NASA Study Indicates Antarctica is Gaining More Ice Than It's Losing -

[Steve R.]

On a side note, as long as the Presidency is determined by majority vote, ...

The President is elected by the Electoral College, not by the majority of the popular vote cast.

If you want more than two major parties, then we need to change how the President is elected.

To achieve that objective we could consider a Parliamentary form of government where the President is elected by the Congress.

Of course, there may then be complaints that the President no longer reflects the "will of the people" since the person who would be elected President by the Congress would be a compromise agreeable to each political party.

 

[Frothingslosh]

The President is elected by the Electoral College, not by the majority of the popular vote cast.

Please show me where I referred to popular vote. Hint: I didn't. I operated under the expectation that anyone choosing to reply to my comment would have at least a basic understanding of the American electoral system, as otherwise theirs would be a completely pointless reply.

To achieve that objective we could consider a Parliamentary form of government where the President is elected by the Congress.

Of course, there may then be complaints that the President no longer reflects the "will of the people" since the person who would be elected President by the Congress would be a compromise agreeable to each political party.

That would be why I didn't suggest that in my post, despite my personal belief that a parliamentary system actually works better than the American system.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Personally, on the little side trip taken here, I would do away with ALL political parties. Outlaw them. Sadly, that would force people to actually think about the candidates and what they represent. If they didn't have the little party-name cubbyholes, they would not be able to decide among so many marginally qualified candidates and would probably not vote. Or they would be swayed by whatever advertising tickles their fancy the fanciest. Which means that technically NO candidate would ever actually be elected by a majority of the people, only by a plurality.

On the other topic, global whatever-we-are-calling-it (I'm flexible in that nomenclature), the issue is that bad science is bad science. Trying to say that a consensus exists says that a LOT of people have been either duped by skewed data or compromised by more grant money if only they go the way of the persons holding the grant money.

Here's another article regarding flawed data used to support a global warming study.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpLVRPJnL4M

I do not deny that our climate is changing. But so what? It has been changing one way or another since time immemorial. There are two questions that matter here.

First question: Do we know why? I believe that it is a matter of overlapping natural cycles that reinforce or counteract each other. We don't understand the cycles well enough to be able to prove this so no, we DON'T know why. But man-made greenhouse gases don't hold up their end of the bargain mechanistically.

Second question: What can/should we do about it? I don't know WHAT we can do about the weather. We can try to improve flood protection in vulnerable areas, but that won't stop the weather effects. That would be palliative rather than curative.

Given the implied inertia of the trends involved, I'm not sure that we could if we wanted to anyway. And NO, I do not mean "social inertia" in this case. I mean the physics-type inertia, the kind involving huge masses in motion to be affected by whatever we were going to do. Huge masses - like "planetary atmosphere sized masses" of non-homogeneous air.

 

[Vassago]

Even if we don't agree on why the climate is changing, is there really any argument that the world is becoming too polluted? Do we want to have a planet for generations that our families can enjoy? Can anyone really doubt that air pollution is a problem just as much as garbage pollution and landfill excess? We are destroying our planet, climate change or no.

What do we do about it?

 

[Galaxiom]

I do not deny that our climate is changing. But so what? It has been changing one way or another since time immemorial. There are two questions that matter here.

First question: Do we know why? I believe that it is a matter of overlapping natural cycles that reinforce or counteract each other. We don't understand the cycles well enough to be able to prove this so no, we DON'T know why.

So you guess that it is due to some kind of unknown natural cycle despite having nothing whatsoever to support your guess.

But man-made greenhouse gases don't hold up their end of the bargain mechanistically.

While the models that indicate that it is cause by manmade greenhouse gasses may not precisely replicate the observed changes they do correctly indicate the direction. The evidence is clearly on the side that climate is changing to due to human activity. Until the deniers can show some evidence, they are indulging in unsubstantiated speculation and should be ignored.

Second question: What can/should we do about it? I don't know WHAT we can do about the weather.

We cannot change the weather but there are certainly things that can and should be done to stop the change of the climate.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Until the deniers can show some evidence, they are indulging in unsubstantiated speculation and should be ignored.

As long one side has all the answers and the other side is to be ignored, well you can predict the outcome.

