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Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

Old Dec 21st 2008, 1:31 am
  #76  
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Default Re: Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

Fair enough. But the link given above leads to a Derek Kelly, a very outspoken sceptic. He promotes himself as a PhD - but as a software engineer I'm not certain that I would take his argument ahead of the scientists of the IPCC.

The trouble is, like conspiracy theories, all sorts of people get in on the act and the internet is a great place to put forward agendas. Who has the time and inclination to investigate the background and motives of anyone who puts forward arguments that on the surface look authorative? Yet time and time again it is revealed that the people involved are funded by anti-AGW industries, or have a dubious record of telling the whole story on other issues. (The Ch4 programme comes to mind.)

I think in an argument such as this, where none of us is really in a position to decide on an incredibly complex issue, you have to look at what the body of expert opinion is saying. There are lots of people who will point at this unknown or that inconsistency, and cut and paste various graphs and statistics and it's very easy to think that the IPCC has got it all wrong. But to follow through the provenance and veracity of the data, let alone sort out the wheat from the chaff, is more than most of us can do - me included.
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Old Dec 21st 2008, 4:38 am
  #77  
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Default Re: Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

LOL yes, the "experts" are quite amazing - one should, of course, attribute as much credibility to Al Gore (once upon a time politician and trader in carbon credits) and Tim Flannery as one does to Bob Carter and Derek Kelly. Mind you, Mann who is supposed to be one of the experts has been more than a little lacksadaisical with his figures on occasion.

Bear in mind that the IPCC as a UN offshoot also has an agenda and I dare say that it isnt entirely western/capitalist/democracy focussed. There is far more at stake here than a couple of degrees C.
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Old Dec 21st 2008, 6:42 pm
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Default Re: Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

Given that nobody (even Wol) can say what is definitely going on; Mr Rudd's approach seems quite pragmatic. Does that answer the original question?
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Old Jan 9th 2009, 2:23 am
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Default Re: Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

I love all the fact that people have come out with, there have been some very good points mentioned. I'd just like to make one observation of my own......

When I dont understand the science completely - like no one does on this subject I revert back to simple dead easy common sense. Gut feeling and a belief that humans are not half as clever as they think they are - yes me included.

So looking at this as dumb as I can and not jazzing it up with any science at all here are my thoughts.

Last weekend my mate was planning to go for a spin on his fire breathing mega polluting 2 miles to the gallon 2 stroke jet ski. He looked at the weather forecast on Monday of that week which predicted a nice calm sunny day with low wind and relatively warm for the time of year. When the weekend came what he got was driving rain, wind, cloud, rough sea and temperatures about 5 degrees cooler than was predicted on the monday.
The forecast was updated every day through the week and only became correct the day before the outing

Conclusion:
"Science" seems to think it can accurately predict climate years into the future but they clearly cant even tell me what it will be like next week.

They have had many more years to develop weather predicting data than climate predicting data so what hope is there of getting it right? They were predicting the weather wrongly long before they even came up with the idea of global warming.

I dont believe a single word of any of it.

Having said that im all for cleaner fuel and "green" methods to reduce waste but lets not dress it up as something it isnt.
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Old Jan 9th 2009, 5:34 am
  #80  
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Default Re: Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

You see?

Someone else who doesn't appreciate the difference between climate and weather <g>.

The science behind weather forecasting is fairly useful - up to a couple of days. It gets progressively less accurate after that (think butterflies...). Most meteorologists wouldn't argue that weeklong forecasts are particularly good compared with a 60% accuracy of saying that it will be the same as today!

Climatology has little to do with weather forcasting, and doesn't attempt to say what the weather will be like specifically in a certain place in fifty years. No-one can say that.

What it does attempt to do is to predict what overall temperatures and ocean patterns are likely to be, given what we think we know about a whole raft of disciplines - physics, thermodynamics, oceanography etc.

Sceptics like to point at the weather somewhere and say that it "proves" climate change isn't taking place. It proves nothing of the sort.

An example is the current freezing temperatures in Europe: it proves nothing about *climate*. And in fact the predictions made by the IPCC do indicate that, with increasing Arctic melt and subsequent Atlantic water change, the North Atlantic conveyor (The Gulfstream to you and me) can likely lead to much colder winters in the UK and maritime Europe.

We all have to make up our own minds on this, but not on the science - it's far too technical for most of us. We have to decide based on which authorities and scientists we give most credence to. In my case it's those who have spent decades doing the research, not journalists like Christopher Booker and his ilk. Nor, actually, Al Gore.
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Old Jan 9th 2009, 5:45 am
  #81  
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Default Re: Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

Originally Posted by Wol
You see?

Someone else who doesn't appreciate the difference between climate and weather <g>.

The science behind weather forecasting is fairly useful - up to a couple of days. It gets progressively less accurate after that (think butterflies...). Most meteorologists wouldn't argue that weeklong forecasts are particularly good compared with a 60% accuracy of saying that it will be the same as today!

Climatology has little to do with weather forcasting, and doesn't attempt to say what the weather will be like specifically in a certain place in fifty years. No-one can say that.

What it does attempt to do is to predict what overall temperatures and ocean patterns are likely to be, given what we think we know about a whole raft of disciplines - physics, thermodynamics, oceanography etc.

