Voices from the Flats – Ship Bright
Welcome back to Voices from the Flats contributor, Ship Bright.
He is the proprietor of the blog Fresh[water] ideas for a thirsty planet that is devoted to educating and inspiring people from all walks of life around the world to understand the freshwater issues we face as a global community, and to take action locally.
Ship Bright is a conservation entrepreneur whose experience in the private, public, and nonprofit/non-governmental organization [NGO] sectors gives him a unique perspective on economic and environmental issues. Ship has earned an MBA from University of Southern New Hampshire as well as an MPA from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He worked for two Governors’ as Deputy Commissioner for the Maine Department of Conservation running the legislative program and then founded the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute [MLCI]. His work at MLCI was highlighted by his involvement with invasive aquatic species and earned him an appointment to the Federal Invasive Species Advisory Committee which he chaired for almost two years. Most recently Ship was in Alaska working to protect the freshwater resources of Bristol Bay.
*****************************
Know the Facts – Climate Change, Skeptics, the IPCC and the Tibetan Plateau
By Ship Bright
It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”–Darwin
The IPCC–Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change- is the global consortium of the world’s climatologists organized under the umbrella of the United Nations. These are the people we need to pay attention and listen to. There are many people out there espousing views on climate change under the general label of “scientist”. If you want to understand climate change you need to look to a climatologist-just like if you have a heart attack you see a cardiologist not a ophthalmologist. Both are medical doctors but one has expertise in the medical science of the heart and one has expertise in eyes. Just recently the IPCC pulled its estimate that the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau will be gone by 2035. They pulled that statement because the data had not been subjected to rigorous intellectual review. It had not been “Peer Reviewed” as part of the process that the IPCC adheres to. Skeptics, nay-sayers, and political purveyors of denialism have seized on this issue to attack the entire climate change debate because data was pulled and estimates retracted–for now…
It doesn’t mean the data is wrong. It means that the data did not fulfill the IPCC’s standard for being included in their reports.
Just recently meteorologists were saying that the earth was showing signs of getting colder and many of the climate change skeptics used that as their banner to deny trend, attribution or impact. Here is the problem with meteorologists espousing that data as proof there is no climate change: meteorologists were looking at a 10 year trend; the IPCC does not consider any data that is not AT LEAST 25 years in trend. Still skeptical? Well it turns out that from 1998-2008 that trend would have been correct BUT it’s because 2008 was a particularly warm El Nino year so the following years looked “colder” than the base year of 1998. The 10 year trend data from 1999 to 2009 shows that the earth was indeed warming up and even more rapidly!
Why? Because 1999 was a particularly cold year as a base year and the trend then showed a rapidly warming planet.
Bottom Line: Don’t pay attention to 10 year trends…IPCC has been looking at data from the last 150 years and the last decade has been the warmest on record. The data shows the long-term trend definitively.
So when the IPCC pulls data and retracts estimates look at the reason why they did this. They are a rigorous body of global climate scientists who are dispassionately looking at all the information and teasing out trends, attributions and impacts. Unlike some climate change skeptics these scientists have NO political agenda or economic self interests to protect for themselves or their small group of shareholders. The world is their shareholders and we owe them a debt of gratitude for the intelligence and passion for the truth that they bring to bear on this issue for our collective benefit.
The breaking story now is that the IPCC Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri [picture above] is being accused of economic interest in skewing climate change data…The nay-sayers allege that his payments from his consulting work are influencing his quest to have the facts fit the theory …well it turns out the payments he receives goes to Energy and Resources Institute where that nonprofit engages in projects like “Lighting a Billion Lives” which provides solar lanterns to poor people in India. Dr. Pachauri does indeed receive a salary from the Energy and Resources Institute–all $49,000 a year according to income tax returns. Any reasonable person would dismiss such allegations of impropriety and can see that this is blatant character assassination of someone who is doing us all a great service. Do people in places of great power and influence need to be transparent for all to see? YES, these people wield and influence great power in our lives and their credibility is the Keystone in our listening to them, believing them and taking collective actions as a result of our faith and trust in their integrity.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has a Chief Executive of JPMorgan/Chase on their Board. Is that a conflict of interest? Maybe, but this person is well schooled and wise in the ways of the free market and adds value to the board for their insight, experience, and wisdom. As long as it’s a transparent relationship and we can see for ourselves that this person is not reaping personal and unjust enrichment from this position I’m grateful for that person being on the board. Thank you for your service! I imagine this executive makes a LOT more than $49,000 a year… not to mention the bonuses.
What I find most upsetting is the character assassination that some people engage in when they disagree with or are still ignorant on an issue. When I look at the most vocal and mean-spirited of them I find they have a political and/or economic agenda to protect or push down the throats of others. We need international statesmanship and not provincial politicians out to “get their’s” at the expense of everyone else. We are dealing with an enormously critical issue to all life on this planet…we are all in the same boat…we need to adapt.
Here’s a good article on this controversy from the Times of India. As a country downstream from the Tibetan Plateau and with so much of their freshwater dependent upon the seasonal runoff from the Plateau’s glaciers India is paying very close attention to these issues…more so than the rest of us, “One slip does not change the Big Picture”:
The New York Times has also just ran a story on this issue to help you wade through the fluff, spin, hype of the nay-sayers who would rather strike up the band on the deck of the Titanic and distract you instead of helping to solve the problem:
U.N. Climate Panel and Chief Face Credibility Siege, By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, Published: February 9, 2010
Rajendra K. Pachauri and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change face accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest.
If a picture is worth a thousand words then watch the photographic evidence of deglaciation in the Tibetan Plateau. Early adventurers to Mt. Everest photographically documented the Third Goddess and her glaciers, specifically the Main, East and West Rongbuk glaciers. In recent years technology has allowed photos from space to document what is happening on the Yarlung and Helong glaciers around the Plateau. This documentary is from the Asia Society and their “On Thinner Ice” project has documented the deglaciation of the Tibetan Plateau. They also interview the local herdsmen and farmers whose knowledge, learned and passed down from countless generations of those who have lived and died in the shadows of the great mountains, is a treasure trove of traditional knowledge.
Here is a second video that David Breashears did for the society:
After viewing these videos I recommend you explore their other videos at: http://asiasociety.org/onthinnerice
Lastly, I believe in God and I believe in Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory. It’s not an either/or paradigm as some would have us believe. Having gone to religious schools, with religion classes all the way through High School, I do believe that God helps those who help themselves. If your faith, no matter what faith that is-even if it is not part of any organized religion, is strong then resist those who would hold us back from doing our duty to be good stewards of our planet.
So, with a last note of humor, put on your Rapture Helmets if you choose but lend a hand in helping to solve our planet’s problems as well because the Rapture isn’t a public policy option and it’s not going to get us out of this mess…
[courtesy of Stephen Colbert...http://www.colbertnation.com/home ]
Thank you.
I’ve been getting worn out from constantly refuting the idiocy spewing out of the mouths of the nay sayers. Reading articles such as this one, so well put together, with many useful and interesting links is just what I need to keep on fighting the good fight.
i’m sick of it to..thanks for the post
Watch the nay sayers spout off that the big snowstorm pounding the East coast is
proof there’s no such thing as global warming. These nuts just look at a single event to prove their case.
DD
If people want to claim that Man is NOT making this worse or that we should do nothing but move to higher ground, fine.
It is the people who deny that the climate is changing faster than is good for us that make me crazy.
What makes me crazy is that, whether one believes in climate change or not, why is it a bad thing to want to protect the oceans and forests and animals. Why is it a wrong thing to want to breathe clean air and drink clean water and eat clean food?
The agenda is to do nothing because the deniers claim climate change does not exist is what makes me crazy!
AKM, thank you for this thought-provoking article. We fight best when we are armed with good information and the truth.
Jan. 2010 Rolling Stone has an X article on climate change and pics w/ bios of the planets worst enemies (including the 2 main Tetard leaders & funders Charles & David Kock and Murdoch). Worth a read for those interested in this issue.
