The controversy surrounding global warming is nothing new to science. Controversy has always been with science and will continue to be so, whether in or out of the public spotlight. It is just the way science progresses. The reason for the current controversy is because of the political implications-everyone has an opinion.

If the future of our planet hinged on the controversy that surrounded the orbit of Mercury then the debate would be as equally hot. In historical terms such a debate did take place, but no one except physicists cared, so it largely went unnoticed.

What we are witnessing now is how science actually works in the real world. There is no idealized scientific method whereby scientists see the error of their ways in the face of counter evidence. The majority of scientists will always support the prevailing orthodoxy because consensus is as good as it get when it comes to science. That's just the way science works.

Global warming has now moved to climate change because science will always attempt to save a theory by way of 'fudge factors'. In exactly the same way as physicists attempted to save Newtonian mechanics as an explanation for the orbit of mercury by way of 'fudge factors'. In exactly the same way as science tried to save every prevailing theory throughout its history.

All puns aside, there is nothing new under the sun.

Well said, Tut. As another historical scientist once said, "It still moves!"

Thanks Tutt however excusing the fudges for whatever reason doesn't cut it, because the outcomes has serious impacts for everyone. Climate Change has entered the relms of science fiction, not science fact. Computer models based on half baked ideas and incomplete data are not science, even if there is a Phd on the other end, they are scientific ego massaging, something like my model is better, bigger than your model, or I can't possibly be wrong after all I am a doctor and I have a grant to do this research.

What we know is that changes have been observed. What we think is we can do something to reverse them, beyond that we are in the relm of science fiction.

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Originally Posted by paraclete

Thanks Tutt however excusing the fudges for whatever reason doesn't cut it, because the outcomes has serious impacts for everyone. Climate Change has entered the relms of science fiction, not science fact. Computer models based on half baked ideas and incomplete data are not science, even if there is a Phd on the other end, they are scientific ego massaging, something like my model is better, bigger than your model, or I can't possibly be wrong after all I am a doctor and I have a grant to do this research.

What we know is that changes have been observed. What we think is we can do something to reverse them, beyond that we are in the relm of science fiction.

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In essence you are right, the problem is computer modeling at the moment. Science can use the most powerful computers in the world to predict climate change but the bottom line is that they are stuck within a two bit information system.

The game changer in the future in the area of weather forecasting and climate change will be the quantum computer and a 4 bit system Commercial viability is at least 50 years away.

At last.

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Originally Posted by paraclete

I am a doctor and I have a grant to do this research.

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The basic philosophy of all junk science. The basic mission of such science is getting the grant renewed. The result of such science is 15 million words published in the last two years trying to explain the "pause" in global warming.

People tend to give credence to data that agrees with their views.

"The philosophy of all junk science. The basic mission is to get the grant renewed. The result of such science is 15 million words in the last two years trying to explain the 'pause" in global warming"




From my point of view, that's the way it is and that's the way it has to be with science.

For example, it is of little use complaining about having to wear a pacemaker to help an irregular heart rhythm. In the future genetic engineering will do away with such crude devices, but at the moment it is the best science can come up with. This is why scientists apply for research grants. Improvements eventually lead to change. After all, change can't occur in a vacuum.

I can see a similar type of argument applying to climate science. The problem is deciding upon the weight given to those variables you are using in your climate model. It also depends on what you are trying to model in the first place. There can be a number of computer climate models based on this process. So there would be a new model that explains why there has been a "pause" in global warming. In exactly the same way there are probably other models as well. Climate models are continually updated using observational evidence.

It is a bit like the pacemaker analogy. We are stuck with the technology and researchers in this area have a vested interested in pursuing a particular type of outcome. I think climate science works in a similar fashion. We are stuck with the limitations of classical computers and climate scientists have a interested in pushing ahead with the classical technology. Basically they have no choice. I am sure things will change in in a big way for weather forecasting and climate science with the perfection of the quantum qubit.

Tuut this is where I disagree on the application of the word science. Scientific method relies on oberservation of the physical, what happened, how did it happen, what happens if I change something. But computer modelling, whilst it might attempt the same, is not observeing the physical. Climate science which measures temperature in various places and derives an aggregate score with which they can publish a mean average temperature or measure the number of parts per million of a particular gas is science. Computer modelling and making pronouncements is not. They cannot hope to identify all the relevant variables and have demonstrated this on several occasions and so what they publish as a result is a work of fiction

Although it is nothing really, it is good to see Australia's government putting their money where their mouth is, or in this case not putting their money there. Why should all the pain be felt in Australia?

Federal Government cuts funding to UN environment agency by over 80pc ahead of Peru climate talks - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

That might mean a few less trees cut down for useless reports

Tut, here is the problem Im having. The science that you speak of is a relative term. In this case the whole community had gotten behind junk science because those that created the figures were not honest in the first place. After they were caught at it the community still lusted after the money. In most science whether it be modeling or chemical bonding there is a line between science and science fiction. Most of science that I know of besides climate cosmology depends on solid facts or solid theory to determine fact from fiction. With the climate clowns it ha been the other way around since the begining. I believe that is where all the controversy is at. From the bad input that started this whole thing and the communities lack or retifying the fiction from the true facts.

Hi dad, I agree with you, the whole thing was politically motivated from the start and the "facts" have been made to fit the narrative through highly selective data.

Look, things are changing, no doubt there have been certain things that don't conform to our norm view, glacial retreat, arctic ice melt, climate changes, sea rises, severe weather events but our records are too short to really establish a norm, if it exists. All we can say is temperature is above/below some twentieth century benchmarks in certain places. They are using averages, but averages are generalisation. Who knows what we would conclude if this were 2000 years ago or 500 years ago or the middle of an ice age

Don't you just love the tokenism of this debate, Australia has just diverted $200m from its foreign aid budget to help pacific nations deal with climate change. What does this mean, it means the UN is effectively cut out of the process and there is no new money. So I ask you why is this news?

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Originally Posted by paraclete

Tuut this is where I disagree on the application of the word science. Scientific method relies on oberservation of the physical, what happened, how did it happen, what happens if I change something.

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Well yes.To the extent of my knowledge I would say that when it comes to computer modelling the question you ask in the beginning determines the final answer.

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Originally Posted by paracelete

But computer modelling, whilst it might attempt the same, is not observeing the physical. Climate science which measures temperature in various places and derives an aggregate score with which they can publish a mean average temperature or measure the number of parts per million of a particular gas is science. Computer modelling and making pronouncements is not.

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This is because computer modelling deals in predictions based on a theory. That is to say, it provides a prediction in terms of how the model stacks up against the observations.

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Originally Posted by paracelete

They cannot hope to identify all the relevant variables and have demonstrated this on several occasions and so what they publish as a result is a work of fiction

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Of course they can't... and they don't. As I said before, weather forecasting and climate science are stuck with a binary system. We can run the data though a supercomputer but this changes nothing. Quantum computers will revolutionize these sciences in the future. In the mean time we are stuck with the implications of such a restrictive system. Nothing new here in the history of science.

All of this is just my opinion. Perhaps this goes someway to answering cdad's question. The best advice I can give is not to hold science up as providing some ultimate truth[s]. Nothing or no one has this honour.

I am sorry if this this somehow deflates the understanding of science, but this is how science has always operated.

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The best advice I can give is not to hold science up as providing some ultimate truth[s]. Nothing or no one has this honour.

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Your advice has come too late

Science will always course correct as more facts come to light. That's the history of man. It's an ongoing process, to the ultimate truths, so many require, not the ultimate truth written in stone, at any certain point. We can argue causes all you want, but argument ends when the effects blow your house down.

