I don’t want to be obtuse but are you stating that a truth you believe in is that “the material world is nothing but an illusion”. Although I agree with your conviction that you should treat others they way you want to be treated it’s a belief I hold, based on my religious conviction. I can’t prove it is a truth.
I’m pretty sure I can prove the material world is real and not an illusion however. [/quote]
If the material world is an illusion, then everything we know about it is an illusion and global warming is then double bullshit.
Actually I just can’t be bother to argue this anymore. Politicians are doing nothing like enough to actually address the issue. We shall know what effect (eventually) doubling the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 level has within about 100 years time. I just hope for our childrens’ and their childrens’ sake that me and stokedporcupine8 are wrong and you guys are right.
Suffice to say I have sufficient education to discuss this issue. Nice try belittling your perception of my formal education. Doesn’t seem very scientific of you…smacks of academia. You are simply going to have to do better then to say others are not qualified to discuss the issue. That seems to be a persistent problem of the GW crowd.
Whether or not you are a believer you have adopted the tactics of the GW crowd and in this thread you dismiss those with a different viewpoint. Hardly the ethics of a scientist and again quiet typical among the current crop of believers. Let me ask you this do you really believe a model, that holds variables constant, is a proper model to measure climate? The wind, clouds, solar flares and ocean temperatures surely would not be cooperative holding constant for the next 100 years would they? Wouldn’t an accurate model account for the variances of these systems over time. I’d argue many a climate scientist, seeking to justify a conclusion, would dismiss the results out of hand if they dispute his viewpoint or suppress them.
I hardly think you want to lay claim to false dichotomies at this point since the basis of your argument seems to be nobody can understand a complex problem other then yourself. But do you really think excessive tax upon industry in this country, while the rest of the world remains unburdened, would be beneficial for our economy and lead to prosperity?[/quote]
So let me get this strait, I give one or two sentences where I question your background and I give four or five paragraphs explaining my position in detail and explaining why your approach to these issues are naive, but you ignore the bulk of my post and pretend that all I did was question your background? Umm… I did provide argument beyond personal attack, and the personal “attack” was meant to clear up why you had such a limited view of science. As for your background, I’d love to hear what it is. My background is that I’m a current grad student in philosophy, with research interests in mathematical logic. My undergraduate background was in analytic philosophy, mathematics, and physics. There’s mine.
As to your second question about whether or not I “really believe a model, that holds variables constant, is a proper model to measure climate?”, yes! I believe this, just like I believe that a model, that holds variables constant, is a proper model to measure motion, sound, electro-megatic waves, and all the other things studied in science. As for whether “The wind, clouds, solar flares and ocean temperatures” would “be cooperative holding constant for the next 100 years would they?”, that is besides the point. We do not need a large scale model of the entire global climate to know what the effects of increasing C02 will be, just like we don’t need a large scale cosmological model of the universe to understand what the effects of shooting a projectile at a certain angle and certain speed will be… Besides, even when one does go about making large scales models–which aren’t needed anyway to understand that humans are having an impact on the climate–one hopes to have taken all the variables into account! That is the point of a large-scale model, what separates it from the more specialized models used to look at just one thing.
Look, the point is that the only people who say crazy thing likes “In 100 years x,y, and z will happen if we don’t do something about our pollution” are the sort of environmental wackos that both you and I dislike. If you are arguing with this point, you’re points about how unreliable our large scale climate models are are well taken. I am not those wackos though, nor do I think that any credible climatologist would assert anything of the form “In 100 years x,y, and z will …” as more then a guess. What Climatologists will say, and what is good science, is that Human activities are having an impact on the climate. It is perfectly good science to say “We know that increasing CO2 levels by x causes y”.
Of course you might counter and argue something like, “Well, that may be true, but if we don’t know what total effect that will ultimately have when things like solar activity are taken into account then we are we so worried about climate change? Why risk economic disruption for a possible outcome?” This though is precisely one of the stupid arguments I’ve been rallying against in this post. We know what effect our GHG gases are having, and we should act accordingly.
Also, my point has never been that “nobody can understand a complex problem other then (myself)”. My point has been that you are oversimplifying the issues and that you do not understand how modeling works. That you continue to say stupid things regarding modeling and what ought to count as good science is evidence of this. Of course now that I’ve said this little blurb about you, you will ignore the large paragraph above where I against in a non-personal away explain the issues and pretend that I’ve once more only leveled personal attacks against you.
We can have no “sustainable economy”. Yes, we are using “fossile” fuels and yes, sooner or later we will run out of them.
This is also true for copper, zinc, etc.
Maybe we will mine the asteroid belt afterwards.
Anyway- If we not used them, what good would they be in the first place?
A “sustainable” economy is an agricultural economy on a subsistence level.
That is not an option.
We either grow and innovate or die.
Oh but it is as simple as that, we can take many immediate small steps towards sustainable living without even the average American lifting a finger. Cities can start with local farms that produce fruits and vegetables inside of green towers, and their could be a farm for grass fed animals also. Sure it would take some money, but it honestly would be worth it.
You’re right, sooner or later we will run out of the materials that keep this planet running. However, simply finding more materials doesn’t solve the problem. It’s kind of like if you have an alcoholic man that runs out of beer. His friend says, " geeze man, you’re problem is that you drink to much and you’re totally unaware of it", while the alcoholic says, “I just need another beer man”.
