Is Global Warming a Swindle?

[Art]

Because emissions from cattle don't matter. The carbon dumped into the atmosphere by cattle comes from the food they eat, which comes from plants, which comes from the atmosphere. It's already part of the carbon cycle. Carbon emissions from oil and coal is coming from deep underground, and hasn't been in the ecosystem for millions of years. That's why it's causing a problem.

It's the cows methane emissions that are the issue. Evo's post referred to CO2 equivalents not CO2 itself.

Plus to feed the cattle we fertilize land using man-made nitrates. We are depositing nitrates in N Europe at 100* the amount produced by nature.

80% of nitrogen compounds in the atmosphere are from human sources and nitrous oxide has >300* the GW potential of CO2 and produces real measurable bad effects such as acid rain.

As Evo pointed out if politicians and environmental scientists really believe their own propaganda their silence on this issue is puzzling.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/articles/article/nitrogenthebadguyofglobalwarming1160583306/

 

[StuMyers]

So the US EPA is wrong or the other possibility of course is this is a prime example of how numbers are fudged to get the 'right' answer.

No, it's not "wrong", it's that the UHI's are more complicated than you have been led to think by pop sci. Please read the journal article.

 

[Art]

No, it's not "wrong", it's that the UHI's are more complicated than you have been led to think by pop sci. Please read the journal article.

I did read it and it says they fudged the numbers or if you prefer to make it sound more scientific they actually said

a variety of adjustments were applied to the data

To support the AGW theory the urban temps should have been higher but they are not so AGW advocates are trying to explain away this discrepancy by denying the HI effect.

Isn't the consensus amongst scientists that the heat island effect is real though??

 

[StuMyers]

It's the cows methane emissions that are the issue. Evo's post referred to CO2 equivalents not CO2 itself.

Plus to feed the cattle we fertilize land using man-made nitrates. We are depositing nitrates in N Europe at 100* the amount produced by nature.

80% of nitrogen compounds in the atmosphere are from human sources and nitrous oxide has >300* the GW potential of CO2 and produces real measurable bad effects such as acid rain.

As Evo pointed out if politicians and environmental scientists really believe their own propaganda their silence on this issue is puzzling.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/articles/article/nitrogenthebadguyofglobalwarming1160583306/

Where exactly are you seeing silence on CH4 and N2O? IPCC cites both as significant contributors. 0.64Wm^-2 of 1.6Wm^-2 total.

 

[StuMyers]

I did read it and it says they fudged the numbers or if you prefer to make it sound more scientific they actually said

So... you basically didn't get past the abstract and your own prejudices then.

 

[Art]

Where exactly are you seeing silence on CH4 and N2O? IPCC cites both as significant contributors. 0.64Wm^-2 of 1.6Wm^-2 total.

It's a question of emphasis. I haven't seen anyone demanding a cull of cattle or a ban on man-made nitrates. For instance have you heard anyone advocating imposing an environmental cow tax yet?

 

[Art]

So... you basically didn't get past the abstract and your own prejudices then.

I didn't get past the 'subscription required' to read more than the abstract, did you?.

The article you have requested is available via Journal Subscription

However I did quote exactly what they said in the abstract. If you have an issue with it take it up with the article's authors.

 

[StuMyers]

I didn't get past the 'subscription required' to read more than the abstract, did you?.

Yep. I'm posting from my lab. Go to a library.

It's a question of emphasis. I haven't seen anyone demanding a cull of cattle or a ban on man-made nitrates. For instance have you heard anyone advocating imposing an environmental cow tax yet?

You're kidding right? Read Kyoto. Methane and nitrous oxide are both inclued in cap and trade. Got anything else?

 

[Evo]

You're kidding right? Read Kyoto. Methane and nitrous oxide are both inclued in cap and trade. Got anything else?

Please post the link and show the data you are referring to and show how it addresses the figures posted in the UN report. And can the attitude.

Kyoto promises are nothing but hot air

22 June 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Fred Pearce

"MANY governments, including some that claim to be leading the fight against global warming, are harbouring a dirty little secret. These countries are emitting far more greenhouse gas than they say they are, a fact that threatens to undermine not only the shaky Kyoto protocol but also the new multibillion-dollar market in carbon trading.

Under Kyoto, each government calculates how much carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide its country emits by adding together estimated emissions from individual sources. These so-called "bottom-up" estimates have long been accepted by atmospheric scientists, even though they have never been independently audited.

Now two teams that have monitored concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere say they have convincing evidence that the figures reported by many countries are wrong, especially for methane. Among the worst offenders are the UK, which may be emitting 92 per cent more methane than it declares under the Kyoto protocol, and France, which may be emitting 47 per cent more.

By measuring these differences and tracking air movements, the scientists say they can calculate a country's emissions independently of government estimates. Bergamaschi's calculations suggest that the UK emitted 4.21 million tonnes of methane in 2004 compared to the 2.19 million tonnes it declared, while France emitted 4.43 million tonnes compared to the 3.01 million tonnes it declared. Methane is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas. While it persists in the atmosphere for only one-tenth as long as CO2, its immediate warming effect, tonne for tonne, is around 100 times greater. According to some estimates, methane is responsible for a third of current global warming, and reductions in methane emissions may be the quickest and cheapest way of slowing climate change."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025574.000-kyoto-promises-are-nothing-but-hot-air.html

 

[Andre]

meanwhile the greenhouse effect of methane is usually overrated, like twenthy one times as strong as CO2.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/scientific.html

Indeed, it does have a considerable range of absorption bands but in the wrong frequency area.

