Utah Assembly Passes Resolution Denying Climate Change 787
cowtamer writes "The Utah State Assembly has passed a resolution decrying climate change alarmists and urging '...the United States Environmental Protection Agency to immediately halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs and withdraw its "Endangerment Finding" and related regulations until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated.' Here is the full text of H.J.R 12." The resolution has no force of law. The Guardian article includes juicy tidbits from its original, far more colorful, version.
I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:5, Insightful)
WHEREAS, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a blend of government officials and scientists, does no independent climate research but relies on global climate researchers;
What do you propose to collect independent data from 1950 to 2010? Time travel? Of course you have to rely on global climate researchers.
I more than understand their concerns with cap and trade but some of these premise statements are a bit off track:
WHEREAS, the recently completed Copenhagen climate change summit resulted in little agreement, especially among growing CO2-emitting nations like China and India, and calls on the United States to pay billions of dollars to developing countries to reduce CO2 emissions at a time when the United States' national debt will exceed $12 trillion;
So what the state of Utah is saying is that since no one else is taking this seriously, we shouldn't have to? I agree that it will hurt us economically and competitively with other nations but you have to look at what scientific evidence we have before you mire this in those sorts of things.
WHEREAS, according to the World Health Organization, 1.6 billion people do not have adequate food and clean water; and WHEREAS, global governance related to global warming and reduction of CO2 would ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty:
Funny that absent from their "concerns" of foreign citizens is the statement that "increasing temperatures will increase drought and famine in equatorial developing nations resulting in starvation and displacement." Third world peoples will be the first to feel the effects of climate change while people like me in the United States will hear about this on the news. We have the resources and means to deal with the beginnings of it, they don't. Their governments will have bigger problems than debt and slowed economic development.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of the state of Utah urges the United States Environmental Protection Agency to immediately halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs and withdraw its "Endangerment Finding" and related regulations until a full and independent investigation of H. [ the ] .H climate data H. [ conspiracy ] .H and global warming science can be substantiated.
A "full and independent investigation" is exactly what the EPA tried to do. Problem is that everyone is on the planet. Good luck finding sentient beings to do an 'independent investigation' of our planet. Anyone else has a stake in this one way or the other because they live here.
I love the double standards (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times have we seen this sort of argument as contained in TFA:
It accused those seeking action on climate change of riding a "gravy train" and their efforts would "ultimately lock billions of human beings into long-term poverty".
So in other words, they accuse the climate change scientists of of acting in their own financial interests by being alarmists and then also complain about how doing something about the problem will adversely affect the financial interests of the skeptics. It is a massive double standard!
They claim that scientists toe the climate change line to get grants, and yet can you imagine how much definitive proof against man-made climate change would be worth to businesses? Any scientist who was in it for the money could name their price (or at least, their wife could name her price to be a consultant to industry).
The problem with this debate is that one side has to prove their claims, while the other side just needs to create doubt by using unsubstantiated and even sometimes completely discredited claims. In this case, claiming that the other side is on the "gravy train" isn't supported by any evidence at all, and yet there is no way to disprove it either. In all the leaked emails regarding this, where was the shred of evidence that anybody was trying to rort taxpayers money?
Uh...what? (Score:5, Insightful)
urging the United States Environmental Protection Agency to immediately halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs
Um...whether you think global warming is bullshit or not, why would you want to halt carbon dioxide reduction policies? I mean, modify them, sure...but why completely halt them? Global warming being real or not, there is no denying that we as a species pump way too much crap into our atmosphere. Regardless of how much this affects our planet, you can't honestly tell me that it's a GOOD thing...
People always seem to follow one extreme ("We're ruining our planet!") or the other ("We aren't doing anything to the planet!") when it comes to global warming. What's up with that? Why is it so hard to find people with a realistic point of view ("We pollute too much, but we aren't dooming ourselves.")
Falling behind a little more each day. (Score:2, Insightful)
Each day, the United States falls behind a little bit more.
Cutting-edge research these days happens in Europe and Asia, where religion is put in its place, and education is paramount. Even if global warming is a political sham and most of the "scientific" evidence has been fabricated, as it very well may be, at least it has spurned research into solar and wind technologies, for instance.
Huzza for legislation over science! (Score:5, Insightful)
While the science around climate change deserves scrutiny and probing, this probing should probably be done by scientists, not legislators. The last time I checked, the scientific method didn't include debate, Robert's Rules of Order or passage by majority. Freeman Dyson makes some interesting points against climate change in this NY Times Article [nytimes.com]. If you agree with him or not, at least he's engaging in scentific skepticism over uninformed legislation.
Obviously the majority of Utah's Assembly has no idea how science works, as it takes a majority to pass an obviously useless law. It's too bad that method doesn't work or the Utah State Assembly could go ahead and legislate the Higgs-Boson into existence right there in the chambers. I think this problem is a symptom of our terrible science education in our schools. Perhaps they could go ahead and legislate some scientific thinking into themselves while they're redefining physics.
Re:I love to be the first to say this... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's because you need more than 15 years to get statistically significant figures.
People have trouble comprehending anything that takes longer than 20 years to prove, that's the problem. Innate flaw in our psychological makeup.