Materials don’t need to be used in order to be “useful” either. The oldest religions on this planet say that we need to stop acting like we are the most important thing on our planet and start living with the planet (i.e. buddhism, indiginous religions). It’s remarkably identical to sustainable practices.
These are all noble lifestyle choices that you should have the option of making. They are also choices a man in a wealthy developed country gets to make. Why tie those choices to global warming. Lift all men up the point they can make those choices, don’t tear people down to the lowest level for reasons that have nothing to do with the problem.
These choices are directly tied with global warming, and if you did your research or read what I said about all these problems being connected I would hope you know why.
I believe that these are not only noble lifestyle changes, but merely what we can expect from a responsible ethical culture. These ideas are founded in the oldest of spiritual beliefs found in Buddhism(1), Christianity(2), and every major world religion! We must control our desires that lead us to the material things of this world(1). The desire for the material makes us greedy, fat, and inadvertently harms the planet through waste production and fuel consumption! We must try to treat the other members of this planet like we treat ourselves, or realize that we live far to richly for any society to maintain (2). Think of all the bottled clear water america drinks when we have our own water to drink. Now think of all the people in this world who have no water to drink. We are not treating others fairly.
These problems are all inextricably connected with the issue of global warming because they are all a result of our culture diverting from the essential truths. These truths ( to name a few) are the material world is nothing but an illusion(1), and we must always treat others the way we want to be treated(2). Realizing these things or practicing them as a culture would lead towards less consumption, fewer waste products, sustainable living and less CO2 emissions. You may not think that global warming is caused by CO2 emissions, but weighed against the face of all our problems it doesn’t really matter.
Sky
I don’t want to be obtuse but are you stating that a truth you believe in is that “the material world is nothing but an illusion”. Although I agree with you conviction that you should treat others they way you want to be treated it’s a belief I hold, based on my religious conviction. I can’t prove it a s truth.
I’m pretty sure I can prove the material world is real and not an illusion however. [/quote]
I know, I know… However the importance of my statement is that all of the messages of the worlds religions can essentially be unified to support a change in our current social/political/economic landscape. It may seem stupid to say “the world is nothing but an illusion”, but it’s basically true enough. What that means to me is that there are emotional values and levels of happiness that are completely detached from the world most people live in( it’s called Mara in Buddhism). It’s like this: Everyone and everything you’ve ever met will return to where it came from (meaning people rot and return to the earth and material object pass to dust), and yet we construct these “illusions” of grandeur and what we think the pinnacle of happiness is. Americans buy big houses and cars because we think it will make us happy, but those things represent status not personal fulfillment. In a sense, and according to Buddhism, the physical world leads us away from the bountiful joy we can experience through a healthy mental nature.
And no, you weren’t being obtuse : ) , I simply made a statement that even a true buddhist would only partially admit.
[quote]pat wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
pat wrote:
Correct, the fact of the matter is that whether or not the earth is warming or not is irrelevant. The plain fact is that there is zero evidence to back up that the Earth is warming because of man’s activities. None what’s so ever. So we are making policy on pure speculation by a few.
In your life, do you really make decisions in your life based on pure speculation? I don’t not anything that matters anyway.
See my long response to hedo. You have it backwards though… you are correct that whether or not the earth is warming is not the issue. The issue is what effect we are having on the climate, and contra what you say, if I am to believe the climatologists there is great evidence that our activities have an impact on the global climate.
Please present this evidence, because nobody else ever has.
The Earth is 5.4 Billion years old. In that time it has managed thousands if not millions of cooling and warming cycles. Some have been brief some have been longer. Some have been warmer some have been colder. We have little more than 125 years of temperature data. And who the hell knows how accurate the old data is, and that’s just the U.S. we have a lot less data from the rest of the world. Truthfully we probably have 50 years of really usefull data. You cannot tell based on such an incredibly small sample of data, what is going to happen over the next decade, century or millennium. The scentists of the '70’s were warning that the Earth was cooling rapidly and we would be in snow in July. Well that was bullshit and so is this.
Meteorologists cannot not even get the weather right 10 days in advance and I am supposed to trust some computer models that says we are all going to melt in 50 years or a hundred years? What about the models in the '90’s that predicted we the Florida would be underwater by now because of the ice caps should have melted off.
The Earth may be heating, but man is little issue to it. There is no evidence for it what so ever, only speculation.
The emperor has no clothes here and I am calling bullshit.
I want to see the evidence that directly links man to the Earth getting warmer, particularly since it has been a cooler than normal year so far.
[/quote]
First, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, not 5.4… Hopefully that was just a typo in your book on creationism… arg… I mean intelligent design. (Don’t take that too personal… it was all in good fun, this is an internet forum after all, no?)
As for direct evidence, let’s get one thing strait first. I am not saying, nor do I think the legitimate climatologists are saying, that man made GHG emissions are alone making the earth warmer. Instead, I am saying, and I believe I’m getting this right, that we know what effects our GHG emissions are having. Whether the earth ultimately gets warmer or colder is the result of lots of factors though, no just out GHG emission. As for what evidence there is that our GHG emissions are having some noticeable impact, well you have to read the peer reviewed journals for yourself. If you want the “hard evidence” you must go beyond the second hand reporting seen in the news or popular science magazines to the technical literature itself. Since I am not literate in that area (and I doubt you are either), I don’t go there and instead just trust that the climatology people are competent and are doing their jobs.
