tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post112093451762215723..comments2024-03-06T03:15:58.539-05:00Comments on <b>THE NEW REFORM CLUB</b>: Russian Science Director Refutes Warming ClaimsHunter Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14961831404331998743noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1121444172673380652005-07-15T12:16:00.000-04:002005-07-15T12:16:00.000-04:00Great, you back up your unsubstantiated assertions...Great, you back up your unsubstantiated assertions by restating them and claiming everybody believes them. Very persuasive.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1121283856144980802005-07-13T15:44:00.000-04:002005-07-13T15:44:00.000-04:00Tlaloc, your response here is nothing but a bunch ...Tlaloc, your response here is nothing but a bunch of assertions with no evidence to back it up. You can't prove what you say, but you'll never admit it. Sad.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1121229771745872462005-07-13T00:42:00.000-04:002005-07-13T00:42:00.000-04:00Your CD player still play CDs. Pharmaceuticals sti...<I>Your CD player still play CDs. Pharmaceuticals still get discovered. And the planet still warms.</I><BR/><BR/>"The planet still warms" -- once you've figured out how many data points, distributed in which 3-dimensional grid, and then repeated backward how many time periods, you need to say such a thing -- is not a prediction, or a theoretical construct, or a model output. (1) It's an observation. Where does it get you? You still need to know (2) what is causing the warming. You need to know (3)how much, if any, of the warming is anthropogenic. You need to know (4) what harms and benefits the warming will cause. You need to know (5) what, if anything, in the power of man could mitigate the warming. You need to know (6) what the costs and benefits of various mitigating strategies will be.<BR/><BR/>Read the 2001 reports and tell me, with a straight face, that the scientists claim that they are confident in the answers to <B>any</B> of those questions past number 1. Succeed, and I'll nominate you for an Academy Award.Kathy Hutchinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11851875819094837357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1121212836004597212005-07-12T20:00:00.000-04:002005-07-12T20:00:00.000-04:00When I say the science is complex, I do not mean m...When I say the science is complex, I do not mean my own understanding of it. I don't understand how the engine in my Jeep Cherokee works. I'm an economist because I was too good at math to be a sociologist but not good enough to be a chemist. I am speaking of the state of the models <B>as reported and described by the people who work on them</B>. Read the latest WG1 report. Not the summary, not the press releases, not the write-up in <I>New Scientist</I>. Read the entire report. Then when you've finished with that, read the WG2 and 3 reports. Work your way through the data appendices. In particular, study WG1 section 8.10.3, in which the participating scientists evaluate, quite openly, what they don't adequately understand about general circulation models. And this is just the physical science side of it! To model climate scenarios 100 years out, and take account of the effect of human activity on same, you're not only making long range projections about climate, but about economic activity, technology changes, population distributions, and on and on. <BR/><BR/>I'm not a climatologist, but I have worked on very large computer models. Because of that, I respect what the IPCC scientists have already accomplished. I do not respect what the claque of international bureaucrats, rent-seekers, and professional hand-wringers have done with the 1/1000 of the results they have chosen to exploit.Kathy Hutchinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11851875819094837357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1121142341203979872005-07-12T00:25:00.000-04:002005-07-12T00:25:00.000-04:00since this guy explicitly says that global warming...<I>since this guy explicitly says that global warming is happening and only diagrees as to which of the symptoms are directly linked to it it hardly supports your position</I><BR/><BR/>How the hell do you know my "position" (to the extent I have one) on global warming?<BR/><BR/>Just to save you from having to guess, here is my position: this science is not yet ripe for policymaking, but it's being forced to take on that responsibility anyway. I am not a big believer in the Bob Geldof "We have to do something, even if it's wrong" approach. I accept that concentrations of atmospheric CO2 are increasing. I accept that at least locally, various climate measures are outside the historical range. I accept that humans engage in a lot of CO2 releasing activity. I do not think that the relations and feedbacks among these three things are well understood. I think the connections among these factors and any multi-factor variables affecting humans either positively or negatively, such as sea level, precipitation patterns, plant growth, cloud formation, etc, are at best at the SWAG level. I think we have absolutely no bleeding idea whether adopting Kyoto-type measures will have any affect at all on CO2 concentration, never mind the tenuous chains of causality to all the conditions that might actually be of importance.<BR/><BR/>And, lastly, I think that when you don't know what the hell you're dealing with, it is far better to pursue a strategy that maximizes your ability to deal with the unforeseen than it is to devote resources to preventing some specific undesirable outcome. On the whole, we know from experience that richer, more technically advanced economies that rely on market forces to direct resource use are more flexible, innovative, and resilient than those that are not. Therefore, in the face of uncertainty, the best overall strategy is to be rich and free.Kathy Hutchinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11851875819094837357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1121056027466633832005-07-11T00:27:00.000-04:002005-07-11T00:27:00.000-04:00Source on Antarctic ice shelf:http://www.theregist...Source on Antarctic ice shelf:<BR/><BR/>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/24/ice_shelf_collapse/<BR/><BR/>Note that this guy is not a greenhouse skeptic; he just doesn't think the satellite data support a conclusion that continent-wide the ice is decreasing.Kathy Hutchinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11851875819094837357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1121017641247061562005-07-10T13:47:00.000-04:002005-07-10T13:47:00.000-04:00It's worth noting that the latest assessment repor...It's worth noting that the latest assessment report, to which Tlaloc provided the link, was issued in 2001. I'm not sure when the 4th assessment report is due; there have been some interim reports published earlier this year. Dr. Izrael is referring to contradictory observations that have been made since 2001, and there have been other anomalies such as the reversal of ice loss in the Antarctic and a better understanding of the cyclic glacier patterns in the Alps. It will be interesting to see how (or indeed if) these contrarian data points are dealt with in the 4th assessment.<BR/><BR/>The scientific issues at play here are insanely complex, the data sources are gargantuan and open to collection and interpretation error, and constructing integrated models requires a dozen different disciplines to cooperate with each other. What the IPCC is trying to do would be next to impossible under the best of circumstances. The political opportunism that infects every step of this process is far from the best of circumstances.Kathy Hutchinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11851875819094837357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1121011484972543922005-07-10T12:04:00.000-04:002005-07-10T12:04:00.000-04:00Of course the director of the Russian Academy of S...Of course the director of the Russian Academy of Science’s Global Climate and Ecology Institute is ignorant! That explains everything.S. T. Karnickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05971214612730402709noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1120954052651541872005-07-09T20:07:00.000-04:002005-07-09T20:07:00.000-04:00I'd like to know if the Russians signed the Kyoto ...<I>I'd like to know if the Russians signed the Kyoto treaty.</I><BR/><BR/>The Russian Duma ratified Kyoto last November, when it became clear that there would be no cost to Russia to do so. Kyoto pegs emissions reductions to the levels produced in 1990. Russia's economy is so in the tank compared to 1990 that they're already meeting the Kyoto requirements. In fact, they can probably make money on the deal by selling their emissions credits. Sometimes these old Commies out-capitalist us capitalists, eh?Kathy Hutchinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11851875819094837357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1120946505960936402005-07-09T18:01:00.000-04:002005-07-09T18:01:00.000-04:00I'd like to know if the Russians signed the Kyoto ...I'd like to know if the Russians signed the Kyoto treaty.Hunter Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14961831404331998743noreply@blogger.com