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GLOBAL WARMING ACTUALLY LOCAL
The debate on global warming is officially over and we really shouldn’t be talking about it, but maybe if we’re really quiet nobody will find out. Anyway—shhh!—it seems that global warming is concentrated in the Arctic, where the atmosphere has warmed seven times faster than the planet’s southern two-thirds:
“It just doesn’t look like global warming is very global,” said John Christy, director of UAH’s Earth System Science Center.
“The carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is distributed pretty evenly around the globe and not concentrated in the Arctic, so it doesn’t look like we can blame greenhouse gases for the overwhelming bulk of the Northern Hemisphere warming over the past 27 years,” he said. “The most likely suspect for that is a natural climate change or cycle that we didn’t expect or just don’t understand.”
Please, nobody tell hysterical Tim Flannery, currently bouncing off the walls:
“We have to make deep, deep reductions in emissions within the next 20 years,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “We will have won or lost the battle for climate stability in that time.”
As archaeologist Jim Allen once said: “I wish I could be as sure of anything as Tim is of everything”. So, what can you do to stop this terrible crisis that isn’t happening? Why not follow the advice of actress Emma Thompson:
We should all not be flying any more because of global warming.
Her six-year-old daughter, by the way, is named Gaia. No lie.
UPDATE. Up to 200 employees at the Department of Environment’s Greenhouse Office in Canberra are being tested for lead poisoning after their recycled drinking water was discovered to be contaminated with lead, zinc and copper.
Damn. And she was so cute in Henry Part V.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 07 at 01:15 PM • permalinkWe need to regulate this localized warming so people can plan approriately. Perhaps an International Warming Code, administered by the UN? Or Greenwich Mean Warming, for Eurocentric traditionalists…?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 07 at 01:18 PM • permalink”...it doesn’t look like we can blame greenhouse gases for the overwhelming bulk of the Northern Hemisphere warming over the past 27 years…”
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!!!!!
I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!
LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA…....
/Mother Gaia worshipper [with “respect” to Ender and Schmidt…..and a h/t to John Quiggins]
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 07 at 01:22 PM • permalinkWhere I live the city uses recycled water to irrigate its grass verges and those planted areas in the middle of the streets, and so on. Prominently placed everywhere there are these setups are signs saying “reclaimed water in use: do not drink.”
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 01 07 at 01:51 PM • permalinkI thought Emma Thompson was okay in Dead Again, but I think she was in the movie mainly because she was Mrs. Kenneth Branagh at the time. (Or they were going together—I don’t know, I don’t follow the pairings of these celeb types. All I know is one year it seemed as if every other movie coming out had Emma ‘n’ Ken starring.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 01 07 at 01:53 PM • permalinkWe should all not be flying any more because of global warming.
Her six-year-old daughter, by the way, is named Gaia. No lie.
Isn’t movie film a petroleum byproduct? I call on Ms. Thompson to stop callously destroying the environment.
Gaia’s future is literally at stake here!
Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2006 01 07 at 02:02 PM • permalinkMy neighbor keeps the global warming in his apartment turned up way too high but my landlord won’t do anything about it. Can Tim Flannery talk to him?
Seriously, I just want to go on record assuring everyone that this localized global warming is NOT Our Dark Master Karl’s fault, just because
wronwrightsomebody broke the knob off the thermostat…Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 07 at 03:07 PM • permalinkEd — Ms Thompson insists that all her films use the old-fashioned nitrocellulose stock in hand-cranked Pathé cameras, on sets constructed solely of recycled cardboard pressed from fibers found in cow and horse droppings and illuminated by hand-born lamps burning biodiesel.
The resulting explosions have been seen as stock footage in several big budget summer blockbusters…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 07 at 03:15 PM • permalink“We have to make deep, deep reductions in emissions within the next 20 years,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “We will have won or lost the battle for climate stability in that time.” - Tim Flannery
Let’s see, the Earth and its climate have been evolving for billions of years. Check. Geologic ages are measured in millions and hundreds of millions of years. Check. Ice ages are known to have lasted thousands and tens of thousands of years. Check. And somehow Tim Flannery thinks that a marginal change in human behavior over a 20 year time span is going to be a make or break moment in the geologic history of the Earth? Even assuming everything that is claimed about man-made global warming is true, no “battle for climate stability” is going to be definitively “won or lost” in a time frame as short as 20 years. That’s less than the blink of a gnat’s eye in geologic terms. Would that we all had Tim F.‘s certainty about everything.
