Fall of the House of Climate Change Alarmism

pjp

'Gaia' scientist James Lovelock: I was 'alarmist' about climate change

mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

Lovelock's ideas have always been thought to be extreme by the climate science community. Basically, you have to believe in a worst-case scenario where a succession of tipping points are breached, like falling dominoes, amplifying warming way beyond the commonly accepted estimates. It certainly is possible but, without solid science to back it up, it remains mere speculation. Climate is a matter of science and opinions mean squat unless they are based on hard evidence and solid, scientific arguments which, at a minimum, can get through the process of peer review.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the truth is that alarmists get the same short shrift as deniers.
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pjp · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:42 pm Post subject:

My bubble is hardly burst. We don't know and haven't known.
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mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

I really don't understand why people try to discuss scientific issues without any understanding of the science. 20 years ago we did know. Hell we even knew 30 years ago. Hansen called it way back in 1981.
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Old School · Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:52 pm Post subject:

mcgruff believes that to be true. Consequently, it is an universal truism.
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mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

I'm not expounding any personal beliefs: I'm just telling you about facts which you do not understand because you do not trouble yourself to learn.

The paper was published, and it was broadly correct - except that they underestimated the warming by about a third.
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pjp · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:12 am Post subject:

They underestimated, and some overestimated.

mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

Who are you quoting?

EDIT: OK it's Lovelock again. Easy answer: he's wrong. The climate has been warming and it is on a trajectory which will have catastrophic effects.

You do realise how old he is, don't you? He was a brilliant, imaginative scientist but, at 92, the brain ain't what it used to be.
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pjp · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:16 am Post subject:

Nice admission of knee-jerk.
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In Loving Memory
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mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

You can wriggle and squirm all you like but the fact remains that climate is a matter of science and nothing you say can have any meaning unless your statements are based on solid science.
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Muso · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:27 am Post subject:

Skepticism is proven the sane approach, again.
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pjp · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:32 am Post subject:

mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

I just gave you a couple of links discussing a Hansen paper of 30 years ago which shows that we did know what was brewing. You gave me Lovelock whose extreme opinions were never taken seriously by climate scientists because they were mere speculation.

That's what you guys don't understand about climate science: even someone with Lovelock's track record can't just get up on his hind legs and spout any old junk. You have to back it up, whoever you are.
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pjp · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:59 am Post subject:

'81 has nothing to do with now. As in "There’s nothing much really happening yet." or "The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising". So is that just Lovelock being extreme again? He's just making that up?

But the main issue is that no matter what shows up, some people dismiss it because it does not agree with their belief system.
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In Loving Memory
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BoneKracker · Veteran Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 1486 Location: U.S.A.

This author sounds like mcgruff, how he talks about mass starvation, droughts, flooding, tornadoes, people dying left and right, cats and dogs sleeping together... if we don't stop all burning of carbon now!!!!! ZOMG!!!

Oh, mgcruff is already participating in this discussion. Hi, mcgruff.
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mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

@pjp

I told you why Lovelock's ideas aren't accepted. It has nothing to do with belief systems.

If you knew anything at all about climate science you'd know that 12 years is *not* a reasonable timescale on which to measure global changes and that warming has not stopped over the past decade or so.

It is pointless trying to quote Lovelock as if he represents the climate science community. He doesn't now and never did. He's a 92 year old man who wakes up every morning praying that he didn't piss the bed in the night ferrchrissakes.

Funny how bullies always go after the weak and avoid the strong guys like Hansen, Schmidt, et al.
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mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

BoneKracker · Veteran Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 1486 Location: U.S.A.

Hansen and Schmidt... is one of those that guy who you were trying to deny had forged that paper and those emails, and then later came out and admitted it, or are they somebody else?

Hansen -- that wouldn't be the one who was writing all those peer-reviewed papers about how climate change was killing teh penguins, and then figured out that it was actually her own research (the tagging) that was killing them (props for admitting it, though)?
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Oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC.
-- Headline of a document on Winston Smith's terminal in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, seen briefly in the background in one scene of the movie rendition of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

pjp · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:55 am Post subject:

BoneKracker · Veteran Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 1486 Location: U.S.A.

mcgruff's position is "AAAaaagh! We're all gonna die!"
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Oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC.
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mcgruff · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 137

pitcrawler · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:50 pm Post subject:

His "Gaia" ideas weren't scientific to start with.
And just in case anyone missed it a while back, 2010 is now the hottest recorded year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/the-graph-that-should-be-_b_808747.html

energyman76b · Advocate Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 2022 Location: Germany

Old School · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 7:02 pm Post subject:

pitcrawler · Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2012 7:14 pm Post subject: