Conquer Club

72o wrote:I do like this part, though:

How then do you defend against charges that you’re an activist?

I am an activist. I want the world to be a better place, and I define specifically what I mean by that: If one group, the rich, benefits from an activity like dumping their waste in the atmosphere and the other group, the poor, are hurt by it and don’t get much benefit, that’s an inequity. Therefore, in my value system, that’s a higher criteria for action than aggregate dollars. I don’t have aggregate dollars as my moral principle. I look at who’s responsible. But I never say that without admitting that those are my values. So, that’s activism.

Nothing like pushing a political agenda under the guise of "science".

Timminz wrote:

72o wrote:I do like this part, though:

How then do you defend against charges that you’re an activist?

I am an activist. I want the world to be a better place, and I define specifically what I mean by that: If one group, the rich, benefits from an activity like dumping their waste in the atmosphere and the other group, the poor, are hurt by it and don’t get much benefit, that’s an inequity. Therefore, in my value system, that’s a higher criteria for action than aggregate dollars. I don’t have aggregate dollars as my moral principle. I look at who’s responsible. But I never say that without admitting that those are my values. So, that’s activism.

Nothing like pushing a political agenda under the guise of "science".

Did you only read the first, and last sentences? You might want to read the rest of the quote, and maybe edit your response. As it stands now, you're making yourself appear illiterate.

Timminz wrote:

72o wrote:I do like this part, though:

How then do you defend against charges that you’re an activist?

I am an activist. I want the world to be a better place, and I define specifically what I mean by that: If one group, the rich, benefits from an activity like dumping their waste in the atmosphere and the other group, the poor, are hurt by it and don’t get much benefit, that’s an inequity. Therefore, in my value system, that’s a higher criteria for action than aggregate dollars. I don’t have aggregate dollars as my moral principle. I look at who’s responsible. But I never say that without admitting that those are my values. So, that’s activism.

Nothing like pushing a political agenda under the guise of "science".

Did you only read the first, and last sentences? You might want to read the rest of the quote, and maybe edit your response. As it stands now, you're making yourself appear illiterate.

Snowgun wrote:It's obvious this guy has made up his mind as to what the answer is before he even runs the numbers.

72o wrote:when I read that passage I get, "big bad corporations have all the money and are destroying all the poor people's planet."

Timminz wrote:

Snowgun wrote:It's obvious this guy has made up his mind as to what the answer is before he even runs the numbers.

On what do you base this? Is it that he has come to a different conclusion than you would like to see, or is it simply "obvious" because you have nothing specific with which to back up your claim?

72o wrote:when I read that passage I get, "big bad corporations have all the money and are destroying all the poor people's planet."

So, you are illiterate. That's not what he said. If the only way you can find fault with a statement is through misinterpreting it, perhaps you're not as correct as you would like to believe.

Timminz wrote:

Snowgun wrote:It's obvious this guy has made up his mind as to what the answer is before he even runs the numbers.

On what do you base this? Is it that he has come to a different conclusion than you would like to see, or is it simply "obvious" because you have nothing specific with which to back up your claim?

72o wrote:when I read that passage I get, "big bad corporations have all the money and are destroying all the poor people's planet."

So, you are illiterate. That's not what he said. If the only way you can find fault with a statement is through misinterpreting it, perhaps you're not as correct as you would like to believe.

ser stiefel wrote:It is always interesting when one group of scientists do not agree with another group.

Those of us without the helpful background of a Ph. D. in a related field are forced to simply "choose" which group of scientists in which we would prefer to believe; or being thinking and reasoned individuals, reserve judgment. Unfortunately, there are those who cannot abide reserving judgment, and want to force action.

Here is a very well written article by scientists who advocate, in strong terms, reserving judgment. What are we laity supposed to do?

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=10046

There are few people who are willing to slog through an article such as this, but many people who are perfectly willing to yell and scream at a political rally supporting a point of view that is theirs only because they have “chosen” it.

72o wrote:

Timminz wrote:

Snowgun wrote:It's obvious this guy has made up his mind as to what the answer is before he even runs the numbers.

On what do you base this? Is it that he has come to a different conclusion than you would like to see, or is it simply "obvious" because you have nothing specific with which to back up your claim?

72o wrote:when I read that passage I get, "big bad corporations have all the money and are destroying all the poor people's planet."

So, you are illiterate. That's not what he said. If the only way you can find fault with a statement is through misinterpreting it, perhaps you're not as correct as you would like to believe.

It is entirely possible that I do not interpret his meaning correctly. Just as it is also entirely possible that I interpret him correctly, and you are the one that is incorrect. That does not mean either one of us is unable to read. Rather, it is likely due to either 1) the predispositions I alluded to in my previous post or 2) the guy's statement is vague enough to be interpreted many different ways.

Timminz wrote:No. Because I do not "interpret" what he said. I read it, and took it to mean exactly what the words he used mean. He made a statement on a specific injustice he sees, and works to remedy, in a specific way. You have twisted it to mean that he has a pre-existing bias against corporations. You have not presented any evidence that would suggest he meant anything other than exactly what he said, yet you continue to insist that he might have meant what you're saying. Sure, there's a chance he actually meant that, but there's also a chance he was engaging in auto-erotic asphyxiation while he said it, and without any evidence, you're merely speculating.

It's intellectual dishonesty like that that seems to have fleeced too many people in your country. It's sad sometimes.