It reminds me of one of the other quotes Tim B. cited.
“How ironic that the world’s No 1 polluter is now reaping the ‘rewards’ that so many have warned would flow.” —British newsreader Jon Snow on Hurricane Katrina
These people seem to think that if the US had ratified the Kyoto treaty then Katrina would never have happened. The actual act of signing the treaty would, through some mysterious act of will, have modified the global climate and prevented the “irony” of Katrina hitting US shores.
On a related note, I’m still trying to figure out what sank all those Spanish galleons in the 1500 and 1600s that they keep finding hoards of gold treasure on (such as the Atocha). It used to be reported that they went to the bottom in hurricanes and other storms, but I guess in light of new scientific knowledge that doesn’t make much sense any more. I now know from the BBC that hurricanes are strictly a consequence of Industrial Age climate change.
On a related note, I’m still trying to figure out what sank all those Spanish galleons in the 1500 and 1600s that they keep finding hoards of gold treasure on (such as the Atocha). It used to be reported that they went to the bottom in hurricanes and other storms, but I guess in light of new scientific knowledge that doesn’t make much sense any more.
Sea monsters. Atlanteans. Magnetic vorticies - the Burmuda Triangle and all that.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 01 07 at 05:11 PM • permalinkHmmm.
I wonder if it’s from solar wind? This is because solar wind particles are trapped by the Van Allen belt and then travel to the poles. This is why there are the Northern Lights. It would stand to reason that energy is energy and if more particles are striking the Van Allen belt they’d end up releasing their energy in the artic atmosphere.
There’s an interesting theory that the sun isn’t fusing hydrogen all of the time. That instead the sun goes through phases where it burns hydrogen and then expands until the density isn’t high enough to maintain the fusion. Then the sun rides the rollercoaster downward through various energy states until it cools sufficiently that the hydrogen density returns to the necessary mixture for fusion.
The theory was propounded to explain why there are no neutrinos coming from the sun when theories suggest that there should be neutrinos emitted by a sun that is fusing hydrogen.
If so then nothing humans are doing would have any effect whatsoever on “global warming”.
Posted by memomachine on 2006 01 07 at 05:37 PM • permalinkHmmm.
Sea monsters.
I read a book on whaling once where the whalers found a single sucker mark on a sperm whale from a giant squid that was 8 feet in diameter. In case anyone doesn’t know sperm whales hunt giant squid for food.
8 feet! One sucker from one tentacle!
Posted by memomachine on 2006 01 07 at 05:41 PM • permalinkNot in Bruce Willis-size territory, but still popping up here and there, don’t forget Gary Sinise, Tom Selleck, Gary Oldman, and others.
Gary Oldman gets bonus points for being a British actor under 50 who publicly expressed conservative views in the 1980s. The British film/television industry makes the American one look like a branch of the Republicans…
Presumably Emma T will be swimming over to the Academy Awards this year.
Really enjoyed reading the quotes, by the way. I was struck by how much ego and a need for attention drives some people’s commitment to causes. I am thinking here about the likes of Cindy Sheehan and Donna Mulhearn.
Kudos to Pamela Bone, though.
Posted by Major Anya on 2006 01 07 at 06:10 PM • permalinkIt’s even worse than we thought. Apparently, our greedy use of SUVs is having a more widespread effect than we even knew about. Money quote:
The spacecraft also observed a gradual evaporation of carbon dioxide ice in one of Mars’ polar caps, pointing to a slowly changing Mars climate.
“They way these polar pits are retreating is absolutely astounding,” Mustard said.
But like the rockfalls, researchers were unable to account for the gradual climate change.
“Why is Mars warmer today that it was in the past, we really have no way of knowing why,” Malin said.
We could have foreseen this when the US put those 2 SUVs on the Red Planet. What? The Mars rovers are not Land Rovers? Oh, well, then never mind.
Hmmm, has the Aurora Australis been getting dimmer? Oh well we’ll just have to work the power plants a little harder. Actually I sense a larger problem out there, has anyone considered the fact that China and India are on the same side of the planet? Am I the only one being driven into a catatonic state of fear by the fact that an overbalanced earth could just go rolling uncontrollably off into space like a loaded die? All those people should move somewhere else to save us all. Uh, Emma…...Emma?
