Deep South Deep Freeze (1 Viewer)

[The_Doc_Man]

Then why do you disregard any and all experimental evidence and observational results that don't meet your preconceived notions?

I am a SKEPTIC, not an outright denier. "Preconceived notions" come in multiple flavors.

I have this preconceived notion that when the standard error of the estimate (a statistical function) is very large and the magnitude of the thing being estimated is much smaller, you have bad data and are potentially stretching the statistics in a way that they should not be stretched. Stated another way, when you are making trend-line predictions based on correlation coefficients that aren't above 0.67, the probability that your estimate is right works out to less than 50%. One of the things I had to learn when I earned my degrees was the statistics that we had to use so often. One of the things my major graduate advisor was big on was determining that the statistics didn't undercut the findings. That's how peer-reviewed papers get laughed into oblivion.

I have this preconceived notion that deconvoluting multiple simultaneous trends to isolate a single factor that is not the largest contributor to the effect under study makes for questionable findings. Particularly when other factors have wide variability as well, and the models in question do NOT make it clear how those multiple effects combine. Among other things, when you have a multiplicity of factors, you have to ask whether you are using a good model and what happens if another factor is discovered.

I have this preconceived notion that when lots of money is out there to be made, even the ivory-tower scientists develop this "survival" streak and publish papers favorable to the goals of those who make that money available. Sadly, "publish or perish" exists as a factor, and this global climate issue is a hot-button topic that allows researchers to make money, get grants, and meet publishing goals for their institutions. Which means that they can - and unfortunately sometimes do - omit some factors from their computations. I.e. incomplete research. The contradictory findings and multiple articles that don't always include the same factors make me pause. I.e. skepticism.

I actually DO NOT have a preconceived bias regarding whether global climate change is man-made or natural. BUT the Null Hypothesis says that when a claim is made (in this case, the man-made climate effects claim), logic and the scientific method demand skepticism until a certain level of proof can be provided. At the moment, I remain in the skeptical category, looking for other types of evidence than what has been published.

Am I saying that this effect CANNOT be man-made? NO. Am I saying that it is soundly proved to be correct? NO. The word "skeptic" (at least in this context) means I don't see enough compelling evidence for the specific question at hand.

I normally don't do this because I'm thick-skinned, but Frothy, ...

It baffles me that you were able to earn a doctorate with that kind of behavior.

That is an argumentum ad hominem attack that is unworthy of you. I leave it to your imagination as to whether it is possible that I might have a mean-spirited rejoinder available regarding my level of education and experience vs. others. But I try to keep it civil, so will avoid the name-calling. But I'll also point out that attempting a "shame" attack on someone usually means you have realized that all your other arguments are too weak to be useful.

 

[Mike375]

Another issue I have in the "bullshit factor" department is the greenies in Australia want us to be all driving electric cars.

Can you imagine the increase in each person's Kilowatt/Hours if charging their car each night ..... I don't think windmills will handle that load

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Frothy:

As to my Al Gore comments, HOLY CRAP, it was said with tongue in cheek. I even used the closest emoticon I knew to use in that context to SHOW it was posted in a joking manner!!!!

AND it was a response to AccessBlaster's comment, not about anything you said, so it should not have been taken as a "dig" of any kind.

Frothingslosh, go get your self a cup of hot chocolate or tea or coffee or SOMETHING. Please don't make yourself so angry that you pop a gasket. Despite the spirited nature of this discussion, having you get ill over this is not on my list of desirable things. Seriously.

 

[Vassago]

But why is Australia subsidising windmills while exporting huge amounts of coal?

We continually get rammed down our throat the climate change deal and the Paris agreement and while we subsidise windmills in Australia we flood China and India etc. with coal? Something not right here.

If the CO2 problem is global then shouldn't Australia cease to export coal? What possible good comes from Gov't subsidised windmills in Australia when our coal is still being burnt in record amounts. In short if Australia went 100% wind and solar it will make zero difference as our coal is still burnt.

Maybe it is not a global problem?

That is still politics, not science. Of course they would look to make money.

 

[Frothingslosh]

An ad hominem attack would be me calling you a blooming idiot, a traitor, or the like. You know, the kinds of things Nautical Gent has specialized in lately.

My statement of a personal opinion - that your repeated pattern of disregarding any and all facts and analysis that doesn't match your pre-existing beliefs (which I have commented on since LONG before this topic was created) leaves me baffled that you were ever able to earn a PhD (which REQUIRES learning things that you may not agree with) - is not an ad hominem attack. It could be argued that the assertion that you disregard those facts and analysis is one, save for the fact that your entire posting history on controversial topics supports the assertion. My own statement that I find that behavior utterly at odds with the requirements to earn a doctorate, however, is NOT a personal attack. It wasn't even a 'shame' attack, as you put it, but just a statement.

