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."
Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything to keep you from looking at the root cause of the problem. Pollution, waste, dumping, strip farming/mining, and so on and so on are never discussed. Problems that we see like the great pacific garbage dump are ignored, as are ocean dead zones and polluted water.
I don't believe 99% of what is paid to be published, because, well hell look who is paying for the media spin? The same people pushing more and more pollution in most cases.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you got a solution that doesn't involve regulation?
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:0, Insightful)
Yes. Adapt.
"blunder" is far too kind a word for it (Score:5, Insightful)
Black lie is what I call it. These scum knew what they were doing. They've been told, repeatedly, that they are wrong and why they are wrong, and they just dismiss and ignore everything and say those lies again anyway. They were printing propaganda. Throwing raw meat to the conservatives. That's all the WSJ's opinion section has been since Murdoch bought it.
It's like the black knight skit in Quest for the Holy Grail. "It's only a flesh wound" and "The earth has had worse." Won't quit fighting even after his legs have been cut out from under him.
Re:Freeman Dyson (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a physicist, not a climatologist. He certainly would be better in some respects at assessing the models, but nowhere near as competent as, oh, I dunno, a climatologist. On the flipside, if a climatologist starts making grand declarations about quantum electroydnamics, I'm sure I'd be turning to Dyson for a rebuttal.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are hundreds of millions of people on this planet who have no legitimate prospects for "adapting" in time to avert catastrophe. Your flippant (and ignorant) proposal, if implemented, would lead to hundreds of millions of deaths. Or, it will lead to hundreds of millions of angry, desperate, poor people who are are going to force you to "adapt" to their needs.
Now, do you have something NOT ignorant to contribute to the conversation?
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
I see. So your solution is to simply ignore the ecological catastrophe, fuck future generations (and even some current populations) and live with the consequences of a perfectly avoidable disaster.
In a way, you're even worse than the denialists. You have adopted an ideological position and have decided that maintaining it should trump any change in human behavior.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:0, Insightful)
The reasons they don't live inland now could be that someone already lives there (and probably doesn't want to share), and/or the inland areas are not economically productive.
There are people who have already studied this in detail, and have evaluated the prospects of rearranging populations. It's just not feasible.
Do you have anything NOT ignorant to contribute to the conversation?
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it's a matter of ignorance alone. It's ignorance and callousness. There's a certain breed of conservative who doesn't even try to had their underlying pathology. They're damned proud of it. They're the kinds of guys who buy small arsenals and fortresses in the hills and masturbate to the idea of an apocalypse where they get to shoot anybody in sight and declare themselves king of their domain.
Re:Forbes, WSJ others (Score:5, Insightful)
Lying (Score:4, Insightful)
The bottom line is that lying works when you are dealing with low-information people.
Re:Freeman Dyson (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
"All of the woes that you mention such as pollution are caused by excessive population."
That explains why India pollutes more than USA.
Oh, wait!
No, I was joking: It's progress not population.
That explains why Denmark pollutes per capita as much as USA.
Oh, wait!
Re:Forbes, WSJ others (Score:3, Insightful)
So who should I decide is correct? The WSJ, the IPCC, & Fox News or you? You're not even arguing with the most current data by groups you support.
Have you truly looked into contributions from oil companies or are you stating what you heave read. Did you know oil companies donate to groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club? Is it ok for them to donate significantly more to environmental groups than they do to Skeptical Anthropogenic Global Warming Research groups? Is that because you have decided, based on outdated and overstated data, that they are right?
Continue your rounding up of the witches. Everything that ends well starts with persecution of the opposition.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Insightful)
The root cause are not those. The root cause is that there is profit to be made, and that profit justifies things like replacing cleaner transportation alternatives [wikipedia.org] with polluting ones.
There is just no profit in building an economy over renovable energies. The pipe that make everything run must be controlled, specially if is done by a few (and if new players come in the government is always willing to help them [theguardian.com]). And if that non-renovable but tight controllable energy is polluting, too bad, but they will do anything in their hand to avoid that the dependence on them weakens.
When it happens twice it's not accidental (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"blunder" is far too kind a word for it (Score:4, Insightful)
YOU should read the article carefully. Superficially, it looks nice and all sciency. However, it is a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.
