It's all over but for the sweating?

[Arragonis]

I'm sure someone else will post this polemic, but here goes.

http://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/...the-Future.pdf

Haven't read it yet.

[NeilBlanchard]

The climate continues to warm:



As Scientists Predicted, Global Warming Continues | ThinkProgress

[Arragonis]

From the article above

One often hears the statement in the media that global warming stopped in 1998, or that there has been no global warming for the past 16 years. Why pick 16 years? Why not some nice round number like 20 years? Or better yet, 30 years, since the climate is generally defined as the average weather experienced over a period of 30 years or longer?

NOAA did - they chose the start and the period.

[NeilBlanchard]

Yes, and the overall trend is warming - still.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

From the article above

NOAA did - they chose the start and the period.

So it comes down to simple math. You have a rising trend of X fraction of a degree per year, underlying an annual variation from other causes (which you could model as a gaussian random). Therefore, given any fairly short period, there is some probability that the start value will be higher than the end value. It's just statistics, and it doesn't make the underlying rising trend go away.

The same math applies to other things, like the stock market. If we look at index values over a few decades, we can find lots of periods in which the starting value is less than the end value (2007-09, for one). But we still see a long-term rising trend, and those of us with sense invest in the market, and don't panic and sell at every downturn because "The economy is going to collapse!"

[Arragonis]

The basic parameters are a change in x over a stated time - NOAA and climate scientists chose the change and the length of time, not cherry pickers from the land of skepticism.

Once we get past this of course we have to determine the response - an interesting (and potentially worrying) post.

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Planetary Boundaries as Power Grab

Democracy ? who needs that.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

The basic parameters are a change in x over a stated time - NOAA and climate scientists chose the change and the length of time, not cherry pickers from the land of skepticism.

Sure, and if you look at the data, using standard statistical procedures that are accepted as valid in every other field, you'll see that change in X.

Once we get past this of course we have to determine the response - an interesting (and potentially worrying) post.

I can't see it myself, but if so, I'm pretty sure that the people supposedly grabbing power are more likely to act in ways that would improve my overall quality of life than the people currently holding power. I worry about an environmentalist power grab just about as much as black people in the 1960s South worried about a civil rights activist power grab.

Democracy ? who needs that.

I'm not, and never have been, a great fan of unlimited democracy. I suppose this is only natural when one grows up as a geek, and finds that the desires of the majority seldom mesh well with your own. I also note that voting on physics seldom turns out well at all :-)

Rufo told me that every human race tries every political form and that democracy is used in many primitive societies ... but he didn't know of any civilized planet using it, as Vox Populi, Vox Dei translates as: "My God! How did we get in this mess!"

- R.A. Heinlein

Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone† had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.

- Terry Pratchett

[Arragonis]

Climatologists are no Einsteins, says his successor | NJ.com

Freeman Dyson is a physicist who has been teaching at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since Albert Einstein was there. When Einstein died in 1955, there was an opening for the title of "most brilliant physicist on the planet." Dyson has filled it.

So when the global-warming movement came along, a lot of people wondered why he didn’t come along with it. The reason he’s a skeptic is simple, the 89-year-old Dyson said when I phoned him.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Sure, and if you look at the data, using standard statistical procedures that are accepted as valid in every other field, you'll see that change in X.

Yep and it is a slowing-to-stopped trend at the moment by the scientists own terms and predicted to slow for quite some time by the spiffy "new" models. Climate science has a history of using non-standard techniques though.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

I'm not, and never have been, a great fan of unlimited democracy. I suppose this is only natural when one grows up as a geek, and finds that the desires of the majority seldom mesh well with your own.

Maybe you should lobby for this ?

Technocracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm pondering making this a quote in my sig

Originally Posted by jamesqf

I also note that voting on physics seldom turns out well at all :-)

along with

Originally Posted by Richard Heinberg

Nature doesn't negotiate

Although the author was a Peak Oil (everything) advocate, true though.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei translates as: "My God! How did we get in this mess!"

It translates normally as

The voice of the people, the voice of God

But I agree your quote is probably closer to truth along with

The best government money can buy

and

Originally Posted by Tony Blair

The political elite

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Climatologists are no Einsteins, says his successor | NJ.com

(Freeman Dyson)

1) Argument from authority.

2) Dyson has no track record of serious work in climate-related fields. He is simply expressing his prejudices, without (so far as I have seen) any serious analysis of the science. Without some sort of evidence, he's just another denier.

3) His suggestions for dealing with excess CO2 have a certain lunacy factor. Seriously, genetically-engineering trees to produce diamonds?