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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 14, 2011 - 09:02am PT
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Chief doesn't listen.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Jun 14, 2011 - 01:47pm PT
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nothing to add, but this is a damn interesting thread
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 14, 2011 - 01:55pm PT
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Thanks for the cite, Bruce. I suspect that the real reason people want to win arguments isn't because they want to deceive anyone (except maybe themselves). It's because we learn by adapting prior beliefs to new observations. We don't process the new information in a vacuum. Rather, we apply our biased view of the world to what we observe.
This is one of the foundations of Bayesian statistical inference, and it has a great deal of application in areas where we need to make statistical inferences from non-experimental data.
If we really wanted to take the Bayesian prospective into account, we'd acknowledge that the confidence intervals of our regressors are much broader than classical statistical theory suggests. This accounts for why future predictions of economic models (and possibly climate change ones as well) don't fit the observed future data nearly as well as they fit the observed data during the modeling period.
John
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cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
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Jun 14, 2011 - 03:37pm PT
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A group of dissembling scientists have lied for slimy politicians over a wide range of issues:
"Merchants of Doubt": A Review
Monday 13 June 2011
by: Christine Shearer, Left Eye On Books | Book Review
Merchants of Doubt is a very well-researched book about a small group of scientists and scientific advisers to the U.S. government who transitioned from their role as Cold War warriors supporting nuclear weapons to ideologically-motivated “contrarians” battling anything they saw as a threat to liberty and free enterprise, even if that meant the science on acid rain or the hole in the ozone layer.
While many books have looked at the misinformation campaigns around issues such as tobacco and climate change, Oreskes and Conway take it one step further, locating some of the key players in multiple issues and situating them as products of a particular history: defenders of the American way of life against its perceived enemies, whether it be communists and socialists or environmentalists and science.
The authors are well-suited for the task as both are historians of science – Oreskes at UC San Diego and Conway at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They bring together considerable evidence to support the argument that a very small group of people have been particularly influential in shaping U.S. public opinion and policy on a number of very important issues.
Oreskes and Conway particularly focus on physicists Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, and William Nierenberg, as well as a few other contrarian scientists, many of them connected to the politically conservative think tank, the Marshall Institute. The book starts off by describing the efforts of some of these scientists in support of nuclear weapons and, eventually, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983, to strike down nuclear ballistic missiles in the air.....The book then looks at how this small group of scientists went on to battle the scientific consensus on a number of issues, including the effects of acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, the dangers of cigarette smoke, and the existence of anthropogenic climate change.
Here's the whole review: http://www.truth-out.org/merchants-doubt-review/1307993393
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 14, 2011 - 05:00pm PT
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Malemute,
Naomi Klein simply fails to recognize the central truth of economics, namely that specialization is productive. This economic (as opposed to scientific) issue about anthropogenic climate change is what we do about it. Her prescription is by no means the only one.
John
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 14, 2011 - 05:06pm PT
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The US is not a true democratic government.
At the risk of serious thread drift, aer there any true democratic governments? If so, what are they?
John
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 14, 2011 - 05:10pm PT
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Would that make California more of a true democracy than, say the United States as a whole?
John
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Jun 14, 2011 - 05:12pm PT
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You could also look at it another way: she's smarter and more accomplished than you are.
Her opinion is worth more than yours.
Hate to say it, but to this relatively impartial observer, looks like The Chief is whippin your butt in this go 'round (weird ad hominem attack based on Naomi Klein is a desperate, futile move).
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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 14, 2011 - 05:22pm PT
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Your ref to Naomi just substantiates my claim that this whole AGW deal is just an underlying road towards a ONE WORLD ORDER and a socialistic centralized gov't. Nothing more. \
And here come the tin foil hatters...
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Jun 14, 2011 - 05:24pm PT
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I'd rather hang together than hang separately.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Jun 14, 2011 - 05:26pm PT
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There are 5 global temperature indexes in wide use. Three of these are based on surface measurements (GISTEMP, NCDC, and HadCRU), the other two inferred less directly from satellite observations (RSS, UAH). All five are in general agreement on trends, although they can differ regarding short-term fluctuations. The satellite indexes, for example, estimate temperatures for the lower troposphere rather than land or sea surface, and seem to vary more sharply in response to El Nino/La Nina conditions. The UAH index at one time was claimed to be in disagreement with the surface indexes, but this "disagreement" largely vanished when major errors in UAH were corrected.
