Politics Climate Change Paradox (cont in part 2)

[Bigfootyfan27]

I don't know why.

Do News and Fairfax have the story?

If they don't, maybe the story isn't real?

Oh you do know! Ones a tax payer funded propaganda network and other private funded

 

[Clems Knee]

So let see I ask you a question and you ignore the answer and change the subject instead. Is that much better than the obfuscation you are accusing others of?

Let's start afresh though. If you look at the poll results for this thread you will see that when I joined it I chose - "I'm undecided". I have said several times in this thread and the CC Arguing thread I am agnostic on the issue (#657).

I used to be basically an eco-fascist before becoming agnostic on the issue. I'm still agnostic. Some here have expressed disbelief in that statement based on my posts but I follow the principle that any hypothesis has to be testable and falsifiable. Climate models aren't falsifiable as many climate scientists have admitted. The fact that I have no confidence in the temperature record due to homogenisation and compromised temperature stations is another issue.

Another issue for me is that there seems to be a popular idea perpetuated that CO₂ levels are at an unprecedented high. In reality there has been periods when there has been 18 times the levels of CO₂ that we presently have, with no cars, factories etc around to blame for it. The levels can rise & fall markedly without mankind's help. Approximately 97% of CO₂ emissions are from natural sources. Thinking that by fiddling around with the remaining 3% of emissions for a gas that makes up 0.04% of our atmosphere, when many argue that CO₂ isn't the major driver of our climate, seems a bit silly.

CO₂ gets all the limelight whilst a GHG that exists in MUCH higher concentrations in our atmosphere (water vapour) gets largely ignored by AGW believers. The excuse most often given is that its effect is hard to quantify but the reality is that its effect is so large that it makes a nonsense any discussion of CO₂.
that

I said the following in this forum 11 years ago and no one has brought back anything to change my mind.



There might be some debate around the margins. For instance a percentage point one way or the other as far as CO₂ makeup in the atmosphere and how much is from anthropogenic sources but not the general thrust of what I'm saying.

P.S. I use the term alarmist every time someone accuses me of being a denialist despite me saying repeatedly that I'm agnostic. I would prefer to go back to being an eco fascist to be honest but no one has been able to solve the basic conundrum I have presented above. Maybe you will be "the one".

I assume your first comment was because I didn’t answer the question “which fires are because of climate change?”
How do you want me to answer that? With a list? I gave you a quote to show that the result of increased fires was predictable and predicted with climate models. To the year.

Climate change, like many other things is about probabilities. To name one incident and attribute it to a probabilistic cause would be a fallacy.

But that doesn’t mean the cause isn’t real. If the causes can be modellled and the models tested as true or false (ie the models are falsifiable), then they are useful science. These models have been worked on, assumptions made, tested and often discarded, since before I found out about them in the early 80s.

I understand that you are not convinced about temperature records and their validity. Do you have anything to back up these concerns? Like C-14 degradation, these things often take calibrating and a lot of work goes into making sure of the validity of such statements.

Water vapour is an interesting greenhouse gas isn’t it? It’s highly variable (and often ignored when percentage of air is described) and cycles through the atmosphere much more quickly than other greenhouse gases. With increasing temperatures it is likely to have a positive feedback effect on warming as greater evaporation might lead to more water vapour. Do you think the climate scientists haven’t included water vapour levels in their increasingly sophisticated models?

Carbon Dioxide gets the attention because it has increased by so much since the industrial revolution and has a clear measurable effect on radiant energy. You are right: It’s not the only greenhouse gas and sometimes the message gets simplified as carbon emissions, but it’s a leading cause of the change that we are now experiencing.
I believe, based on these models, that it’s only going to get worse.

The times when Carbon dioxide levels were much higher than now was a long time ago, back before the dinosaurs and at the time of the first land plants. We can be reasonably sure that on that timescale the radiant energy from the sun has also changed, making a comparison unuseful. We do know that the carbon dioxide levels were fairly constant over the last 800,000 years until the last 250 years. We can also attribute this steep and accelerating rise to human causes.