But there is a shortage of snow for the Vancouver Winter Games while there are snowstorms on the east coast. Wonder how that can be explained.
Yesterday I saw on PBS.org a documentary regarding extreme cave diving
this is an excerpt from it “In the geological sciences, blue holes hold just as many wonders. When cut open, stalagmites from blue holes display layers like the rings in a tree. Analysis of their composition reveals a year-by-year diary of the Bahamas’ climate for the last 200,000-300,000 years, including rainfall, the chemicals in the rain and air, even the temperature. They don’t just record past periods of extreme climate change, but also tell us how fast that change can grip the planet”. They found in investaging
these stalagmites that the earth has experienced extreme climate change
in less that 50 Years. They found in the stalagmites iron that was nonexistent on the coral island that that they were investigatiing. The conclusion was the iron came from desert sand storms. They said these
same storms are happening now on earth. This NOVA documentary strongly suggest a reason, other than carbon, for the present climate change. To read the artilce go to: http://www.pbs.org and look up NOVA extreme cave diving.
#8 @SalG
Well there ya go – climate change. The climate used to be in Vancouver and now it changed and went to New York! : D
I sure do wish Ship Bright would STOP tryin’ to confuse real Ameicans about this issue. All we need to know was told us by G_d and can be read in His Book. G_d is in charge of *every thing*, including the climate… These “climate change” people need to stop makin’ things up; if the Bible doesn’t mention climate change, there isn’t any. If the weather happens to be a bit catty-whompass at the moment, it’s *entirely* His doing; it’s ONLY because He is telling us to give up our non-Biblical ways and to ‘get right’ with Him**. [/snark] beth.
**This last sentiment was actually in a Letter to the Editor in Saturday’s local paper. The writer was/is dead serious. b.
Ameicans = Americans. b.
Thank you Ship Bright; I’ll be printing this to pass out to unsuspecting deniers, those who don’t know/remember I am a long-time teacher. (heh heh-)
*kitty-wumpus
Here is something different about climate change:
http://nov55.com/gbwm.html
It made me think about the atmosphere and the oceans in a new light. There was even a little epiphany for me about how the earth’s magnetic core behaves.
LilLadyNY, exactly.
Ship Bright and AKM, Knowledge = Power.
Thank you for making me more powerful today.
(Shudder) Pity that my blood running cold watching those videos won’t bring back the glaciers. So sad. so sad. so sad…
I’m a winter soul in exile down south, and miss the wonderful snows of my childhood and young adulthood. Does anyone else hear The Band singing *Acadian Driftwood* now?
New York weather update – 8 inches so far and still snowing.
We’ve had more winter where we live this year than the past 5 yrs, warmest Dec. and Jan…..now record cold Feb. Another wave coming of cold air coming from the west tomorrow.
I’d say that is climate change.
The thing many may not realize it that basically anything east of Kansas and south of Iowa gets their weather from both the warm moist gulf coast and the cold from the west, lots of moisture mixed with cold means lots of snow. Our weather in MO moves either directly east or north east, the past two storms have moved northeast.
I believe global warming is putting more gulf moisture in the air. Gads if this is the trend for our winters I don’t like it, lol.
Have you seen that the Repubs are telling folks to blame Al Gore. Stoopids.
We’ll see what happens with this next batch, it’s in KS and is supposed to move into MO overnight and into tomorrow. I hope it doesn’t mean more snow for the northeast.
We had that awful, ugly cold wind yesterday and the night before. ucko.
One of the naysayers:
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=1
An excerpt from a letter to Professor David Henderson from Dr. Vincent Gray:
“I have been an “Expert Reviewer” for the IPCC right from the start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts. It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers, a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157.”
( i hope my brains don’t fall out)
When we lived in CO the weather direction was fairly predictable coming from the west over the rocky mountains, sometimes but rarely from the south mixing with the west which usually brought trouble like tornadoes.
I’ve had to give the weather guys here a break, when we first moved here I thought they were just idiots because they’d say one thing the night before only to be wrong the next day, lol, but after 5 years I have learned it’s really very unpredictable and affected by much.
