Spindoc

For some time I too have said the “debate” is no longer about the science – rather, it is being played out within the realm of a political, economic and socio-cultural ‘bun fight’.

I would like to ask a favour of you (provided you can afford the time and bandwidth) ... I think it important to your statement:

“This debate is binary, circular and (in particular) a zero sum game.”

Please look/listen to the following lecture videos from the MIT Sloan School of Management, I think they are very pertinent to the points you raise.

The first is by Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Director, Centre for Global Change Science and is Co-Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/509

The second (and I think most important to the mindset of “zero sum games”) talk is given by Professor John Sterman - it can be found about 18 minutes into the video.

He is also from MIT. His research includes systems thinking and organizational learning, computer simulation of corporate strategy, and the theory of nonlinear dynamics.

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/606

I will be away till next Monday; I look forward to your response when I return.

If you want to understand what being vindictive is, look at rpg’s and mil-observer's most recent comments.
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rpg

You are confusing me with somebody else – I don’t have a web site.

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mil-observer

You resort to ad hom, a typical response from you when you don’t understand or accept an alternate POV.

Yeah, it's obnoxious alright. Provoke with gratuitous smears against simple references to URLs, then cry "ad hom" when chastised! But I find that such sophist tactics characterize the entire "movement" of the AGW-groupthink cult...I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of the nasty and manipulative behaviorist tactics given to the faithful on its website, as alluded by rpg.

Quotes from Patterson: "and you know how it all got started: In 1988, Hansen came out with his model, which predicted, what was it? - a 10-degree celsius increase in the next 50 years or so? It was like the super-computer equivalent of a Nintendo 64 or something; it was ridiculous! His model was so simplistic, it would be a *joke* today! The grid sizes were huge! Who could put any credence in it? But everybody jumped on it, and they said "this is it, this is it!"

"...Ruddiman wrote a textbook a couple years ago: he's...a carbon dioxide guy, who came out with a silly paper a couple of years ago that suggested that early Indians and early Western Europeans lighting campfires, was what staved off the next Ice Age...Anyway, he wrote this textbook, and he said, basically, here's the way the process works: the geologists collect data, and then they provide some interpretation, and the modelers take the data, and they run the model. But if the model doesn't correspond to the geology for which it was supposed to be a predictive tool, if it couldn't reproduce it, then perhaps the geologist had collected the data wrong!. I was reviewing this textbook, and I made the guy take it out, because it was the silliest statement that was ever made. That basically, if you have real physical data, and someone does a model of it to predict the future, and the model doesn't correspond to the actual collected data, *then there's a problem with the actual collected data*!"

[One of Patterson's CVs is at http://www.globalwarmingheartland.com/expert.cfm?expertId=157]
"...professor of geology at Carleton University in Ottawa and a senior visiting fellow in the School of Geography at the Queen’s University of Belfast." etc.]

Well said spindoc. However, there are many things about the greenhouse science debate that almost all scientists would agree about. These include:
1 CO2, CH4 and water are all greenhouse gases.
2 Other factors such as changes in earth tilt, reflectivity of the land and sea surface and current and air circulation patterns will affect warming/cooling.
3 Both climate and CO2 levels have varied considerably in the past with temperature and CO2 level roughly rising and falling in line with each other. (Basis ice core and geological data.)
4 CH4 will be released as permafrost melts and may be released if a methane clathrate deposit is warmed to a critical temperature.
5 Atmospheric CO2 and CH4 are rising. Most of the recent CO2 rise is due to human activity.
6 CO2 levels in surface water is rising rapidly and, as a result, pH is falling. These changes may affect the viability of some species.
7 Greenland ice core data suggests that there have been some very sudden changes in temperature. (For example, a 10 deg C jumpapprox 10,500 yrs ago - see http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2004/262.html and a 12 deg C jump 14,700 years ago http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619142112.htm

However, there are important unknowns and areas of disagreement. For example:
1 We don't know whether a small increase in temperature could lead to a large surge in methane concentration.
2 We dont know how close we are to a sudden climate switch like those metioned in 7 above.
3 Climate modelling will struggle to pick rapid changes like the examples quoted in 7 above.

CONCLUSION: Climate and sea chemistry will change but we should be uncertain about timing, magnitude in significance of human activity.

However, this uncertainity doesn't mean we shouldn't be acting:
1 We should be reducing population and taking other action to deal with inevitable climate change no matter what the cause.
2. We should be doing things to reduce emissions that can be justified on other grounds. (Such as reducing our dependance on oil.)
3. We should be balancing the risks associated doing something vs doing nothing.

Q&A, thanks for the links (I watched both) and hope you had a good trip.

We agree that the debate is no longer about science? I have presented my reasoning in points 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. I await yours.

If your basis for this comment is like John Sterman who said climate change is here, the cause is GHG, and so what do we do about it? Then sadly we have no common ground.

I doubt that you actually agree with any of the points I made as evidenced by the MIT lectures you asked me to view which support your position. Not my position at all.

To be fair, if you do support my position that the debate is not about science, I assume that like me, all scientific references will in future, be banished.

I should mention that I spent 40 years attending and sometimes lecturing at business schools in London, Munich, Singapore, Sydney and many in the USA. Without exception each is driven, motivated and focused upon revenue from sales of “courseware”. Most senior lecturers then sell books on the various topics to government and business. Too old to be impressed or influenced by this but thanks anyway.

These MIT lectures were possibly the scariest I have been exposed to for some time. John Sterman actually stated that the public must be involved, because (they will share the pain), that science is not enough (read “good” enough) and the public must influence policy. WHAT?

I think that says it all really. What we have are two camps, for and against; science is indeed not good enough to break the nexus. So we have deliberately forced the scientific debate into an unqualified public domain so that we can do what? Scare the cr*p out of people, baffle us with pseudo-science, and then expect the public to drive rational policy?

This is utter madness.

rpg, mil-observer, vindictive? It’s a provocative debate, See point 8. And accept your share of the responsibility.

John D, points 2 & 3 agreed, why can’t we get these on the agenda?

Smaller and smarter. There are no definitive answers on the currant global fears, but we all know there’s a problem. How can we fix it, can we fix it, or are we all worrying for nothing?

Who is the smartest? a kangaroo or a human. Well the kangaroo is. Why, because even the roo knows when to stop breeding when drought spreads its death. But humans know the climate is changing and yet we continue to multiply. Why? Oh I get it! We just keep on gambling and sit back and deal with what-ever comes. And this will do you think?
A world population management system. Our numbers is what is crippling us and this planet; the numbers don’t lie only humans do. 9.2 billion! Don’t even think that our old systems will hold together, and not to mention a world with billions of unemployed and starving people. Woops I forgot, were already there, aren’t we. Reducing population fixes most problems on this planet today. Three billion people on this planet is perfect, totally in balance with everyone and thing and more vacancies that our future children once leveling school then walk strait into a waiting precision. This is a smaller and smarter world. Nature will give us all a little kick, but by then, because of the lack of contingency plans, it’s just too late.

Why is the world gambling? Cause it sees no other choice. Wrong. We do have a choice and one step at a time will do nicely. If there is no opportunity for future children, what is the point of having them condemned in a world of NO vacancies? So more and more of the youth just wonder around with nothing to do. Great plan. If all governments were to reduce its people and educate and train our existing peoples, while the death rate moves along nicely, you will see unemployment start to fall, waiting lists for medical, and all the things we see choking daily at a slow struggle, in fifty years its all gone.



EVO

Well said EVO3.