My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[engineerdude]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Since you have a science degree then, I would think you would appreciate the fact that science isn't always common sense...

Let me put it this way: would you have no problem having 0.0384% of your food consist of Plutonium? Heck, that's "practically zero!"


As an engineer--I guess working in some well developed industry--you're probably not familiar with how new technologies are developed. Normally they require investment either from the government or venture capitalists. These folks are betting that putting money into something that does not have an immediate return may in fact return a great deal of money or benefit to society in the long term.

Not too long ago computers were highly specialized things that were only worthwhile for gigantic projects.

What if back then, everyone agreed with what you're essentially saying and said "who needs computers for finance? You want to balance your books, then its a lot cheaper to just hire an army of accountants with adding machines."

Well, who bet on it? 1) Government through R&D departments like DARPA and 2) Folks in the computer business who spent their own money to start up companies that did not appear to have a prayer of being successful like Microsoft and Apple.

Conversely what's been happening recently has been that the Oil people who run the current administration have been shutting down Green R&D left and right, while the oil companies themselves have for the most part avoided "risky" green R&D because they know it's safe, and have very actively lobbied against government support for competing sources of energy.

Now this is not an unexplainable conspiracy. You're right that it's all about "show me the money," but it's very easy to be stupidly short-sighted about it. I know that there are 60-ish CEOs that think "I'll be long gone by the time the shaving cream hits the fan, so I'm not going to sacrifice short-term profits." But even he's not thinking about the fact that in 20 years he might still be depending on the income from that stock in his oil company that's now getting thrashed by start-ups that are making a killing with the new technology.

I can understand your logic, and you're not alone. And actually I'm kind of glad you have this opinion too, because it'll mean that for those of us who invest in it, there will be one less person to have to share the profits with!

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep,
Buffy

Hey I'm not saying that there is no future for "green" technologies - just that for right now they aren't commercially viable. The second they have a glimmer of being viable, private equity money will pour in to fund development, and no amount of 60-year old oil execs will be able to stop it.

I think government spending on "green" technologies is a giant waste of money. If the technologies were even close to feasible, private money would already be there. While its certainly true that some technologies got their start due to the needs of the military or space programs, any of the development that made those inventions commercially viable happened in the private sector. What government funded R&D for the wheel? For the internal combustion engine? How much government money funded Apple, Intel and Microsoft? Money drives our world, and if there is a buck - heck, even a penny - to be made, investors will be there. No tax dollars required.

[engineerdude]

Originally Posted by LogicTech

Actually that's very, very wrong. This pie chart shows the distribution of the main greenhouse gases:



As you can see above, CO2 constitutes a whopping 76% of all greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere. As such, it is by far the biggest contributer. True, the other greenhouse gasses are many times more effective than CO2 in absorbing heat, but they don't last that long. Methane only lasts 10 years, while water less than a week...

Eh, you are showing only the trace greenhouse gases in your pie chart. Put water vapor in the chart, see how it looks.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by engineerdude

Hey I'm not saying that there is no future for "green" technologies - just that for right now they aren't commercially viable. The second they have a glimmer of being viable, private equity money will pour in to fund development, and no amount of 60-year old oil execs will be able to stop it.

You've not spent much time raising VC money then...they're lemmings: they don't take risks until a bunch of people sign on, and it used to be--and was big-time in IT--that they wanted to see government R&D money first.

If you think that oil execs wield no power well, you're not watching the news.

Originally Posted by engineerdude

I think government spending on "green" technologies is a giant waste of money. If the technologies were even close to feasible, private money would already be there.

Are you watching? Government subsidies for ethanol have *created* the ethanol industry! The subsidies have been a small fraction of what the investors threw in after the government did.

And as I said above, the reason is that the private money is really risk averse, no matter what it says on their web sites.

In addition, investors are scared that the little startup they fund will get crushed by the big guys when they wake up and smell the cash, so they pretty much require some sort of obvious breakthrough (read: patents) before they put their bucks down so that there's something to be able to sell to the big guys.

800 pound gorillas can kill markets just by sitting in the corner and looking menacing, but its really tough when they're spending gobs on lobbying to put obstacles *in the way* of any startups.

I know you say you're not a corporate shill, and I absolutely believe you.

There are words of course to describe people who argue for stuff that's actually bad for them without getting paid to do so.

Originally Posted by engineerdude

While its certainly true that some technologies got their start due to the needs of the military or space programs, any of the development that made those inventions commercially viable happened in the private sector. What government funded R&D for the wheel? For the internal combustion engine? How much government money funded Apple, Intel and Microsoft? Money drives our world, and if there is a buck - heck, even a penny - to be made, investors will be there. No tax dollars required.

First of all: see how long it took to build the wheel? Or the internal combustion machine? Do you have any idea how much money was spent by carriage manufacturers and railroads to obstruct the development of the car by lobbying for laws preventing their use (speed limits, no use on streets where they might scare the horses)? Do you know how much money was spent between GM and Standard Oil to buy up trolley cars across America to shut them down because they threatened to compete with cars?