You see this behavior not only in science, you see it on college campuses and religion.

Substitute the word population control for climate control. Either way its population control.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

@Vassago:

While I am a skeptic on the cause of the climate issues, I stand side-by-side with you on the health effects of pollution. I have tried to make that clear in this and related discussions. When it comes to climate cause and effect, there are very few articles that don't use correlation. But correlation is not causation.

For the last 50+ years, however, strict mechanistic pathways of "pollution causing a specific disease" have been published. In my original training as a chemist, I worked with a professor who was researching specifics of phosphate-based pollutants and ways of more precisely detecting them in minute quantity quickly. FYI, the phosphates come up in certain weed killers. He wasn't my primary advisor but he WAS on my committee and he would "borrow" me when computer-related stuff came up.

So I'm all for cleaning up pollution. Not because it will help the climate; I'm not at all convinced about that. But it WILL help the long-term health of my grandsons. And I will hope that whether anyone agrees with me on climate issues, they will recognize that I want the same kind of cleanup they want. Just a different motive, but the same result.

 

[isladogs]

The BBC website today published a very clear summary of climate changes over the past 140 years or so together with other relevant data
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46384067

That article doesn't include the increase in Antarctic sea ice but there are many other articles which cover possible reasons for that. For example
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31052016/why-antarctica-sea-ice-level-growing-while-arctic-glaciers-melts-climate-change-global-warming
https://phys.org/news/2013-10-antarctic-sea-ice.html

It is of course worth noting that the decrease in Arctic sea ice is significantly greater than the increase in Antarctic sea ice

 

[Steve R.]

Surprising what one can run across when browsing. I ran accross the following video by Ivar Giaever "Global Warming is Pseudoscience". He causaly touched on a few points that I have been alluding to in the thread: Population Control - An inconvenient truth. So I was thrilled that he did so. Basically, Giaever contends that CO2 emissions are overrated as a principal cause of global warming and that we need to consider, in part, the (adverse) human effects on the environment. Such as: population increase, urbanization, and deforestation.

To clarify Giaever's theme a bit, he does not consider human impact to be significant either. What he does suggest, is that those who push global warming need to consider other possible contributors to global warming, such as human impact, but they ignore this potential factor.

Additionally, Giaever contends that if one takes a long view of the Earth's heating/cooling cycles, that the current rise in global temperatures is within "normal" patterns. He also tossed in the unanswerable concept of what is the ideal temperature of the Earth? So we shouldn't be going nuts over current climate change (global warming).

Since posting, this video popped-up: Lord Christopher Monckton - Global Warming is a Hoax

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Thanks for the references, Steve. It is time that more people publicly denounced the "poor practices" (I'll avoid calling it pseudoscience) of the "Global Warming" crowd.

 

[Galaxiom]

Ivar Giaver has zero credentials in anything related to climate science.
The rapidly rising temperatures are not within the normal patterns.
The notion of debating the ideal temperature of planet as though wormer might be better is a concept only raised by ignorant fools.

Monkton has no scientific credentials at all. Moreover he is a despicable person.

 

[AccessBlaster]

It appears young Frenchman would rather have a baguette on their table today, then worry about climate change tomorrow.

This has to be a heavy blow the to the religion.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Found this YouTube article that I think is relevant to the climate change talk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phaBUQ3NU1w

It will take about 5 1/2 minutes of your time. I knew that SOMEONE had to have looked at the long-term cycles. Now I've found something that makes sense to me based on tree ring history, ice cores, and other long-term observations. OK, I'll admit that I have a bias towards believing this article's premises and conclusions. But this kind of evidence is not so susceptible to chance correlations or accidental parallel correlations.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

And another one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7whL9jvdL5s

This one will take 6 minutes give or take a couple.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

And another one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiIPBnZCmVk

About 8 minutes.

 

[isladogs]

OK, I'll admit that I have a bias towards believing this article's premises and conclusions. But this kind of evidence is not so susceptible to chance correlations or accidental parallel correlations.

