Bill Wallace: Global warming
Sunday, September 6, 2009
After reading the article in last Sunday's Steamboat Pilot & Today about climate change ("Experts dispute crisis") plus the three dozen or so online comments, it seems to me that it's time to change the conversation game from "Dueling Factoids" to "Who Do You Trust?"
Realizing that scientific and technological advice is needed on important issues and policy matters, governments have regularly sought out the expertise from scientific and technical institutions, recognized for their delivery of sound knowledge and opinion, and the advancement of science in their respective fields. The issue of global climate change is no exception. At this writing, 48 nationally and internationally recognized institutions with expertise in the climate change issue have published statements on this issue. Their conclusions are that global climate change is real, most likely human caused, and could have catastrophic impacts on society unless action is taken. Six such institutions are not committal. Importantly, since 2007, no remaining scientific body with national or international standing has rejected these basic findings.
For anyone interested in reading these statements, the information and links can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change. I recognize that Wikipedia is not thought of as a reliable information source, but in this case, all Wikipedia did was to collect and publish these various opinions along with their links.
So, to believe that climate change is one big hoax as postulated by William Gray at the Freedom Conference last week, one would have to believe in the existence of a worldwide conspiracy perpetrated on virtually all of the recognized scientific and technical institutions that have standing and expertise in these matters. This would be a conspiracy of gargantuan proportions, sort of like any episode of the X Files you ever saw times a million.
Bill Wallace
Steamboat Springs
Comments
aichempty 3 years, 9 months ago
Bill,
Please list the prominent institutions of higher learning (our top schools in Science and Engineering) which have come out in support of the concept of human-caused climate change.
The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are both nationally recognized institutions made up of millions of members, including people with advanced scientific degrees and knowledge from all areas of study. One would think that two such institutions could agree on important points regarding the future of our society. As we all know, it ain't gonna happen.
So, the Swiss Institute for Atmospheric Science and Bakery Research sounds like an impressive name, but that doesn't mean they're anything but a lobbying organization.
It's more important to look at the organizations, their sources of funding and their reasons for going with the flow.
Overall, at first glance, it appears that these organizations have been funded to produce the result that humans are causing climate change. Most notably, since 1990, the U.S. Global Change Research Program has depended on government funding from a Democratically controlled Congress and White House except for the early years of the Bush administration. So it was Clinton, Gore, Pelosi etc., who were mostly behind this intergovernmental organization, and the political associations are undeniable.
So, let's see that list of leading American universities that are hanging their reputations on human-caused climate change.
There is a big hoax going on, and people who believe what politicians are funding research to "prove" are not being realistic.
It is truly sad that money is going into proving a political opinion instead of into basic research that might have some impact on the real problem and provide adaptive or remediative solutions to the effects of climate change.
Technology is available today to make private residences energy self-sufficient. Hybrid and electric vehicles are coming off the assembly lines. LED and compact fluorescent light bulbs save money on the electric bill every month. These are the places where we should be putting our efforts, and CO2 reduction will follow as a side effect. But, our government won't push those things because . . . the low-income constituencies and people without money to purchase homes equipped with such systems, and new cars and trucks, won't see the benefits. If it doesn't hurt "rich" people, nobody will vote for it.
Fred Duckels 3 years, 9 months ago
Bill, I personally don't know one way or the other, but any group that eliminates the nuclear option is clearly dimwitted, of that I do know.
seeuski 3 years, 9 months ago
Carbon Dioxide irrelevant in climate debate says MIT Scientist
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Carbon-Dioxide-irrelevant-in-climate-debate-says-MIT-Scientist
What? This can't be. Now who do I believe? "Not only is the IPCC basing its predictions on data that has been doubled from observed data, it is overstating the role of CO2 in Climate altogether." I think I'll go with the actual data and not computer models.
Bill Wallace 3 years, 9 months ago
Additional Note: I'm reading book called "The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson that chronicles the devastating outbreaks of Cholera in London in the 1850s, and the efforts to find the cause and eliminate the disease. The author notes that back then there were many "Cholera-is-a waterborne-disease" deniers, preferring, even in the face of sound evidence to the contrary, to believe in the Middle Ages miasma theory of disease, that the cause of Cholera was bad air. I suppose this could break both ways, but the main point is that society needs institutions that are able to study, assess and deliver solid advice based on sound science.
Sol Shapiro 3 years, 9 months ago
Bill, I share concern that we are seeing global warming. What is missing from so much of this discussion is the fact that using a process termed geoengineering we can stop climate change in short order and give us the century or more needed to change the world's energy base while holding climate change in abeyeance. One such approach is to emulate the cooling effect of large volcanic eruptions. Many prominent scientists including the president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) have called for study; and the Academy under a congressional mandated program "America's Climate Choices" will likely be calling for study in their report due at the end of this year/into next year. The British Royal Academy in a recent report has also called for study. Note that these reports will also strongly call for changing the energy base. Write to me for more details at Somarl@msn.com.
seeuski 3 years, 9 months ago
Global eugenics? Stop the madness Sol. Man made disasters for the sky is falling crowd is morally wrong.
Scott Mandia 3 years, 9 months ago
Bill,
Well stated. I think we all need to move forward and change the debate to "what are we going to do about it ?"
"What's the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we're willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?" -- Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland (referring then to ozone depletion)
canyonwind 3 years, 9 months ago
Green Job Czar Van Jones, a man that calls himself a communist and that white eco groups have dumped toxins in the black parts of urban America, a 9-11 truther and former member of STORM a East Bay radical group that was active in the LA riots 1992 and the Seattle WTO riots of 1998, quit is job today as Green Job Czar.
Bill Wallace 3 years, 9 months ago
Regarding your comments, aichempty, I'm struggling to understand your points. Technological universities normally aren't asked to advise on national policies. But their scientists and engineers participate actively in the debate on climate change as well as other subjects, and virtually all of them are members of one or more of the organizations I referenced in the letter. Those are the organizations that leaders rely upon for sound advice based on good science. BTW, these organizations include the National Academies, NASA, NOAA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and many others whose reputations rise and fall on their ability to support rational decision-making.
Political parties will never agree unless faced with a major catastrophe. Interestingly, as a result of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, New Orleans and Louisiana politics are being overhauled by a public that has had to experience first hand the results of decades of politicians ignoring the facts and making bad decisions.
All of these organizations get government funding in one way or another. However, I cannot buy your argument that any organization that gets government funding in the arena of global climate change must be biased, just as I cannot buy William Gray's argument that scientists that don't adhere to the climate change theories won't get funding. Heck, scientists who can effectively challenge the current thinking can likely get all the money they want from Exxon, the coal companies, the cement industry, i.e., any group that has a stake in maintaining the status quo.
On to other comments...
Fred, I agree with you that nuclear power has to be on the table. We really don't have any choice. However, we have to proceed in an entirely different way than what we did before. The French model seems attractive, although I have to admit I don't know much about it.
Sol, I think geoengineering solutions need to be considered, but like seeuski, I'm concerned about the unintended consequences. I'm been collecting information on geoengineering (as well as all subjects pertaining to sustainability, climate change, etc.) and will contact you about your references.
Scott, your point is well taken. We need to start doing stuff. The best plan of action I've seen to date is incorporated in Tom Friedman's book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded."
aichempty 3 years, 9 months ago
Bill,
In fact, your suppositions are false. Technological universities have organizations specifically chartered to deal with issues of national importance. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the MIT Lincoln Labs, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and others I can't remember at this early hour perform basic and applied research for both federal and state governments to address specific technological problems. They all have contract vehicles in place to use government funding to address urgent and emerging issues in support of national problems. I think climate change would certainly be an area where university attention could be focused. Why? Because of access to state of the art knowledge and technology and world-class experts in the sciences. These guys deal with weather on Mars, so I think they can probably measure stuff on Earth, too. After all, it's RIGHT HERE.
NASA, NOAA, etc., are "members" of the government committees, but I haven't heard NASA or NOAA come right flat out and say that man-made CO2 is causing climate change. They can certainly observe changes in CO2 and temperatures and all the other factors that go into the controversy, but I haven't heard them definitively place the blame. I get the idea that a lot of folks are smiling and nodding and cashing the paychecks until something better, or retirement, comes along.
Industries that are part of the problem know one thing very well. Anything you put in writing can be used to sue you later. The tobacco companies set the example with this one. If you deal with a lawyer, you quickly learn that when confronted with a fact or an allegation that does not favor their side, they shut up. Period. The position is, "Prove it," and "see you in court." Any work that could be done using oil company money might turn up something damaging, and then it's evidence, and then it has to be hidden. Don't ask, don't tell, and, uh, don't look for stuff that might turn out to be a problem.
Our government is in business to be our government. Their concern for our welfare starts and stops at the ballot box.
One very good example is the state of our national forest. Conservation, tree hugging, national parks, etc., were the rule for many decades. What did it get us? A forest full of dead trees. Fighting the fires allowed the beetles to spread and kill millions of trees.
In New Orleans, the government expected people to evacuate ahead of the storm. Nobody realized until afterwards that people had stayed behind and were in big trouble. Now, reasonable people would have left town before the storm, and that's what the government expected to be dealing with afterwards. So, don't trust the government to have the answers. Nature has the answers, and we have to deal with them. Opinions merely cloud the issue, and that's a big part of our current problem. We're so busy looking for an answer we may not be asking the right questions.
Bill Wallace 3 years, 9 months ago
Well so much for having a rational conversation. Life must be pretty exciting when you're surrounded by conspiracies.
StopTheBrutalChemtrails 3 years, 9 months ago
LMAO, Wikipedia, that's a great source, wait till King Obama makes it the official source of world history, I was actually hearing talk of that happening. LOL Here are some real sources for you, Mr. Wallace, lol.
www.prisonplanet.com/carbon-dioxide-co2-is-not-pollution.html
forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=132712.0
forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=127552.0
www.prisonplanet.com/humans-and-their-co2-save-the-planet.html
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_report_july_09.pdf
The pdf file located at the link above from the Science and Public Policy Institute has absolutely, convincingly, and irrefutably proven the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming to be completely false.
Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT's peer reviewed work states "we now know that the effect of CO2 on temperature is small, we know why it is small, and we know that it is having very little effect on the climate."
aichempty 3 years, 9 months ago
Bill,
The conspiracy is among people who think the government has the answers. I happen to know they do not, because I have been in the business of doing research for the federal government in one area or another for most of my career.
I was once engaged for a full year in trying to come up with a better tactic to cure a problem based 100% in the government's choice of hardware for a weapon system. The inaccuracy of the navigation system prevented a direct attack on the intended target beyond a certain range. Errors built up, with the result that after a period of time, at the extreme range of the system, any target on the surface of the sea, including friendly or neutral ones, could be attacked with equal probability. The system was eventually abandoned and converted to a more effective variant to attack fixed land targets, which tend to move around a lot less than ships do . . .
My point is that our government allows people to procure stuff that won't work because they don't have enough money to buy something that will work, and then they spend more money trying to figure out how to make the stuff that won't work, work. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, for example, acts as "technical direction agent" for many Navy programs to provide engineering and science expertise not available in government employees. Basically, the federal government cannot afford to hire world-class talent, so they contract out the tough work to the commercial and academic sector. That's how we got to the Moon; contractors developed and built both the Apollo capsule and the lunar module in support of NASA.
In my last venture with the government, one of the tasks was to figure out how to put 1000 people into 800 spaces without doubling anyone up. Well, it was impossible, but they spent $100,000 on it anyway. We took three months to find what they already knew, to put 1000 people in 100 square feet each you need 100,000 square feet of space. 80,000 square feet isn't enough. They needed higher math and optimization theory to confirm the arithmetic. So, some, but not all, government agencies are run by incompetent boobs who don't do much but hire contractors to think for them.
Sorry to bust your bubble, but I've been there too often to drink the kool-aid. If the real brain power this country has to call on isn't coming out with definitive conclusions and the data to back it up, that's because the jury is still out.
So, if you want to have a rational discussion, let's go. If you want to blab at me until I agree with the opinons of people who cannot prove what they say, then that's another story.
Bill Wallace 3 years, 9 months ago
If your point is that government agencies manned by civil service employees are incompetent on many fronts, then you and I agree. I spent 13 years working for a number of federal government agencies, and have many "war stories" similar to yours. I left for the private sector in '79 before I became "one of them."
But back to climate change... A lot of really smart people from both the public and private sector who have looked at the issue have concluded that it's real, mostly human induced, and is or will soon have devastating consequences on society. These include people in leadership positions in major national and multinational corporations who are refocusing their company's strategies based on their studied conclusions about climate change. For example, take a look at the web site for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, www.wbcsd.org). The membership of this group includes 200 of the top multinational corporations, all of which have made public commitments to making their operations more sustainable, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Not only has the WBCSD made public statements about climate change, but they have worked with the World Resources Institute to come up with a GHG protocol for measuring GHG emissions.
If the climate change issue was perpetrated by government civil servants, then I too would have grave doubts about it's authenticity. But it's not. It's an issue that emerged from academia and has been vetted by many competent people in industry and academia (and government too)-the "real brain power" you speak of.
My concern is that the "kool-aid" being served is being mixed by people who are defending the status quo, wanting to squeeze every last drop of profit out of their legacy processes and systems at society's expense.
seeuski 3 years, 9 months ago
I think that Mr. Wallace's post above explains his bias completely. As all other AGW believers have stated over and over again,"there is no debate everyone agrees". The problem is that all the real time data that has been provided by others that are contrary to these AGW theories is ignored or attacked as being funded by the big bad oil companies. Mr. Wallace, your statement about so many major companies refocusing there energy technologies is a perfect argument for freedom in private enterprise to adjust as necessary to problems and why a Government intervention as large and deadly as the Cap And Tax proposals will be to US free trade and the US economy are wrong and immoral.
But your last statement just goes to prove you have an ax to grind in this debate. "My concern is that the "kool-aid" being served is being mixed by people who are defending the status quo, wanting to squeeze every last drop of profit out of their legacy processes and systems at society's expense."
Profit bad-big Government good Just say no to Socialism and the Socialists promoting their koolaid.
