On 19 Nov 2003 12:54:37 -0800,
gzuckier@yahoo.com (z) wrote:
>Bill Funk <bfunk33@pipping.com> wrote in message news:<4gdlqvgd2sp10por0pn9u03v90rtnsa4d3@4ax.com>...
>> On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 15:12:51 -0500, "C. E. White"
>> <cewhite3@mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>> >To sum it up - even if global warming is true, I believe the cure is worse than
>> >the disease. And furthermore, I think that even if it is true, the case is being
>> >dramatically overstated.
>> >
>> >Ed
>>
>> I don't think there's any question that global warming is happening.
>> But there are a lot of questions about that:
>>
>> *Why* is it happening? Truth is, we don't know. We can *model*
>> scenarios that say we are at fault, but those models don't admit that
>> it's happened in the past, without the possibility of us interfering
>> at all.
>
>Are you saying that the existing models don't fit the past climate
>spikes? At what point do they miss? Or are you saying that because
>there was warming in the past without human interaction, the fit of
>the model explaining current warming as tied to current human CO2
>release can't be correct? Similar to the argument that, since forest
>fires have been going on since the dawn of forests, current forest
>fires can't possibly be ignited by human actions?
I am being rather clear in saying that "models" can model anything
that the programmers want them to model.
>
>> *How long* will it last? Again, we don't know.
>> Will reducing the CO2 output from our manufacturing/transportation
>> slow/reverse the warming? Again, we don't know. And, we have
>> absolutely no idea of what would happen if we were to reverse it.
>> Would we enter another ice age? We simply don't know.
>
>Well, we do know that we are entering a new ice age; these cycles are
>pretty much worked out, and in 4-5 thousand years we are going to be
>pretty damn chilly. But most people are more interested in where we
>will be for the next few decades. And right now it looks like
>continuing to perpetually increase the amount of solar energy trapped
>by the atmosphere is probably a worse idea than not doing so.
Yet, the actual *causes* for this warming are not known.
They are *assumed* to be caused by C02 released by us, but we don't
*know* that.
We don't know for sure what causes climatic shifts on a grand scale.
We can see what happened, but we can't say why they happened.
So, we are being told that we must creat economic upheaval, and
drastically change our livings, because we are somehow "bad".
>
>>
>> Models can be made to say anything the people making the models want
>> to hear. That's reality.
>
>Not hardly. Show me a model showing that global warming is related to
>astrology, then you can say this. In any event, science consists of
>'dueling models'; you narrow it down to a few that explain the current
>data better than the rest, then narrow it down further by seeing which
>ones predict new data better.
I can make one.
You are asking me to do something you can't do yourself, when I made
no claim that I can do that.
Sorry, but that's a bogus defence of the claim that we are causing
global warming.
>
>> It's stupid to say that CO2 that we are putting out is the cause of
>> global; warming, then push something like Kyoto, which merely shifts
>> the location of the CO2 production. Yet, that's what the tree-huggers
>> want.
>
>Similarly, it's stupid to take a little step away from the bed in the
>morning, when what I really need to do is get to my job 20 miles away.
???
Where did this come from?
Kyoto doesn't do more than pretend that it will reduce C02. Instead,
it only shifts the production of C02 from some countries to others.
>Yet, it works out somehow, and I doubt that it would do so were I not
>to take that first step. What's the alternative plan? Tell the third
>world that they need to keep their living standard the way it is
>unless they can figure out how to improve it without CO2 emissions, so
>that we can maintain our standard of living with our vast CO2
>emissions?
Maybe we should actually determine the real solution before we take
such drastic steps.
>And when they decline to take that advice, just shrug our
>shoulders and say, 'Well hell, we tried, but they won't cooperate'?
Again, we could actually find the solution rather than base one on the
idea that we are "bad".
>
>>
>> Maybe if we had more facts about what the problem is, we could come up
>> with some workable answers.
>
>Facts? Like what, two tablets coming down from heaven with a
>mathematical model of climate inscribed on them, and God's handwritten
>guarantee? Fact: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Fact: we are producing CO2
>at an unprecedented rate. Fact: the climate is heating up at a
>similarly unprecedented rate. Fact: the best fitting and best
>supported models show the major agent of the rising temperature to be
>the CO2 release. Fact: there isn't enough wiggle room in the models to
>eliminate the actions of human CO2 release as a prime cause, without
>postulating some big unknown never-before-identified factor. Fact: as
>more and more research has piled up over the years, the anthrogenic
>CO2 global warming model has not been overthrown, contrary to the
>predictions of the opponents over the years; in fact, areas of
>uncertainty have become clearer and clearer and estimates of model
>parameters have become more precise.
Fact: we don't *know* why there were warming periods in the past.
We do know that happened, but we don't know why.
Yet, we are so amazingly arrogant as to assume that *this time*, we
are the cause.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"
