2012 was warmest year in U.S. history

[GatorRade]

Originally Posted by Matthanuf06

I agree with you here. We shouldn't "fix" the planet because we screwed it up. It isn't some
moral obligation to return the earth to its non-human state or even it's state 200 years ago. Who cares? The earth certainly doesn't.

The question is a matter of economics and living standards. Do we benefit from a hotter or colder earth? What is the cost to achieve that temperature modification? And does then what is the cost/benefit analysis of that.

Matt, I love you here. Understanding that fixes are independent of problems, Tradeoffs, economic calculations of values, great stuff.

However, I will add a couple comments. First, on the obligation to Earth, I think you bring up a good point. However, I think the counter-point also deserves a bit more consideration. Perhaps nothing has value unless we say it does, but on the other hand, perhaps some things enjoy inherent value. Perhaps a blue whale deserves to exist simple because it already exists. Maybe I will never see it. Maybe it will never be used for human food or warmth. Maybe it doesn't even serve an indirect human benefit through ecosystem actions. But is that really all there is? What about useless people? An orphan with cerebral palsy certainly gets a tremendous amount of human sympathy, despite not traditionally 'contributing' to society. This is really a question of moral philosophy.

Secondly, I think there is a potential externality issue at work within the whole calculation. Maybe our calculations determine that warmer temperatures are 'better' for humans as a whole in the long run (they almost certainly are not in the short term). However, the whole isn't the only organism. What if the warming destroys the island nation of the Maldives? In a way, this is like taxing the few without consent in order to benefit the many. I know that if you took away my Everglades, it would bear quite a cost on me. It is unlikely that I could ever be compensated. And that isn't even a place I live.

[gatorman_07732]

The bottom line is over the last 100 years the earths temperature has increased to slightly over 1 degree Fahrenheit and as a result we need to alter everything to save life. Meanwhile there are those that are using this to profit.

[Matthanuf06]

Originally Posted by GatorRade

Matt, I love you here. Understanding that fixes are independent of problems, Tradeoffs, economic calculations of values, great stuff.

However, I will add a couple comments. First, on the obligation to Earth, I think you bring up a good point. However, I think the counter-point also deserves a bit more consideration. Perhaps nothing has value unless we say it does, but on the other hand, perhaps some things enjoy inherent value. Perhaps a blue whale deserves to exist simple because it already exists. Maybe I will never see it. Maybe it will never be used for human food or warmth. Maybe it doesn't even serve an indirect human benefit through ecosystem actions. But is that really all there is? What about useless people? An orphan with cerebral palsy certainly gets a tremendous amount of human sympathy, despite not traditionally 'contributing' to society. This is really a question of moral philosophy.

Secondly, I think there is a potential externality issue at work within the whole calculation. Maybe our calculations determine that warmer temperatures are 'better' for humans as a whole in the long run (they almost certainly are not in the short term). However, the whole isn't the only organism. What if the warming destroys the island nation of the Maldives? In a way, this is like taxing the few without consent in order to benefit the many. I know that if you took away my Everglades, it would bear quite a cost on me. It is unlikely that I could ever be compensated. And that isn't even a place I live.

To your first point:

I agree it shouldn't be solely an economic calculation. Living standards, utility, happiness, etc all should be considered. And to that, each person is different. Somehow it would have to be quantified to do a cost/benefit analysis. And I actually don't think it would be too hard to estimate. The fact is the status quo is going to be preferred, in aggregate, because its human nature. We live where we live because we generally want to. However, our lives are infantile in terms of climate change. In a sense, a time value calculation. In our lifetimes the climate cannot change dramatically, given our tech levels, so maybe it may be noticeably different on a generation to generation basis, it probably won't be in smaller units. Essentially if you want X amount of days of snow you know where you need to live. In 10 years you'll still be getting close to X amount of snow days. 50 years it may be adjusted, but what's the value of that on us? The kid in 50 years won't mind, since that's the climate he knows and/or chosen.

To your second point: Everything big government does harms someone. It's a zero sum game for all intents and purposes. It's redistribution. Now what you are talking is more from a moral standpoint, but where do we draw the line? We are ok taxing people to oblivion, why not this?

And to be clear I'm not in favor of some worldwide mega government that can do something of this sort. I'm vehemently against it. But if we are going to have big intrusive government that intrudes on the freedom of others then Id prefer one that acts based on sound science, logic, economics, etc rather than uneducated whims.

[Burke]

Rade,

The Berkely study was repudiated almost immediately by Judith Curry, one of its members.

Although she has waffled some since.

The most important thing, however, is that none of this is what the AGW crowd has been predicting for decades, which was roaring warming, not the tiny bit you and they are struggling to hang onto.

The increased CO2 is not causing the dramatic changes they predicted.

In fact, the AGW crowd has almost completely dropped "global warming" for "climate change" because they don't have a clue what's going to happen and want to be able to play their options.

[gatorman_07732]

Looks like Burke is right, but this is not surprising

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...colleague.html

Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.

Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.

Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.
In fact, Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties – a fact confirmed by a new analysis that The Mail on Sunday has obtained.

‘There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’

However, Prof Muller denied warming was at a standstill.

‘We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. There was, he added, ‘no levelling off’.

[Burke]

The fact is there is nothing going on today that is a great historical anomaly and not easily explained by one thing:

Natural variation.