Do you realize how much lobbying is going on against wind and solar projects that is paid for by the oil and coal (oh it's "clean" coal and won't you give *us* subsidies too) companies?

This is actual activity easily followed if one bothers to actually read up on it.

Conversely, what you're arguing for is for "faith" in the notion that "everything the government does is bad and industry always does the right thing."

When it comes to engineering, you probably know, "faith" is usually not a very good thing to depend on....

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, and marshal me to knavery,
Buffy

[Flying Binghi]

Some more skeptics -

“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.

“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.” - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” - Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” - Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata. # #
These qoutes are via an article here - TruthNews.us Blog Archive UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims


U. S. Senate Minority Report:

More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...3-c6e8faf14e84

[Zythryn]

Nice list of opinions there FB, now what is the research? Just pick one, that should be a nice start.

EngineerDude, we started to have a nice discussion about the foundation of GW. Have you decided to discontinue it?

[Flying Binghi]

Nice list of opinions there FB, now what is the research? Just pick one, that should be a nice start.

Not sure what your about Zythryn I am presenting referenced sources to back up why it is that MY belief in Global Warming is getting shaky - infact, totaly shaken would be a good discripter.

More foundation shakers -

U. S. Senate Minority Report:

More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...TOKEN=68415685


UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) own guidelines explicitly state that the scientific reports have to be “change[d]” to “ensure consistency with” the politically motivated Summary for Policymakers.
.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :.

[Essay]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Nice list of opinions there FB, now what is the research? Just pick one, that should be a nice start.

Here's one I picked randomly last night: Professor Delgado Domingos
Why is it so frequently meteorologists and engineers (some geologists too) who are cited as doubters.

European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Originally Posted by eurotrib

Professor Delgado Domingos, one of the leading Portuguese environment scientists, gave a long interview to the Sábado Notícias [Saturday News] magazine, a supplement of the centenary Jornal de Notícias.
The last section of the interview touched on Climate issues and has been causing some impact in the local blogosphere. Following is an English translation of this final section of the interview.
Biographic Note
José Joaquim Delgado Domingos has a degree on Mechanical Engineering, achieved with distinction at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in 1956. He became a Cathedrated Professor at IST in 1965 and retired in 2006.
He has more that 150 published articles in the research fields of Thermodynamics, Numerical Methods in Fluid Mechanics and Energy Transfer, Energy System Analysis, Energy and Environment Policy and Meteorologic Forecast.

One quote from the interview:
"There has been a warming period up to 1998, but it can't be guaranteed that it will continue in the following years or that it is solely related to carbon dioxide emissions." -DD

...no guarantee... ...not solely related to ...emissions.
I know there is a lot of public hype surrounding CO2 emissions, but just because scientists are more careful with their wording, doesn't mean they disagree with the science.

Originally Posted by Zythryn

EngineerDude, we started to have a nice discussion about the foundation of GW. Have you decided to discontinue it?

...wondering the same thing myself.
...perhaps researching....

~

[modest]

Originally Posted by Flying Binghi

Not sure what your about Zythryn I am presenting referenced sources to back up why it is that MY belief in Global Warming is getting shaky - infact, totaly shaken would be a good discripter.

Please observe the site rules:

Originally Posted by Site Rules

4. Do not post links to other sites as proof of your claims without commenting what the relevant sites say and why they are important to the current discussion.

~modest

[goku]

Originally Posted by CraigD

I’m guessing goku’s speculating that, because CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are believed to increase the average temperature of the Earth’s, filling a house attic with greenhouse gasses would increase the temperature of the air in the house.

The flaw with this idea is that the greenhouse effect results from material – greenhouse gasses in the case of an atmosphere, glass or other transparent sheet material in a greenhouse, etc. – allowing visible sunlight to pass through it, but absorbing and reemitting or reflecting the infrared light emitted by the sunlit surfaces below. Since the roof of the usual house is opaque to light well above and below the visible range, the greenhouse effect doesn’t play much of a role with it, regardless of what kind of gasses fill its attic.

The purpose of attic insulation is preventing heat escaping the house by heating the roof. Fiberglass blanket insulation is good at this, because it contains many small cells that limits the ability of the gas it contains to transport heat via convection. Though heavier gasses could be used to make slightly more effective insulation, unless encased in a gas-tight envelope (which would make the blanket troublesome to cut), they’d escape the fiberglass mat and be replaced with ordinary air, so it’s easier and cheaper to just increase the thickness of the blanket.

If you did have a transparent roofed house, the transparent material itself would likely be a more effective infrared reflector than any greenhouse gas-rich gas with which you could fill a gas-tight attic, so there’d be no point in using a gas other than ordinary air. Keeping such a house warm at night could be tricky – using multiple sheets of transparent material with gas baffles between them might work. Keeping the house from getting too hot during the day would be a challenge.

hmm, so at night everything goes back to normal

[REASON]

Originally Posted by goku

hmm, so at night everything goes back to normal