It think it's a foolish premise to think man has NO effect on his environment. Dangerous given the effects of his mistakes in the past. You don't need a computer to calculate dead fish and bird in the gulf and Alaska or destroyed ecosystems around the nation.

Mother Nature didn't do that.

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but argument ends when the effects blow your house down.

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U.S. tornado numbers among lowest in recorded history in 2014 - The Washington Post

Mud and snow is this years news Tom.

Stop dealing in absolutes, no one has said man has not had an impact of his environment, the debate is whether man can now have an impact on reversing the impacts or stopping the system from cycling through. What we have is tokenism on the part of world leadership, do nothing may actually be an option, build stronger buildings may be an option. The science in this debate is questionable at best because it is a jumble of fact and computer modelling. Yes the oil industry is a major polluter, but this is the result of the profit motive. Stay with what we know, ice is melting, temperature in some places is rising, there are more severe weather events in some places, growing soy beans in the Amazon basin is undesirable for a number of reasons. Let's deal with the ethics of business as usual

or are we?

Fact check: Do Australia, US 'compare favourably' on emissions targets? - Fact Check - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Most statistics regading climate change are difficult to interpret and this report no less so, We have met our targets under the rules, but someone wants the rules changed because they show us in a more favourable light than they want or even expect. So we rate unfavourably on a lot of single issue scales but in terms of reductions we did what we said we would do and not without some personal pain for the average person. I predict with more than 20% renewables in our base that we will continue to get across the line without panic and destruction of the economy, and that is the real challenge

Let us use some percentages Australia is 1.11% of the world total, US is 16.16% of the world total. GDP The US is 1, $16T Australia is 12, $1.5T Who gets more bang for their buck.? It actually takes 100 tonnes of CO2 more to produce a dollar of GDP in the US than it does in Australia so what I say is keep on bashing those inefficient economies they deserve it, on a GDP basis we are more efficient and so entitled to use a little more CO2. Incidently Russia requires 4 times the CO2 to produce a $ of GDP than Australia, Shame! I just love what you can do with the right statistics. Just maybe we won the climate war

What you are talking about is the conversion of junk science to public policy . If you go by the bogus modelling then your concern is not the US where significant reductions have occured due to voluntary actions in the marketplace. Your real threats are from emerging economies ;and rogue nations like China. Good luck with that .

Tom both our nations can claim significant reductions because of market shifts and offshoring of our manufacturing emissions to China. We know that China is an inefficient producer of power, etc at this point in time and has no plans to reduce growth in emissions until 2030 which might as well be never. However what I spoke about is efficiency in converting CO2 emissions into GDP, a statistic which no one publishes because it would create too many red faces. China is four times less efficient in converting CO2 to GDP. You think you can write them off as a rogue nation but we are all in this together

Somebody will sell them some modern scrubber equipment soon.

Yes that might bring them back to being about as efficient as Russia

Why would they buy them ? Because they care about their people ? Because the people have a say in how their government and economy runs ? Because they have a 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind' ? They have signaled to the emperor and the world that they intend to grow their emissions until it peaks in 2030 (and the emperor boasted that was a successful negotiation ) . Nah they won't buy them . If anything they will steal the technology when they are ready to employ it.

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converting CO2 emissions into GDP

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something egg heads contemplate instead of doing real work. Here's a calculator (paid for by the American taxpayer ) to play with when you are bored .
Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator | Clean Energy | US EPA

I'm not that bored yet, I prefer to do my own research, not tainted by oil industry grants

that's an interesting take on the EPA .....not that it would surprise me . The thing to know about oil companies is that their main goal is to make money. So it should not surprise you then that they are some of the leaders in alternate energy research . No they don't want to suppress it . Instead ,they want to be in a position to exploit alt energy when they become viable in the market place. They really are interested in diversification .American based oil companies invested about $9 billion in alternate fuels in the last decade ,representing about 20% of the total research investment in the US .