72o wrote:

Timminz wrote:No. Because I do not "interpret" what he said. I read it, and took it to mean exactly what the words he used mean. He made a statement on a specific injustice he sees, and works to remedy, in a specific way. You have twisted it to mean that he has a pre-existing bias against corporations. You have not presented any evidence that would suggest he meant anything other than exactly what he said, yet you continue to insist that he might have meant what you're saying. Sure, there's a chance he actually meant that, but there's also a chance he was engaging in auto-erotic asphyxiation while he said it, and without any evidence, you're merely speculating.

It's intellectual dishonesty like that that seems to have fleeced too many people in your country. It's sad sometimes.

Okay, let's break it down then. I'll go into detail on my interpretation.

How then do you defend against charges that you’re an activist?

I am an activist. I want the world to be a better place (Isn't that nice!), and I define specifically what I mean by that: If one group, the rich (This instantly makes the bells go off in my head that this guy is leftist leaning, because he mentions rich people like they are a sports team or a gang. He obviously means to stereotype or bunch all wealthy people into whatever neat package he's about to reveal to us.), benefits from an activity like dumping their waste in the atmosphere (So here's what those big bad rich people are guilty of, never mind that poor people also contribute to carbon emissions in many, many ways.) and the other group, the poor (Aww, I feel like sobbing already.), are hurt by it and don’t get much benefit (Hurt by it? How are they hurt by it? More so than the rich people? Did they contribute to the thing that's causing this pain? Don't get much benefit? By whose accord? Did their homes have electricity so they could watch TV? Was there gasoline available at the filling station for their cars?) , that’s an inequity (It's just so unfair!!). Therefore, in my value system, that’s a higher criteria for action than aggregate dollars. (So the unfairness is all that matters, money doesn't. Even though having money vs. not having money is the entire basis of your so-called inequity. There's a social system called Communism that also calls on a "higher criteria of action" than money.) I don’t have aggregate dollars as my moral principle. (And you should get a medal.) I look at who’s responsible (Those mean old rich people!). But I never say that without admitting that those are my values. So, that’s activism.

Timminz wrote:
Those are nice colours and all, but you still are not presenting any evidence. You're still simply stating your own interpretation of his words. You are not making any credible argument for his bias. You are, however, making your own quite clear.

72o wrote:He says that the "rich" people have polluted the environment, and the poor are hurt by this, and that's unfair. While I'm sure there are anecdotal references where this may be true, it's certainly not a factual statement.

72o wrote:What does piss me off is that this guy is a scientist. He's supposed to be all about data, and facts, and the scientific method, etc. Not stereotypes and blanket statements that support his predetermined beliefs.

Timminz wrote:

72o wrote:What does piss me off is that this guy is a scientist. He's supposed to be all about data, and facts, and the scientific method, etc. Not stereotypes and blanket statements that support his predetermined beliefs.

Why would you think that he wasn't basing his statement on observed data, using proper scientific method, and all that fun stuff? What evidence do you have that he is not using proper research to base his claims on? Is it because he found a marked discrepancy between the net-worth of the perpetrators, and the that of the biggest victims?

Again, you're basing this all on your preconceived ideas.

Dr. Stephen Schneider wrote:Don’t be poor in a hot country, don’t live in a hurricane alley, watch out about being on a coast or in the arctic, it’s a bad idea to be up in high mountains with your glaciers melting and losing your water supply and if you are in Mediterranean climate you’re gonna have a fire season in the summer and it’s really gonna be a problem.

Dr. Stephen Schneider wrote:“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”

72o wrote:Yeah, you're probably right. This guy is the Messiah of global warming.

72o wrote:Hurt by it? How are they hurt by it? More so than the rich people? Did they contribute to the thing that's causing this pain? Don't get much benefit? By whose accord? Did their homes have electricity so they could watch TV? Was there gasoline available at the filling station for their cars?

72o wrote:He is drawing a line between "rich" people and "poor" people. To my knowledge, this is not an accepted description used to refer to groups of people. There's no bubble for "rich" or "poor" when you fill out a standardized test.

72o wrote:He says that the "rich" people have polluted the environment, and the poor are hurt by this, and that's unfair. While I'm sure there are anecdotal references where this may be true, it's certainly not a factual statement.

72o wrote:He claims to be above using money as a moral compass. This is after he draws that line between rich and poor.

The biggest issue I have with this is not that this guy has a political agenda. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who thinks someone will listen to him these days has an agenda. Whoopty-freakin-doo. What does piss me off is that this guy is a scientist. He's supposed to be all about data, and facts, and the scientific method, etc. Not stereotypes and blanket statements that support his predetermined beliefs.

Spurgistan wrote:"Global Cooling" definitely not happening

What happened to global warming?


This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?

During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.

Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes from the Sun.

But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.

The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.

And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.

He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.

He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.

If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.

Ocean cycles

What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth's great heat stores.

According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.

The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).

For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.

But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.

These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.

So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.

Professor Easterbrook says: "The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling."

So what does it all mean? Climate change sceptics argue that this is evidence that they have been right all along.

They say there are so many other natural causes for warming and cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small part compared with nature.

But those scientists who are equally passionate about man's influence on global warming argue that their science is solid.

The UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.

In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures - all of which are accounted for by its models.

In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling.

What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.

To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.

Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers.

But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.

So what can we expect in the next few years?

Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.

It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).

Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.

One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm