he doesn't like, he'll keep going until he gets one he does like.  It's the very antithesis of the scientific method.  It's pure quackery.  He believes (and there's a key word) that his lay interpretation is superior and when he finds someone, anyone, who might vaguely have some sort of qualification in the relevant field, who agrees with him or disagrees with those he also disagrees with, he will latch onto that as proof positive of his opinion (another key word).

You seem to have misunderstood my position. It would appear, from what you've written above, that you are one of those who do not understand the methodology of science. Science progresses through individuals, or groups of individuals, investigating puzzling situations and anomalies, and overturning or modifying existing theories so that the new theory embraces the inconsistent evidence, despite the existence of 99 opinions, or 99 hundred opinions, or 99 thousand opinions  which support a previous long-held existing view or theory.

Try reading a bit of history. I'll give you one recent example of many such instances throughout history. Just a few years ago, thousands of Physicists and Astrophysicists supported the theory that the expansion of the universe is in the process of slowing down and is close to the critical point in time when it will begin to contract. However, recent improvements to the Hubble telescope outside out atmosphere revealed some puzzling observations in the behaviour of distant galaxies or supernovae, which is (or at least was) best be explained by the presence of a mystical substance and mystical type of energy which has been named Dark Matter and Dark Energy and which appear to have a major gravitational effect causing the expansion of the universe to actually accelerate. However, such Dark Matter does not seem to interact with what we understand as conventional matter, sometimes referred to as Baryonic matter, and so far is completely undetectable. That such Dark matter and Energy exists in reality is not yet confirmed, and might never be confirmed. As the evidence accumulates, confidence in the truth of the hypothesis seems to be diminishing.
To quote: "A 2016 report from Oxford University's Department of Physics and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen working with a much larger data set has cast doubt upon the arguments for accelerated expansion."

"The discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe won the Nobel Prize, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. It led to the widespread acceptance of the idea that the universe is dominated by "dark energy" that behaves like a cosmological constant – this is now the "standard model" of cosmology... However, there now exists a much bigger database of supernovae on which to perform rigorous and detailed statistical analyses. We analysed the latest catalogue of 740 Type Ia supernovae – over ten times bigger than the original samples on which the discovery claim was based – and found that the evidence for accelerated expansion is, at most, what physicists call "3 sigma". This is far short of the 5 sigma standard required to claim a discovery of fundamental significance."


You have also misunderstood my arguments by suggesting that my views are based upon personal likes or dislikes. I've already mentioned in these threads on this issue that I used to accept that increased CO2 levels presented a major threat to human security in the future, because the experts in the field claimed it was true and I had no reason to doubt their opinions.

It was only when I did have reason to doubt the veracity and objectivity of the views of these so-called experts, as presented by the media, and began investigating the issue for myself, did it become clear how biased and unscientific the reportage had been, and continues to be.

Another aspect of the methodology of science is the necessity to give full attention to the anomalies and inconsistencies relating to a particular theory, rather than sweeping them under the carpet, or ignoring their existence, or just keeping quiet about them.

[LesPalenik]

You seem to have misunderstood my position. It would appear, from what you've written above, that you are one of those who do not understand the methodology of science. Science progresses through individuals, or groups of individuals, investigating puzzling situations and anomalies, and overturning or modifying existing theories so that the new theory embraces the inconsistent evidence, despite the existence of 99 opinions, or 99 hundred opinions, or 99 thousand opinions  which support a previous long-held existing view or theory.

I have to agree with Ray on this matter. In any established industry or discipline most practitioners got their information a long time ago, and that data may have been superceeded by new discoveries and studies.
For example, 99% (or more) medical professionals still believe that dairy products are good for your bones, olive and coconut oil for your heart, and that cheese, eggs and poultry are a healthy food. Despite numerous health and nutritional studies (subtract those commisioned by meat, pharma or dairy industries) that have proven consistently that the opposite is actually true.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

99% (or more) medical professionals still believe ... the opposite is actually true.

Are you suggesting that, when 97% of scientists form a consensus, the opposite is actually true? 

[LesPalenik]

I don't know about CO2, but when it comes to the examples I quoted, then definitely yes!
Let me qualify my observations. In the example of proper nutrition, it's not the 97% of the scientists who are wrong, but 97% or 99% of the practitioners who have failed to keep up with the latest science.

Here is a simple test any interested readers can conduct in the comfort of their home (in a spare bedroom or in the basement).
Get 100 rats, divide them into two groups and feed one group primarily with barbecued meat and the other with tomatoes and broccoli. After a year, kill humanly your test objects and perform autopsies. Report to us your findings.

If you don't have the spare room and time, here are the results of such a study:
The heterocyclic amine, 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-B]pyridine (PhIP), found in meats cooked at high temperatures, has been implicated in epidemiological and rodent studies for causing breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers. A previous animal study using a xenograft model has shown that whole tomato and broccoli, when eaten in combination, exhibit a marked effect on tumor reduction compared to when eaten alone. Our aim was to determine if PhIP-induced carcinogenesis can be prevented by dietary consumption of whole tomato + broccoli powders. Male Fischer 344 rats (n = 45) were randomized into the following treatment groups: control (AIN93G diet), PhIP (200 ppm in AIN93G diet for the first 20 weeks of the study), or tomato + broccoli + PhIP (mixed in AIN93G diet at 10% each and fed with PhIP for 20 weeks, and then without PhIP for 32 weeks). Study animals were monitored for 52 weeks and were euthanized as necessary based on a set of criteria for health status and tumor burden. Although there appeared to be some hepatic and intestinal toxicity due to the combination of PhIP and tomato + broccoli, these rodents had improved survival and reduced incidence and/or severity of PhIP-induced neoplastic lesions compared to the PhIP-alone treated group. Rats eating tomato + broccoli exhibited a marked decrease in the number and size of cribiform prostatic intraepitheilial neoplasia/carcinoma in situ (cribiform PIN/CIS) lesions and in the incidence of invasive intestinal adenocarcinomas and skin carcinomas. Although the apparent toxic effects of combined PhIP and tomato + broccoli need additional study, the results of this study support the hypothesis that a diet rich in tomato and broccoli can reduce or prevent dietary carcinogen-induced cancers.