It also baffles me that people actually expected Trump to be anything other than venal and utterly corrupt. Is that, now, a personal attack on everyone who voted for Trump?

And man, you've seen me upset. You know how I get when I'm upset. Today's posts weren't even at 'slightly irritated'. Posting an explanation debunking that idiotic, hyper-partisan 'Al Gore said he invented the internet' meme doesn't mean I'm angry; it just means that I wanted to debunk it.

About the closest I came to being upset was when I mocked your 'SOME people don't believe in climate science'* line, and that was basically an eye-roll.

*Paraphrased, before NG gets his panties in a bunch.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

My statement of a personal opinion - that your repeated pattern of disregarding any and all facts and analysis that doesn't match your pre-existing beliefs (which I have commented on since LONG before this topic was created) leaves me baffled that you were ever able to earn a PhD (which REQUIRES learning things that you may not agree with) - is not an ad hominem attack.

I DO NOT DISREGARD the evidence to which you refer. However, I see conflicting evidence which makes me take the position I have taken. And THAT absolutely IS what a trained researcher does. When there appears to be flaws in the evidence, you DON'T JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON! You wait for more (in this case better) evidence.

YOU DON'T GET IT. Frothy, I will avoid vulgarities here. I'll state it simply and factually, and you have to take my word that this is what I feel. There is some evidence to support the climate-change-as-Man's-evil hypothesis. But it is not totally compelling to me, perhaps because I actually HAVE done research that led to non-consistent results.

My original doctoral subject was on inorganic electron spin resonance in a highly complex metal oxide crystal. Turned out that it wasn't worth a dissertation. Wasn't even worth a big research article. My advisor and I had to change directions because the facts were not there.

My second subject was to attempt to deconvolute the formation of a complex class of inorganic compounds known as hetero-poly acids. We studied the formation of one of the minerals that gives the oil paint "vanadium yellow" its color (and name). That involves multiple reactions in a witch's brew of chemicals. I worked out a mechanism from observing one observable (light absorption vs time) to perform rate studies to show dependencies on each of multiple components. And I found a consistent mechanism that could be tested - and was. I earned my doctorate by using inferential methods on limited observables in a complex environment. I understand EXACTLY what it means to try to pick apart multiple factors that contribute to a single observable.

DON'T YOU EVER impugn my abilities. And you might not have thought your words were argumentum ad hominem - but that is how they came across to me. Name-calling, I could ignore. I worked on Bourbon Street as a musician. You wouldn't BELIEVE some of the names I was called, and some of the offers that were made to me, which I uniformly declined. I can take a lot of name calling. But what I did to get my degree was honest academic work. Don't tell me I didn't deserve it. And don't tell me why I should believe something. Belief in science is like belief in religion. Either you believe it or you don't, and nothing but better evidence will change your mind.

My mind is made up right now. Not that the man-made climate change hypothesis is wrong. Not that it is right. But that the current evidence is not adequate. So believe it or not, I remain open-minded. But not to being insulted that I should believe something because some other scientists believe it. Science is NOT A GAME OF CONSENSUS. It is a game of evidence. And I have stated my position on the current evidence.

 

[NauticalGent]

Paraphrased, before NG gets his panties in a bunch.

I would respond to this but I need to get ready for work. Millions on welfare, including the owner of the quote are depending on me...

 

[The_Doc_Man]

This is devolving quickly into a "yes-it-is/no-it-isn't" situation. I have no interest in such a discussion. My respects and regards to all, and I apologize that what was intended to be a simple observation suddenly became so contentious.

It's after midnight here. Time for some shut-eye.

 

[Galaxiom]

Another issue I have in the "bullshit factor" department is the greenies in Australia want us to be all driving electric cars.

Can you imagine the increase in each person's Kilowatt/Hours if charging their car each night ..... I don't think windmills will handle that load

Completely changing technologies overnight would certainly cause issues. However implementation at a sensible pace will work. The onslaught of base load renewable technologies has just begun while coal-fired power continues to become ridiculously more expensive.

Moreover, there is already a vast unused "off peak" capacity in the electrical grid that could be used to charge batteries.

Electric cars cost a fraction of the running costs of internal combustion engines. They will inevitably become the norm as their manufacturing cost plummets with engineering reaching maturity and production volumes increasing.

As autonomous vehicles also become the norm there will be far less car ownership. Users will subscribe to services, booking an appropriate car for a specific purposes and it will arrive by itself when required. This will vastly reduce the numbers of cars required and eliminate problems with parking in CBDs. The cars will manage their own charging as required.