Alanna Mitchell, supposedly one of the world’s top environmental reporters, has written a book, Dancing at the Dead Sea, which is a bit weird, judging by a review in the Financial Review Friday 6/1/06.
She describes a lone man sneaking out of a protected forest carrying ‘a massive old-growth tree balanced on his shoulder’, and expresses a desire to frolic with piranhas:
“It’s clear to me that unless I swim with the piranhas, I will be not only consumed by fear but also untouched by the hope I seek. I will be unable to believe that humans, who I know have given up even such ingrained practices as slavery and cannibalism, will also give up the fable that they can keep harming the earth.”If this is what one of the world’s top environmental reporters come up with, imagine what second-rate environmental reporters are capable of…http://www.iisd.org/about/StaffBio.aspx?bno=716
Alanna Mitchell is a strategic communications expert who specializes in translating science into narrative.She was a journalist at The Globe and Mail, Canada’s National Newspaper, for 14 years until late 2004. Her areas of expertise were earth sciences, the environment, social statistics and behavioural trends. Before that, she was a business journalist at The Financial Post for three years. In 2000, the IUCN and the Reuters Foundation named her the best environmental reporter in the world for her report on the vanishing forests of Madagascar.
btw, you think emma thomson is CUTE?
Click on this latest photo of her in today’s Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/film/the-nanny-state/2006/01/05/1136387568568.htmlCaution: Please do not access in the workplace. AT home, adjust your net-nanny minder to ‘maximum’.
I take no responsibility for consequences of accessing this link.Another pet pejorative term which needs to be deconstructed is the standby “extractive industries”, which are blamed for so much of the evil in the world.
According to arty-left visionaries in search of a cause celebre, Extractive Industries are Vampires, gouging the veins of mother gaia, ripping the living flesh, converting the blood, muscle and sinew of the living earth into inconsequential but profitable rubbish, then rudely belching poisons into the biosphere, where they find their way into the Canberra Sheltered Greenhouse Recycled Water Supply.
A more sane vision of the world might see industries which convert otherwise useless material into a vast range of really useful stuff as beneficial, in fact totally necessary.
Unless your particular vision is of a return to hunter-gatherer tribal societies, who have no use at all for your degree in a soft humanities group of subjects, or your artistic treatises on wind noises through bridges, or your performances of Twelfth Night in Russian for an Australian audience.Judging from the size of the seat Emma Thompson might need next time she flies maybe she is on to something. At least for the convenience of the person next to her.
Posted by Pat Patterson on 2006 01 07 at 07:18 PM • permalink2005 was coolest in last 21 years
An average temperature of 18.7°C made 2005 the coolest year in the last 21 years. (Times of Malta (7/1/06)Posted by LaVallette on 2006 01 07 at 09:01 PM • permalink#16,28,31,33 (bingo)
I think we’ll have to put the producer Bellasario on our list.
I like NCIS and Jag, not the least for which is the way the shows are/were pro military and pro American.
Spot the conservative connection. Tom Selleck starred in Magnum which was a Bellasario production.
—Nora (Mmm, men in uniform…)
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2006 01 07 at 09:08 PM • permalinkI like NCIS and Jag, not the least for which is the way the shows are/were pro military and pro American.
Notice how Belsario puts Navy/Marines characters in his other shows as well: Magnum was a retired Seal, and Al from Quantum Leap was an admiral. This is probably connected to the fact that Belsario served in the USMC.
While looking up his biography, I saw that he was also responsible for Airwolf. That was a good show back when Stringfellow Hawke was engaged in covert missions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East (less so when he was fighting corrupt sheriffs who just happened to have their own helicopter gunships…).
Meanwhile over in Japan as reported in today’s Fairfax Rag the Sun Herald, 56 killed as record snowfalls bury Japan.
Also from the story—“Many regions of Japan have just experienced their coldest December in 60 years, with 106 areas experiencing record snowfalls.”
Given Farifax’s commitment to AGW, I’m left wondering how the the story cleared editorial review. Still it is Sunday, and people can make mistakes.
It sure is strange and mysterious stuff this Global Warming.
I read a thing, well researched, on Christopher Columbus some years ago - I think it was written by Milton Morovitz, before the advent of the WWW, in a “throw-a-way” medical journal called “Hospital Practice”.
Columbus was situated in San Juan Domingo - wherever the hell that is - with several ships. The Spanish Fleet was also there with 32 ships laden with booty - not the musilage ass we have become accustomed to, but rather gold and stones - the real thing, if you will.