Sceptics like to point at the weather somewhere and say that it "proves" climate change isn't taking place. It proves nothing of the sort.

An example is the current freezing temperatures in Europe: it proves nothing about *climate*. And in fact the predictions made by the IPCC do indicate that, with increasing Arctic melt and subsequent Atlantic water change, the North Atlantic conveyor (The Gulfstream to you and me) can likely lead to much colder winters in the UK and maritime Europe.

We all have to make up our own minds on this, but not on the science - it's far too technical for most of us. We have to decide based on which authorities and scientists we give most credence to. In my case it's those who have spent decades doing the research, not journalists like Christopher Booker and his ilk. Nor, actually, Al Gore.
The problem with the people who have spent decades doing the research is that they have a vested interest in governments spening taxpayers' money on climate research. The more dangerous they can make the problem seem, the more money governments will spend on it. It's also worth pointing out that the climate is so complex that even people who have spent decades researching it are guessing themselves, and they are more likely to come up with a guess that gets them more funding than they are to come up with a guess that says there's nothing to worry about. Both guesses are probably equally valid. IE based on equally dodgey assumptions.

However, what the climatologists have come up with is a simple solution to the problem. Reduce CO2 emissions. This is a rather useful catch 22 for them. Firstly the world will never reduce CO2 emissions while it is still dependent on oil, so these scientists are never going to have their theories tested, which is the basis of science in the first place. Secondly, if the climate cools (as it has done for the past seven years) without a reduction of CO2, they can blame other sources of climate change and says that they are still right on the CO2 thing.

The bottom line is that no one knows whether the climate is warming up in the first place. No one knows whether CO2 is the cause if it is. No one knows whether reducing CO2 is the solution even if it is the cause. All we've got is a bunch of guesses, which, conincidentally, put a lot of money in the pockets of climatologists.
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Old Jan 9th 2009, 9:08 am
  #82  
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Default Re: Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

My understanding is that the climate has NOT been cooling - the "sceptics" always quote a year (IIRC 1998 or 1999 but I may well be wrong) that was very warm, and deduce that the world is now cooler. The trend is, I understand, still upwards.

JFK was killed by a group of people. 911 was actually planned by the CIA. Apollo didn't actually land on the moon. The government hides the truth about Roswell. etc etc.

There will always be people who, for reasons that remain obscure, who will prefer the conspiracy theory rather than the straightforward answer. It's their privilege. But extraordinary theories deserve extraordinary proof.

There *is* no "proof" of manmade global warming. But there have been decades of research into the possibility and it is insulting to imply that thousands of scientists have been involved in falsifying their conclusions for their own ends, while at the same time just accepting contrary opinions from in many cases dubious sources - often funded from other vested interests.

Try looking at the various ways the Bush admininstration has sought to bury the conclusions.
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Old Jan 9th 2009, 10:30 pm
  #83  
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Default Re: Just what is Mr Rudd up to?

Originally Posted by Wol
My understanding is that the climate has NOT been cooling - the "sceptics" always quote a year (IIRC 1998 or 1999 but I may well be wrong) that was very warm, and deduce that the world is now cooler. The trend is, I understand, still upwards.

JFK was killed by a group of people. 911 was actually planned by the CIA. Apollo didn't actually land on the moon. The government hides the truth about Roswell. etc etc.

There will always be people who, for reasons that remain obscure, who will prefer the conspiracy theory rather than the straightforward answer. It's their privilege. But extraordinary theories deserve extraordinary proof.

There *is* no "proof" of manmade global warming. But there have been decades of research into the possibility and it is insulting to imply that thousands of scientists have been involved in falsifying their conclusions for their own ends, while at the same time just accepting contrary opinions from in many cases dubious sources - often funded from other vested interests.

Try looking at the various ways the Bush admininstration has sought to bury the conclusions.
Have a look at the Met Office pages. The climate has been cooling for the last 7 years. The climate change conspiracy says that even if this is the case the temperatures in the last seven years are still higher than any on record before about 1990 (I haven't got the charts open). This could indeed all be due to a gradual increase in global temperatures due to human activity. the problem is not that the climate is warming (which it appears to have done a bit since the mid 1800s) the problem is the cause. The climate change conspiracy would have you believe that unless we reduce CO2 then the world will turn into some kind of fireball. Well CO2 has increased rapidly in the last seven years, but the world has got cooler. Does this mean that CO2 is the cause of global warming?

And you argue that the climate is so complex that the climatologists must be right because they've plugged in all the variables. I agree with the complexity point. But I disgaree with the climatologists being right. They are the ones proposing that the outcome of a complex system has a simple cause and a simple solution. Not me. I am a biologist and I'm very well aware of the difficulty of dealing with complex systems (all far more complex, for example, than the world monetary system, which is simple by comparison to biological systems or geological systems).

CO2 may be a contributary factor, but on its own is not the cause of or the solution to global warming (if indeed global warming is a problem that even exists, which has yet to be shown with any level of confidence). I'm not against the reduction of pollution. But let's just reduce pollution and stop trying to pretend we're stopping global warming at the same time. And breaking the economy to do it is utterly irresponsible.
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