Re:Uh...what? (Score:5, Insightful)
That one is obvious, and in the article. The carbon dioxide reduction policies are a economic threat to Utah. They produce the coal for the power plants that the carbon dioxide reduction policies are trying to eliminate.
Nothing much to see here, just a legislature passing a "Don't take our juuurbs!" statement.
This is what you get.... (Score:4, Insightful)
....for carrying out questionable science.
The effect of the recent IPCC Glacier mis-statements and the University of East Anglia 'mistakes' is to give people who would 'like it to not be so' to have a grain of sand around which to crystallize.
I make no claim as to if climate change is upon us or not, but it is ESSENTIAL that the science is revisited and made rock solid (or completely disproven)....in the meantime we have to progress on a path of caution -- which effectively means continuing to reduce carbon emissions IN CASE they are causing the problem...putting our collective fingers in our ears and singing la-lala-la isn't going to solve anything.
Jeez, politicians have enough difficulty making sensible decisions already, we're not exactly helping by not giving them accurate information on which to make those decisions, are we???
Re:Uh...what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. I am of the opinion that while we aren't dooming ourselves, we are still causing harm based on the amount of pollution we create. We aren't going to cause a catastrophic failure of the planet, but we certainly aren't making it a healthy place to live.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, then. More rain and snow prove global warming. And drought proves global warming. So..... given that any changes in the weather prove global warming, what would disprove global warming?
Heads I win, tails you lose, right?
Re:Uh...what? (Score:3, Insightful)
What they fail to see is that the whole climate emission reduction actually IS a "don't take ur juuuuubs" agenda. Especially the way it's pushed globally.
We spent the better part of our industrial revolution years polluting. Our whole wealth is built on waste and pollution. Now we have the wealth to actually enact energy conservation technology (and we also have the patents to keep others from doing the same), so passing a global resolution to reduce pollution and forcing every country to follow suit (which seems to be easy, when you look at the global climate summits and the whole G8/G20 meetings) means that we, and only we, are able to actually produce competitively.
NOT pushing climate agendas and letting everyone produce and pollute as he sees fit results in cheap production in poor countries where people actually don't care that their lakes and seas smell funny and give you a rash if you only touch them, while something like this would certainly cause a few people to get irate over their politicians here and press for "cleaner" laws.
Try pushing for cleaner towns in a country where there's first of all no labour and everyone is really, really happy to have that stinkin', pollutin' mill next door and second, anyone who complains disappears for some odd reason.
Amendments say it all. (Score:4, Insightful)
For those of you too occupied to RTFA, the crossed out terms are enlightening: 'conspiracy' (twice), 'flawed', 'tricks', 'gravy train'.
Such emotive language doesn't help their cause when opponents could just as easily frame "denialists" with such terms.
Re:Uh...what? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a growing number of people who believe that aiming solely for fast large cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is not an economically wise decision and it's better to mix less ambitious goals on reducing greenhouse gas emissions with engineering approaches to try and reduce global warming.
That said, reducing CO2 emissions does have some interesting side-effects such as reducing dependency on Oil and Gas.
Consider a world where there is no need to pay trillions of dollars to some far away countries whose only claim to greatness is lots of hydrocarbons and the subsidizing of madrassas in other countries to spread a particularly extremist and violent form of Islam, or spend trillions of dollars on wars to protect them. Not to mention that Oil and Gas keep some pretty nasty dictatorships in power.
In such a world, if China does not follow other countries into a low-carbon economy, they will be the sending trillions to those countries and paying for wars in faraway places ...
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody (well, nobody of significance) denies that we are having an impact on the climate. What is in question is the amount of impact that we are having. The fact of the matter is that we have very little knowledge about the driving forces of the climate. We have so little, that we cannot predict where the climate would be without our impact. For all we know, we could be in a naturally occurring warming period as it is, and our impact is as little as 0.001 * C per year. Or, we could be in what otherwise would be a cooling period, and our impact is strong enough to swing the net change into the positive. We simply do not have enough understanding of the planet to make such a sharp distinction. We do know from ice records that the planet has gone through these kind of temperature swings before (And oddly enough these kinds of CO2 swings as well), and we do know that it will happen again.
To say that it's our fault (definitively at least) is to ignore the fact that we simply don't know enough to make such a determination... Could it be our fault? Sure. Is there enough evidence to --for all practical purposes-- bankrupt countries trying to "limit the damage"? That question is the hot plate issue. This is why I agree with Utah's policy. Not because it disagrees with AGW, but because its inner meaning can be summarized by "We simply don't know, so before we commit huge amounts of resources, lets try to gain a little more understanding"...
You mentioned that:
Now, I pose the question. If our impact did not cause it, are we responsible to fix it? Even if our impact did cause it, what portion of what they are experiencing can be attributed to what we did? And what about the impact of the rest of the world (including those very same third world countries that are going to suffer the effects first, as you put it)? I'm not against sending aid to other countries that need it, but to declare the USA as "responsible", and potentially bankrupt a single country for a global problem, is ignorant at best...
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:5, Insightful)
reduction of greenhouse gasses and/or global temperature?