Columbus sensed something bad was going on within the environment, and therefore repaired his ships inland, well up a local river. The Spanish Fleet instead sailed into the Ocean, and all were sunk due to a hurricaine, leaving us to now search for Spanish booty - the real thing, I suppose.
But when Columbus got old and unable to repair up a river, people started to sue him - mainly the noble Hispanics, who sent him there to begin with to get booty. Because he was the only one who would really bring home the bacon, not just the ham. [Have you ever heard of ham futures, compared to pork bellies?]
Struck with Reiter’s syndrome, a disease of the joints which usually comes from a sexually transmitted disease, Columbus had to be literally - no pun intended - carted to his court appearances on a litter.
After he died, the resolution of his estate got no better, and according to Morovitz took another 100 years to settle. Morovitz seemed to attribute Columbus’ awareness of weather to Arther-itis, but I don’t think so. I tend to believe that severe hurricaines have existed for a long time, unabetted by man, as has the booty - whatever we happen to think it is. Resolving these situations will perhaps never occur, thank God, as Columbus probably realized.
“Emma Thompson: We should all not be flying any more because of global warming.”
I really wish that I hadn’t read this or followed the link. I’d always thought that Emma Thompson was a fine (and likeable)actor - I particularly remember her performance in “Remains of the Day”. Now, everytime, I might see Thompson in a screen role, I’ll be reminded of what an air-head she is in real life. Damn, my options are running out!
I’ve suspected for some time that, these days, we’d be better-off remaining in ignorance about the real life of many of the “celebrities” whose screen perfomances we admire. I was ill-advised to recently read the autobiography of the (very short)
British character actor Ian Holm (Sam Massabini in ‘Chariots of Fire’) whose performances I’ve admired for many years, and always found to be a ‘likeable’ actor. Sadly, in real life, Ian Holm turned out to be a despicable, ill-natured and moralistically-deprived piece of shit who glorified his many marriages and promiscuous affairs - fairly typical for some small men. Be that as it may, I have lost something since I will never again watch a movie (in which Holm plays) without rembering what an odious little twerp he really is!John Christy maintained the now-discredited theory that satellites don’t show global warming. I guess he’s moved on to something else.
Tim B., meanwhile, continues to post sarcasm about global warming without stating what he thinks is happening.
Posted by schmidtb98 on 2006 01 07 at 11:06 PM • permalink#41 - have you actually looked over the data-sets that were used to “discredit” the concept that the satellite records don’t show global warming? It is possible to draw a trend line to the data that makes for a slight rise since 1978 - it is also possible to draw trend lines that are neutral or show a decrease - you are not exactly on strong ground making this point.
As noted on the earlier thread on global cooling - I find the concept of arguing over whether there is “consensus” on this topic to be exceedingly bizarre. The physical sciences have never worked on a “consensus” basis on any topic except this one.
Sometimes there are competing “interpretations” a la “the copenhagen interpretation” of quantum mechanics. Interpretations are left to battle it out in the market place of ideas, unsuccessful interpretations die, unmourned and unloved, there is no consensus.
If you think consensus is important you have come from the soft sciences and you have wandered too far from your home.
Russell, schmidttb98 is a compulsive gambler. He’s probably going through withdrawal right now, since no one will bet with him on global climate change.
Not that I’m trying to excuse him, mind you. I just wanted to point out one possible reason why he’s a consensus sort of fellow.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 07 at 11:29 PM • permalinkUPDATE. Up to 200 employees at the Department of Environment’s Greenhouse Office in Canberra are being tested for lead poisoning after their recycled drinking water was discovered to be contaminated with lead, zinc and copper.
That would explain why the people who work in the Greenhouse Office look green.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2006 01 08 at 12:05 AM • permalinkSpot the conservative connection. Tom Selleck starred in Magnum which was a Bellasario production.
Of course, it doesn’t always work that way. Most of the cast of “Babylon 5” (a fairly decent sci-fi series) was conservative, while the creator/producer J. Michael Stracynski was apparently a flaming lib.
Tim B., meanwhile, continues to post sarcasm about global warming without stating what he thinks is happening.
Funny, coming from someone who has, as far as I can recall, not stated what he thinks will happen.
So how about it, schmitty? What will the Earth be like in 2025 if things go as you think they are? 2045? 2100? Let’s hear what we’re facing if we don’t heed you.
Oh, and specifics, please. No “global climate instability” or other weasal-words.