Also when it rains here, it’s like in the tropics, where it just opens up and downpours, no raindrop warnings, it just all of a sudden whooshes, the clouds don’t even have to look that dark. That was different for me. And I’ve never seen such thick heavy and loud downpours for hours, it can just sit over us. This creates flash flooding, the soil has about a foot of clay like soil on top of limestone shelf, so once it’s saturated down to the limestone it runs whichever direction is downhill. Every year people drown even though the tv station keep pounding ‘turn around don’t drown’ or kids playing in run off.
Word to the wise, NEVER pull off to the side of a road in MO after a rain, the ground gets soggy, you will sink and get stuck. Ask me how I know, lol. No one told me. And they have NO road shoulders in the rural areas.
Keeping relevant facts at hand as you argue with deniers has just gotten easier, at least for iPhone users. The app available here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptical-science-iphone-app.html
breaks down, by category and sub-category, the usual arguments and then displays and links to the relevant research. Just released, but a quick look left me impressed. Free at the app store–and they are looking into an Android version.
I am not affiliated with, or receive any remuneration of any kind from the developers and/or distributors of this app. I just think it’s a very useful tool in educating those who need it.
It is true that CO2 is vital to plant life. And i know in my own microcosm that my office plants love the carbon dioxide that i exhale by rewarding me with fresh oxygen.
Have you ever heard of indoor pot growers having a difficult time getting enough CO2 to their plants, and having to supplement it with tanked CO2? ( i can’t tell you where i read that )
I’m not saying that we aren’t experiencing a global climate change ~ we are! But what if carbon dioxide is not really the problem? If the earth’s chemical balance requires twice as much CO2 in the oceans as is in the atmosphere, it could mean we’re actually a little SHORT in the atmosphere.
What if ~ just what if ~ a thick layer of CO2 would actually protect us from global cooling? What if we could figure out a way to use carbon to repair our ailing magnetosphere? Any 2012ers here?
I know i can ask this here, where my friends will pat me on the head and tell me to go on outside to play ~ instead of throwing rocks at me.
[[[[[ going outside to research the earth's chemical balance ]]]]]
3 DuckDriver Says:
February 10th, 2010 at 11:25 AM
Watch the nay sayers spout off that the big snowstorm pounding the East coast is
proof there’s no such thing as global warming. These nuts just look at a single event to prove their case.
It you get a chance to get a word in edgewise. The “cold” came becasue its winter. The “snow” came from the warmer than normal Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico. You can look at http://www.intellicast.com/National/Surface/Mixed.aspx, current and forcast maps, and see there is a large body of moisture (clouds) moving across NW Mexico from the El Nino warmed Pacific toward the NE. It has already brought snow or sleet the the Permian Basin area of Texas. As it exits NE Mexico moving East it will pick up more moisture from the warm Gulf waters and continue moving NE.
This is the same pattern that we have had twice in the last week with multiple warm wet low pressure fronts from the Pacific joinging with warm wet low pressure fronts from the Gulf, colliding with a cold winter low pressure front and dumping its frozen moisture on the Mid Atlantic States.
If there is no “warm” moist air, there is no snow, just your usual cold end winter weather.
I will learn to type some day. I promise
joinging????
19 Say No to Palin in Politics Says:
Just saw your commment. Yup, we have noticed the same trend. Most people who live west of the Rockies and north of the southern border and Gulf states don’t realize how much the Pacific and the Gulf affect our weather in the lower half to 2/3 of the 48.
Here’s to fresh water, healthy watersheds, sustainable fisheries and their caretakers
everywhere. You are the most important folks on the planet.
Ship Bright – Thank you .
I’ve done 2 passes so far on this post and had to bail both times. First reading, I left 1/2 way through. 2nd time, a little further in before I clicked over to my more immediate desk work. The emotion is overwhelming and the facts just plain hurt. I’ll certainly go back and finish the reading and will use it as a jumping off place to go further , in reading as well as spur to action but, my goodness, it’s so “much”.
I remember being at the desk in class as a kid in the late 60s and having the “Weekly Reader” student newspaper set on my desk. I can’t remember what grade I was in at the time but I do remember an article about the environment and how climate would change over the next few decades if we continued on the path that was underway at that time. In grade school terms the article described that we were on a path that would lead to a wide range of emergencies and that we needed to begin changing course right away.
That article shook me to my core and it’s been with me ever since. As a kid I swore I wouldn’t let those negative changes happen. But then, as a young adult, I saw things unfolding that I felt I couldn’t stop. And now, in middle age, I know that I’ve got to at least, try.
Thanks again for a motivating post.
It is commendable to publish useful informative articles that attempt to counter some of the misinformation and disinformation so freely disseminated by those with an unstated agenda and serious conflicts of interest.
But I think, personally, and as a scientist, (albeit not a climatologist) that the problem this attempts to address is far worse than any reasoned argument can come to terms with. The simple fact of the matter is that politicians and so called news organizations as well as surrepticiously funded “think tanks” and private “experts” can and will lie as a matter of routine. They appear to be able to even lie in a self contradictory fashion and get away with it. No one ever calls them out directly, no one ever can possibly refute all of their lies in a expeditious and immediate way. So the lies take hold of some people’s imaginations and gain credence. They are endlessly repeated, even long after they have been thoroughly refuted. They persist just like the insidious heavy fraction of crude oil that still despoils vast areas of Alaskan waters and shores decades after the event. We are experiencing what can only be considered to be a black plague of mendacity.
In the case of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) it is perhaps a question whether the phenomenon itself or the deliberate, extravagently well funded propaganda campaigns to discredit it will harm us all more, or earlier or both. As a scientist I am inclined to say that I think the climatologists are probably wrong. Not in the sense the denialists say so, but in the sense that 1) science is always mostly wrong, it is a process that systematically eliminates the wrong ideas, so they have to be tested to some degree. It is also always provisional, no single experiment or sampling will be conclusive and the interpretation placed upon an accumulated body of work can be seriously affected by a single verified but unexplained line of evidence. 2) Climatology like all science is really in its infancy, more so than some, less so than others. It is therefore almost a certainty that our understanding and therefore our ability to predict the future of climate is inadequate. For that reason, and to take the side that it is better to err on the side of caution, than on the side of apathy, I think it is very possible that the climatologists best estimates of how fast changes will occur to the global climate and what the nature of those changes will be is woefully conservative and inadequate. No one likes to be wrong, but even less so does one like to cry the sky is falling. And be wrong.
I don’t at all intend this as criticism of climate scientists. I am just trying to explain that they are in a very difficult predicament. They are trying to be responsible to conflicting interests. They of all people *know* that they don’t *know* enough to make accurate predictions of climate in the future or even very far in the past, but they also see alarming indications that say in clear and certain terms that things are changing rapidly in many directions that imply dire consequences.
There is no way science can save us from a culture of deception that serves narrow interests. Only we can do that. As a mass collective, as the very foundation of civilization, we can change the future if we are willing to accept the consequences of acting in our own behalf. It will not be easy, nor will it be particularly pleasant. But we should bear in mind that for most of the people in the world, life is already unpleasant beyond our imaginations.
The only alternative I can offer is confrontation. If we as a people, do not confront the liars directly, they will continue to acquire gravitas. It must be done on many levels, but I would suggest two.
Firstly, though I have a high opinion of the mudflatter who attended Palin’s propaganda event in Redding, I would have hoped in an ideal world that when she made the claim ‘globabl warming is bogus’ (or words to that effect) the attendee could have risen in a calm and deliberate fashion and at the top of his/her voice shouted, “You Lie! In the first place how would you know? [at this point the speaker would probably be silenced in some manner so I won't fantasize further]. Such events should be documented.
There is much background on this topic. Protest has been systematically muzzled for the past decade or so.
The second method of confrontation is to directly impact the bottom line of those who sponsor propaganda. On this particular issue the simplest possible thing you can do is Drive Less. But a more subtle and effective method is to identify those companies that sponsor such propaganda organs as Fox News and boycott them, and inform them that you are boycotting them.
Weather is local, climate is global. And globally, it’s getting warmer. And wilder. The gulf stream, a major source of east coast weather, appears to be shifting. It may not keep Britain warm for much longer.
Jim Keating – I visited the NOVA site, read what info was there – pretty sketchy, so I Googled around a bit about blue holes, the Seuss Effect, etc. Some stuff about sun-driven cycles, rapid climate change events within 50 years – that’s about all I could discover. Nothing we haven’t heard before, more like additional evidence that weird crap can happen, and quickly.
In other words, even more reason to be freaked about giving natural cycles a push with human-responsible CO2, methane and other atmospheric contaminants – if some little random or cyclical nudge is sufficient to wing the climate completely off course within 50 years, we may be in deeper crap than we can imagine. I’m not sure how experts in chaos theory manage to keep their hair flat on their heads – it must be a daily struggle.
Krubozumo – Yeah! Why don’t we start attending these events and yelling out “You lie!” Such a simple ploy, backfiring on the Republicans who tried it first. Beauty.
Spread this meme!
To Mo
The NOVA documentary on Blue hole exploration is a recent event. The
documentary on PBS gave more information on the stalamite research.
The blob on the web site did not talk much about the results. I believe
,as you, that if the science points to carbon then we should do everything
possible to eliminate carbon; that being said if it now points to something
else we should follow the science. Through the untouched oxygen free
blue holes we have a preserved resource for measurement never before available. I am not a wingnut and either is PBS or NOVA, this research is probably to new to find much information . Yes if climate can change in 50 years we do have problems but life is precarious.
8 SalG Says: February 10th, 2010 at 12:20 PM
But there is a shortage of snow for the Vancouver Winter Games while there are snowstorms on the east coast.
———–
As I understand it, there is a shortage of snow at one of snowboard the venues but 32 feet of base at the major ski venue. The snow being used to build up the snowboard venue is being trucked down from a higher altitude.
Over 40 inches of powder here during 2 storms 4 days apart. And another one on the way. …
ds55 @ 14: [[wink]] You have to understand ~ I’ve moved to an area of our country where, when it’s silmutaneously shining sun and raining, folks say, “The Devil is beating his wife.” I do believe this is an actual meterological term here….it’s used often enough. So I hope you can see where catty-whompass [oh, yeah, that should've been a 'u' instead of an 'o'] vs. kitty-wumpus is entirely possible for me. [[/wink]]
_______________________
Colbert just had a great piece on Global Warming – his “Dopplerest 9000″ is amazing! beth.
It’s also Shippen Bright’s birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHIPPY!
Thanks for the information on CLIMATE CHANGE. It’s too bad and so sad that FOXNews hates Al Gore. We learn much from exploring the links provided here by thoughtful and informed ‘flatters.
AKM, I appreciate your effort in providing this bit of cyberspace for information exchange. IMO, Mudflats is the best!
#32 I agree. We have to start DOING something on all fronts.
Too many of us continue to think that people will come around when they hear the facts. Problem is people never pay attention to anyone that has the facts.
if another person tells me
so much for global warming because it is cold…
How do you help people who are not willing to help themselves? This is our planet we only have one unless we find funding quick to seek out another.
Bill Nye once said, “The cockroaches will keep living; life on the planet will go on. It’s the humans I worry about.” I wonder which cockroaches he was talking about???
You might check out http://www.nichols.edu/departments/glacier/ . This is a glacier project ongoing for 27 years. The science is irrefutable and well done.
Excellent post, Ship Bright!
It’s been my impression that the deniers of the possibility of climate change aren’t interested in data or scientific discussion.
@ Krubozumo Nyankoye: Interesting comments, as usual. However, in your third paragraph, you state that science is a process of testing and discarding wrong ideas….therefore, science is “always mostly wrong.” Not sure I agree with such a statement, either practically or philosophically.
Science is indeed a process of testing, discarding wrong ideas, and building upon data obtained from that testing (and other scientists’ testings/data)…….therefore, science is ideally working toward the right hypothesis/conclusion with less and less “wrongness” involved in the process as it evolves through time.