I don’t know where you got your percentage figures from? Looks like napkin maths to me (but happy to stand corrected).

Finally I see you have put a quote about alarmists in your signature. That’s hardly the way to carry out a rational discussion.

 

[Crankitup]

I assume your first comment was because I didn’t answer the question “which fires are because of climate change?”

I never asked you such a question. I think you have me confused with a different poster. Here is the question I asked you #4,071.

I understand that you are not convinced about temperature records and their validity. Do you have anything to back up these concerns?

Homogenisation of the temperature record. Cooling past records and in some cases deleting them altogether is the first concern. The next concern is poor temperature station citing and UHI effects. I've talked about this a few times. For example #1,701.

Water vapour is an interesting greenhouse gas isn’t it? It’s highly variable (and often ignored when percentage of air is described) and cycles through the atmosphere much more quickly than other greenhouse gases. With increasing temperatures it is likely to have a positive feedback effect on warming as greater evaporation might lead to more water vapour. Do you think the climate scientists haven’t included water vapour levels in their increasingly sophisticated models?

The IPCC themselves have admitted that water vapour is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The problem? You can't tax water vapour because humans have very little direct influence on the levels of atmospheric water vapour. To the extent that water vapour is accounted for in models it's garbage in garbage out I'm afraid. They only include it when it suits their claims of a positive feedback.

Carbon Dioxide gets the attention because it has increased by so much since the industrial revolution ...

You are probably basing that on pre industrial levels of around 290 or thereabouts I'm guessing. If so, what would you say if I were to show you strong evidence that the true levels were more like 330-340?

The times when Carbon dioxide levels were much higher than now was a long time ago, back before the dinosaurs and at the time of the first land plants.

Depends what you mean by much higher I suppose. The levels were 5 times what they are now during the Mesozoic. I would say that's much higher than now. Then again the levels have been 3 times as much as they were in the Mesozoic before the dinosaurs so it's all relative I guess.

I don’t know where you got your percentage figures from? Looks like napkin maths to me (but happy to stand corrected).

Tell me which figure you have a problem with and I'll back it up with some sources.

Finally I see you have put a quote about alarmists in your signature. That’s hardly the way to carry out a rational discussion.

Fair criticism at face value. I changed my signature after a couple here kept continually responding to my well-reasoned arguments with ad hom attacks. I though it might temper their enthusiasm for that lazy approach but if anything it did the opposite, so I may well change it soon.

 

[Crankitup]

 

[romeohwho]

Lol-just gobsmacking to see how invested the deniers are in remaining clueless. You actually have to sorry for them.
Well, don’t feel sorry for scomo. Helpful if he could just take himself on an extended holiday though, so someone with a clue can take charge.

 

[HairyO]

The Garnaut report got it right in 2008. And he was an economist.
“Fire seasons will start earlier, end later and be more intense. This effect increases over time but should be directly observable by 2020.”

Can you give me evidence to back up your assertion that 1968 was worse across Australia than this season? If it’s in The Australian, you’d have to quote for me so as to get around the paywall.

Are you really comparing the death rate of the 1890’s, when medicine and technology (ie Science) had not progressed to the point of motorised fire engines and pumps to now??

1968 was worse in NSW. It started in September. This fire season started in late November.

1957 fire season started in October.

There is literally nothing happening now which hasnt happened before.

The reason why we are seeing so many fires now is because of media coverage and arsonists. The more there is talk of catastrophic weather conditions the more of them start fires because they know they will burn so well.

 

[Deliverance]

Geoff Walker is a journalist, author, life member and former president and deputy captain of Lemon Tree Passage Bushfire Brigade

Geoff Walker is also published on Christine Finlay's personal website. Conflict of interest much?

It wasnt just about feminism, and it was for her doctorate of philosophy.

