Dialing Back the Alarm On Climate Change 490
An anonymous reader writes "A leaked copy of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made the rounds and the good news is that the predicted temperature rise expected as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is lower than predicted in 2007. From the article: 'Admittedly, the change is small, and because of changing definitions, it is not easy to compare the two reports, but retreat it is. It is significant because it points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet. Specifically, the draft report says that "equilibrium climate sensitivity" (ECS)—eventual warming induced by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which takes hundreds of years to occur—is "extremely likely" to be above 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), "likely" to be above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and "very likely" to be below 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 Fahrenheit). In 2007, the IPPC said it was "likely" to be above 2 degrees Celsius and "very likely" to be above 1.5 degrees, with no upper limit. Since "extremely" and "very" have specific and different statistical meanings here, comparison is difficult.'"
Cheers to my old teacher (Score:2, Interesting)
If I ever meet him again I'll buy him a beer!
NASA Climate Change Data (Score:4, Interesting)
http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators [nasa.gov]
The CO2 graph (direct measurement) is clearly climbing at a never-before-seen rate. How does this compare to the conclusions in the report?
Re:The Computer Models were "a bit off" then ? (Score:2, Interesting)
What about the poor people who can not afford to heat their homes due to higher energy prices due of course to more expensive renewable energy? What about those who freeze to death in the winter time because they can not afford to heat their home? What about those poor people who start chopping down trees instead of paying for traditional heating? There is always a negative side to any political action and denying that is just as bad as denying that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Face it, lots of harm will be done regardless of what we do because that is the nature of politics. Don't stick your head in the sand and deny the truth...any bad effects will be blamed on scientists and politicians alike if they end up being wrong because that is the nature of reality and it is only fair.. You perform an action and you reap the benefits and the consequences equally. You are completely wrong. There is plenty of harm done, and if it also turns out that we have been wasting our money on research into climate change over the last 20 years, that is equally bad because that money could have been spent on other fields of science where we could have seen a tangible benefit.
So no, don't give me this immoral attitude that even if they are wrong no harm was done, because that completely ignores the billions of dollars we spend on climate change research every year and it completely ignore the billions spent on renewable subsidies that is good money that could have went to any number of endeavors in science or even in aiding other humans in this big blue world of ours. Above all else let me say this:
If decisions are made because of faulty information in science, there is always harm done and plenty of it. To simply ignore the negative effects is not only immoral, but delusional and rather crazy. This is why the scientists behind climate change MUST above all else be absolutely and positively sure if they advocate for political action because if they get it wrong and people end up dying due to energy poverty and artificial shortages of power, that blood is on their hands since those people would have only been thrust into fuel poverty due to energy scarsity advocated by same scientists.
Ignore the evidence (Score:4, Interesting)
Ignore the pause, ignore the missing heat, ignore the solar cycles, ignore the lack of sea level rise, ignore an arctic that is not ice free, ignore ENSO effects, ignore weather stations next to tarmacs, ignore urban heating, because they don't match the models.
Ignore the money being made, ignore the cost to society, ignore the lack of true peer review, ignore the missing data, ignore academic misconduct, ignore the denied FOI requests, ignore the emails, because that is just human nature.
When you are blind, everything is 'Nothing to see here, move along'...
Re:Blind trust in models (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a big omission in Spencer's graph - datasets of ground-based temp measurements.
The satellite readings have always been cooler and have needed numerous adjustments one way or the other.
If he were thinking like a scientist and not a regulator, he'd incorporate other observation-based data instead of taking the satellite measurements as, well, gospel.
Billions of tons [Re:Excellent!] (Score:5, Interesting)
When Obama flies around nilly-willy on Air Force One he dumps tons of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. Are you saying there's no climate change when he does that?
Have you ever heard of a form of ignorance called innumeracy? No? You should, because you have it.
If, in fact, flying Air Force One (which all presidents fly in, not just Obama, of course) dumps merely tons of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, yes, that would be irrelevant to climate change. If it dumped thousand of tons, that would be irrelevant. If it dumped millions of tons, that would be irrelevant.
Do you have the slightest idea how many tons of carbon dioxide are put in the atmosphere by humans every year?
Re:Excellent! (Score:3, Interesting)
Noise. Obama, like GWB before him, hasn't done SHIT for "AGW" crap. Why? Because he can't do anything about it. It isn't his job. But that doesn't stop the likes of you who give one guy a pass while lambasting the other, for the sole purpose of "noise". Here is the test. Do you drive a car? Do you enjoy petroleum based plastics that make your life easier? Do you enjoy products created by factories using coal and natural gas based energy/electricity?
Conservation is good, and we should be all for it, for conservation purposes alone. We don't need to scare people into voting for (D) just because "evil republicans" are ignoring the hype. What gets me, is people like you are "damn the facts" even as the horror you expected is actually not manifested, but the opposite is.
Cry wolf young boy, cry wolf again and again. There are no Polar Bears drowning and the ice sheets are bigger. Next up, "Climate Change" is the new "ice age", once predicted in the 1970s ignored in the 90's and 2000's. Why? Because damn the facts, it is human caused!