Call this naive or whatever you’d like, but I’m not naive enough to think that after just reading second and third hand accounts of the actual scientific research that I am somehow qualified to really judge their findings.
The numbers are as I remember based upon two year old lecture notes and the limited reading that time allowed for the course. Feel free to dig up new ones. The one third order of magnitude change it probably solid though.
[/quote]
No no no, some economist at the EPA says this is all wrong and that there is some grand conspiracy to cover it all up.
But you can’t study these things in isolation! These numbers must be meaningless!
Then you’re science is junk and we must throw it out. I can only accept hypothesis that are absolutely true…
Damn that other guy is an idiot. But anyway… the models! they’re wrong! yes!
[quote]
If you want to argue with climate change and defend CO2 emmision levels then at least get educated on the matter. There are actually some legitimate arguements. You have raised none of them.
Try looking at the absorption spectrum of CO2 and compare it to the Earth’s current electromagnetic radition budget. You may find something interesting I am not going to tell you what it is though.[/quote]
No, you still don’t get it. I don’t need to actually look at that sort of technical work or research myself, I just need to read some second and third hand accounts and put the pieces together myself!
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote: Sigh when will you ever learn?
lou21 wrote:
The numbers are as I remember based upon two year old lecture notes and the limited reading that time allowed for the course. Feel free to dig up new ones. The one third order of magnitude change it probably solid though.
No no no, some economist at the EPA says this is all wrong and that there is some grand conspiracy to cover it all up.
The numbers I am using imply a six degree temperature shift over the next 100 odd years. What is six degrees average temperature change? Well it meant summer sea surface temperatures able to support tropical life at the poles.
But you can’t study these things in isolation! These numbers must be meaningless!
This is one possible hypothesis. Bear in mind I am not including future CO2 emmisions. Also remember the Earth has in the past been far hotter still than the PETM.
Then you’re science is junk and we must throw it out. I can only accept hypothesis that are absolutely true…
THERE IS NO SINGLE CLIMATE MODEL. Can the other guy not say this to you enough times?? Scientists like to argue, it’s what make’s us tick! If we didn’t argue we wouldn’t have anything to write articles about and we would be out of a job. The idea of a single numerical climate model that every mainstream climate sciencist uses unquestioningly is ridiculous. If one existed then half of them would be trying to prove it was wrong and the other half would be changing it to suit their own research goals.
Damn that other guy is an idiot. But anyway… the models! they’re wrong! yes!
If you want to argue with climate change and defend CO2 emmision levels then at least get educated on the matter. There are actually some legitimate arguements. You have raised none of them.
Try looking at the absorption spectrum of CO2 and compare it to the Earth’s current electromagnetic radition budget. You may find something interesting I am not going to tell you what it is though.
No, you still don’t get it. I don’t need to actually look at that sort of technical work or research myself, I just need to read some second and third hand accounts and put the pieces together myself!
Suffice to say I have sufficient education to discuss this issue. Nice try belittling your perception of my formal education. Doesn’t seem very scientific of you…smacks of academia. You are simply going to have to do better then to say others are not qualified to discuss the issue. That seems to be a persistent problem of the GW crowd.
Whether or not you are a believer you have adopted the tactics of the GW crowd and in this thread you dismiss those with a different viewpoint. Hardly the ethics of a scientist and again quiet typical among the current crop of believers. Let me ask you this do you really believe a model, that holds variables constant, is a proper model to measure climate? The wind, clouds, solar flares and ocean temperatures surely would not be cooperative holding constant for the next 100 years would they? Wouldn’t an accurate model account for the variances of these systems over time. I’d argue many a climate scientist, seeking to justify a conclusion, would dismiss the results out of hand if they dispute his viewpoint or suppress them.
I hardly think you want to lay claim to false dichotomies at this point since the basis of your argument seems to be nobody can understand a complex problem other then yourself. But do you really think excessive tax upon industry in this country, while the rest of the world remains unburdened, would be beneficial for our economy and lead to prosperity?
So let me get this strait, I give one or two sentences where I question your background and I give four or five paragraphs explaining my position in detail and explaining why your approach to these issues are naive, but you ignore the bulk of my post and pretend that all I did was question your background? Umm… I did provide argument beyond personal attack, and the personal “attack” was meant to clear up why you had such a limited view of science. As for your background, I’d love to hear what it is. My background is that I’m a current grad student in philosophy, with research interests in mathematical logic. My undergraduate background was in analytic philosophy, mathematics, and physics. There’s mine.
As to your second question about whether or not I “really believe a model, that holds variables constant, is a proper model to measure climate?”, yes! I believe this, just like I believe that a model, that holds variables constant, is a proper model to measure motion, sound, electro-megatic waves, and all the other things studied in science. As for whether “The wind, clouds, solar flares and ocean temperatures” would “be cooperative holding constant for the next 100 years would they?”, that is besides the point. We do not need a large scale model of the entire global climate to know what the effects of increasing C02 will be, just like we don’t need a large scale cosmological model of the universe to understand what the effects of shooting a projective at a certain angle and certain speed will be… Besides, even when one does go about making large scales models–which aren’t needed anyway to understand that humans are having an impact on the climate–one hopes to have taken all the variables into account! That is the point of a large-scale model, what separates it from the more specialized models used to look at just one thing.