Growing ice-masses instead of shrinking ice masses? Lowering of sea levels?
Re:Uh...what? (Score:4, Insightful)
CO2 is plant food, not pollution, and in ages past there were FAR higher levels of it in the atmosphere. Should we continue to strive to reduce all industrial emmissions? Of course we should. Should CO2 be high on the list? Not even close.
Re:I love the double standards (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this debate is that one side has to prove their claims, while the other side just needs to create doubt by using unsubstantiated and even sometimes completely discredited claims. In this case, claiming that the other side is on the "gravy train" isn't supported by any evidence at all, and yet there is no way to disprove it either.
That's exactly my thought as well; and i would even go a bit further:
1/ the greenhouse effect is proven; without the Greenhouse-effect it would be nearly 20C colder on average, and CO2 is one of the gases responsible.
2/ CO2 levels has changed dramatically since the industrial revolution, in fact we can calculate how much CO2 we dump into the atmosphere by looking at the amount of oil and gas sold.
3/ because of (1) and (2), 'NOT AGW' should be proven, because no further warming would mean a strange cut-off point for the greenhouse effect of CO2, and that would mean we need an extraordinary explanation for 'NOT-AGW'.
Re:Uh...what? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are serious concerns about the IPCC and some of their faulty results but the people mentioned in this article are neither competent nor willing to address them. Just bark with them or against them, do not try to have articulate discussion.
Re:Priorities (Score:1, Insightful)
No, it's the opposite.
My experience with millions of dumbass individuals who elected GWB -- twice -- and supported his disastrous policies has painted my opinion of anyone who calls him or herself a "Republican" today.
If I met a college student who claims to be a Republican I would be ready to believe he has a boner when war is discussed.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:5, Insightful)
WHEREAS, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a blend of government officials and scientists, does no independent climate research but relies on global climate researchers;
What do you propose to collect independent data from 1950 to 2010? Time travel? Of course you have to rely on global climate researchers.
More to the point, it's not actually true (the IPCC is made up of climate researchers who are asked to participate based on their research on, yes, climate). And who does Utah want researching climate issues, if not climate researchers? Shoe salesmen?
Re:I love the double standards (Score:1, Insightful)
So does denying scientific consensus.
Re:Uh...what? (Score:4, Insightful)
and in ages past there were FAR higher levels of it in the atmosphere
Oh, you mean that age where giant reptiles ruled the planet and humans were nowhere to be found? Use some common sense, you git. By your logic, an ice age wouldn't matter because hey! it's happend in the past.
That being said, I agree CO2 shouldn't necessarily top the list, but it still needs attention. We are at a point where (in my opinion) global warming isn't man-made, but it will eventually become man-accelerated...which is something we can easily prevent, at least at this point.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest failure yet discovered was the claim by the IPCC that the Himalayan glaciers would all melt away by 2035 [wattsupwiththat.com]. The source? A speculation from an interview by a climate scientist, quoted in news piece. The scientist interviewed stated that his comment was simple speculation, not peer reviewed, not based on new research or anything.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually think that this is a good measure at heart. Rather than jumping in on sensationalism, they are saying that basically "We just want to get justifiable evidence before committing any more resources"...
"Justifiable evidence" here being defined as any which supports their preexisting ideological conclusions.
Re:I love the double standards (Score:3, Insightful)
They claim that scientists toe the climate change line to get grants,
I'm sorry, but isn't the main argument against AGW "skeptics" that they are all working for "big oil"? And now you are claiming that it's wrong to consider the financial interests of the scientists receiving government paid grants to produce "science" that will ultimately give government more power.
It is a massive double standard!
I couldn't have said it better!
Re:I love the double standards (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems daft to me to claim that the whole thing is a hoax to get funding. All science is funded somehow, and yet this insult is only thrown at the people working on climate.
In my experience (I'm a working scientist, though not in climate), science is very, very competitive. Just brutal, in fact. It's full of mildly Aspergers people who delight in other's discomfort and are convinced (almost) all other researchers are idiots. If you have a clever idea that cuts your rival's work off at the knees, by God, you're going to publish, and you're going to rub their face in it as you do.
I find it impossible to believe that good anti-AWG ideas really have been suppressed for 50 years or however long it is.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:5, Insightful)
From a German perspective it sounds a bit weird, I mean, can there be any good argument against greater energy efficiency? Even if there was no climate change, why waste energy?
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that none of the phenomena you've mentioned actually prove global warming (see definition of straw man argument [wikipedia.org]).
Global warming refers to rising average global temperatures, so the way to disprove global warming would be to show that average global temperatures aren't going up.
Re:Uh...what? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sorry. Plant food? I must have missed the 30,000 feet trees sucking out the Co2 out of the upper atmosphere...
Get real...
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, then. More rain and snow prove global warming. And drought proves global warming. So..... given that any changes in the weather prove global warming, what would disprove global warming?
Heads I win, tails you lose, right?
Sorry, I'm afraid it just IS complicated. Global warming will (we believe) lead to more precipitation in some places at some times of year, and less precipitation in other place at other times of year, on average over many decades. It may also change the "variance" leading to weather with more very wet and very dry years. "Proving" or "disproving" theories about the climate will typically involve a subtle statistical analysis of data over the whole planet and probably over several decades.
