What happens when climate change deniers study the science

[billvon 2,400]

From the Australia Broadcasting Company comes a story on what happens when three climate change deniers delve deeply into the science.

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Richard Muller:

Up until a few years ago, Richard Muller was often quoted by sceptics as a credible, high-profile scientist who doubted the consensus on climate change.

Today, he starts his lectures by stating a few things he believes to be facts.

"Al Gore has grossly exaggerated global warming. And if you watch his movie you have more misinformation than information. However, global warming is real. It is caused by humans. It is caused by the human emission of greenhouse gases, and I personally feel we have to stop it somehow."

In 2010, Professor Muller from Berkeley University was funded to carry out a comprehensive study by a group of individuals who doubted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) data.

They believed that urban heat islands, data-selection bias, and inaccurate climate models were being glossed over by scientists.

Professor Muller and his team — all of whom doubted climate change was happening or that carbon dioxide was its cause — were shocked to find a correlation between carbon dioxide emissions and warming.

"That was the biggest surprise of all," he said.

"Volcanoes, sunspots, orbital changes, we could all rule out. What we could do is show [that warming] matched the carbon dioxide exceedingly well."

To address what he sees as a lack of transparency in some IPCC reporting, his team made all their data available online.

"The teams that did [the previous studies] said 'trust us'. We said 'don't trust us, here's what we did'. And for that reason I think we were able to win over the sceptics," he said.

However, he said there was still room for scepticism.

"Yes I am a converted sceptic. However, anybody today who is not a sceptic about the solutions being proposed is not thinking them through."

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Dr Anthony Purcell:

"I doubted that the climate could be so dramatically sensitive to small perturbations, especially on a short timescale," Anthony Purcell said of his initial position on climate change.

Dr Purcell, a mathematician and geophysicist, said his view was largely shared by the members of his social circle.

"Pretty much everybody in my personal life was either agnostic or deeply hostile to the concept of anthropogenic climate change," he said.

"[My father is] a deeply entrenched climate denialist."

In 2010, he read an article in The Australian newspaper in which the distinguished scientist Professor Frank Fenner predicted that "Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years" due to climate change.

Dr Purcell said that statement shook him.

"This was a responsible scientist making a public declaration and it seemed to me to raise alarm bells," he said.

"I hadn't been aware that this was even something that might be considered as a possible outcome."

A deep-sea core sample, containing layers of sediment laid down over millions of years, demonstrated first-hand that Professor Fenner's prediction had a historic precedent.

One of the layers in the core sample was around 55-million-years old, from what is known as the Palaeo-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM).

"All of a sudden that [carbon-rich material in the sediment] vanishes and it's just this dingy mud with no evidence of biological activity at all," he said.

"That was a response to a four-degree temperature increase that occurred over 20,000 years. We're looking at something that's a hundred-times faster than that."

Dr Purcell said his acceptance of the climate science had a significant personal toll.

"It's deeply impacted my relationship with my father," he said. "It's severely eroded our relationship and our ability to communicate."

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Professor David Karoly:

David Karoly is one of the world's pre-eminent climate scientists, and advises the Australian Government through the Climate Change Authority (CCA). But back in 1986, he believed he had a way to prove climate change had nothing to do with carbon emissions.

"I was aware from theoretical considerations that we would expect a specific pattern of temperature changes associated with increasing greenhouse gases," he said. "Which is warming in the lower atmosphere and cooling in the stratosphere at heights above 15 kilometres. And I thought I would use that signature to show that in fact what was actually occurring in the data was due to natural variability like El Nino or increasing sunlight, and not due to human-caused climate change."

Professor Karoly submitted an abstract of his forthcoming research to a climate-change conference in Melbourne in 1986. He expected his findings to show that there was no carbon-driven-warming signature.

"The more I looked, the more I found this signature of warming in the lower atmosphere and cooling in the upper atmosphere," he said.

By the time he came to present his paper, he had to switch his position in support of anthropogenic climate change.

But that was the '80s and climate science had yet to be deeply politicised.

He says changing his view on climate change was not a big deal at the time.

"I was coming into it as what I believe all scientists are — sceptical and wanting to test a hypothesis — and that's what I did."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-10-25/climate-change-sceptics-converted/9053406

[RonD1120 58]

I don't know about other deniers but, I find it amusing because it has no effect in the long run. All is in God's timing and entropy cannot be denied. We call it, the end times or the closing of the gentile disposition.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[Lawndarter 3]

RonD1120

I don't know about other deniers but, I find it amusing because it has no effect in the long run. All is in God's timing and entropy cannot be denied. We call it, the end times or the closing of the gentile disposition.

I have ten bucks that says you have no idea what entropy is.

[Channman 2]

Let's see if $10.00 is worth loosing any sleep over "Entropy"

"A thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system."