JLM 3 years, 9 months ago
I am absolutely certain that the folks who today are sounding the claxon for global warming are just a sincere as the same folks who were ringing the bell for global cooling just 30 years ago.
Sincerity is not the issue.
Unfortunately, I am just as skeptical.
In a time of great uncertainty, I am skeptical of folks who are perfectly certain.
aichempty 3 years, 9 months ago
Bill,
I think that business is reacting to the reality that greener is cheaper and conservation is the way to go because dealing with waste is a very expensive proposition. Good business would always be working toward greater efficiency, because pennies add up and a profit made in pennies is just as good as any other.
Again, my whole problem is the "opinion" that AGW is the problem. GW may be the problem, but the A part is not proven. It's only annecdotal and correlative, not conclusive.
I do agree with the fact that we should be looking for the causes, and if reversible AGW is part of the problem, then we should work at it. We just should not take draconian measures based on government-driven conclusions when they might not make any difference.
This year's hurricane season is turning out to be very weak. There are far fewer sunspots than in the past. Both of these things indicate that the thermostat has been turned down, because one causes heat and the other requires it to cause problems.
Asbestos causes lung cancer. We know how that happens. We know the physiological causes and effects of asbestos fiber damage to lung cells, which cause an immune reaction, which introduces toxins, which cause cells to become cancerous. The connection to smoking is not so cut and dried; it's there but we don't know exactly how it occurs compared to asbestos. Radon is also implicated, but we don't know exactly how. Asbestos has a demonstrable cause and effect, while radon and tobacco smoke are only statistical correlations, but they are very STRONG correlations.
With climate change, we only have the correlations, without direct cause and effect. The latest temperature data does not seem to agree with the CO2 data, so it may be indeed that temperature change precedes CO2 changes instead of the other way around. That's what we have to find out.
If you want to see for yourself, plot the Mauna Kea CO2 data and other sources going back 150 years against the human population estimates for the same period. You will see that population is increasing much faster than CO2 in recent decades, and that is completely counterintuitive to the conclusions based upon opinion. The disconnect needs to be explained.
By the way, my little pickup truck gets 7 MPG better mileage around here than it does down around sea level. This is easy to explain. The EFI reduces fuel to match the decreased oxygen content. But, the air is also much less dense up here than it is at sea level, and the biggest effect is that it takes less power to push the air out of the way up here. Pilots know about this effect and climb to higher altitude where there is less drag. There are two explanations for the increased mileage, and they both have a part. Ignoring one in favor of the other leads to false conclusions. That's why we need to know more about the climate than just the CO2 content. It's more complicated than one single issue.
Boatperson 3 years, 9 months ago
Any considerations of what accounts for concern in regard to "Global Warming" should be evaluated by peer review and not based on articles written and published by one Individual.
Evaluate all aspects and potential outcomes.
http://www.agu.org/about/annual_report/AGU_08AnnualReport.pdf
350 ppm
Boatperson 3 years, 9 months ago
Limiting Future Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Received 1 March 1994; accepted 7 July 1994; .
Citation: Sarmiento, J. L., C. L. Quere, and S. W. Pacala (1995), Limiting Future Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 9(1), 121137.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1995/94GB01779.shtml
Boatperson 3 years, 9 months ago
aichempty
Your fuel analogy lacks information. If the O2 level is less in volume and mass you will use that much more in volume for the same power to weight ratio and in utilizing a greater volume and mass of O2 achieve the 7 mpg improvement. You may be correct in one aspect but will waste that much more in O2 mass and volume to achieve the same movement in space. Bottom line you'd have to adjust your fuel to O2 ratio and the timing of the combustion thus improving your MPG.
Boatperson 3 years, 9 months ago
That was a dedication to the rambling...
aichempty 3 years, 9 months ago
Boatperson,
The EFI (electronic fuel injection) limits the amount of fuel to give an "ideal" lean mixture depending on oxygen and altitude.
As light piston powered airplanes go up in altitude, the pilot has to manually "lean" the fuel mixture to avoid choking the engine on too rich a fuel mixture. The EFI in modern vehicles does the same time, and prevents damage to the vehicle from over leaning as well as optiimizing power based on the oxygen available. There is some ram-air compression effect from the air inlet system at high speed, but the EFI automatically adjusts for that too.
So ramble on. I took chemistry in college and have a couple of thousand hours of flight time in several different types, so I happen to know what I'm talking about, as usual. Tee hee. Only joking at you.
The same volume of air obviously passes through the engine on each piston stroke, but the MASS of air varies by density which is a function of altitude. O2 that passes through without being used to burn fuel just passes through. It is not consumed. So, the term "waste" is not entirely accurate.
Boatperson 3 years, 9 months ago
Wait, wait, oh it passed... I felt a rambling coming on.
Requires free registration
Posting comments requires a free account and verification.
Or login with:
OpenID