Dr. Christine Finlay, (PhD, Bushfire Management, UNSW; BA Hons, Disaster Management, JCUNQ; BA UNSW)

Whats your qualifications regarding climate and Australian bushfires?

I'm interested to know.

She has a Bachelor of Arts and a PHD thesis in Sociology & Anthropology. If she's your leading light, I'm sorry, but I just can't take you seriously. I'll continue to take my information around climate science from scientists. I'm not putting you on ignore (that's not my style), but I only have a finite amount if time on this planet and I won't be using any more of it on you. Sorry.

 

[romeohwho]

1968 was worse in NSW. It started in September. This fire season started in late November.

1957 fire season started in October.

There is literally nothing happening now which hasnt happened before.

The reason why we are seeing so many fires now is because of media coverage and arsonists. The more there is talk of catastrophic weather conditions the more of them start fires because they know they will burn so well.

This is simply incorrect. The scale of bushfires at this stage of the season hasn’t happened before. The bushfires have not covered such an area nor occurred all at the same time like this before. The growing economic impact from the prolonged burning hasn’t happened like this, before.

 

[HairyO]

This is simply incorrect. The scale of bushfires at this stage of the season hasn’t happened before. The bushfires have not covered such an area nor occurred all at the same time like this before. The growing economic impact from the prolonged burning hasn’t happened like this, before.

Because more people are out lighting fires than ever before.

Nearly 200 people have been charged. And there will be hundreds more being investigated.

That has nothing to do with climate.

The fuel load levels are about the same as they were in 2009. The weather conditions are less dangerous than they were in 1968.

 

[TheWoodenSlug]

Crankitup, I'll explain it to you in basic year 10 mathematics, the simple stuff they teach kids before you get to derivative calculus.

If the measure of say, carbon dioxide in the air at time T is C0, and at an interval T+t where t is measured in years, is C1, then the increase can be calculated as C1-C0, ie

ΔC = C1 - C0.

Where does ΔC come from? Well if the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from natural sources per year is Cn, from anthropogenic sources per year is Ca and the amount sequestered per year is Cs, then:

ΔC = (Cn + Ca - Cs) × t, where t is the number of years.

However, Cn, Cs, and Ca are not constant. They vary through time. So more accurately, we can calculate C1 as


View attachment 802611

Where Cn, Ca, and Cs are all time variant. If Cn ⋍ Cs over time (why would they not be) then the contribution to ΔC can be said to be almost entirely anthropogenic, even if Ca is only a fraction of Cn.

Do you understand?

I undersood it up until you introduced that funky looking E symbol - what does that represent? Is it basically saying that as time increases the value of 'n' increments, meaning as time goes on the result of n x (Cn + Ca - Cs) gets larger and larger?

Been a long time since I studied year 10 maths...

 

[its free real estate]

View attachment 802612

Reinventing history again I see. We never went over whether you had confused carbon monoxide with carbon dioxide because you never answered my question on that point => #2,990. In fact you dodged or ignored that specific issue on a number of occasions e.g. #1,812 & #1,818. What we DID go over was your subsequent mental gymnastics in trying to justify your repeated statements that carbon dioxide was a toxic poison in the context of a discussion about climate change.



No. That's not what I did. You're trying to reinvent history again. What I said was this #1,824.

I’m not reinventing anything. You seem lack basic reading comprehension, in addition to you mathematical illiteracy it’s a wonder why you are so forthright in your opinions.

 

[its free real estate]

I undersood it up until you introduced that funky looking E symbol - what does that represent? Is it basically saying that as time increases the value of 'n' increments, meaning as time goes on the result of n x (Cn + Ca - Cs) gets larger and larger?

Been a long time since I studied year 10 maths...

It’s a sum formula. It’s not a simple multiplication because each of the C measures vary as a function of n. If the Cn and Cs values net out to near zero (as you would expect them to) then the change to the total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is simply the sum of all human contributions.