Well, jic, I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 08 at 01:21 AM • permalinkHow about we bet schmidt whether consensus really exists on global warming?
I’m up for $2000.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 01 08 at 01:33 AM • permalink#42, Russell, consensus is very important in all science, whether hard or soft; we really couldn’t progress without it; every paper would be a new field without a base to work from (the shoulders Newton stood on etc). The problem in much of eco-science is that the concensus is being driven by the need to maintain the massive injection of politically based funds that have suddenly been pumped into a once obscure science - meteorology and in particular climate modelling.
My personal favourite climate variation cause is the journey of the solar system through the spiral arms of the galaxy. Inside the arms the amount of cosmic radiation is much higher. This leads to more cloud seeding in the atmosphere by particle showers caused by cosmic rays, which in turn leads to more clouds and hence more reflected radiation, and hence an ice age. The period is of the order of tens of thousands of years.
#54 - maybe we are working from different definitions of the word consensus. At least as far as I understand it, consensus is the end of argument - in general that requires compromise. In my experience compromise has no place in the physical sciences - you aim to find the correct number/theory/equation/vector/tensor and work with that - compromise/consensus is anathema to that process.
Science accepts a base of axioms and builds up theories based on theory validated by experiment (which leads in turn to new theories and further experiments ad infinitum). We don’t have to wait for consensus to form before we proceed - our aim is to (hopefully) drag the consensus in a new direction as a result of our work (at least once you have served your time as a drone - alas I gave up at the drone stage).
In my experimental days (now long behind me) I worked for/with a leading physics professor who thought of himself as a real iconaclast pushing ahead on his own against an establishment that did not accept his work. It was quite a bizarre experience to, eventually, discover that he was not proceeding against the hostility of the “physics establishment” but instead that he faced nothing but their indifference. Nobody but his direct colleagues/collaborators cared what Bijvoet (pronounced bifud) numbers/ratios were.
Wha is your working definition of consensus?
Even if we all agree that the earth is getting warmer, it is a long leap to say that man is a major cause and that man can reverse the trend - in which case you would be betting that you could, and that it would be ok to cause huge damage to the societies that have evolved on the back of all the processing and utilisation of earthly materials which suddenly have to be eschewed in favour of simplicity. It might amount to dropping dead in order to assist in avoiding a future in which you would, er ...drop dead?
#56. I would use the common form of the meaning of consensus: what the relevant, qualifed researchers in a field believe is the basis on which they can construct further ideas. Although it sounds a bit airy-fairy, it really is the key to us humans staying connected with reality. You could say it is a formalized marketplace of ideas. (As noted before for the case of eco-science, it can be distorted by external - usually government - factors, but those are the limitations we live with and try to reduce if we can).
You seem to be more looking for a more mathematical definition, but maths is very different from the real world.
#58 - Is it just me or are you saying “consensus means what I say it means, what else could it possibly mean?”.
In diplomacy consensus means that noone is willing to go on the record as opposing the consensus. In the physical sciences it means roughly the same thing as it does in diplomacy (e.g the status of Euclid’s axioms before Riemann).
Funny, schmidtb98 never did say why we should be worried about a warming climate when there’s solid evidence that correlates warmer climates with “golden ages” of human culture.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 01 08 at 01:13 PM • permalinkI know that dictionary definitions are not all there is to a word’s meaning. However, the consensus on consensus agrees with Brett_McS’ interpretation. It is also my interpretation. Compromise may be necessary to reach a consensus in a given situation, but it is not a prerequisite for consensus in general.
DaveS, I accept the IPCC consensus of a rise of .1 to .2 Celsius per decade in early decades, which will likely accelerate in later decades. Unlike you, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.
Funny how a consensus of car mechanics or plumbers is useful for non-experts in deciding their options, but a consensus of scientists is not.
Posted by schmidtb98 on 2006 01 08 at 01:56 PM • permalinkDaveS, I accept the IPCC consensus of a rise of .1 to .2 Celsius per decade in early decades, which will likely accelerate in later decades. Unlike you, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.
Once more, bets are meaningless in determining the truth of a matter.
Now, are you aware that the IPCC is more a political than scientific body? How does that change the value—particularly the scientific value—of that “consensus”?
And, again, why should we worry about warming when historical evidence shows that warmer climates are extremely beneficial to humanity?