Every major vehicle manufacturer in the world is developing autonomous electric models and phasing out all fossil fuel powered cars within a decade.

Call it "bullshit" if you will but all that will do is prove you are totally out of touch with a future that is arriving much faster than you realise.

 

[Galaxiom]

Then there are the piles of bullshit from the left and lefty media. Australia is one of the largest exporters of coal but what difference does it make if that coal is burnt in Australia as opposed to India and China but the left are all on about Australia reducing our coal burning. Maybe it is not "global"

Of course coal burning is global factor wherever the furnaces.

Tragically we have a government in Australia that is completely at the behest of the fossil fuel industry.

"The left" (those who want something left to live in) are opposing coal technology at every level from mining onward. The export needs to be stopped. Have you not noticed the continuous campaign against the construction of the disastrous Adani mine in central Queensland?

Meanwhile China is installing renewable energy faster than any other country in the world.

 

[Galaxiom]

Another reason, at least for me, is I think man made carbon dioxide is 3% and thus if we eliminate all man made carbon dioxide then we reduce CO2 in the air by 3%. Off had can you think of anything where 3% makes a difference unless you are already at a threshold.

How very insightful Mike but your analysis is not quite correct. The three percent human contribution to emissions accumulates year by year due to the very slow return path of the carbon cycle back into the ground. All of this three percent exceeds what is normally returned in the previously in equilibrium condition.

Consequently the atmospheric carbon dioxide level has reached 400 ppm, up by almost fifty percent from pre-industrial levels. Each year it accumulates more quickly than the year before. Half of this increase has happened in the last thirty years.

Scientists can determine the contribution of fossilised carbon to this increase by analysing the isotopic ratios, leaving no doubt that the rise is attributed to the burning of fossilised carbon. The rise is confirmed as human induced by being proportional to the rate of burning. About sixty percent of the carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

Fortunately carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas so we have not increased the retention of heat by fifty percent or it would be all over already.

However, any extra greenhouse contribution does increase the global temperature above the long established equilibrium which is exactly what has happened and will continue to happen more quickly as atmospheric carbon levels increase more quickly.

So yes, as you say, a three percent increase will only make a difference to a system at a threshold. However any system in equilibrium is already at a threshold.

We increase the temperature by continuing to use the atmosphere is a waste dump.

Please look at this graph on this page.
https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/

See how the carbon dioxide levels fit the glacial cycles. Global temperatures should be declining. They aren't. Do you really believe temperature and carbon dioxide levels are not related?

 

[Galaxiom]

when you are making trend-line predictions based on correlation coefficients that aren't above 0.67, the probability that your estimate is right works out to less than 50%.

Among other things, when you have a multiplicity of factors, you have to ask whether you are using a good model and what happens if another factor is discovered.

The climate model correlations are lower than we would like because they project temperature rises LOWER than are observed. Each time new factors are found they turn out to be more positive feedback effects that need to be accounted.

Meanwhile skeptics have not been able to point to even one unaccounted natural factor that could be causing the change. For them it is all about some mythical factor that cannot be pointed to.

As such they don't even have a basis to come up with any correlation coefficients at all to back their hypotheses. Consequently the limited and continually improving correlations we have stand for a lot more than you would have a us believe.

The very best science we have shows that the relationship is extremely probably causal and there are no alternative explanations. Yet skeptics insist that it is responsible take no action. It isn't just dumb, it's corrupt and immoral.

Skeptics are not driven by caution but by greed, willing to jeopardise the future of the planet because they are too downright greedy to pay for change which will cost far less now that any attempt to adapt in the future.

Sadly too many justify greed as "economic necessity".

Agriculture sometimes needs that cheap labor force. Back before the U.S. Civil War, it was based on slave labor. OK, that was bad - but it was an economic necessity at the time.

So the US will continue to consume most of the planet's resources and burn fossil fuels, destroying the ability of others to live at all and pretend their blatant greed is "economic necessity". Well spare a thought for the billions who need you to change your attitude as a "life necessity".

The least you can do after building your initial wealth on the backs of people stolen from these countries and forced to work for your "economic necessity", is to spend some of that wealth paying your way for once.

 

[Frothingslosh]

I would respond to this but I need to get ready for work. Millions on welfare, including the owner of the quote are depending on me...

Yep, panties bunched. I guess it's better than him crying at me again.

 

[NauticalGent]

Now now, don't bite the hand(s) that feed you. Just say thank you and be on your way...

 

[Frothingslosh]

Doc, let me explain something here.

I will say what I damned well want to say. And from what I have seen here and in multiple other threads is that you regularly, even routinely, disregard any and all facts that don't match your preconceived ideas, while embracing any distortion that will let you retain those biases intact, or even embracing ignorance if that's what it takes. And that is absolutely not just based on this particular thread.