Well, like that matter's to me at the moment...now back to my Supper Secret Location.

[winsor 186]

Lawndarter

***I don't know about other deniers but, I find it amusing because it has no effect in the long run. All is in God's timing and entropy cannot be denied. We call it, the end times or the closing of the gentile disposition.

I have ten bucks that says you have no idea what entropy is.

The Clausius Inequality is a good start.

[tkhayes 126]

end of times again? yawn....

[sarcasm]I guess it is our god-given duty to hasten it then, no?[/sarcasm]

[jakee 1,254]

RonD1120

I don't know about other deniers but, I find it amusing because it has no effect in the long run. All is in God's timing and entropy cannot be denied.

That’s a very long run. A very, very long run. Such a long run, in fact, that it’s utterly irrelevant. ‘Entropy’ (if you’re talking in end of the world terms) will never affect the human race, let alone anyone that has a close enough relationship to you to remotely care about.

Global warming, if you accept it, will affect your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. To me, that’s about as long a term as actually matters. But then I don’t care about god, which means I kinda have to care about people. I know you see the world differently.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[billvon 2,400]

jakee

Global warming, if you accept it, will affect your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

And will affect his children even if he doesn't accept it.

[RonD1120 58]

Number 2 is what I was thinking.

Definition of entropy

plural entropies
1 :a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system's disorder, that is a property of the system's state, and that varies directly with any reversible change in heat in the system and inversely with the temperature of the system; broadly :the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system
2 a :the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity
b :a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder
3 :chaos, disorganization, randomness

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[jakee 1,254]

So you think it makes sense to ignore issues that may change the lives of people you care about because billions of years after they’re dead the universe will end anyway?

You’re a strange guy.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[tkhayes 126]

Quote

You’re a strange guy.

the understatement of the year

[DJL 232]

RonD1120

I don't know about other deniers but, I find it amusing because it has no effect in the long run. All is in God's timing and entropy cannot be denied. We call it, the end times or the closing of the gentile disposition.

That about as smart as saying that you're not going to use your brakes because you're driving too fast because in the long run dying of old age vs dying now is no different.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[DanG 1]

It's also akin to saying you're not going to use your brakes because God will slow you down if that's his plan.

Culturally, Ron is quite the Muslim in this regard, since he seems to believe that God is in control, and all things happen because God wills it. So much for free will.

- Dan G

[Lawndarter 3]

RonD1120

Number 2 is what I was thinking.

Definition of entropy

plural entropies
1 :a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system's disorder, that is a property of the system's state, and that varies directly with any reversible change in heat in the system and inversely with the temperature of the system; broadly :the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system
2 a :the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity
b :a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder
3 :chaos, disorganization, randomness

Thanks buds, I can cut and paste the dictionary definition, too. Not really what we were going for here.

[winsor 186]

DanG

It's also akin to saying you're not going to use your brakes because God will slow you down if that's his plan.

Culturally, Ron is quite the Muslim in this regard, since he seems to believe that God is in control, and all things happen because God wills it. So much for free will.

"Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel."

Arab saying

[DJL 232]

Lawndarter

***Number 2 is what I was thinking.

Definition of entropy

plural entropies
1 :a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system's disorder, that is a property of the system's state, and that varies directly with any reversible change in heat in the system and inversely with the temperature of the system; broadly :the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system
2 a :the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity
b :a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder
3 :chaos, disorganization, randomness

Thanks buds, I can cut and paste the dictionary definition, too. Not really what we were going for here.

But let's be real, did you really want to hear an explanation in his own words of the heat death of the universe?

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[RonD1120 58]

It is not the same because the difference is that I have control of my driving. I have no control over the temperature of the earth. Furthermore, no one else does either. It is simply an ego illusion to believe that you do.

One of the basic tenants of AA is to let go and let God. The Serenity Prayer cautions us not to think about or worry about things over which we have no control.

As for my grandchildren, my biggest concern for them is the decadence of progressive liberalism and its negative effect on the American populace. But then again, I have no control. I can only pray for them and vote my conscience.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[kallend 1,623]

RonD1120

It is not the same because the difference is that I have control of my driving. I have no control over the temperature of the earth. Furthermore, no one else does either. It is simply an ego illusion to believe that you do.

One of the basic tenants of AA is to let go and let God. The Serenity Prayer cautions us not to think about or worry about things over which we have no control.

As for my grandchildren, my biggest concern for them is the decadence of progressive liberalism and its negative effect on the American populace. But then again, I have no control. I can only pray for them and vote my conscience.

Your conscience tells you to vote for a lying, cheating, pompous, arrogant, adulterous sexual predator who defrauded students, welshed on his contractors and who is now enriching himself at taxpayers' expense.

Funny conscience you have.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[yoink 321]

RonD1120

I have no control over the temperature of the earth. Furthermore, no one else does either. It is simply an ego illusion to believe that you do.