Re:Uh...what? (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but here in 2010 we are at a crossroads. Either we start making changes to our overall structure now and put serious effort in actively reducing the amount of pollution we generate, or we say fuck it and run the planet into the ground. If we decide to say fuck it, we will be fine for a while. Things won't get real bad for decades, possibly centuries...but it will eventually happen.
As usual, politics gets in the way...I agree that the amount of focus put on CO2 is mostly political in nature. That being said, it should still be a part of our overall strategy, though.
Re:I love to be the first to say this... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because you need more than 15 years to get statistically significant figures.
You do realize you're just making that up? And that if the past 15 years showed marginally significant warming you'd be trumpeting it as "proof" that GW/CC was a "fact"? This is what bugs scientists about the AGW crowd: you use quite different standards for confirming and disconfirming evidence. The anti-AGW crowd do the same thing. I've been on both sides of the fence as I've learned more about the evidence, and neither is a particularly comfortable place for a scientist, as one gets continually pushed by anti-scientific individuals who introduce absolute irrelevancies, like the dangers to the ecology or the economy if their preferred belief happens to be true.
One useful way of determining you are dealing the an anti-scientist is that they mix introduce claims about the effects of GW/CC (or carbon dioxide reduction policies) as if they were arguments for or against GW/CC. As soon as someone does that, you know they aren't interested in science, but in politics and power.
With regard to Phil Jones' statement: an estimated rate of 0.13 C per decade [noaa.gov] would lead one to expect 0.2 C in 15 years. Instead, the rate is statistically equivalent to zero. That's interesting, but a more interesting question is: what is the highest rate that the observed trend is consistent with?
If it is higher than 0.13 C then the models are not in trouble. If it is not, then the models are.
But you cannot say at the same time that an observed rate that is consistent with the models over 15 years is confirmatory, and that an observed rate that is inconsistent with the models over 15 years is not disconfirmatory.
Not if you care about science, anyway.
Re:So if man makes 29 gigatons or so of CO2 per ye (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming for a moment you did not take those numbers out of your posterior, nature before the industrial revolution was at equilibrium, meaning it pumped out 600 and pumped back in 600 (e.g. plant growth). Then, human activities with 29 Gtons would tip that balance and accumulate CO2 in the atmosphere, which cannot be absorbed by nature (whose capacity is 600, not 629).
Ultimately, it is because an inordinate amount of carbon was extracted from the earth as coal and oil, way faster that the geological scale that would have occurred in nature.
Re:I love the double standards (Score:1, Insightful)
Not at all. There are very simple questions to ask yourself anytime you see research.
#1 - Who paid for the research?
#2 - What was the agenda of those who paid for the research?
#3 - Who "peer-reviewed" the study?
#4 - What was the agenda of those who did the peer reviewing?
Scientists, as you say, are self-interested jerks. In medicine, studies which contradict drug-company studies tend to get buried. Studies that the drug companies funded that don't reach the desired conclusion get buried very, very quickly (in fact, they oftentimes pay the study head off to not even bother publishing).
In climate "science", the desired outcome is known. The CRU emails show numerous discussions, not of analyzing what the data actually means, but of working together to collectively manipulate the data for a desired outcome. Also, the CRU skirts the issue of "cutting your rival's work off at the knees" by turning the larger CRU papers into a collaborative process.
Climate "science", as currently existing, is all about the groupthink, as evidenced by the emails colluding to (a) prevent outside investigators from acquiring, and verifying the veracity of, CRU-member data and (b) influence and coercively deny publication to any studies that disagree with the CRU groupthink. There is immense competition for funding from groups that have a dedicated interest in "studies proving AGW."
Yes, much of this funding comes from groups that include Al Gore and believe in the idea of selling "carbon credits" and "carbon taxes" to the public. Remind yourself: when Al Gore testified to Congress that "both of my businesses are carbon-neutral", what businesses was he talking about? One of them is Generation Investment Management, a company which he both owns and "buys carbon offsets" from, and a company which puts out significant "research" funding to, yes, CRU-group "scientists." The more people Gore gets to buy "carbon offsets", the richer he gets.
This is one example of why, for me, current "climate science" and the idea that the "debate is over" don't pass the smell test.
I find it impossible to believe that good anti-AWG ideas really have been suppressed for 50 years or however long it is.
Funny. In schools in the '70s and '80s, we were teaching kids that the Earth was headed for an oncoming ice age. "Ozone Action Days" for lake/ocean coastal cities like New York, Chicago, and LA were called "Thermal Inversions", but it meant the same thing - "don't go outside if you have asthma, and try not to drive your car if you can help it, because the air quality sucks today." It wasn't until the mid-'90s that "Global Warming" came into rage, quickly modified into "Global Climate Change".