Doc

I did watch the last two videos you posted / discussed here & at the Mind Tavern. IIRC, the first was an interview on Fox with a scientist who had worked all his life for organisations such as the Cato Institute funded by the coal industry. The second was a talk by Ivar Gleavar who is a Nobel Physicist in quantum tunneling but with absolutely no experience or qualifications in climatology. Both were highly selective with the facts presented.

Its more than a bias. You have been selectively posting videos which are from climate change deniers and ignore any opposing evidence. I haven't watched any of these 3 videos yet but I would be very surprised if these are more balanced than the previous ones you posted

 

[Rx_]

OMG! CATO "funded by the coal industry". Really? LOL

Did you associate Cato's foundation assistance by the Koch brothers - so the research is automatically wrong?
Or is it because the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, gave a $25 million grant to the United Negro College Fund? President Obama personally and publicly recognized that it saved this valued institution.
Kochs gives to Nova(PBS) and Smithsonian Human Evolution among other institutions that freely promote generally one-sided global warming theory.

The School of Mines in Golden Colorado has huge support from all mining industries. Where does their research fall on a moral judgement?

What about the Royalty of England? in 1800 Britain produced about 90% of the world output of coal. The Royal Family did build up a nice tidy stash of profits that carried the family forward from that? The history there of children chained and abused are historic. Should we burn all of the research funded however small or indirect from this source too?

I think Tree rings are too short of a time period. Tree rings are affected by different aspects of CO2, sunlight (e.g. volcanic ash clouds), water and other factors. The research on our Sun, a variable star, counting all radiation including magnetic indicates a larger impact on the Earth. Of course that research is funded by NASA and other science groups that receive funds from taxing oil/gas, coal, and other sources. So lets ignore them too.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Another nail in the coffin of "man-made global warming"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA3OA_2S4QY

John Coleman, a meteorologist with some credentials on atmospheric science, points out that the models used for the global warming doom-and-gloom predictions have TOTALLY failed to predict global temperature profiles. Their model is WRONG and is (in the technical or scientific sense) DISPROVED. I.e. no correlation to reality.

 

[Galaxiom]

John Coleman, a meteorologist with some credentials on atmospheric science,

Coleman has no academic credentials in the field. He was a television weatherman.

He called the concept of climate change the "greatest scam in history", and said that "the polar ice is increasing, not melting away. Polar bears are increasing in number."[11][12] Critics have pointed out that each of these claims was wrong or misleading,[13] questioned his credibility due to his lack of relevant academic credentials, and said that he had not conducted any scientific research in the area of climate change.[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Coleman_(meteorologist)

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Galaxiom, the ultimate proof of this is to see what happens in 2019 and 2020. We should clean up toxic pollutants and if this also means cleaning up CO2 as a health issue, I am for it. But the math used by the gloom-and-doom crowd regarding global warming / global climate change simply DOES NOT PREDICT REALITY. The temperatures continue to diverge - downward - from the predictions made by those IPCC equations.

I think I have said all along that there were problems with the math. At the time, I was just uneasy and therefore uncertain. It made no sense to me. Now I know why.

The predictions on global warming were made based on the OLDEST FALLACY THERE IS. If you make a prediction using method XYZ, you presume that XYZ is appropriate for use in that context. But even a linear correlation would find a straight line across a buckshot dispersion pattern on graph paper. Math ALWAYS gives an answer. It is just that to get the right answer you have to use the right math.

When you look at historical temperature cycles, you realize that what happened was that the predictions were made on ONE SIDE of what is essentially a bell curve. What SHOULD have been analyzed using some variant of Fourier analysis was instead analyzed using some formula that presumed a logarithmic growth pattern. The error is that it focused on a NARROW subset of available long-term temperature data.

Early on in this discussion I knew that there was a problem in that people were neglecting Earth's natural temperature cycles based on solar activity. But I didn't have precise enough data. Someone else, however, DID - and some of those links I have included showed the long-term and short term cycles in proper context.

Greg, I have always been the skeptic. Now I feel that enough is on the table that I have a stronger feeling about my position. Al Gore was looking for an excuse to tax your carbon footprint because he's a tax-and-spend Democrat from the word GO. And it didn't hurt for him to get acclaim and recognition and lucrative speaking engagements out of the bargain. Mr. "I invented the Internet" has ALWAYS been full of himself and full of something else, too.