 

[TheWoodenSlug]

It’s a sum formula. It’s not a simple multiplication because each of the C measures vary as a function of n. If the Cn and Cs values net out to near zero (as you would expect them to) then the change to the total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is simply the sum of all human contributions.

I understand the bolded - and it makes sense to me - I was just trying to understand what that symbol represented.

Rather than n x (Cn + Ca - Cs), could it instead be written as (n x Cn) + (n x Ca) - (n x Cs)?

If not, I'll give up and just accept my limited understanding of maths concepts!

 

[Andrew Birch]

1968 was worse in NSW. It started in September. This fire season started in late November.

1957 fire season started in October.

There is literally nothing happening now which hasnt happened before.

The reason why we are seeing so many fires now is because of media coverage and arsonists. The more there is talk of catastrophic weather conditions the more of them start fires because they know they will burn so well.

Because more people are out lighting fires than ever before.

Nearly 200 people have been charged. And there will be hundreds more being investigated.

That has nothing to do with climate.

The fuel load levels are about the same as they were in 2009. The weather conditions are less dangerous than they were in 1968.

Your facts and common sense have no business here.

 

[Bazzar]

Because more people are out lighting fires than ever before.

Nearly 200 people have been charged. And there will be hundreds more being investigated.

That has nothing to do with climate.

The fuel load levels are about the same as they were in 2009. The weather conditions are less dangerous than they were in 1968.

Last night figures mentioned on the radio was 182 charged with arson ( thats only QLD, NSW and VIC) since the first day of summer, 1st Dec.

 

[its free real estate]

That “200 people have been charged” figure is ludicrous. The overwhelming majority of them have been charges on not obeying total fire ban restrictions, not fires that have been deliberately lit.

More mythmaking from the denialists!

 

[Andrew Birch]

Last night figures mentioned on the radio was 182 charged with arson ( thats only QLD, NSW and VIC) since the first day of summer, 1st Dec.

Correct

NoCookies | The Australian

www.theaustralian.com.au

 

[Bazzar]

1968 was worse in NSW. It started in September. This fire season started in late November.

1957 fire season started in October.

There is literally nothing happening now which hasnt happened before.

The reason why we are seeing so many fires now is because of media coverage and arsonists. The more there is talk of catastrophic weather conditions the more of them start fires because they know they will burn so well.

One of NSW biggest fire months on record was Dec 1974, strangely enough it was also one of Australias wettest years on record, as was the previos year. (And Cyclone Tracey)

No climate change/drought conection there.


Started wet-
January 1974 is also the wettest month since before 1900 over the following sub-regions of Australia:

• Queensland with an average of 464.18 millimetres (18.27 in) (163 millimetres or 6.42 inches more than previous record from January 1918)[3]
• the Northern Territory with 320.47 millimetres (12.62 in)[4]
• the Murray-Darling Basin with 167.42 millimetres (6.59 in)[5]

Finished wet-
Averaged over Australia, 1974 is by far the wettest year since 1890 with an annual average of 759.65 millimetres (29.91 in),[6] which some former estimates had as high as 784 millimetres (30.87 in).[7] It beat the previous record of 1950 by 144.06 millimetres (5.67 in).[6]


74/75 bushfires - State/region - Acres - hectares

1974 Moolah-Corinya bushfires, Far West NSW

New South Wales

1,117,000

2,760,000

Mid-December 1974

1974 Cobar bushfire

New South Wales

1,500,000

3,700,000

Mid-December 1974

1974 Balranald bushfire

New South Wales

340,000

840,000

Mid December 1974

1974–75 New South Wales bushfires

4,500,000

11,000,000

1974–1975 season

1974–1975 South Australia bushfires		17,000,000	42,000,000	1974–1975 season			[73]
1974–1975 Western Australia bushfires		29,000,000	72,000,000	1974–1975 season

1974–1975 Queensland bushfires

7,500,000

19,000,000

1974–1975 season

1974–1975 Northern Territory bushfires

45,000,000

110,000,000

1974–1975 season

 

[its free real estate]

Correct

NoCookies | The Australian

www.theaustralian.com.au

Incorrect.