You and I both know that alternatives like wind ,solar ,biofuels will only be able to supply a fringe amount of the worlds total energy needs in the next century .We are biding our time until the next real breakthrough occurs ....perhaps in fusion technology.

You mean in this century Tom, more like a few decades. I have to agree though that China has little incentive to clean the air, nor invest in it at this time. It still remains a huge untapped market in many areas. I know you are drooling for them to become capitalists though.

Tom we may well solve the energy needs of this and other centuries in innovative ways. If we convert all motive power to electric we still have a massive problem of providing that power and nuclear in any form will be the only way. It requires a change in thinking and maybe Tal the chinese will have the edge in that because they are not just motivated by profit

t

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the chinese will have the edge in that because they are not just motivated by profit

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the laugh of the year ! As the Chinese economy grew ,the cadres all resorted to extreme plunder. It is as much a hallmark of the regime as the suppression and repression.

The Chinese are stuck in their own monolithic ideology, and struggle to keep up. They cling to their old ways of economics and stifle their own potential. They aren't alone.

Yes they are introspective and have been for thousands of years, it has never been their philosopy to adopt the ways of others, some of their solutions have been unique we tend to forget what their innovation has given us. I think we have less to fear from them than we think but Russia may be different

Once again we find that statistics regarding emissions has deceived us and this time it is because averages have been used to calculate China's emissions. I wonder how many have fallen for this trap and labelled coal a problem when it is only certain types of coal. China gets an instant reduction of 40% when you use real pertinant data, but then who knows the truth

China CO2 emissions: 'Coal error' caused wrong calculations - BBC News

Is anyone just a little pissed off by this climate change scare mongering where we get data overload and revelations every time they have a meeting about it

More lovelly statistics, while I've been freezing my backside off, I'm actually being told that I'm living in temperatures that are warmer than normal. Snow fell on my lawn in the first time in a hundred years and it's warmer than normal? Has anyone stopped to consider where this data is being taken? I'm not a climate change denier, I agree the climate is changing, I'm just remain uncertain as to the extent that man influences this and whether we have any ability to change anything.

Today the newspapers screamed hottest in four thousand years, at this point I begin to deny the science. Show me the temperature record for the last four thousand years in definative terms for this region. As far as I'm aware indigenous people in any place did not keep temperature records. I agree compared with the ice age of say, ten thousand years ago, it is hotter and it might be hotter than certain other periods, including the little ice age, but I have not observed that it is appreciably hotter now than it was earlier in my life so how the last month could be the hottest in four thousand years eludes me. I expect that what we have is the frog in the pot syndrome.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/en...-1227493098122

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Originally Posted by paraclete

More lovelly statistics, while I've been freezing my backside off, I'm actually being told that I'm living in temperatures that are warmer than normal. Snow fell on my lawn in the first time in a hundred years and it's warmer than normal? Has anyone stopped to consider where this data is being taken? I'm not a climate change denier, I agree the climate is changing, I'm just remain uncertain as to the extent that man influences this and whether we have any ability to change anything.

Today the newspapers screamed hottest in four thousand years, at this point I begin to deny the science. Show me the temperature record for the last four thousand years in definative terms for this region. As far as I'm aware indigenous people in any place did not keep temperature records. I agree compared with the ice age of say, ten thousand years ago, it is hotter and it might be hotter than certain other periods, including the little ice age, but I have not observed that it is appreciably hotter now than it was earlier in my life so how the last month could be the hottest in four thousand years eludes me. I expect that what we have is the frog in the pot syndrome.

Climate change: July 2015 the hottest month in 4,000 years?

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CLIMATE CHANGE HAPPENS !

I trade marked that logo and have that bumper sticker on my car right by the exhaust pipe.