Every 20,000 years, the Sahara Desert becomes a savannah with rivers, lakes, and swamps because of it.

We've been coming out of the Little Ice Age for about 300 years.

There is very good reason to suspect that even that trend is coming to a stop and may have stopped.

Contrary to the hysterical claims of leftists, global warming is good. CO2 is plant food and good for agriculture and helps fight global starvation.

The Earth's climate change correlates most closely with the Solar Cycle and the best explanation for this is the theory advanced by Henrik Svensmark.

As long as we continue to pour billions of dollars into AGW "research," those computers are going to keep pouring out predictions of catastrophe.

It's just a pseudo-scientific Judgment Day for Lefties who have surrendered their minds to the new religion: environmentalism.

[FrolfGator]

And Curry's nonsense has been debunked all over the place. Feel free to Google it. She is apparently unwilling or unable to analyze the data from the very team she was working with.

[gatorman_07732]

Well when peoples livelihoods are predicated from results they need to prove it does make you wonder.

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

Well when peoples livelihoods are predicated from results they need to prove it does make you wonder.

Especially when they 'cook' the books by suppressing past temperatures to make more recent temperatures cry out for billions and trillions of dollars.

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by Dreamliner

Especially when they 'cook' the books by suppressing past temperatures to make more recent temperatures cry out for billions and trillions of dollars.

The feeding of their families depend on it

[Dreamliner]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

The feeding of their families depend on it

Yes, but they end up starving the starving by robbing them of the foods they need so as to manufacture 'clean fuels.'

Exposed: they care more about their causes than they do about real people.

[FrolfGator]

Originally Posted by Burke

The fact is there is nothing going on today that is a great historical anomaly and not easily explained by one thing:

Natural variation.

Every 20,000 years, the Sahara Desert becomes a savannah with rivers, lakes, and swamps because of it.

We've been coming out of the Little Ice Age for about 300 years.

There is very good reason to suspect that even that trend is coming to a stop and may have stopped.

Contrary to the hysterical claims of leftists, global warming is good. CO2 is plant food and good for agriculture and helps fight global starvation.

The Earth's climate change correlates most closely with the Solar Cycle and the best explanation for this is the theory advanced by Henrik Svensmark.

- Natural variation isn't an answer. Yes, the climate has varied over the Earth's history. But WHY. Savannahs don't appear and disappear magically. And no, the solar cycle is NOT the best explanation. As already stated, solar radiation has been quite stable the past century. It cannot explain the sharp rise in global temperature.

- Plants may like C02, but they tend not to like excessive heat and they definitely don't like drought. And unfortunately the various breadboxes of modern agriculture are the ones most likely to be impacted by drought due to global warming.

- Henrik Svenmark's claims, in particular, have been debunked. This is absolutely not to say that the solar cycle doesn't play any part in climate variation; as stated earlier, it's the most likely cause for the Medieval Warm Period. But again, it can't explain the modern warming because there hasn't been an equivalent rise in solar radiation. And Svenmark's extreme claims about cosmic rays being the main driver of climate change via cloud formation have never been substantiated. Global and regional cloud cover is driven mostly by El Nino; cosmic rays are insignificant. And despite Svenmark's uninformed complaints, climate models already capture solar influence in their predictions.

[Burke]

AGW prediction after prediction has badly wildly missed the mark. People have begun to catch on.

The "threat" of AGW is the biggest scientific hoax in history.

The frantic attempts of mainstream govt supported "scientists" is exposing most of them as the frauds they are.

They should all be in prison.

[FrolfGator]

Originally Posted by Burke

AGW prediction after prediction has badly wildly missed the mark. People have begun to catch on.

Citation? For predictions by scientists, mind you, not by hippies. For instance, the IPCC temperature predictions have been quite accurate:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/cont...-accurate.html

[Burke]

Why don't you begin by telling us about Hanson's predictions in the '80's and how they turned out.

Are you saying that the models were predicting the flat spell we've ha for the last16 years?

As an aside, perhaps you can tell us how tree ring data can be used to rewrite the climate history of the last 1500 years when it hasn't even matched the instrument data for the last 65 years.

[jimgata]

Cut off funding and see what the scientists will say.
The earth climate and atmosphere, has been changing ever since it was created, and we are now to believe all changes are man's fault and spend billions to change something that we couldn't do,even if we wanted to.

[FrolfGator]

Originally Posted by Burke

Why don't you begin by telling us about Hanson's predictions in the '80's and how they turned out.

Are you saying that the models were predicting the flat spell we've ha for the last16 years?

As an aside, perhaps you can tell us how tree ring data can be used to rewrite the climate history of the last 1500 years when it hasn't even matched the instrument data for the last 65 years.

1) http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hans...n-advanced.htm

2) There hasn't been a flat spell. The warming trend has continued.

3) You can leave out tree ring data and the same trends appear. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-developments/

[Dreamliner]

I agree that we should cut out climate research funding other than maybe money dedicated to storm research. We've got to cut somewhere. And besides, what about separation of church and state anyway ?

[gatorman_07732]

That whole ice age prediction they where doing in the 70's worked out well

[FrolfGator]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

That whole ice age prediction they where doing in the 70's worked out well

Vast majority of climate science papers in the 70s predicted warming. Mainstream press focused on the cooling minority because people hadn't heard of global warming but knew what ice ages were.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-...s-in-1970s.htm