The other problem with AGW/Climate Change/Global Warming/Global Cooling is that it's a catchall, handwaving theory. Big nasty hurricane season? Blame it on AGW. Long, harsher winter when our AGW priesthood were predicting snow would be a "rarity"? Oops, actually the model DOES predict it, after we re-jiggered the model TO predict it. Big hurricane season that was predicted by the AGW scientists doesn't come to pass? Oh wait a second (scribble scribble scrape scrape edit rejigger edit) ok we're good, now the model DOES predict it. It's a theory based on lousy, poorly collected data which has to be continually "corrected" and "reinterpreted" constantly to get even remotely close to the observed real-world situation, a following that flows dangerously close to being an article of blind religious faith in which adherents cannot imagine of, and therefore reject, any evidence to the contrary.
Re:50s? not nearly that far... (Score:3, Insightful)
And Gov. Perry and the Utah government stand to gain, so they're also taking BS? So, basically, everyone is wrong?
By definition, the only people who can research a question thoroughly enough to process the data have to be paid for their efforts, so your dismissal of scientists for getting paid seems a bit silly, doesn't it? In reality, scientists might temporarily get more grants if they found something major, but someone else would shoot them down (there's a huge career to made out of it if you can disprove AGW) pretty quickly and if they're that sloppy or worse, liars, that'll kill their careers. This is a profession where you live and die on your reputation and your past work. This isn't punditry (or Slashdot posting) where you can be wrong (or worse) time after time and still come back strong for the next round.
By the way, what does that graph even show? Temperature of what? Who is tracking it? As you're so keen to ask, who made the graph and who paid for it? A graph without context or definition might insinuate, but it means nothing.
Re:I love the double standards (Score:5, Insightful)
As a fellow scientist, I'd like to second these remarks. (Well, perhaps you're being a bit too harsh on the social skills of most scientists.) We're competitive as hell. Grants are awarded not just based on previous results, but reputation. And we all know that if we lie, we'll get caught. Someone will eventually look at the data and realize we fudged something. When that happens (and it's usually pretty soon, especially for such a hot issue as AGW), you're reputation will be in tatters and, if you lied, you'll lose your job. You won't get grant money and you'll have to find a new career.
Meanwhile, the various industries that are fighting the environmental movement have their own researchers who would leap on any clear problems in the climate studies. So saying that this is a conspiracy is like believing the Moon landings were a hoax, in spite of the fact the the Soviets even signed off on them.
Re:I love the double standards (Score:5, Insightful)
I posted the following comment recently, but I think it is germane to this discussion at hand:
I am noticing in many of the posts here a distinct lack of intellectual rigor. A friend of mine is an engineering professor, and he notices this amongst his students too. Specifically, many of his students have an attitude where they feel they can question any scientific theory. Fine you might say. After all, isn't it good to be skeptical? Well yes, perhaps. But when he asks these students specifically why they doubt a particular theory, they can't make a logical argument to support their position. They just say it doesn't intuitively seem right. It is almost as if they don't really comprehend the reasons for their opinions. And this is amongst elite engineering students.
If I could venture my own opinion on this, I think that relativistic values (and I don't mean Einstein) have seeped into much of our educational system, and by extension to society at large. This relativistic world is a place where there is no real truth, where all opinions are relative to the self and are essentially given equal value. In such a world, taken to its extreme, there are no facts, only opinions. Everything is relative.
On the left, we see university professors pontificating from institutions founded on Greek principles of Truth and Freedom of Inquiry that these Greek principles are merely just another cultural view in their relativistic universe. And from the right, we see religious leaders cavalierly rejecting the search for Truth through rational inquiry and observation, preferring to create their own "Truth" as revealed in the bible. What both of these extremes are forgetting is that this country was founded on Greek principles of Truth and Freedom of Inquiry, that in the founders' minds, the Greeks were a primary inspiration. Separation of Church and State; Science; Universities where Truth is the primary virtue; the ideals of Justice; a three class society, in which the Middle Class (the Polis) forms the backbone of society; Democracy. These were ALL Greek values and ideals. And has been these Greek ideals that have made our country great.
If you don't believe this, I suggest you read some Greek literature. Plato. Aristotle. Aristophanes. Sophocles. In Greek literature you will find commentary on many of the most important issues our society faces. The Greeks even wrote about cultural relativism. I believe we are sorely in need of a rediscovery of Greek wisdom.
And here is my main point. I believe that many in our society are abandoning the Greek values that have made our civilization great. Values such as searching for Truth for Truth's sake through rational inquiry and logic. Skills such as rigorous logic applied in rational debate. In our modern technological society it often seems that Truth should only be pursued for material gain, for profit and not simply because it is noble to pursue the truth. Thus it is easy for business executives to ignore inconvenient facts if those facts might interfere with profit margins. And it is easy for religious followers to adopt truths that make them feel more comfortable with their chosen worldview. After all, if all Truth is relative, then why not pick an easy and comfortable Truth.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:5, Insightful)
If scientists correct for bad monitoring stations, either by throwing the data point out or applying a compensation function for the urban heat island effect, you global warming deniers raise a shitstorm about how the scientists are just making data up.
If scientists present the full, unaltered dataset, you global warming deniers throw the baby out with the bathwater and say that all the data is bad because there are some bad data points.
It appears to me that the real problem is every time researchers try to present evidence for an answer to your question, you move the goal posts.
