Global warming skeptics growing in numbers - Page 26

catahoula · 07-02-2009, 11:34 PM

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So, it is broadly accepted in that 53% agree, but not settled in the scientific arena, as demonstrated by the fact 29% disagree, and 13% are undecided. My point here is that a significant number of climate scientists do not accept AGW.

Wiki is indeed our friend, isn't it?

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Consensus in the English language is defined firstly as unanimous or general agreement; and secondly group solidarity of belief or sentiment. [1]

Idyllically, achieving consensus requires serious treatment of every group member's considered opinion. Those who wish to take up some action want to hear those who oppose it, because they count on the fact that the ensuing debate will improve the consensus. Action without resolution of considered opposition will be rare and done with attention to minimize damage to relationships.

Merriam, too, it seems...

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Consensus 1 a: general agreement : unanimity <the consensus of their opinion, based on reports…from the border — John Hersey> b: the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned <the consensus was to go ahead>2: group solidarity in sentiment and belief...

mini · 07-02-2009, 11:47 PM

In #370, The quote I cited was from Bray and von Storch in their 2003 report."

We are a long, long way from 2003. Most of the statements from the major scientific societies came after that.

kluge · 07-02-2009, 11:51 PM

Catahoula - what is settled is that in 2003, in an (admittedly) unscientific survey with voluntary participation which was not limited to climate scientists ("agriculture", engineering, "not stated" and local weathermen participated, and the survey was posted on a denier's website so anyone could respond claiming to be a "scientist" with unknown consequences) those were the responses to ambiguous questions. (The survey failed to distinguish between current climate change and future climate change, for one major problem. Many who believe that AGW will cause climate change did not believe that the effects were being felt yet in 2003.) This statement:

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So, it is broadly accepted in that 53% agree, but not settled in the scientific arena, as demonstrated by the fact 29% disagree, and 13% are undecided. My point here is that a significant number of climate scientists do not accept AGW.

...was not established as to the view of climate scientists with regard to AGW by the survey even as to 2003, let alone today.

catahoula · 07-02-2009, 11:52 PM

Nah, I'll go with randomthots, too, kluge.

mini's putting us two to a floe, remember?

catahoula · 07-03-2009, 12:06 AM

kluge, given the careful winnowing you've performed of the respondents, would you mind clarifying exactly what a "climate scientist" actually is?

Also, AGW isn't really the issue here, is it? Heck, I even agree that C02 can be shown be physicists to theoretically contribute a little over a degree of warming for each doubling of it.

It's the catastrophic version of Hansen, the IPCC, and others, the one that relies on the "water vapor feedback loop" and arm-waving that's on the table. You know... the one Cap and Trades going to make go away.

randomthots · 07-03-2009, 12:10 AM

^^^

Kluge,

The authors themselves reject the idea that "deniers" ruined their survey, as the internals of 2003 survey agreed with 1996 survey. Also, they point out that noone's accused the other side of trying to skew the data - why just the "deniers"?

Mini,

I'm not impressed with the statements of the scientific societies, since they tend to be much more slanted than the data would justify. Also, a lot of politics is involved when you get to the administration level. The NSF is very political, for instance.

Also, the role of sunspot activity has become much more obvious since 2003. It correlates well with the temp increase, and is one reason, I believe, some scientists are moving away from AGW to undecided. That and the fact that the GCMs are not good at actually predicting the global temperatures. Or the ocean temperatures.

dstark · 07-03-2009, 12:24 AM

Between the deniers and China, I'm going with China.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/bu...gewanted=1&hpw

"As the United States takes its first steps toward mandating that power companies generate more electricity from renewable sources, China already has a similar requirement and is investing billions to remake itself into a green energy superpower.

Through a combination of carrots and sticks, Beijing is starting to change how this country generates energy. Although coal remains the biggest energy source and is almost certain to stay that way, the rise of renewable energy, especially wind power, is helping to slow China’s steep growth in emissions of global warming gases.

While the House of Representatives approved a requirement last week that American utilities generate more of their power from renewable sources of energy, and the Senate will consider similar proposals over the summer, China imposed such a requirement almost two years ago.

This year China is on track to pass the United States as the world’s largest market for wind turbines — after doubling wind power capacity in each of the last four years. State-owned power companies are competing to see which can build solar plants fastest, though these projects are much smaller than the wind projects. And other green energy projects, like burning farm waste to generate electricity, are sprouting up."

dstark · 07-03-2009, 12:30 AM

The US used to be the world leader.

"This oasis town deep in the Gobi Desert along the famed Silk Road and the surrounding wilderness of beige sand dunes and vast gravel wastelands has become a center of China’s drive to lead the world in wind and solar energy.

A series of projects is under construction on the nearly lifeless plateau to the southeast of Dunhuang, including one of six immense wind power projects now being built around China, each with the capacity of more than 16 large coal-fired power plants.

Each of the six projects “totally dwarfs anything else, anywhere else in the world,” said Steve Sawyer, the secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, an industry group in Brussels.

Some top Chinese regulators even worry that Beijing’s mandates are pushing companies too far too fast. The companies may be deliberately underbidding for the right to build new projects and then planning to go back to the government later and demand compensation once the projects lose money.

“The problem is we have so many stupid enterprises,” said Li Junfeng, who is the deputy director general for energy research at China’s top economic planning agency and the secretary general of the government-run Renewable Energy Industries Association.

HSBC predicts that China will invest more money in renewable energy and nuclear power between now and 2020 than in coal-fired and oil-fired electricity."

mini · 07-03-2009, 12:39 AM

"I'm not impressed with the statements of the scientific societies, since they tend to be much more slanted than the data would justify."

You can be impressed or not impressed as you like. I'm a non-scientist, like 98% of the world's population, so that when it comes to things like this, I have to look toward scientific consensus. From what I can see, it is very wide, very deep, and growing.

dstark · 07-03-2009, 12:41 AM

John Doerr...I'm going to go with John Doerr instead of the deniers. Oh..and there are large business opportunities too.

John Doerr, Partner of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers on CNBC.

“I like to compare green energy to the Internet,” said Doerr. “In 15 years, the Internet grew from nothing to a trillion-dollar economy with 1.2 billion users. For the energy economy, it’s much larger—it’s a 6 trillion dollar economy and 4 billion people use energy every day around the world, [so] it could be the largest economic opportunity of this century.”
Doerr emphasized the importance of government role and said the cooperation between government and private capital is “what we have to have happen to innovate energy around the world.”

And hopefully this link works.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...7-14b09d8c50bc

Going green is bad for business?

BS.

And the US is not going to be the global leader.

But maybe we could do some oil drilling.

catahoula · 07-03-2009, 01:04 AM

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Between the deniers and China, I'm going with China.

Given China's pollution problems, you're probably just going with the gullible.

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Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China’s leading cause of death, the Ministry of Health says. Ambient air pollution alone is blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.

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Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life.

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China is choking on its own success. The economy is on a historic run, posting a succession of double-digit growth rates. But the growth derives, now more than at any time in the recent past, from a staggering expansion of heavy industry and urbanization that requires colossal inputs of energy, almost all from coal, the most readily available, and dirtiest, source.

(A 2007 article but I doubt things have improved much and... hey, it's from the NYT, too.)
http://www.sokiestudio.com/uploads/A...y_Extremes.pdf