Re:Forbes, WSJ others (Score:3, Insightful)
But here's the thing. A lot of the smoking and cancer studies WERE lies also. Particularly some of the studies on second hand (or third hand) smoke. I'm not arguing that smoking is good for you or anything, but if you dig a little you will find that the current crusade to ban smoking outdoors or pretty much anywhere because claims that even a little exposure is going to kill you are patently false.
OBTW, if a pack of cigarettes cost $6, and $5 of that is tax, who exactly is in the tobacco business?
And such I fear is the trend with AGW evangelists. They are right, at least to a degree, but the truth is just not quite scary enough to accomplish their agenda. So they Hollywood it up a bit.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:2, Insightful)
How about we subsidize power sources that actually work, specifically nuclear and hydro-electric. Stop blowing up dams and accept the fact that some fish might go extinct in order to reduce global warming. Reduce the governmental barriers to nuke licensing and build some modern designs not the BWR designs left over from the 1960's. Accept the fact that your populous is going to whine about "scary" nukes. Accept that there might eve be an accident or two.
When I see some AGW protesters in front of San Onofre protesting to get it started back up, I might start to think they are serious.
Don't like the solution so the problem can't exist (Score:5, Insightful)
Your right, we SHOULD be listening to the people pushing for more taxes for the government instead, because they OBVIOUSLY have your best interest in mind.
Have you got a solution that doesn't involve regulation?
What is being said here seems to be "I don't like the solutions that I think will be imposed, so therefore I will vehemently argue that the problem doesn't exist, or if it exists that it's not as bad as projected."
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.
If you don't like the solution, perhaps you should work on figure out a proposal for a solution that is acceptable, rather than denying the science is right.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:3, Insightful)
>For ppm increases in gas concentrations
You do realize that you aren't helping the AGW cause with your melodrama, right?
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Insightful)
"If we're going to get opinions, can't we at least get them from real scientists?"
Partly because when people post things here from some of those real scientists, they are insulted, harassed, and stuck with the label "denialist".
Just recently someone insulted me, called me a "known denialist", and referenced a comment of mine here on Slashdot (with a link to a peer-reviewed paper) from 5 years ago. Mind you, this was in reply to a comment of mine that was not even about AGW.
Assholes like that don't bother me very overmuch, but I have no doubt that the tactic drives a lot of people away.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:2, Insightful)
"You mean the time you trolled about the 'AGW religion'?"
If you mean the last time I mentioned comments like yours on Slashdot, the answer would be yes.
Hey! THANKS for giving everyone a good example of what I was talking about!
"It must be horrible to be insulted by so many mentally disabled clueless assholes..."
Nope. First, there aren't many. Just a very few like you, who do it over, and over, and over again. (Not to mention hiding behind sock-puppet AC comments.)
And second, it isn't horrible at all, to me. It just allows me to show others what clueless assholes you are. But I know other people who would not be able to put up with your harassment and bullshit.
Why don't you grow a pair and actually (A) use an account with a name on it, (B) actually refute an argument with some science, or (C) just go away and make everybody's life better?
Re:Forbes, WSJ others (Score:4, Insightful)
If it turns out it's the latter, we can ask some interesting questions., Since persuading people that climate change is not as the scientists represent it -a ticking time bomb we are running out of time to defuse and one whose consequences include the mass death of humans, is lying about climate science not the equivalent to shouting (no) fire in a crowded (and burning) theater?
The answer is an obvious "no". We are tired of loud-mouthed, would be thugs and bullies, such as yourself, trying to shape disagreement on the presence and severity of AGW as some some sort of "crime against humanity" - to use your own words.
The "shouting fire" example is fundamentally broken because there is no fire. There is a potential problem, yes, but the urgency just isn't there.
Could China or Japan or Germany or Russia or any other country just legally and unilaterally decide that say, David and Charles Koch represent too much of a threat to human civilization to permit them to go on living?
Well, some of those countries aren't based on law. So what is legal changes from moment to moment. And the countries of law such as Japan and Germany could not arbitrarily kill unpopular people because that would be illegal.
Laws exist to make society livable. They are defined according and in reaction to the environment. If that environment changes dramatically, then we can expect that near future generations of people will look back see the times we are living in now quite differently than we do, just the way we look back on slavery as an abomination or the post WWII generation of Germans were completely appalled at what their parents had done.