Many different analyses, including comparisons between satellite and surface, urban and rural, and land and sea have ruled out urban heat island effects as a major component of global temperature trends.
Personally I tend to work with GISTEMP, which does the best job tracking climate change across the Arctic. Its historical estimates are based on extrapolating temperature anomalies (but not absolute temperatures, a point widely misunderstood) from the nearest measured stations. Recent instrumental measurements confirm that this technique works well. Other indexes such as HadCRU that do not do this, implicitly assume that Arctic temperature trends are the same as the global average -- but we know that is false.
Temperature anomalies correlate surprisingly well over distances up to hundreds of kilometers, particularly at sea. This has been well tested, but another line of evidence supporting GISTEMP's approach is that its northern-hemisphere values are a decent predictor of Arctic sea ice extent.
Speaking of Arctic sea ice extent, today it is at or near the lowest recorded for this date. Will it set a new record minimum in September? Nobody knows, but many are watching closely.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jun 14, 2011 - 05:40pm PT
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The Chief disdains all individuals (such as you Malmouth) who vehemently press their scientific agenda claims that unless the world comes to order and follows their all knowing scientific proclamations, the world is going to end.
Well apart from addressing himself in the third person (always very creepy), I can see disdaining people who claim the world is going to end. I found this recent pic of Malmute and you can see why the Chief is so against him...
just substantiates my claim that this whole AGW deal is just an underlying road towards a ONE WORLD ORDER and a socialistic centralized gov't. Nothing more.
If you believe this I could see why you would be so against steps to combat AGW. But that is WAY outta left field. The most that could happen is things like carbon tax or caps, requirements that cars get better mpg, etc. There's NO WAY that something as conceptual as AGW is going to create the political will to create a socialistic centralized gov't. It would take something on the order of WWIII to do that. And even still there's no way Americans would go for it. I don't think you give Americans the credit they are due.
Of course you have first hand experience with this as you have had one inserted in your a*# far too long.
How can you complain about demeaning the other side then write something like that?
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jun 14, 2011 - 06:09pm PT
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Chief,
As someone whose political philosophy is probably close to yours, I found the comments of Chiloe and Ed throughout this thread extremely helpful in understanding the science involved here. Klein, and many others, have political baggage that clouds their perspectives (see Bruce's post, supra). Ed and Chiloe will get you resources that respond to real questions about scientific issues, free of the anti-capitalist or pro-capitalist noise.
John
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Jun 14, 2011 - 06:47pm PT
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Excuse me for jumping in with a question:
What is with the constant references and charges of "socialism"?
The classic definition of socialism is the State literally "owning" the means of production.
That reference was applicable in some European countries many years ago and is used
in today's era to promote fear, fear that "we" all will be working on some government farm
someday. Usually this selling of such fear is used not so much as to make some point,
but to emotionalize the making of that point.
So again, why is the government literally taking ownership, in a very big way, of private
companies (socialism) being used in this climate change conversation?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Jun 14, 2011 - 07:19pm PT
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Chief, I am trying to follow along with your point, but help me out?
Your answer to me did not address how you are using government owning the means of
production as to your references to using the word socialism.
What government in this climate change discussion is literally taking over large numbers
of private companies with that government's stated objective to literally "own the means
of production"?
I am not seeing this, please elaborate using the above classic definition of "socialism"
Thank you
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Jun 14, 2011 - 07:31pm PT
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IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific intergovernmental body[1][2] tasked with reviewing and assessing the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change. It provides the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences, notably the risk of climate change caused by human activity. The panel was first established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), two organizations of the United Nations—an action confirmed on 6 December 1988 by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution 43/53. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.[3]
"tasked with reviewing and assessing"
I don't see anything in this description of the IPCC referencing either ownership or "control" of either private or public companies, or "entire industries"
Where is it?
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bobinc
Trad climber
Portland, Or
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Jun 14, 2011 - 07:49pm PT
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Paranoia makes day to day life simpler for some.
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Jun 14, 2011 - 08:54pm PT
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Thanks for the Klein article! I'd say she nails it. Funny that some people think she's a "socialist", as if that's related to "Communism".
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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 14, 2011 - 11:30pm PT
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No Chief Windbag, it's because the only person you listen to is yourself, which is understandable considering that mirror, mirror on your wall, YOU have the biggest mouth of all.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 15, 2011 - 12:02pm PT
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Blow harder man, you can do it!
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