Re:I love to be the first to say this... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, some of us just remember the same crap in the 70s about how the world would be in a new ice age by now.
I'm genuinely curious - can you give me an example of scientists who predicted, in the '70s, that we'd be in an ice age by 2010?
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:5, Insightful)
"So what the state of Utah is saying is that since no one else is taking this seriously, we shouldn't have to? I agree that it will hurt us economically and competitively with other nations but you have to look at what scientific evidence we have before you mire this in those sorts of things."
You know, I'm not even sure this is true. Even if climate change isn't a real problem then there's still the issue of non-infinite supplies of fossil fuels, and the reliance on dangerous regimes from Venezuela to Russia, to Iran for them.
So regardless of climate change, we're going to need to look at renewables and green technology anyway, and as such I suspect that the market for environmentally friendly, or green technology will actually be quite massive, such that it has the potential to do for that area that embraces it and leads the world on it in the 21st century what IT did for silicon valley did in the 20th century.
Green technology is not going to be a small market, it's going to be a global market, with increasing prominence however you cut it, so on the contrary, those who embrace it, may have short term expendature, but long term it could put their economy up there as one of the richest in the world. There is going to be a lot of money however you cut it.
The choice really comes down to whether you avoid short term research costs, and just follow the rest of the world remaining a non-factor, or whether you invest, and lead the world as California has done for much of the past few decades.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:4, Insightful)
So why are we trying to implement policies to combat that change?
Well maybe because we've grown to be dependent on the way the climate is today, and a lot of people may end up dying?
Should we try to change the climate so that we can return N. America back to its natural, under ice state? Should we try to return the Earth to it's glorious molten past? Should we try our best to strip the atmosphere of all oxygen so to usher in the return of Methanite bacteria?
No, because none of those are beneficial to humanity today.
We should predict where the climate is heading and spend our resources to adapt to the change instead of trying to stop it!
Who says we shouldn't? Both these methods are worth pursuing. What isn't good is sticking our heads in the sand, and saying "Climate change isn't happening, no one needs do anything!"
The Utah State Assembly knows best... (Score:3, Insightful)
Leave it to the politicians to 'prove a negative' simply by virtue of not understanding the subject matter completely. Which begs the question, should we then have a 'licensing system' to 'steer the Government', similar to driving a car? One that requires the comprehension of things like the laws of physics? Oh wait, never mind, the Government would be responsible for administering that program too...
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest failure yet discovered was the claim by the IPCC that the Himalayan glaciers would all melt away by 2035 [wattsupwiththat.com].
Yes, I think it is very, very important to note that the biggest failure found in the IPCC paper was a single wrong number on page 493 of Volume 2.
Skeptics are taking minor errors and trying to blow them up to ridiculous proportion. That error about the Himalayan glaciers is trivial. There is a 45 page section on glacial melting in Volume 1 that is entirely correct and well-sourced, and nobody's paying attention to it. They'd rather focus on a single flawed number.
No report of that size is going to be perfect; there are going to be minor typos and flaws. So far only two legitimate errors have been found. [realclimate.org] (The other involves bad data on the Netherlands, which was provided by...wait for it...the government of the Netherlands.)
Maybe we can all agree that the IPCC report is 99.999% correct. Then we can get something done.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I pose the question. If our impact did not cause it, are we responsible to fix it? Even if our impact did cause it, what portion of what they are experiencing can be attributed to what we did? And what about the impact of the rest of the world (including those very same third world countries that are going to suffer the effects first, as you put it)? I'm not against sending aid to other countries that need it, but to declare the USA as "responsible", and potentially bankrupt a single country for a global problem, is ignorant at best...
It doesn't matter if the earth's climate is changing because of man or not. If no nations want to act to keep the earth habitable, the money they keep in their economies will mean jack shit when we're extinct. Choosing money over survival is what I call ignorant at best.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:2, Insightful)
So why are we trying to implement policies to combat that change? Do we really think that we can keep the Earth just like it is today?
It's not so much about maintaining the current climate trends, but slowing (or removing) the impact of our own civilization on climate alteration. Yes, the Earth goes through significant climate shifts naturally. The question being asked and trying to be answered is what influence (if any) does humanity have on these shifts?
Man's influence on the climate is nothing compared to nature's influence on the climate. The result of any changes made by man is much less than the natural variability of Earth's natural climate system. Water vapor makes up 95% of the Earth's greenhouse gasses, yet it's not considered a pollutant. CO2 makes up 3.618% of the Earth's greenhouse gasses, 0.117% of that is man's doing. In other words, if all of man were to die and all the machine's turned off, the Earth's greenhouse effect from CO2 would decrease by 0.117%. Keep in mind that this figure is not the total change in temperature, but the total amount of greenhouse gas effect. There is much more to the climate than greenhouse effects.
Really? That's it? Government wants to change my lifestyle for a 0.117% change in total greenhouse gas output? This becomes increasingly ridiculous when you consider that 0.117% of greenhouse gas has basically no effect to the planet's climate when compared to what Mother Nature will do all on her own.
Re:I love to be the first to say this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone has ulterior motives.
The people doing the Global Warming science are based in universities and want to continue to receive funding.