 

[Clems Knee]

I never asked you such a question. I think you have me confused with a different poster. Here is the question I asked you #4,071.



Homogenisation of the temperature record. Cooling past records and in some cases deleting them altogether is the first concern. The next concern is poor temperature station citing and UHI effects. I've talked about this a few times. For example #1,701.



The IPCC themselves have admitted that water vapour is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The problem? You can't tax water vapour because humans have very little direct influence on the levels of atmospheric water vapour. To the extent that water vapour is accounted for in models it's garbage in garbage out I'm afraid. They only include it when it suits their claims of a positive feedback.



You are probably basing that on pre industrial levels of around 290 or thereabouts I'm guessing. If so, what would you say if I were to show you strong evidence that the true levels were more like 330-340?



Depends what you mean by much higher I suppose. The levels were 5 times what they are now during the Mesozoic. I would say that's much higher than now. Then again the levels have been 3 times as much as they were in the Mesozoic before the dinosaurs so it's all relative I guess.

Tell me which figure you have a problem with and I'll back it up with some sources.

Fair criticism at face value. I changed my signature after a couple here kept continually responding to my well-reasoned arguments with ad hom attacks. I though it might temper their enthusiasm for that lazy approach but if anything it did the opposite, so I may well change it soon.

Okay I did get you mixed up. The question you actually asked was even more facile. I read about a dozen pages, as I often do when I come late to a thread. The opening page, a few in, then the last six or so. I skipped quite a few more, when it was apparent that two posters were arguing about semantics.

I don’t know enough about the assumptions in the models. I am not an expert, but my best friends are ecologists (though they give themselves other titles - no jobs in ecology). When I looked at this first in the 80s the number of assumptions and parameters in the models I investigated were very large. Computers at the time struggled to perform the calculations necessary to construct the models.

There were (from memory) about 30 models that I looked at. The predictions ranged from nothing to worry about here: carry on, to the world is doomed. In the next 30+ years, more feedback effects have been added to the models as they have been discovered, and changes that were predicted have calibrated the more accurate models and discarded the inaccurate ones. I would be amazed if water vapour changes as a result of carbon emissions were not factored in the models. If you can find that information, I would be very interested. But even so, the current models have shown themselves to be good predictors.

All the models that were conservative in their outlook had no predictive value. The scary ones were good to excellent predictors of events. I think climate scientists have endeavoured to be too even handed. They should have been screaming worse case scenarios from the rooftops back then. It worked for the millennium bug - enough funding went into fixing that potential problem that it never became one. Because those scientists used scientific language and hedged their bets, they became easier to ignore.

 

[Andrew Birch]

Nobody does #fakenews quite like the American leftist MSM.

 

[JackOutback]

Lol-just gobsmacking to see how invested the deniers are in remaining clueless. You actually have to sorry for them.
Well, don’t feel sorry for scomo. Helpful if he could just take himself on an extended holiday though, so someone with a clue can take charge.

And unlike clowns of past generations, the internet and twitter means these idiots have put their bullshit in writing. They will be roundly mocked for their stupidity in years to come.

 

[This Is Anfield]

And unlike clowns of past generations, the internet and twitter means these idiots have put their bullshit in writing. They will be roundly mocked for their stupidity in years to come.

Won't we all be dead??

 

[HairyO]

That “200 people have been charged” figure is ludicrous. The overwhelming majority of them have been charges on not obeying total fire ban restrictions, not fires that have been deliberately lit.

More mythmaking from the denialists!

So if I light my backyard bbq I get charged with arson ?

Or do I get charged with something more along the lines of "lighting a backyard bbq on a total fireban day" ?

 

[its free real estate]

So if I light my backyard bbq I get charged with arson ?

Or do I get charged with something more along the lines of "lighting a backyard bbq on a total fireban day" ?

Most of those reported charges aren’t arson, you are being lied to if you have been told otherwise.