Uh oh another one jumps ship

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Who needs 100%? As soon as the probability exceeds 50% it seems reasonable to follow the odds. The IPCC report didn't claim 100%......... just something above 90% as far as I recall.

Dr Rohan didn't claim 100% certainty in his post - he spoke of "consensus" being "overwhelming". 90% is pretty "overwhelming" in my book. He didn't speak of certainty though, so please stop making things up - it makes you look silly.

Excuse me, but isn't it the GW crowd who claims there is no longer room for debate? So now we need only a 51% majority in science for something to be accepted as fact? And, as I remember p must be less than .05 to be significant...i.e., anything less than 95 % likely is still considered chance. Oh, and try and convict someone with 90% of the jury.

Look, believe what you want, but the GW crowd wants to control MY life. They want to tell me what to drive, what light bulbs to use, what taxes I need to pay to clean up the environment, and so on. People who want THAT power need to be certain. We need to prove a case "beyond a reasonable doubt" to incarcerate someone. Likewise, before we embark on treaties that put our economic competitiveness at risk, we need NO reasonable doubts. And I think the opinions of dozens of reputatable experts who say it isn't so constitutes reasonable doubt, regardless of whether they number in the minority. I reiterate: science is not a popularity contest.

Could you produce a similarly long and credentialled list of experts who doubt that DNA is the source of genetics, or that special relativity or quantum mechanics are false? No.

Imagine this: the world's nutritionists suddenly announce that 75% of them are now certain that eating a diet of red meat alone should be the standard. Any fruit or vegetable matter has, based on the last one hundred years of data, will lead to catastrophic death rates. They urge the government to heavily tax all foods except for red meat, or to phase out such foods entirely. The 25% of nutritionists who disagree are said to be in the pocket of "big grain".

Our response would be: huh? Who died and made a handful of PhDs, who no one really listened before, the lords of our lifestyles? And haven't we been eating various diets for thousands of years without a disaster? And what about the minority who disagree, are they all wrong... I mean, if experts are still arguing, maybe we shouldn't take rash actions, maybe we should let things sort out. And besides, look how many times the food police have been wrong before. In the end, they would be ignored and laughed at.

Believe what you chose, just keep your hands off the levers of economic growth until ALL of you agree...yes, 100%.

 

[trigfunctions]

Shakey - if you developed symptoms of a previously unobserved disease and you went to 1,000 doctors, and 990 told you to take certain medicines or else you might get very,very sick, and 10 of the doctors (5 of whom are on the payroll of your insurance company) told you to wait it out and conduct more tests because you (and they) wouldn't want to spend money on medicine you don't really need, what would you do?

 

[Skull]

Trig and if the 90 doctors were in the pockets of Merc, Pfiser, Bristol Myers then what? ...

Shakeys point is more realistic. We shouldn't change econonic policy because of consensus of scientist who are in the infancy of their field. Climate research isn't exactly on the par with physics and chemistry-eh? ...as far as true understanding of the fundamentals

 

[mrjimboalaska]

Look, believe what you want, but the GW crowd wants to control MY life. They want to tell me what to drive, what light bulbs to use, what taxes I need to pay to clean up the environment, and so on. People who want THAT power need to be certain. We need to prove a case "beyond a reasonable doubt" to incarcerate someone. Likewise, before we embark on treaties that put our economic competitiveness at risk, we need NO reasonable doubts. And I think the opinions of dozens of reputatable experts who say it isn't so constitutes reasonable doubt, regardless of whether they number in the minority. I reiterate: science is not a popularity contest.
.

This is the Goal of the GW UN "Concensus". Period.

CONSERVATION is what needs to be practiced.
Nuclear Power needs to be expanded BIG TIME in the US
Drill ANWR NOW! and build more Refineries NOW.....We are the cleanest Drillers and Refiners in the World, lets use our own fuel......
Stop buying products from Dirty Countries...ie....CHINA

 

[DandyDon]

"So much mindless dribble, so little time....."

Yep!

Thank you for a sound post based on real facts and info Dr.R

It is a little unsettling to see a surgeon reject facts. :11:

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Shakey - if you developed symptoms of a previously unobserved disease and you went to 1,000 doctors, and 990 told you to take certain medicines or else you might get very,very sick, and 10 of the doctors (5 of whom are on the payroll of your insurance company) told you to wait it out and conduct more tests because you (and they) wouldn't want to spend money on medicine you don't really need, what would you do?

It depends upon the cost and risk of the treatment, versus the cost and risk of the illness.