The people doing anti-Global Warming work are based in Energy companies and want to continue to make record profits.
Which one do you think is more likely to color your results?
Re:Yes, you are a critical thinker! (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone has a lot to gain, so I will in fact call anything anyone claims without backing up those claims with any evidence bullshit...
The scientists have provided copious data and arguments backing up their claims. Yet you and others like you continue to call "bullshit". So I ask you: do you have data and arguments to the contrary?
How's this: what would it take to convince you that AGW is real? What reasonable measurement, achievable in the next few years, would you require to believe that the predictions are accurate?
By the way, so far, I see you using works like "hostage" and "silence opposition", which sounds to me more like you're doing quite a bit of fear-mongering yourself.
Occams razor... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's more that Utah is sitting on a whole metric assload of coal [utah.gov].
Re:I love to be the first to say this... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because they're in VANCOUVER. Vancouver sees on average MAYBE a bit more snow than Seattle, on their lucky years. Only an idiot would host the winter games in Seattle and expect plenty of snow, but because you've crossed the border into Canadia they magically expect Vancouver to be covered in the white shit.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:4, Insightful)
It appears to me that the real problem is every time researchers try to present evidence for an answer to your question, you move the goal posts.
No. The problem is that everything they accuse climatologists of -- having an a-priori conclusion they will do anything to support in spite of evidence, fabricating data, neglecting basic logic and the scientific method, deliberately misrepresenting data to skew it in their favor -- are all things the anti-AGW crowd does flagrantly every time the subject comes up.
They have no shame about doing these things themselves, nor do they have any shame about projecting these failings onto climatologists and being outraged about it.
But at the end of the day, the situation is obvious. The group of people who fail at basic scientific rigor are the ones who have no idea what that means and don't want to know.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:1, Insightful)
So, then I assume you are in support of the Resolution?
Since there appears to be misinformation on both sides (as always, and I'm not convinced the Register is wrong just because there have been articles questioning global warming - I would like references to the outright lies you reference, I know of a mistake about ice density, but the author issued a correction), it stands to reason we need to take a step break from our panic mode responses to have an in-depth verification and true peer-review of the data.
As we all know, statistics and numbers can be played in every direction. Everything is being cast as a "worst-ever" by politicians on both sides, and it is being used to push agendas, not to mention throwing money at solutions that may not exist.
Everyone needs to take a breath, calm down, and look at the real data (not the adjusted ones), and do some double blind and placebo testing (with intentionally false data to prove the models work the other way as well). Then we can properly evaluate our stance, and where to go.
Climate change has turned into a religion, with both sides covering their ears and screaming LA LA LA when they don't like the answers. Can we get some moderates with no stake in the game to look at this stuff?
Re:I love to be the first to say this... (Score:2, Insightful)
Climate science is about the long haul. 15 years is a drop in the bucket. The Earth has been continuously warming, there is no doubt about that.
Once we actually have climate science, it wil be about the long haul. Right now we have a bunch of power hungry nutjobs with political power dangling grant money in front of people claiming to be scientists. The Earth has not been continuosly warming. If it were even at 1 degree C per century, then the entire planet would have been a frozen snowball (- 30 C average temperature) a mere 6000 years ago. It would have been at near absolute zero less than 30K years ago. It would be kind of hard on T-Rex to get around and even if he did, he'd break his teeth on the hard frozen flesh of his prey.
So let's lose the "continuously warming" and "no doubt about it" nonsense. The reason Phil Jones et al have got to be considered discredited is becasue they ignored incovenient data. He and the folks at the CRU and Hansen at NASA set themselves out as theoreticians and promptly cherry picked the data they would use to support their "theory". A scientific theory is not like a legal/political theory. A scientific theory has to account for all the data - if it does not it is not much of a theory. It is certainly not sufficient to justify the political chicanery that is happening as a result.
Note that I consider the promoters of "climate change" aka global warming to be discredited. That is the people invloved have been corrupted and their opinions should not be considered in serious policy discussions. We need some real scientists that can come up with a useable (ie capable of predicting) theory - and not one that denies the Medival Warm Period in order to fit the data into a hickey stick curve. We will know we have such a theory when it can be tested by its ability to "predict" temperature/climate trends for any given 500 year period. I expect it to be able take into account the effects of cloud cover and solar activity as well as volcanic activity (all items beyond the capability of the current "models" that are being used by the corrupted climate charlatans. We have other "sciences" that ignore data because the theory says something else "should" happen. They are also generally heavily involved in politics and have degenerated into arguments about what data should be looked at much like lawyers try to get evidence disallowed in a court case.
Go read up on the history of Einstein's General Relativity. He didn't come up with a theory that said that graivity bends light. He came up with a theory that predicted how much light would bend and suggested experiments to gather data that would support or refute his theory. And when the first experimental data came back it did not match his predictions. He revised his theory accordingly - he did not revise the data.
Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out (Score:4, Insightful)
Energy efficient appliances will require replacement of perfectly good equipment, again costing people money.
This is only valid if you consider the environment to be free, like it has been forever. Put a price tag on the environment and everything changes. But this is inconvenient for many powerful interests.
Re:I love the double standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Your argument seems to be centered around the motivations of the people supporting climate change, and how much money they stand to make from selling carbon credits.
By this same logic, you should be looking pretty harshly at critics of climate change, and where their funding comes from.
From where I sit, the critics of climate change have a lot more to gain financially from denying. Trillions of USD more...
Your arguments against climate change don't pass my "smell test."
Re:This is what you get.... (Score:1, Insightful)
The irritating thing about this whole fiasco is that the deniers are merely finding flaws in current research, however minor they might be. These deniers contribute no new research, and yet reap all the benefits of rightness in the eyes of the masses. These dirty tactics contribute nothing in terms of our understanding of nature, and I would have a lot more respect for them if they actually took an active role in the scientific process.
To illustrate my point: Let's assume that the deniers are correct about the flaws in climate research. Let's assume that these flaws do in fact cast serious doubts about the conclusions of said research. And finally, let's assume that their argument is that man is not responsible for global climate change. The only thing that they have succeeded in doing is proving that the results are unjustified by the data. This does not mean that humans do not contribute to climate change, it just means that the particular study does not support the opposite claim. Their argument is a positive statement, and requires scientific justification.
Re:I love to be the first to say this... (Score:3, Insightful)
NO SHIT, THE CLIMATE CHANGES.
So what's it doing now, eh? What's the climate going to be like in 50 years? 100 years? 200 years? How can we affect that? How are we already affecting it? That's the question, innit? "Climate change" as an issue refers more to "what factor does man's activities play", than "Hey, it's warmer this century than last". Man's activities being of particular interest because it is the factor in climate that we can change. If you'll pardon the expression, stating the obvious, "the climate changes" merely clouds the issue.
But here's the major problem: the data is being massaged. ...we're not willing to use real data.
Of course the data is being massaged. You wouldn't understand it at all if it wasn't massaged. Best case, you would draw incorrect conclusions.
The argument is from "whose massaging is correct", not "ZOMG! It's being massaged!" Real data? You yourself decry the use of real data because it has to be interpreted to be understood.
So now it just fuck'em all? (Score:2, Insightful)
There is always 2 sides to any argument. The possibility of GW/CC is mostly theory at this point based on trends and observations noted over a nominal period of time performed by educated individuals in the scientific community. The anti-GW/CC crowd base their criteria on looking outside in winter and declaring hogwash because it's snowing in February in the northern hemisphere.
What's worse is something like this Utah bill, in that they merely call for more studies to occur before we do anything. Unfortunately the only study the skeptics ever do is navel gazing followed by bickering. These people are not scientists capable of any form intelligent study, or thought for that matter. They employ fiction writers to create their public announcements just like we hear everyday out of our government and government run agencies. All we ever hear is bullshit
Our options are pretty simple. We can bury our heads in the sand and pretend all is just hunky dory and continue to blather and squabble over the existence of the boggy man. Alternatively, we can change our methods of dealing with our industrial feces in the event we are actually fucking up our planet beyond repair. Otherwise, how will we know when we have crossed the threshold to point of no return and then face extinction or move off planet?
One thing is certain, the action we don't take today, we leave for our children. Eventually someone will have to face the music, and it won't be a song they will appreciate.
Re:I love the double standards (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt this is part of the problem. But consider what might have caused the systemic decay of our media system. It used to be that those who graduated from university were schooled in Greek and/or Roman literature and philosophy. Through this, ideally they gained a sense of ethics and a clear view of the principles that make western democracies thrive. Such education would give students an understanding of history, of logic and region, of life. In many ways, these educated citizens were important leaders in society.
Over the last three decades, classical education has largely disappeared from universities. Universities have shifted emphasis to the social sciences, to economics, to technology. Education has increasingly had to give utilitarian justification for its existence. The social sciences, which seem to look at society from the outside perspective of alien observers, have spread views of cultural relativism. Fields such as economics are largely valueless attempts to maximize "economic activity" (the assumption that increased economic activity will improve human well being is implicit, but I believe this connection is dubious).
As a result of this, I would argue that the educated elite in our society have lost a sense of the roots of western civilization. Our elites are increasingly technocratic, tweaking knobs and dials with little appreciation of the big picture of our civilization (I am referring to the elites on both the "left" and the "right"). Our elites seem to fall under the spell of faddish and simplistic ideologies. On the right, the dominant ideology is centred around the idea that selfishness on the part of all units of society will maximize economic activity. The Greeks would have said that selfishness is a negative quality, that when people act selfishly, it encourages the worst aspects of human nature. So much for that wisdom today.
These oblivious elites have allowed or encouraged the development of media monopolies. They don't seem to understand the ultimate consequences of their policies. They don't seem to understand that free and open discussion is the lifeblood of our society, socially, politically, AND economically.
Re:So if man makes 29 gigatons or so of CO2 per ye (Score:3, Insightful)
Nature is not and has never been in equilibrium. The world is constantly changing.
At a vastly slower rate than with human intervention. Sea life can adjust for a 2 degree temperature swing over a few thousand years. In a hundred? Not so much.
Another fact that you conveniently leave out is that large, natural swings in climate tend to result in mass extinctions.