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 01 08 at 02:55 PM • permalinkDaveS, I accept the IPCC consensus of a rise of .1 to .2 Celsius per decade in early decades, which will likely accelerate in later decades.
And how do you know that it is “likely” the temperature will accelerate? Did you take a bet on that?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 08 at 03:10 PM • permalink#31, jic: “Still, you are right. NCIS is the only current show that consistently has Islamist bad guys, without making excuses for them.”
There is a show entitled “Sue Thomas, FBI” about a deaf woman who is an FBI agent in DC. AFAIK, it’s only on the PAX channel, so may not be widely known. It regularly features as villains, Islamic terrorists, suicide bombers, The Taliban, Al Quaeda, Hamas and the full rogue’s gallery of Islamofascism. The show has no qualms about labeling them as bad guys, and the people who fight/stop/capture them are the good guys.
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2006 01 08 at 03:21 PM • permalinkThere is a show entitled “Sue Thomas, FBI” about a deaf woman who is an FBI agent in DC. AFAIK, it’s only on the PAX channel, so may not be widely known.
It’s shown here on the Hallmark channel, but I’ve never seen it. From what you said, I might check it out. Islamic terrorists aside, is it any good?
DaveS, I accept the IPCC consensus of a rise of .1 to .2 Celsius per decade in early decades, which will likely accelerate in later decades. Unlike you, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.
Again, schmiddy, just like Ender, you REFUSE TO ANSWER A SIMPLE QUESTION. Here it is again:
“What will the Earth be like in 2025 if things go as you think they are? 2045? 2100? Let’s hear what we’re facing if we don’t heed you.
“Oh, and specifics, please. No “global climate instability” or other weasal-words.”
I’m not asking for temperatures here. I’m asking for CONSEQUENCES. So, answer it. Specifically. What will the world be like in 2025, 2045, and 2100 if the freakin’ TEMPERATURE RISE you keep harping on as if it means something continues.
Why is it so bloody difficult for you people to answer this simple question?
And for the twentieth fucking time, I NEITHER KNOW NOR CARE IF IT’S GETTING WARMER, SO WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WAGER YOU ON IT?
And furthermore, schmiddy:
DaveS, I accept the IPCC consensus of a rise of .1 to .2 Celsius per decade in early decades, which will likely accelerate in later decades. Unlike you, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.
I already covered this. Here it is again:
Here’s what’s really annoying about this smug, victorious attitude of yours - you mistake unconcern for the question for fear of losing. I have no idea if it’s getting warmer or colder, and I don’t care except to the point that I hope it’s getting warmer. I have no idea if any of it is man-made or not, though I suspect that an insignificant portion is. And you want me to “put my money where my mouth is” and bet with you that “it’s gonna get warmer.” Huh? What does that prove? Hell, I want it to get warmer.
It’s like you’re saying to me, “The Colts are gonna kick ass in the Super Bowl! Seven touchdowns, six interceptions and three safeties, guaranteed!”
And I tell you, “Dude, you’re high. They’re a good team. They might win the Super Bowl, but the Pats look pretty tough. I dunno, it’s a toss-up. To tell you the truth, I’m a Bills fan, so I’m not that into it”.
And you reply, “Oh, yeah? Well, why don’t you take Tom Brady’s dick out of your mouth for ten seconds and put your money where your mouth is, Pat-boy! I’ll lay you two-to-one that the Colts will score a touchdown!”
You’re betting on something that has a decent chance of happening and not meaning jack shit, and thinking it proves God-know-what larger point.
Now, please, schmiddy, read that three times, sound out all of the words, tell me you get it, and let go of this fucking “put your money where your mouth is” bone.
I’ve seen Sue Thomas a few times. It’s pretty good, but it’s way out there in the UHF channels, so I keep forgetting it. (btw, its actual title is “Sue Thomas, F.B.Eye”)
Regarding schmidtb98, he’s basically just making a variation on the thoroughly-discredited ‘chickenhawk’ argument. I don’t know if that’s his whole position or if he’s trying to argue for global warming and is just stuck-on-stupid at that point. Moreover, I really don’t care.
#64 G’day schmidt - you seem to be shifting the ground on the significance of “consensus”.
Funny how a consensus of car mechanics or plumbers is useful for non-experts in deciding their options, but a consensus of scientists is not.
Originally your point appeared to be that “consensus” had some form of scientific validity and that we should consider the question closed because of your notional “consensus”. Similarly we should ignore our recollections of the noisy (and very silly) people who yelled loudly in the 1970s that an ice-age was coming because they never got enough people to agree with them to claim a “consensus”.