That's the point of the science, Ron; To show that your spiritual pseudo-babble is wrong - at least when it relates to physical, provable, testable events.

Do you remember CFC's? the gasses used in refrigerators that were banned in 1998? Those were proven to destroy the ozone layer, and guess what - as you put big holes in the ozone layer the area underneath that hole receives more direct sunlight. It heats up more than areas around it... It's also a much more contributory gas to the greenhouse effect than CO2.

That's just a single example of how we directly affect the temperature of the earth and took remedial action.


We DO deliberately affect (and therefore have some degree of control of) the temperature of the earth. Most climate change deniers argue over the extent or cause of that change, but not many people would say that we make no difference. And fewer still would try to back up that position with spirituality-based rationality.

Furthermore, just because you feel that the 'ego-illusion' point of view helped you personally doesn't mean that it would apply to everyone else, or even anyone else, or every situation.

Personally I think the fact that you felt the need to let go of your ego says far more about you than the world around you.

[winsor 186]

kallend

***It is not the same because the difference is that I have control of my driving. I have no control over the temperature of the earth. Furthermore, no one else does either. It is simply an ego illusion to believe that you do.

One of the basic tenants of AA is to let go and let God. The Serenity Prayer cautions us not to think about or worry about things over which we have no control.

As for my grandchildren, my biggest concern for them is the decadence of progressive liberalism and its negative effect on the American populace. But then again, I have no control. I can only pray for them and vote my conscience.

Your conscience tells you to vote for a lying, cheating, pompous, arrogant, adulterous sexual predator who defrauded students, welshed on his contractors and who is now enriching himself at taxpayers' expense.

Funny conscience you have.

A couple of years into Bill Clinton's presidency a talking head gushed that Hillary had her sights set on the Oval Office. At that point I swore I'd vote for Charlie Manson to keep her out of office.

In 2016 Charlie was busy, and Trump was the next best thing.

[skinnay 0]

RonD1120

It is not the same because the difference is that I have control of my driving. I have no control over the temperature of the earth. Furthermore, no one else does either. It is simply an ego illusion to believe that you do.

Are you suggesting that temperature is not affected by greenhouse gasses, or that humans cannot change the amounts of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere? Or both?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

RonD1120

It is not the same because the difference is that I have control of my driving. I have no control over the temperature of the earth. Furthermore, no one else does either. It is simply an ego illusion to believe that you do.

One of the basic tenants of AA is to let go and let God. The Serenity Prayer cautions us not to think about or worry about things over which we have no control.

As for my grandchildren, my biggest concern for them is the decadence of progressive liberalism and its negative effect on the American populace. But then again, I have no control. I can only pray for them and vote my conscience.

The beginning of the Serenity prayer is "Courage to change the things I can."

To think that six or seven BILLION people have no effect on the climate is foolish.

While there is very little that one person can do to affect it, the idea that all of us do what we can to mitigate climate change is a good idea.

Kinda funny that the smog problem in LA went way, way down after cars were required to have emissions controls (among other anti-pollution laws).
Kinda funny how the hole in the ozone layer stopped getting worse, and actually got better after CFCs were regulated and not being used all over the place anymore.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[kallend 1,623]

wolfriverjoe

***It is not the same because the difference is that I have control of my driving. I have no control over the temperature of the earth. Furthermore, no one else does either. It is simply an ego illusion to believe that you do.

One of the basic tenants of AA is to let go and let God. The Serenity Prayer cautions us not to think about or worry about things over which we have no control.

As for my grandchildren, my biggest concern for them is the decadence of progressive liberalism and its negative effect on the American populace. But then again, I have no control. I can only pray for them and vote my conscience.

The beginning of the Serenity prayer is "Courage to change the things I can."

To think that six or seven BILLION people have no effect on the climate is foolish.

While there is very little that one person can do to affect it, the idea that all of us do what we can to mitigate climate change is a good idea.

Kinda funny that the smog problem in LA went way, way down after cars were required to have emissions controls (among other anti-pollution laws).
Kinda funny how the hole in the ozone layer stopped getting worse, and actually got better after CFCs were regulated and not being used all over the place anymore.

But why should Ron care? He reckons he has a "get out of jail here free" card.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[RonD1120 58]

I believe that the earth maintains its homeostasis with or without taxation to fund an unmanageable endeavor. Six or seven billion people working together would certainly produce a result. The question is how are you going to organize that company? Would the intended result survive the law of unintended consequences?

Oh, and the Serenity Prayer begins with "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change."

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[kallend 1,623]

RonD1120

I believe that the earth maintains its homeostasis with or without taxation to fund an unmanageable endeavor.

What you believe and what is don't always seem to be related.

Science pays no attention to beliefs. It depends on evidence.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.