Maybe that seems like quibbling but a statement given out by someone of your obvious education to the effect that “science is almost mostly wrong” can be grossly or willfully misunderstood by the non-scientific members of the population…….the deniers of climate change, for example.
“Lastly, I believe in God and I believe in Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory. It’s not an either/or paradigm as some would have us believe.”
but evolutionary theory does show that the account of Genesis is just made-up, and so that part of the bible are false. some people have a hard time with that. also it shows that people are not “special,” but that they were the result of a long undirected process.
Lastly, if god did “use” evolution to create man, that means he used billions of years of death and extinction and created millions of viruses, parasites and bacteria that kill and main all of his creation, and wound up with us.
that does not sound so nice. maybe we should stop emiting greenhouse gases just because it will make the planet unliveable and lead to devastating world wars.. and not add theology into it. some people can’t wait for the end of the world.
Lee 323 -
You’re right of course that such a statement even if given a more proper context, would be fodder for the denialists. The point I was trying to make (badly I guess) is that we don’t really have the ability to make accurate long term predictions about climate. But we have to try because we know things are changing and there are a lot of ways the changes we see can have global deleterious effects. So in a sense the question is not are the climatologists right or wrong, but rather, in which direction are they wrong? If their predictions are over zealous (the sky is falling) what will the consequences be? If they are on the other wrong in being overly conservative and the effects of climate change are actually more severe than predicted, what will the consequences be?
Perhaps a better way of stating it is like this: The deniers primary claim is that reducing carbon emmissions is too expensive and will destroy all our jobs. But ask them, how much it will cost and how many jobs will be destroyed if we don’t reduce carbon emmissions?
We could be wrong either way, but if we err on the side of *conservatism* and begin backing away from a fossil fuel burning economy it is easy to see that there will be enormous benefits.
My lamest excuse for that rhetorical boomerang of mine though was / is scientists enmasse are being accused of being dishonest. How can an accusation of dishonesty get any traction if you point out at the beginning that you know you are probably mostly wrong, just less wrong than the people making accusations who don’t know a thing about the subject?
Mo@32
The beauty of it being that the claim is true. Perhaps it would be intemperant or counter-productive. But sometimes the adult in the room has to shout to be heard above the din.
Thanks for your response, Krubozumo. A few more thoughts on this interesting subject.
KN: “How can an accusation of dishonesty get any traction if you point out at the beginning that you know you are probably mostly wrong, just less wrong than the people making accusations who don’t know a thing about the subject?”
The first part of your sentence: The attacks we have seen on the climate scientists are inherently dishonest themselves. Accusations of dishonesty have built-in traction when the accuser is not interested in analyzing honestly the issues or data ( especially because of ulterior agendas which are not even related to the science itself).
The bottom line….climate science has become politicized to the extent that the actual science has become almost an orphaned bystander.
The second part of your sentence: Leaving aside the fact that most scientists as a rule don’t plan on becoming involved in public accusations of dishonesty, I’m afraid the pronouncement that their science is “mostly wrong” would go over with the public like a lead balloon and would provide fodder for their enemies to attack everything they subsequently produced…… by using the scientists’ own admission of error against them.
Further, the strategy may make sense theoretically to point out in the beginning that your models are probably mostly wrong (i.e. because of the discipline’s infancy etc.) but the sticky part is convincing people that the accusers are more wrong AND proving that they don’t know a thing about the subject….(because, as you know, there are people out there who don’t know a damn thing about the real science and millions are listening to them. Palin, for one).
Call me dull or pragmatic but I think the best strategy for any scientist, climate scientist included, is to ignore political influences as much as possible and just keep working as steadily and passionately on his/her work as possible. That’s the only way the research will start to tell the story and which direction to proceed.
If I were a climate scientist responding to the deniers of climate change, whether at the beginning of my research or farther along, I would say:
-that climate science is a discipline that’s unfolding with important and alarming data revealed everyday;
-that exact predictive models at this point are less important than the very alarming data;
-that I’m confident that the scientific process will yield more specific conclusions as the work progresses;
-that (as you said) in light of this alarming data, it behooves us all to err on the side of conservative caution while work progresses.