Lysenko was the final word on the interpretation of certain aspects of science in the old Soviet Union for several decades. Nobody would go on record as disagreeing with his version of biology (on fear of death or internal exile) - there was an enforced “consensus”. How good a guide for the layman would that consensus have been?
My opinion on the current kerfuffle is that it bears remarkable similarities to Lysenkoism - it is not science.
#69, jic: “It’s shown here on the Hallmark channel, but I’ve never seen it. From what you said, I might check it out. Islamic terrorists aside, is it any good?”
I like it a lot. It combines elements of a Police Procedural (in this case, an FBI Procedural), interesting interactions among enjoyable characters, at times dramatic, sentimental, or funny sub-plots, and an advanced course in American Sign Language. It is one of the few shows that I make a point of watching (another being “Bones”).
Posted by Bruce Lagasse on 2006 01 08 at 08:23 PM • permalinkHey, I’m watching that doco, and here’s what I’ve learned. Before the really horrible Little Ice Age, when global temperatures went down and everybody suffered and died and stuff, there was a Medieval Warm Period. Temperatures were higher than today! Greenland was hospitable and, well, green! Grapes were grown in England, good enough that the French wine trade was threatened! People were happy and thrived! And one of the causes was increased solar radiation from sunspot activity!
In other words, pretty much everything that commenters here have tried to tell the Church of Evil Global Warming crowd.
Of course, the so-called “experts” in the doco are all historians and geologists and such. Y’know, cranks who look at “historical records” and “ice core samples” and nonsense like that. Not a single environmental scientist or computer model to be found. It’s as bad as those archaelogists who try to disprove creationism with their “fossil records” and “rock strata” and “sedimentary layers.”
Well, just reached the end of the doco. It told how the Little Ice Age ended abruptly over the course of ten years. The experts all disagreed why - restoration of the Atlantic Conveyor thingy, sunspots, industrialization (for only that ten-year period?!?), etc. Then the obligatory Scary Threat of Global Warming, followed by the expert’s differing predictions - heat/drought, or maybe another Ice Age, or just a very pleasant warm period like the MWP (ironically, the belief of a guy identified as a Climate Modeller - are you listening, Ender?)
So, there was no agreement why the globe warmed in the 1800’s, and no agreement what’s going to happen next (good, bad or indifferent). That, in enviroreligionist circles, is known as “consensus.”
Dave S. has achieved new heights - he and other denialists won’t put up and won’t shut up, but he tells me to shut up and stop pointing that out about denialists. He says he’s not interested, and can’t stop posting about it. Sounds like Tim B.
I have bets offered on hurricanes and glacier melting if anyone wants to bet on some climate consequences. I’m open to other well-designed bets.
Oh wait - denialists aren’t interested in betting, they just like talking.
Posted by schmidtb98 on 2006 01 09 at 01:53 PM • permalinkOh wait - denialists aren’t interested in betting, they just like talking.
What are bets supposed to prove?
And, again, WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT A CLIMATE CHANGE THAT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE SAYS WILL BE GOOD FOR HUMANITY?!
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 01 09 at 04:08 PM • permalinkschmidt, I’ll make a bet with you on the climate.
I’ll bet you US$100 that an extraterrestial civilization is trying to cool the earth down, and global warming is the natural response to their nefarious plot.
How about it?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 09 at 06:19 PM • permalinkOh, by the way, schmitty, here’s what I said:
I have no idea if it’s getting warmer or colder, and I don’t care except to the point that I hope it’s getting warmer.
Now, explain to me how that equates to “denialism.” You say it’s gonna get warmer, I say, “maybe, maybe not, hope it does.” How fucking retarded do you have to be to consider that a “denial”, you idiot? How many times do I have to explain this simple fucking concept before it sinks into that tapioca-filled container you call a skull?
Dave S. will not accept 2:1 odds on something he appears to give a 50% chance of happening (his story seems to shift though, maybe he’s a “natural warmer” when it’s convenient). As for not caring, he’s protesting about it a little too much. Fine, Dave, we’ll just have to agree to disagree over mathematics.
Anyone else have an interest, someone whose math works things out a little differently?
Posted by schmidtb98 on 2006 01 09 at 08:06 PM • permalink
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Hmm, so I guess when Gaia had colic that was Chimpy McHitler’s fault too?