Look, the point is that the only people who say crazy thing likes “In 100 years x,y, and z will happen if we don’t do something about our pollution” are the sort of environmental wackos that both you and I dislike. If you are arguing with this point, you’re points about how unreliable our large scale climate models are are well taken. I am not those wackos though, nor do I think that any credible climatologist would assert anything of the form “In 100 years x,y, and z will …” as more then a guess. What Climatologists will say, and what is good science, is that Human activities are having an impact on the climate. It is perfectly good science to say “We know that increasing CO2 levels by x causes y”.
Of course you might counter and argue something like, “Well, that may be true, but if we don’t know what total effect that will ultimately have when things like solar activity are taken into account then we are we so worried about climate change? Why risk economic disruption for a possible outcome?” This though is precisely one of the stupid arguments I’ve been rallying against in this post. We know what effect our GHG gases are having, and we should act accordingly.
Also, my point has never been that “nobody can understand a complex problem other then (myself)”. My point has been that you are oversimplifying the issues and that you do not understand how modeling works. That you continue to say stupid things regarding modeling and what ought to count as good science is evidence of this. Of course now that I’ve said this little blurb about you, you will ignore the large paragraph above where I against in a non-personal away explain the issues and pretend that I’ve once more only leveled personal attacks against you. [/quote]
You made the points. You made the insults. Your rationalization is weak. It’s an internet bodybuilding forum. Attempts at intimidation are not likely to work here. I have simplified a complex problem only when you and lou have attempted to convolute the issue with jargon and rhetoric. You are actually tolerable when you stick to the issue but it doesn’t make your case anymore then name calling did imo. My point remains if you can’t prove it, it’s speculation, the speculation must be based on trust. Trust isn’t science but science is being used to sell the legislation. The legislation is misguided.
You made the points. You made the insults. Your rationalization is weak. It’s an internet bodybuilding forum. Attempts at intimidation are not likely to work here. I have simplified a complex problem only when you and lou have attempted to convolute the issue with jargon and rhetoric. You are actually tolerable when you stick to the issue but it doesn’t make your case anymore then name calling did imo. My point remains if you can’t prove it, it’s speculation, the speculation must be based on trust. Trust isn’t science but science is being used to sell the legislation. The legislation is misguided.[/quote]
(1) My “rationalism” isn’t weak… it is part and parcel how science works, and why it is so powerful. Besides, you have not responded to any of the actual points I’ve made, in this past post or any of the recent others. You just keep pretending that my only arguments are ad hominem.
(2) I’ve never made attempts at intimidation. I’ve asked questions because I’m curious. You still haven’t told me your background. I’m stilling dying to hear.
(3) I believe you’ve accused me of complicated issues through jargon and whatnot before, and others on this forum certainly have. This would be fine if it were true… but it’s not true. People like lou and I are simply trying to make sure the issues are accurately presented. It is ones like you and pat who try and confuse the issues in order to push through your fallacious reasoning.
(4) If you wish to hold such a naive view about science–propagating this false dichotomy of absolute truth vs speculation–you might as well give up and throw away all science, including mathematics. Even physics and the foundations of mathematics surely cannot stand up to the standards you are trying to apply to climatology.
(5) Whether or not science is being misused in order to push political agendas isn’t really the issue here. I certainly agree that there are many in politics who use science–and not just climatology–to blindly push their agendas. This I think is wrong, and I have a feeling things like cap and trade are little more then this. But in any case, I still think the sort of spectator science you’re trying to pull and the sort of agenda pushing our economist friend at the EPA tried for is junk. I’m all for the proper use of science, but I don’t think the sort of reasoning you or your EPA friend are using qualifies as that.
You made the points. You made the insults. Your rationalization is weak. It’s an internet bodybuilding forum. Attempts at intimidation are not likely to work here. I have simplified a complex problem only when you and lou have attempted to convolute the issue with jargon and rhetoric. You are actually tolerable when you stick to the issue but it doesn’t make your case anymore then name calling did imo. My point remains if you can’t prove it, it’s speculation, the speculation must be based on trust. Trust isn’t science but science is being used to sell the legislation. The legislation is misguided.
(1) My “rationalism” isn’t weak… it is part and parcel how science works, and why it is so powerful. Besides, you have not responded to any of the actual points I’ve made, in this past post or any of the recent others. You just keep pretending that my only arguments are ad hominem.
(2) I’ve never made attempts at intimidation. I’ve asked questions because I’m curious. You still haven’t told me your background. I’m stilling dying to hear.
(3) I believe you’ve accused me of complicated issues through jargon and whatnot before, and others on this forum certainly have. This would be fine if it were true… but it’s not true. People like lou and I are simply trying to make sure the issues are accurately presented. It is ones like you and pat who try and confuse the issues in order to push through your fallacious reasoning.
(4) If you wish to hold such a naive view about science–propagating this false dichotomy of absolute truth vs speculation–you might as well give up and throw away all science, including mathematics. Even physics and the foundations of mathematics surely cannot stand up to the standards you are trying to apply to climatology.
(5) Whether or not science is being misused in order to push political agendas isn’t really the issue here. I certainly agree that there are many in politics who use science–and not just climatology–to blindly push their agendas. This I think is wrong, and I have a feeling things like cap and trade are little more then this. But in any case, I still think the sort of spectator science you’re trying to pull and the sort of agenda pushing our economist friend at the EPA tried for is junk. I’m all for the proper use of science, but I don’t think the sort of reasoning you or your EPA friend are using qualifies as that. [/quote]
It is weak imo. Since you seem to crave my acceptance of it you’ll have to do better to
earn it. Otherwise make better rationalizations.
Questions are not accusation. You’ve accused those who don’t have a background in the
sciences as naive while trampling basic scientific objectivity. My educational background
is an MBA in Finance and experience in the military and private sector. My current business
interests are varied and primarily focused on development and fabrication for industrial
processes. My analytical ability isn’t in question, yours is.
I’m skeptical. I don’t have a fallacious intent or desire. That’s why I don’t believe in
things that can’t be proven and where the risk outweighs. When you get older you will see
the wisdom that experience brings to the skeptical mind. I was supposed to be dead from the
cold and population explosion already and so were all the birds and fish. This latest
global alarm differs only in the naivety of the audience and the fact that the proponents
have learned to push the impending doom further out then before.
2+2=4…wait a minute 2+2=4. See it does that every time. I love math just for that reason.
The rest of your statement doesn’t make any sense if an equation can be proven by me and
others. Speculation should lead to the search for truth. The road to get there shouldn’t be
corrupted by the belief there can only be one true answer. Is there any climate research
that would make you change your mind? If not then your a believer. If you ignore or support
the suppression of ideas because you disagree with them then I you should question your
ethics and intentions not mine.
I do. People are affected by economic decisions. Pure speculation of unproven science is
simply support for an agenda. The man at the EPA is hardly my friend but I have a healthy
respect for those who disagree with lies. The job he was given was to evaluate the work of
others. If anyone at the EPA valued accuracy in the legislation they would consider
all viewpoints not just the ones that fit the narrative.
By for now. Enjoyed the argument. Can’t waste anymore time with it now. Free your mind and perhaps we’ll try again with better results.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
pat wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
pat wrote:
Correct, the fact of the matter is that whether or not the earth is warming or not is irrelevant. The plain fact is that there is zero evidence to back up that the Earth is warming because of man’s activities. None what’s so ever. So we are making policy on pure speculation by a few.
In your life, do you really make decisions in your life based on pure speculation? I don’t not anything that matters anyway.
See my long response to hedo. You have it backwards though… you are correct that whether or not the earth is warming is not the issue. The issue is what effect we are having on the climate, and contra what you say, if I am to believe the climatologists there is great evidence that our activities have an impact on the global climate.
Please present this evidence, because nobody else ever has.
The Earth is 5.4 Billion years old. In that time it has managed thousands if not millions of cooling and warming cycles. Some have been brief some have been longer. Some have been warmer some have been colder. We have little more than 125 years of temperature data. And who the hell knows how accurate the old data is, and that’s just the U.S. we have a lot less data from the rest of the world. Truthfully we probably have 50 years of really usefull data. You cannot tell based on such an incredibly small sample of data, what is going to happen over the next decade, century or millennium. The scentists of the '70’s were warning that the Earth was cooling rapidly and we would be in snow in July. Well that was bullshit and so is this.
Meteorologists cannot not even get the weather right 10 days in advance and I am supposed to trust some computer models that says we are all going to melt in 50 years or a hundred years? What about the models in the '90’s that predicted we the Florida would be underwater by now because of the ice caps should have melted off.
The Earth may be heating, but man is little issue to it. There is no evidence for it what so ever, only speculation.
The emperor has no clothes here and I am calling bullshit.
I want to see the evidence that directly links man to the Earth getting warmer, particularly since it has been a cooler than normal year so far.
First, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, not 5.4… Hopefully that was just a typo in your book on creationism… arg… I mean intelligent design. (Don’t take that too personal… it was all in good fun, this is an internet forum after all, no?)
As for direct evidence, let’s get one thing strait first. I am not saying, nor do I think the legitimate climatologists are saying, that man made GHG emissions are alone making the earth warmer. Instead, I am saying, and I believe I’m getting this right, that we know what effects our GHG emissions are having. Whether the earth ultimately gets warmer or colder is the result of lots of factors though, no just out GHG emission. As for what evidence there is that our GHG emissions are having some noticeable impact, well you have to read the peer reviewed journals for yourself. If you want the “hard evidence” you must go beyond the second hand reporting seen in the news or popular science magazines to the technical literature itself. Since I am not literate in that area (and I doubt you are either), I don’t go there and instead just trust that the climatology people are competent and are doing their jobs.
Call this naive or whatever you’d like, but I’m not naive enough to think that after just reading second and third hand accounts of the actual scientific research that I am somehow qualified to really judge their findings. [/quote]
Yes it was a typo.
I have looked and there is no evidence. Before I am relegated to walking or driving a piece of shit hybrid, I need to be certain itâ??s for a reason. I am not going to where a environmental hair-shirt because somebody thinks we expel to many GHGâ??s. Itâ??s ridiculous, we exhale CO2, we fart methane and so does every mammal on earth, of which there is an assload more of now than there used to be. What should we do, kill all the cows and commit suicide.