-Then, show them the data. Pound that alarming data into the public’s consciousness. The public can’t handle the realities of the scientific method as you have outlined…. but they can smell danger. Just my 2 cents
Lee323
You are almost certainly right about most of this and I don’t dispute that. However, recent experience seems to indicate that parts of your outline approach will simply not work if the advocates of ignorance are not confronted.
In particular,
” 44. -Then, show them the data. Pound that alarming data into the public’s consciousness. The public can’t handle the realities of the scientific method as you have outlined…. but they can smell danger. Just my 2 cents”
That is exactly what the climate scientists have been doing. Given they have not been crying that the sky is falling, but they have already been painted as if they were.
We agree that the key thing is that people must be educated about how we know things about the world and what it is we know. As a scientist, I have no choice but to choose the path of truth, our understanding is imperfect, but it is superior to the ‘perfect’ understanding of those charlatans who claim to have divine guidance. God speaks to Sarah and Sarah tells the world? Bow down before her mighty presence? I don’t think so, she couldn’t even run a car wash.
I have the feeling that a far greater percentage of high schoool graduates in the US know how to play a sport, or adapt to a diminuitive role than to dissect and evaluate a logical argument. That is an absolute failure of education. But it works wonders for those who do not want their patently false ideas questioned.
KN: “As a scientist, I have no choice but to choose the path of truth, our understanding is imperfect, but it is superior to the ‘perfect’ understanding of those charlatans who claim to have divine guidance. ”
You said it perfectly.
Lee323
Thanks, I think we are on the same page over all, and your criticism was both just and pragmatic. It is difficult at times to bite your lip and remain silent when absurdities are spouted by the clueless and the even more clueless who are their audience and constituency applaud.
Einstien said something like – “nature is obscure but not malevolent”. Elucidation of its secrets is never simple or easy. In particular, now that we know so much more than we did even 50 years ago, just becoming fluent in the present state of any science is a very significant task. But it does not require any special talent or miraculous revelation, just a willingness to work hard for as long as it takes until you can finally make a contribution to new knowledge. I think it as Issac Assimov who said the two most important words in science are – “that’s funny”. Meaning noticing something that does not fit the current concensus. Until you know virtually all that is known in a given topic, it is very unlikely you will notice something a bit untoward.
I’ll go out further on this flimsy limb… I think the future of employment is in science. So far as we can see now, there is no limit to the knowledge we can ultimately acquire, all the history points to the inference that knowledge is a kind of infinite regression. The industrial revolution was a process of applying the discoveries of science to making things. Ultimately it has led to the situation we are now in, making things does not require massive employment. But discovering things does and will. How should we go forward?
Thanks for an excellent conversation.
The reason i hope my brains don’t fall out is because i’m being so open-minded as DH and i look at the issues for ourselves.
The current course of our study is magnets. This has already let us to a few startling discoveries. One of those discoveries is that if you ever develop ‘free energy’ ~ don’t tell anyone. If you do, someone will either kill you or make you wish you were dead! It was rather shocking to find out this has been going on for a long time. (google J.P. Morgan and Tesla, as an instance of this)
Now, you cannot study magnets without coming across the entropy of the universe. It was another startling revelation for me to realize that nothing in the universe is symmetrical. Einstein died in 1955, two years before the scientific world realized this. He had spent the last fifty years of his life working on a theory using ACCEPTED wrong information. The macrocosm (universe) = the microcosm (earth). This formula can be repeated like a fractal, down to the microcosm of bacteria on the head of a pin.
This is why i read Krubozumo Nyankoye’s post with intense interest. I think Mr. Einstein is very much nodding in agreement with his comments about science being wrong. What if IPCC is wrong to only look at 25 year weather patterns when they need to be looking at 26,000 years of weather patterns?
Leucadia National Corporation is spending millions on a plant in the North East to convert coal dust to ‘clean’ gas (producing many more toxins than the CO2 created when burning plain old coal). They are a prime example of a corporation promulgating IPCC science for profits. I just don’t think CO2 is the bad guy, folks.