Another Climate-Change Retraction 479
jamie writes "It seems every time someone twists global-warming science into 'good news,' a retraction is soon to follow, and so it must be for Slashdot. Yesterday, the conservative Wall Street Journal published yet another apologetic claiming 'the overall effect of climate change will be positive,' by someone who (of course) is not a climate scientist. Today, Climate Progress debunks the piece, noting 'Ridley and the WSJ cite the University of Illinois paper to supposedly prove that warming this century will be under 2C — when the author has already explained to them that his research shows the exact opposite!' We went through this same process last year, with the same author and the same paper, so it's pretty embarrassing that he 'makes a nearly identical blunder' all over again."
Re:Freeman Dyson (Score:5, Informative)
He also admits, he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about:
"my objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have."
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2151 [yale.edu]
He's not an expert on the current science. Taking his advice is like asking a guy who wrote COBOL in the 60's about something like open stack.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:3, Informative)
....and lets not forget, dumbfuck, that when Clinton left office there was a projected 10 year surplus of ~5.6 trillion dollars
Can you point to the last year in which the national debt actually decreased - meaning we had an actual surplus? HINT: start with the Eisenhower Administration.
Re:What I'd love to see (Score:2, Informative)
http://realclimate.org/ [realclimate.org]
There is a wealth of real science out there. People just read tabloids like the WSJ and assume they are going to get solid science news out of it. That's like watching Fox News and complaining that there is no journalism alive in America.
Merchants of doubt (Score:3, Informative)
It is, in fact, many of the same people who helped obscure the underlying science in both cases. Nicely documented by historians Naomi Oreskes and Naomi Oresekes in Merchants of Doubt [merchantsofdoubt.org].
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Informative)
While the anti-Americans world-wide are wagging their fingers at the US, China is killing itself with pollution [rainbowbuilders.org]...
Apologetic doesn't mean what you think (Score:2, Informative)
From the summary:
[...] published yet another apologetic claiming [...]
Emphasis mine.
apologetic
noun
a reasoned argument or writing in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine: free market apologetics.
What the WSJ wrote was an apology (or retraction or clarification). In this context, an apologetic would be understood as a defense of their previous statements, which is the exact opposite of the intended meaning.
Words are important.
Disclaimer: I make no claims to being above reproach when it comes to grammar, spelling, punctuation, or my choice of words. The only claim I make is to being annoyed at having to re-read that sentence in the summary because it doesn't make sense.
Re:Don't like the solution so the problem can't ex (Score:1, Informative)
The logical fallacy of that should be obviously: whether a particular solution is right or wrong has no logical bearing on whether the science-- that human-generated carbon dioxide contributes to temperature according to well-known models-- is correct.
I don't believe I have seen anyone argue that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. The arguments are over the "feedbacks" and the "forcing factors" in the models, which predict dire heating from CO2, and yet we are about to bust out of the 95% confidence level from the models. CO2 is much higher than 15 years ago but temperatures remain pretty flat.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294560/The-great-green-1-The-hard-proof-finally-shows-global-warming-forecasts-costing-billions-WRONG-along.html [dailymail.co.uk]
Also, according to this, the warming contribution of CO2 tails off asypmtotically.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to back them up, and the claims that global warming due to CO2 will be catastrophic don't seem to be proven. For example, the "hot spot" seems to be missing.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/16/about-that-missing-hot-spot/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
I am not a climate scientist, but I am open to explanations of why any or all of the above sources are not correct.
Of course I hope global warming is overrated, because the world is still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. If the consequences really will be dire, we will find out.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Informative)
"The people in Boulder Colorado are feeling global warming rather directly today."
The people in Boulder are experiencing an example of extreme WEATHER, not climate.
This has been a cool year. Record cold weather in much of the southern hemisphere and a cooler summer in the Arctic. Total global cyclonic (hurricane-type) activity is at a near-record low.
Global trends are important. Individual incidents of WEATHER do not equate to "global warming" unless the average over the whole planet does, and for a period of years, not a week or so.
Re:Don't like the solution so the problem can't ex (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:0, Informative)
You mean the time you trolled about the "AGW religion" [slashdot.org]?
It must be horrible to be insulted by so many mentally disabled clueless assholes [slashdot.org]...
Have you looked at the evidence? (Score:3, Informative)
The logical fallacy of that should be obviously: whether a particular solution is right or wrong has no logical bearing on whether the science-- that human-generated carbon dioxide contributes to temperature according to well-known models-- is correct.
I don't believe I have seen anyone argue that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.
You haven't paid attention, then-- among the garbage-dumpsters of junk pouring out from the so-called skeptics, yes, that argument is there, in truckloads.
The arguments are over the "feedbacks" and the "forcing factors" in the models
Uh, why are you putting these words in quotes?
Also, according to this, the warming contribution of CO2 tails off asypmtotically.
The word you want is "logarithmic," not "asympototic." (a logarithm does not have a horizontal asymptote). This has been known since Arrhenius made the first calculation back in 1896, so I'm puzzled that you're suddenly amazed at it. It is why climate sensitivity is conventionally quoted in terms of doubling (that is, log base 2), instead of, say, response per ppm.
....Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to back them up,
OK, I will momentarily suspend my skepticism and consider the hypothesis that you actually are interested in the evidence. I have a question, then: Have you actually read the IPCC working-group 1 report, The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change. I don't mean, a summary of it, or a critique by some website with an axe to grind, or somebody's paraphrasing it, or somebody else's explanation of why you shouldn't read it. Have you actually read the report?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml [www.ipcc.ch]
If you haven't-- well, then I can reject the hypothesis that you are actually interested in the evidence, if you're not willing to look at the evidence.
Re:Apologetic doesn't mean what you think (Score:5, Informative)
The word was used properly. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an apologetic for climate-change denial—a defense of their previous statements. Today, Climate Progress debunked that apologetic.
There has been no apology.
Words are important.