The temperature of the Earth fluctuates and it always has, rapid rises in temp happen. Nature expels GHGâ??s faster, in greater volume, and more frequently than we could hope to if we tried.
We are small issue to the cliemate. I donâ??t want to breath dirty air, but there is no fucking way I am going green with out hard evidence. Itâ??s to much effort for not a lot of good.
2+2=4…wait a minute 2+2=4. See it does that every time. I love math just for that reason.
The rest of your statement doesn’t make any sense if an equation can be proven by me and
others. Speculation should lead to the search for truth. The road to get there shouldn’t be
corrupted by the belief there can only be one true answer. Is there any climate research
that would make you change your mind? If not then your a believer. If you ignore or support
the suppression of ideas because you disagree with them then I you should question your
ethics and intentions not mine.
By for now. Enjoyed the argument. Can’t waste anymore time with it now. Free your mind and perhaps we’ll try again with better results. [/quote]
I was going to bow out of this like lou until I saw this part. Climatology is not my thing, so about all I can do is argue over the general issues, not details. Mathematics, that is my thing, and I will argue over the details. When I say that mathematics is filled with some of the same sort of speculative issues as physics I am correct, and your cute little thing about “2+2=4” shows you have no idea what your talking about. Does 2+2=4? Yes (well, in the right ring… but whatever). Does the fact that 2+2=4 mean that all math deals with is absolute truths? no…
I won’t even begin to get into it all, because if you think I’ve just been confusing the issues about global warming with jargon you’d go crazy over the sort of discussion needed to talk about the foundations of mathematics…
[quote]pat wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
pat wrote:
I have looked and there is no evidence.
You’ve looked through and read the research articles in the major climatology journals and still haven’t found it convincing?
Not even remotely.[/quote]
Umm… then how can you say you’ve looked at the evidence? Just what evidence have you looked at? Second and third hand accounts reproduced in the media and popular science works?
2+2=4…wait a minute 2+2=4. See it does that every time. I love math just for that reason.
The rest of your statement doesn’t make any sense if an equation can be proven by me and
others. Speculation should lead to the search for truth. The road to get there shouldn’t be
corrupted by the belief there can only be one true answer. Is there any climate research
that would make you change your mind? If not then your a believer. If you ignore or support
the suppression of ideas because you disagree with them then I you should question your
ethics and intentions not mine.
By for now. Enjoyed the argument. Can’t waste anymore time with it now. Free your mind and perhaps we’ll try again with better results.
I was going to bow out of this like lou until I saw this part. Climatology is not my thing, so about all I can do is argue over the general issues, not details. Mathematics, that is my thing, and I will argue over the details. When I say that mathematics is filled with some of the same sort of speculative issues as physics I am correct, and your cute little thing about “2+2=4” shows you have no idea what your talking about. Does 2+2=4? Yes (well, in the right ring… but whatever). Does the fact that 2+2=4 mean that all math deals with is absolute truths? no…
I won’t even begin to get into it all, because if you think I’ve just been confusing the issues about global warming with jargon you’d go crazy over the sort of discussion needed to talk about the foundations of mathematics…[/quote]
Doubtful. Internet bragging notwithstanding you need to stop falling back on the “I’m the only smart person here” argument. It’s tiresome and boring and is ultimately dismissed by those you are trying to influence. Try a good argument instead. It’s great your a math wiz ,in college. I had a lot of them that worked for me when I was om Wall St. years ago. Nice kids, hard workers, a little one dimensional but they did the job. They were from top schools though.
I’m curious why you think your understanding of mathematics is superior to anyone else when you understanding of the Global warming issue is remedial at best and you have failed to impress me with your superior intellect. People are experts at lot’s of things but it’s better to be called an authority by others rather then self-proclaimed, as your “thing”. It adds to credibility. You created a red herring with an absolute conclusion, therefore proving it false in any instance renders it moot. I kept it simple for you.
Search thru one of your textbooks. You have hitched your belief to a correlation made by others. However proof of that correlation doesn’t exist. Developing broad foundational responses based on speculation by researchers with questionable motives is foolish. Unbiased research performed by independent people is what’s called for.
weve been in a warming trend for a long time now, eventually the planet will move back towards a cooling cycle and ice age. Thats just how the planet works. 101.
co2 and green house gases still only account for less than .1% of our atmosphere.
but our warming trend has already passed the previous warming cycle, and at a quicker rate. This is a concern becuase it’s never happened like this before even with thousands of thousands of years of data. But since theres billions of years of unaccounted data, it might not be uncommon at all.
the only problem with an extreme or erratic warming cycle is that the inverse cooling cycle will be just as extreme/erratic.
Odds are weve helped it along, how much is debatable, but adding 100 ppm of greenhouse gas certainly will have an effect thats not debatable. All actions have reactions.
Shipping companies have already established new routs through arctic when its eventually unfrozen during the summers.
it really doesn’t matter what the US does to reduce atmosphere interruption, billions of people in china and india drive dirty ass cars and still burn wood and coal everyday to cook and heat.