We are now well into the 2nd month of the traditional 'hurricane season' . Remember when Katrina hit and the Goracle and his minions were telling us that we should get used to it because that was our future ,seasons of Cat 5 killer storms would ravage the east coast of the US .
Well this week hurricane Danny formed off the African coast. It is the 1st storm in the Atlantic this season. It is a Cat 1 storm ,now approaching with 80mph winds ....but it is expected to peter out to a tropical storm before it reaches land .

But guess what ! The scientists predicted this ! Yes NOAA ,2 months into the current season predicted that 'Outlook calls for a 90 percent chance of a below-normal hurricane season. ' WTG !!!!! Pretty soon they will be as good as the weatherman on the local yokel news network .

Tom, we are agreed climate change happens, the sahara desert is evidence of this and offers a perspective if current trends continue in some places. Tropical storms happen sometimes with increasing impact as the Philippines can tell you, however it appears the effects of CO2 emissions are averaged out by the planet so that you don't get improvement in specific places when there are reduced emissions, the effect is not localised, or maybe it is. In my nation we could reduce our emissions to zero and it wouldn't make any difference to outcomes despite the fact we are accused of being the highest per capita emitters. The rise of the third world will negate our efforts unless we become savvy and build only nuclear base load power stations, this augmented by renewables may hold the line.

I have said it before this isn't an emissions problem it is a population problem and while population grows we will have the problem. To get a proper perspective on this we need to change the way we account for emissions and calculate the emissions on an end user basis. If we did this we would once again see that the US is the larger emitter of CO2 and the nation that must do the most to reduce the impact. All the energy we expend digging minerals out of the ground so china can supply the markets of the world doesn't make us the highest users per capita.

I did an exercise last week on whether it was economical for me to install solar generation on my residence. You know what? It wasn't? I couldn't see how the power generated would actually meet more than 20% of my consumption which is lower than the average household and most of the power generated would go into the grid at a price lower than I would be paying to buy it back.
I would incure a significantly higher cost for no purpose than to pay for someoneelses power supply. This renewables generation on a household basis is B/S, the emphasis should be on commercial applications

Some bizairre statistics have emerged on emissions, Islamic State (Daesh) is actually good for the environment

Middle East conflict drastically 'improves air quality' - BBC News

Studies show that NO2 emiissions are directly associated with population but they are also impacted by conflict, where there is conflict NO2 emissions are low. This definitely points to human activity being capable of being modified and in particular we need to look seriously at modes of transport to make inroads into emissions. This is not new but it suggests emphasis on reducing the impact of unnecessary journeys and the mode of transport such as less gas guzzling SUV

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Originally Posted by paraclete

I did an exercise last week on whether it was economical for me to install solar generation on my residence. You know what? It wasn't? I couldn't see how the power generated would actually meet more than 20% of my consumption which is lower than the average household and most of the power generated would go into the grid at a price lower than I would be paying to buy it back.
I would incure a significantly higher cost for no purpose than to pay for someoneelses power supply. This renewables generation on a household basis is B/S, the emphasis should be on commercial applications

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This makes no sense. It doesnt appear that your problem was with the generation of energy but the storage core for your energy plan. That is the trick to getting renewables to work. Also in most cases you need more then one single source to gain an independent solution. What I mean by that is a combination of sources that combine to fit your needs. Solar combined with wind can give you better solutions as you can have the ability to suppliment your electrical needs during a time when the sun isnt shining or not shining as bright.

Right now technology investment is very expensive. The hope for the furture is to find a practical solution that all people can use and isnt so expensive that it drives the average consumer away.

The wind doesn't blow here often I'm sheilded by a hill and storage would not have reduced cost it would have significantly increased it meaning that the payback is somewhat long term. It is better as a commercial proposition because generation is more aligned with consumption wind isn't practical in an urban setting I'm waiting for Dyesol to come on the market that will turn roofs and windows into solar generators which will mean greater efficiency and I might need a new roof

I've been around renewables a long time and I know that in this district wind cannot be more than 20% efficient solar maybe 40% but I wanted to do the exercise