The Glade 4.0

Not much incentive to avoid global warming, is it?

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Curry

I've met Dr. Curry; I will not claim to know her in any personal sense. It was a short meeting after a rather involved and very convincing presentation. To sum up her position ...

1. The climate is changing.

2. We don't exactly know how much the climate is changing, all the details of why the climate is changing, and the scope of human involvement in the fact that climate is changing.

3. The climate is an inordinately complex system affected by numerous factors that we have yet to determine, so all the woe is me, the sky is falling nonsense should probably be ignored, because it's crushing climate science credibility.

I suggest you read some of her papers and commentary. If you want to be informed, that's exactly what anyone needs to do.

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In other words...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy

Honestly, for anyone who has even a vague understanding of the history of the planet, I think it would be a much bigger story if the climate WASN'T changing...

"Screw the Grandkids, I'm cold now" -Drew Carey

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I've said this before, probably on this forum. Climate change would get a lot more of the attention advocates want if it were approached as an engineering goal rather than this sky is falling bollox. We do not know if any observed changes are truly catastrophic.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

To expand on the full bit:

I love Cleveland. The weather just terrible there - too cold. All we want to know in Cleveland is where the hell’s all that global warming we’ve been hearing so much about? That’s all they ever do in the winter, stand outside with an aerosol can. >ssst< (pantomimes spraying an aersol can) That’s right. Screw the grandkids. I’m cold now. >sst<

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Sure, if we said we were going to engineer climates, it would get a hell of a lot of attention. Not positive.

The Earth has been much warmer than it is now.
The Earth has been much colder than it is now.

Life is still here, nature goes on.

With or without human involvement, it will get much colder again in the near future (geologically speaking), and in the slightly distant future (about 10 million years) it will be too hot to support life as it currently exists. (This despite the sun having another four billion years in its main sequence.)

Our primary concern, if we are to survive as a species, needs to be to figure out how to get out of the cradle we call Earth. All this other stuff is a distraction.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I live in a valley (~ at sea level) that was created by glaciers.

It happened before.. it will happen again..



Nothing you can do to stop it (nor should you), so just enjoy the ride...

I knew the gist of it, but couldn't remember the entire shtick.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Actually, some "climatologists" believe that we may be delaying or even preventing the next glacial age with our carbon emissions.

If that's the case, allow me to be the first to say, start your engines! (And keep them running.)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I am fine with revealing the anti science wingnuts. They're the same poons that get their panties in a twist about agricultural engineering. They're fine. Ideally we'd let them starve but one step at a time.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I have very much enjoyed what I've heard of her talks, and also what I've read of her work. I second the above.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Before I'm going to take any interest in these conversations about the climate changing, someone is going to have to convince me that it's not supposed to change.

But that's an intrinsic part of the discussion.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

There's a difference between creating a testable agricultural product, and large-scale climate engineering. So many variables....

I spend my time correcting engineering mistakes from previous generations of engineers. It's not to say what they did was wrong, but I correct the "unintended consequences" side of things. The potential for there to be unintended consequences from macro-scale climatological engineering is huge.

From the small amount I've read, yes. At first glance, it appears she's a denier supporter who is loose with her words.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Judith_Curry

You two are appalling human beings. Rationalwiki is a partisan schlock site with easily discreditable sources, glaring falsifications, and other problems, Sam.

RangerDave, calling her a flat-earth, creationist is beneath you. Perhaps you should actually read what she has to say, otherwise you two just do more damage to your cause and remind us all that liberals can't actually argue facts.

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The HIGX movement is the liberal version of fundamentalist Christianity. The core argument is the same: the world is ending, so you must do what we say, and don't think about it. It is political in nature, and not scientific. The goal is to control policy decisions, and thereby control businesses.

The first claim is that the climate is changing. This is not a very bold claim, and it's a fairly mundane statement. The climate of Earth is always changing. The second claim is that humans cause it. The third claim is that we know how humans are causing said change. If we know that much about global climate, we should be able to demonstrate the ability to alter a local climate.

Sahara Desert. Get cracking, liberals.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I've read a bit from and about her. I'm not impressed. As an appalling human being, what facts am I supposed to be arguing?

You don't get it. Humans are a blight on the planet. We ruin everything we touch. The last thing we need are climatologists playing god...there's no way we should try to revitalize the desert, because nothing humans change can ever be positive, because we are sinful, evil, weak beings that can't do anything right on our own.

Oh wait, it's still the liberal version of fundamentalist Christendom.

Carry-on.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Even if we were to accept all three claims as fact, you'd have my attention but not my full support. I'd need that demonstration that we can stop the impact.

And yes, I trust nature over humans. If I had a switch, and one side was "humans can control the climate" and the other was "humans are not impacting the climate", I'd set it to the latter. Maybe. Damn, that would be interesting, though.

Fair enough; I admit that was a snarky reply. The truth is, I've just lost patience with the debate, Khross. The scientific consensus is in and has been for a long time. There are many gaps in the knowledge and a wide range of plausible outcomes, but the basic outlines are clear. The pace of warming has accelerated beyond historical norms, human emissions are the dominant (though not the only) forcing mechanism, and the most plausible range of climate outcomes include a number of significant effects that will negatively impact both humans and other species. Scientists in relevant fields who disagree with that basic outline are few and far between. Curry is apparently one of them, and I don't presume to be qualified to evaluate her conclusions on the subject, but most of her colleagues are qualified and do disagree with her conclusions. That's good enough for me.