[quote]hedo wrote:
lou21 wrote:
hedo wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
hedo wrote:
The point I did make is the cornerstone of global warming rests on a model.
You literally have no idea what you’re talking about. I mean NONE, at all.
Unfortunately typical for a believer of Global Warming. Actually observation is the basis of the scientific method. Should have been in the first chapter of your textbook. If the experiment cannot be replicated then the theory is a belief not a legitimate theory.
Clearly based on this thread it is you who don’t seem to have a grasp on the basics of the argument. Your point is that you are the only one “smart” enough to understand, unfortunately you have been able to prove your case by anything you posted.
Try this on for size: The total percentage of carbon right now in the atmosphere is about 370/1000000. The increase in the last 100 years, or so of the industrial age has added about 10 - 20 parts per million. A HIGH estimate of the effect of mans effort would put it at 0.000025% added. This small increase according to the believers affects the other 99.999975%. It affects it so much that we must cripple our economy based on the speculation that it does and that this minute increase in temperature is a bad thing, despite the evidence throughout history that it has been a benefit to mankind.
You are nearly there. Agonisingly close but still missing the point. The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere now are geologically associated with very much warmer climates. As I recall (my degree was a couple of years ago now) the rise over the last century is from 280 ppm to 370ppm. So anthropogenic contributions are of the order of one third of the total atmospheric CO2 present today. The rise over the last 100 years is the same as that associated with a mass extinction event at 55Ma (Paleocene�¢??Eocene Thermal Maximum).
Now I don’t know if the high CO2 cause the PETM or the PETM caused the high CO2. What I do know is that a similar event would probably be rather damaging to the economy you prize so highly. Of course the construction industry would probably boom as billions of people would be displaced and need new homes built…
So if I take your numbers at face value, then a 1/3 rise in CO2 have caused a rise in temperature of 1 degree C and this increase in carbon levels was caused by man. What caused the event 55M ago? Keeping in mind that the term average is a misnomer and highly suspect to manipulation, haven’t generally warmer periods been associated with periods of great prosperity for mankind during history? Is 1 to 2 C within the normal temperature ranges of the planet?
Shouldn’t the date for the past say 200 years be able to be plugged into the model and have it spit out the correct results for the last 20 years of the experiment? If it cannot do that why trust the model to speculate on the climate 100 years form now?[/quote]
no, temperature changes have not been this high in the past 1k years, check out a temperature anomaly graph.
2 degree change in C, are you kidding? You really have no clue what youre discussing, you should back away slowly, dont look it in the eyes.
Doubtful. Internet bragging notwithstanding you need to stop falling back on the “I’m the only smart person here” argument. It’s tiresome and boring and is ultimately dismissed by those you are trying to influence. Try a good argument instead. It’s great your a math wiz ,in college. I had a lot of them that worked for me when I was om Wall St. years ago. Nice kids, hard workers, a little one dimensional but they did the job. They were from top schools though.
I’m curious why you think your understanding of mathematics is superior to anyone else when you understanding of the Global warming issue is remedial at best and you have failed to impress me with your superior intellect. People are experts at lot’s of things but it’s better to be called an authority by others rather then self-proclaimed, as your “thing”. It adds to credibility. You created a red herring with an absolute conclusion, therefore proving it false in any instance renders it moot. I kept it simple for you.
Search thru one of your textbooks. You have hitched your belief to a correlation made by others. However proof of that correlation doesn’t exist. Developing broad foundational responses based on speculation by researchers with questionable motives is foolish. Unbiased research performed by independent people is what’s called for.[/quote]
What does my “remedial” knowledge of climate change have to do with my knowledge of mathematics? I admitted from the start that my understanding of climate change was poor at best, and in fact I never argued for any absolute position on the topic. Anyway, mathematics is my area of research, and in particular foundational work in mathematics. I’m not just some “math wiz kid” whose good with numbers, my entire area of research centers around these very issues.
So with that said, I will explain a little more what I mean when I say that mathematics isn’t the bastion of absolute truth you think it is. Since approaching this issue systematically is well beyond the time and space I have available (you might as well pick up a book on set theory or model theory), I’ll just continue with the example of 2+2=4.
It is true, in a complete ordered field, that 2+2=4. This is generally what people mean when they say that 2+2=4, or when they talk about mathematics at all. Since I assume you have no idea what a field is, or what rings are, or have any knowledge of modern algebra, I’ll try to make this point more simply.
Say someone asked you to prove that 2+2=4. How would you do it? In order to prove that 2+2=4, what you need is a set of rules, or axioms, that roughly define how numbers act under certain operations like addition (thereby indirectly defining addition). Once one establishes some set of axioms that define how numbers are to act under operations like “addition” and “multiplication”, one can then go on to explicitly define what the numbers are, and then show that for 2 and 4 so defined, 2+2=4. Now, if one goes about taking the definition for a complete ordered field as our axioms that describe how numbers act under addition, then if we can appropriately define the numerals ‘2’ and ‘4’, or basically the second and fourth successors of zero, we will find that indeed, 2+2=4. Of course we rely on our intuitions about numbers to guild us as we set out the axioms, and if we do a good job we get the results we want.