If the disease was not well known, or even unknown, then how could these doctors tell me my prognosis? A patient must have some idea of the relative risk/benefit ratio of treatment versus no treatment. If, for example, a consensus of doctors told me that I had to both my legs amputated because they were "fairly" certain I would die if I didn't, would I? Probably not. If a consensus of doctor's told me to take peniclllin VK for two weeks because they were very certain I would die otherwise, I would. Thus, is it a good idea to drive fuel efficient cars, turn off lights, plant some trees, take the bus occasionally? Yes. Is it a good idea to develop alternate fuels? Yes. Such things have other benefits besides carbon production. Is it a good idea to cap US crabon output and potentially cripple the economy, or to allow a "carbon tax" to further slow economic growth and go for what, bureaucracy? No. The doubt, in my opinion, is too great to permit massive economic overhauls of Western economies.

The presumption in your question is that a) 99% of experts agree of GW (I don't think so) b) most, if not all of them, have financial reasons for doubting it (not true either, and a good many GW advocates have strong financial/political rationales for their beliefs too) and c) the "prognosis" of the planet is known with such certainty that we should be willing to pay a very high price to save it (not so fast).

Your disease analogy is a good one, though. If we consider GW a global illness, our policy becomes one of deciding how certain is our diagnosis, what is the prognosis and what is the cost/efficacy/benefit of potential treatments? Even if the diagnosis is certain, what is the prognosis, what remedies do we have and what risks and costs are we willing to absorb for treatment? None of this is clear. I submit that the only thing in this equation we know with any certainty is the financial and societal cost of reducing carbon emissions to the degree that GW advocates desire: a lot.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

"So much mindless dribble, so little time....."

Yep!

Thank you for a sound post based on real facts and info Dr.R

It is a little unsettling to see a surgeon reject facts. :11:

No, it is a little unsettling for people not to question an issue as potentially important as this. I am a surgeon, not a sheep.

Remember, DandyDon, that GW is not about NOW, it is about what will happen to the world ten, twenty, fifty and one hundred years from now. Please explain how someone's predcitions, no matter how learned, are to be considered facts?

Whether those predictions come true or not is a matter of OPINION, not of FACT.

As I said, can you find even one highly credentialed expert who disputes that the sun's power comes from fusion, or that life doesn't spontaneously generate, or that galaxies are made of stars, or that antimatter exists, or that the Maxwell's equations aren't valid? Yet, we can find dozens and dozens of climate experts, oceanographers, meteorologists, astrophysicists and atmospheric scientists from many countries and many institutions who dispute GW theory as it now exists... simply saying they are in the minority, whatever that means, doesn't mean the controversy doesn't exist. There was a time when phlogiston theory, Netwonian relativity and the ether were the consensus postures, too.

 

[DandyDon]

Remember, DandyDon, that GW is not about NOW, it is about what will happen to the world ten, twenty, fifty and one hundred years from now. Please explain how someone's predcitions, no matter how learned, are to be considered facts?

Are you really unaware of the NOW effects of global warming? Already severe in some area...

 

[Diver0001]

Well seems the chrome is coming off the bumper ...first Hansen then MIT Physics dept head ..and a dozen others then this one ... atleast a voice of reason and humility

Sceptics will debate if smoke means fire until the building is burnt to the ground.

In my humble opinion we don't have time for that. At this point we are better off to assume we have a serious problem. We will now thank the sceptics to leave the building and stand well out of the way while the people of action do something.

Frankly we're better off doing something and discovering after the fact that it wasn't necessary than we are to debate the issue ad nauseum until all we can do is accept the consqences.....

90% of everyone will stand around at an accident staring, making moo-ing sounds and giving commentary. I'm getting behind the 10% who want to step up to the plate.

R..

 

[Skull]

What if doing something cause our economy to slide into a deep recession, raising unemeployement to say 10%, as well as causing our local, state and fed governments to raise taxes to cover tax revenue shortages caused by the economic slow down, thus compounding the problem and leading to economic hardships on lower and middleclass folks. This inturn would cause stresses on the social programs here and world wide. Leading to wars, resource wars, price guaging and black markets for over taxed goods ...again leading to lower tax based revenues. Do you see where this is leading.

No... a sound policy would be to re-institute nuclear power generation supplimented with desalination, and reusible power generation sources. Setting fuel efficieny standards which lead towards more energy efficient machines across the board.

Using punitive tax measures and carbon trading schemes will only lead to corruption and massive bureaucracy's.

The earth has been warming for 18,000 yrs and using this fact as a scare tactic is a moronic way to push for more energy efficient and alternative means of energy policies.

Forcing a recession on the US will not stop the world wide economic expansion currently under way...btw how are those Kyoto standards coming ...not one country has hit the benchmarks.