It doesn't matter if its overwhelming evidence PROVING that climate change is being overwhelmingly affected by humanity, eight different GOP investigations proving that your continued allegations against Clinton (which, by the way, come straight from Faux News and Infowars) are, in fact, false, or an attempt to explain a political concept you obviously don't know a thing about; every time you have refused to accept any argument, fact, or evidence that contrasted with your personal beliefs.

I don't CARE that you had to change your dissertation because you initially chose a bad one. I can almost guarantee, however, that you weren't invested in the physical and chemical properties vanadium, and thus had no preconceived bias to slant your results, so your argument is, at best, a straw man: "I researched how one element affects a number of compounds, therefore I never disregard evidence that disagrees with my political beliefs."

I mean, hell, all the links you provide are from a 'think-tank' funded by and acting as a mouthpiece for the tobacco, coal, and oil industries. Nearly every belief I have EVER seen you espouse here is word-for-word identical to the official Republican party line, regardless of actual evidence, and never, not ONCE, have I seen you shift even an inch from those party lines. (I will freely admit that your stances on religion and Trump being an outstanding president are breaks from the usual GOP line.)

You obviously weren't always like that - your rejection of religion for atheism indicates that you at least used to be able to change your beliefs to fit observational results, but you sure as anything come across that way now. So as long as you keep rejecting out of hand all evidence that doesn't match your pre-existing beliefs, I'm going to keep calling you on it.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Now now, don't bite the hand(s) that feed you. Just say thank you and be on your way...

Aww, what's the matter, are your feelings hurt because you were told your joke was offensive? Poor little guy. I never realized that mocking poor people was so central to your sense of self-worth that being challenged on it would utterly devastate you.

Also, I'm definitely curious how an expatriate who doesn't use my company's products thinks he is in any way feeding me. Apparently you're delusional as well as having your panties all bunched up.

Finally, your tears are delicious.

 

[NauticalGent]

A slow learner I see. I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an un-armed snow-flake whose only use to society is a good argument for abortion. Moving on...

 

[Frothingslosh]

NG, You may as well move on. "I should be able to mock whomever I want without anyone ever being allowed to call me out for it" is NOT an argument you will ever win, and to be quite frank, your insults to me in this thread were neither irksome nor interesting. They suffered from a complete lack of creativity, originality, and, for lack of a better term, 'nettlesome-ness'. (Come on Galaxiom, show me up, provide the word I'm looking for!) At least CE's insults dig at my sense of patriotism, and BR could always get a response by explaining that Liberalism is pure, unadulterated Evil dwarfing even that of the Holocaust.

"I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person" and "You're a good argument for abortion" are things we used in grade school, for crying out loud. At least spice them up next time, a-la: "There's no point in talking to Nautical Gent, since he's obviously a microcephalic Neanderthal on the run from a long-overdue abortion."

***

And Doc, thinking about it, basically, my statement that initially pissed you off so badly was never meant as an ad hominem, regardless of how you took it, but simply as an observation along the lines of 'I don't see how such an intelligent person can be so incredibly resistant to new evidence'. In no way, shape, or form, was it intended to in any way count as an argument against your position on climate change itself, and you'll note that I never actually used it as such. It was, if anything, simply a derail and, quite frankly, an expression of disbelief. Or as you put it, "you're better than that".

 

[The_Doc_Man]

you regularly, even routinely, disregard any and all facts that don't match your preconceived ideas, while embracing any distortion that will let you retain those biases intact

Say what you wish. If that is what you think of me, fine. I am what I am and at age (within a month of) 70, won't be changing very much. Love me, hate me, cling to my words, or ignore me. I do the best I can with what meager talents I have.

all the links you provide are from a 'think-tank' funded by and acting as a mouthpiece for the tobacco, coal, and oil industries.

Which is why I provided some other links. I understand that Heartland has agendas. The agenda of the Liberals who selectively fund this type of research and DE-fund those who can't agree with them is ALSO known.

you at least used to be able to change your beliefs to fit observational results

Still am, but my problem with THESE observational results has been stated. I won't re-hash that conversation.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Another issue I have in the "bullshit factor" department is the greenies in Australia want us to be all driving electric cars.

Can you imagine the increase in each person's Kilowatt/Hours if charging their car each night ..... I don't think windmills will handle that load

Not to mention the increase of
sulfuric acid
lead dioxide
polypropylene resin
powdered sulfates and many other compounds.
Spewed into the 3rd world.

As long as little kids in Asian countries are assembling these for a cheep price, the so called progressives will keep the supply lines going for electric cars and gadgets.

Yeah they care about the planet.