There is a fundamental problem though. Just as in geometry where we can develop alternative axioms systems, we can in another way develop alternative sets of weaker or strong axioms for numbers. Under loser or tighter axioms systems, the objects which the numerals ‘2’ and ‘4’ designate need not be so that 2+2=4. It might be that in some of these other systems, 2+2=5 or 2+2=1 (The former is a bit hard to explain, the latter is true under addition mod 3). The big problem is that there is no reason to pick one of these axiom systems as THE REAL description of the numbers, just like there is no reason to pick out one type of geometry as THE REAL description of points and lines.
Now, you may argue that this is all well and good, but that it doesn’t amount to much–that it’s just a bunch of games or something. While this would be s serious misunderstanding of algebraic structures, I’ll even play along and grant you that we all, being reasonable and smart people, can agree to one axioms system that corresponds to our intuitions best. In algebra we would naturally pick the definition of a complete ordered field, whereas if we wanted something a bit more fundamental we might pick the peano axioms, which are generally taken to be a description of what we intuitively mean by “natural numbers”.
Even if all this is granted to you, and we ignore the problems of selecting some one axiom system as THE description of numbers, we still run into problems when we arbitrary pick the most seemingly natural axioms systems. The problem is basically this, say we pick the peano axioms as the description of number, and we appropriately define our numerals in it and define addition. It is true that if we do this, we will naturally find that we can prove that 2+2=4 (As we have originally set out to do). Nevertheless, all is not well… even though we find some good results, like our proof of 2+2=4, we will find (as mathematicians have) that our best attempts to axiomatize the numbers still lead to bad results. One common made result is that we can also prove that there exists a largest number, which is seemingly something we should not be able to prove. Other bad results are that we find that some seemingly well-formed statements about numbers have no truth value at all–they are neither true nor false (This one REALLY drives mathematicians crazy). It gets even worse… we find that there are some seeming truths of numbers that cannot be proved… The problems go on. All these problems ultimately stem from the fact that even in our best attempts to rigorously describe numbers–to make explicit our seeming intuitions about them–lead to what are called nonstandard models. The existence of nonstandard models of number theory is well known and well studied, in fact there are conferences on the topic.
Now, you might find several objections to all of this. First you might object that these attempts to formalize number theory, mathematics, etc., fail simply because we haven’t found the right axiom system. You may try to argue that if we did in fact find a correct axiom system, then we would do away with all the problems I’ve listed. The problem is if you thought this you would be wrong. There are vigorous proofs that show that NO axiom system can so uniquely specify number theory (You’ll have to trust me on this one, cause gee, this is my area of research, and the proofs are long and complicated). You may admit this point, and further object something like “well, that’s all fine, but intuitively, we know what we mean by “numbers”, and intuitively we just know that 2+2=4, it’s absolutely true and we don’t need a proof of it”. If you did object in this way though, I would first respond by saying that most mathematicians would disagree with you… There is a point to algebra and set theory. I would also say that such an objection is naive. Relying on our intuitions about the absolute truth of mathematics and the truth of basic mathematical propositions like “2+2=4” is just begging the question, no?
To conclude, I’ll give you some things to look up if you wish. Most of the wiki articles on these topics aren’t TOO bad, so they’re ok. There should be an article on “nonstandard models of arithmetic”, and the major relevant theorems about these problems are Godel’s incompleteness theorem, the compactness theorem, and lowenheim-skolem theorem. There are other important things, but even a brief search for these things will show you I’m not talking out my ass…
EDIT: I did some googling for you, so you can see I’m not talking out my ass. This is a tiny sample, just some of the better stuff that popped up on the first and second pages of the search.
Doubtful. Internet bragging notwithstanding you need to stop falling back on the “I’m the only smart person here” argument. It’s tiresome and boring and is ultimately dismissed by those you are trying to influence. Try a good argument instead. It’s great your a math wiz ,in college. I had a lot of them that worked for me when I was om Wall St. years ago. Nice kids, hard workers, a little one dimensional but they did the job. They were from top schools though.
[/quote]
I’m not trying to influence you. I’m smart enough to realize that no one is changing anyone’s mind on an internet forum. I am on here simply for a bit of discussion. I’m also sorry you take my light hearted jabs so seriously as to think that I’m “falling back on the ‘I’m the only smart person here’ argument”. I certainly don’t think that, there are many people here who are intelligent, and many here who know far more about me on many subjects. I think if anyone actually looks at my posts they’ll find many more substantive arguments backing up my claims then simple ad hominem arguments. You can understand though my frustration when someone who seemingly has never taken any higher math classes–done set theory or modern algebra–tells me about foundational issues in mathematics. I forget if you are religious, but the religious on this board often become frustrated and angry when atheists who haven’t seriously studied theology tell them all about what their beliefs are really like. It’s basically the same, no?
In any case I have provided you with a detailed little summary of why I say that mathematics isn’t the holy grail of absolute truth you think it is. I do not think my understanding of mathematics is superior to everyone else–please don’t take me for a fool. I certainly think though that my understanding of mathematics is far greater then someone whose education is in finance… I do hope you take the time to read the post I wrote above. If you don’t want to take my word for it, I even invited you to google many of the issues I talked about. If you do you will see I’m only telling you about well known, well studied things in mathematics. Any mathematician who is familiar with set theory and model theory will understand well what I’ve said. I’m certainly not trying to sell you on some crazy position that other mathematicians don’t believe.