Well then, let us all work to prevent your dystopia from becoming a reality. Your role could be real easy or real hard - I really don't know. All I ask of you is to try to become a better person and put aside this pointless hate.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
The US, on the other hand, is a developed nation that has had decades to take care of its problems, and instead it's regressing. We need to tell the US to get their act together just as much as we need to for China.
Re:"blunder" is far too kind a word for it (Score:2, Insightful)
Black lie is what I call it. These scum knew what they were doing. They've been told, repeatedly, that they are wrong and why they are wrong, and they just dismiss and ignore everything and say those lies again anyway. They were printing propaganda.
Wait, which side are you talking about?
Re:Don't like the solution so the problem can't ex (Score:5, Insightful)
And. "But, but, but Feel Better Inside." is not an argument I care to hear.
Re:Have you looked at the evidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 ... Have you actually read the report?
I beg to differ. Even reading the Summary could be greatly beneficial for many of the victims of the disinformation campaign. The full WG1 report is a lot of reading. There's an overwhelming amount of science to get through and expecting non-specialists to tough it out is not entirely realistic. That, after all, is why the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) exists.
And the advantage is that on any area of science where you want to get your hands dirty, you can navigate from the SPM, into the the appropriate place of the Full Report proper and via the citations to the original publications in the scientific literature.
And on that point, don't waste your time right now reading the AR4 report. The AR5 report is due for release from the 27th of this month, starting with the SPM, from here [climatechange2013.org].
And the SPM makes it so easy for non-specialists to get a handle on the science, it's simply unforgivable for anyone who presumes to venture an opinion on this issue not to have digested it.
Re:Apologetic doesn't mean what you think (Score:5, Insightful)
One of these days I really hope they'll add a "I'm an idiot and want to indicate that I no longer stand by this comment" button here on Slashdot, since this is one of those moments for me. I stand corrected, and with good reason, since I was apparently just skimming the summary. Honestly and sincerely, thank you for calling me out on not reading it properly, since I definitely deserved to be called out on it. :)
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
"makes a nearly identical blunder' all over again"
It's not a "blunder" - he's figured out he can get paid for conferences and keep himself in the spotlight by doing this sort of thing.
Bottom line: He's a fraud.
Sad thing is, a lot of people are prepared to believe him and pay to listen to him. And the planet could be wrecked because of people like him.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Partly because when people post things here from some of those real scientists, they are insulted, harassed, and stuck with the label "denialist".
That's because well over 90% of the people who hold that viewpoint on slashdot are flat-out denialists.
We get people:
* Insisting there is some conspiracy or that scientists are in it for the money.
* Bringing up the same tired, well covered talking points ("scientists are so stupid they've forgotten about solar output").
* Attacking news and opinion articles and using this to "debunk" the actual science.
* Latching on to the shrieking shrill enviro-nuts and using that to "debunk" the science.
* Pretending that economic consequences of action say anything about the science,attacking proposed action and using that to "debunk" the science.
* Cherry picking the actions of one or two scientists and using this to "debunk" all the other scientists.
* Confusing scientists with everyone else arguing about it and using that to "debunk" the science.
That makes the majority.
You also get a few people:
* Massively cherry picking the data.
* Claiming that it's so complicated anyway that we can't know anything and therefore it is not warming or its not our fault or whatever.
* Ignoring the climate models actual predictions.
I invite you to find someone here who doesn't do all those things.
Re:Look over here, look over here! (Score:4, Insightful)
I submit your argument is moronic. The average American does not want to live like an average Kenyan and I suspect the average Kenyan does not live like the average Kenyan by choice. ( I am aware parts of Kenya are quite affluent and modern, but we are talking average which means the desperately poor areas pull the mean condition down a great deal).
In general the Environment is better served by affluence than poverty for a given population. Affluent people have resources to invest in things like waste water treatment, proper trash disposal, the replanting of forests, defense of nature preserves etc. Its politically fun to try and shame American's for polluting and energy consumption but it has mostly to do with how we generate electricity ( largely a function which natural resources happened to be abundant on our continent ) and all the driving we do ( largely a function of our nations physical size ). Measure something besides CO2 and we don't look to bad compared to anyone else.
No I think the problem is very much one of population. The CO2 envelope is a solvable problem or isn't at all if the number of people is small enough.