Using the Modtran tool on David Archer site those equilibrium temperature increases can be calculated:


http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation.html

it is possible to calculate equilibrium temperatures for thermal balance for any concentration of greenhouse gasses. Using this tool I constructed this sensitive for the US standard atmosphere, no clouds, etc:

result see also attachment:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/modtran-rad-bal.GIF

I used a logaritmic scale on which the sensitive approaches a straight line, showing the more or logaritmic relationship between concentration of greenhouse gasses and higher radiation balance temperatures, meaning that the sensitivity decreases fast with increasing concentrations. It also shows that CH4 is not really a player.

In the low ranges ~1 ppmv CO2 has about a 3-5 times stronger greenhouse effect than CH4 at equal values. The only thing that could be right is if you increase 0.5 ppmv CH4 with 1 ppmv to 1,5 ppmv CH4 that the effect is ~20 times stronger than the increase of 379 ppmv CO2 with 1 ppmv to 380 ppmv. But it's also highly irrelevant, it's just a lot of nothing and it proofs that slogans as: "Methane-21-times-more-powerful-than-CO2" appears to be misleading.

 

[Gokul43201]

No, it's not "wrong", it's that the UHI's are more complicated than you have been led to think by pop sci. Please read the journal article.

I did read it

So... you basically didn't get past the abstract and your own prejudices then.

I didn't get past the 'subscription required' to read more than the abstract, did you?

So, when you say you did read the article, you really meant that you did not read the article?

I did read it and it says they fudged the numbers or if you prefer to make it sound more scientific they actually said

a variety of adjustments were applied to the data

In any other of the subforums, this would have counted as crackpottery. This is worse than misinterpreting the argument after reading the paper - you are misinterpreting the argument without reading the paper.

I guess, by your reasoning, 'inflation adjusted income' is just the scientific version of 'fudged up income data'?

 

[Art]

So, when you say you did read the article, you really meant that you did not read the article?

Err no It means I read the article available on the link supplied which happens to be an abstract or if you prefer an executive summary which links to a further link. But you already know that - right! So really you're just trying to be smart - right!

The crux is the EPA measures heat island temperature rises whereas the IPCC says they don't exist as a factor in determing GW. Now I doubt the EPA has all it's thermometers in industrial hotspots whilst the IPCC's are in cool public parks next to fountains and so something doesn't add up. As the EPA doesn't have a vested interest (that I'm aware of) I'm inclined to go with their data which suggests global temperatures are possibly being overstated.

In any other of the subforums, this would have counted as crackpottery. This is worse than misinterpreting the argument after reading the paper - you are misinterpreting the argument without reading the paper.

I guess, by your reasoning, 'inflation adjusted income' is just a scientific version of fudged up numbers?

The executive summary says they changed the data so if they say they did why should I contradict them? How does quoting them constitute misinterpreting the argument? And inflation adjusted figures often are fudged depending on what they are to be used for so you picked a bad example

 

[Evo]

The executive summary says they changed the data so if they say they did why should I contradict them? How does quoting them constitute misinterpreting the argument? And inflation adjusted figures often are fudged depending on what they are to be used for so you picked a bad example

Here's the actual report. I haven't had time to do more that scan through it to understand the adjustments made, I'm assuming they are fair. I'd have to see if I can find other papers that discuss this report. There is a difference between skewing data, data mining and trying to find a fair means at data representation to give a more realistic view. Adjusting data is not always bad if it is done consistently and in the right way, for the right reasons.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wmo/ccl/rural-urban.pdf

To members, please make sure that a report is not publicly available before you post nothing but an abstract requiring a subscription.

 

[Gokul43201]

Err no It means I read the article available on the link supplied which happens to be an abstract or if you prefer an executive summary which links to a further link. But you already know that - right! So really you're just trying to be smart - right!

Hardly! Anyone that's even the tinyest bit familiar with scientific literature knows the difference between the abstract to an article and the article itself. I guess I was wrong in assuming you belonged to this set.

The executive summary says they changed the data so if they say they did why should I contradict them?

They did not "change the data" - you are continuing to misrepresent (ie: twist) that particular sentence fragment from the abstract.

How does quoting them constitute misinterpreting the argument?

It doesn't. But you went beyond merely quoting (and heck, you didn't even quote a complete sentence - just a fragment of it).

And inflation adjusted figures often are fudged depending on what they are to be used for so you picked a bad example

No I didn't. Your argument was that adjusting for inflation is itself an act of fudging. This is nonsensical.

 

[StuMyers]

Okay, so here's Kyoto. Scroll to annexA to see the list of greenhouse gases. Note numbers two and three.

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html

 

[Astronuc]

Emissions from cattle are well documented, but ignored by politicians. Why?

Strong lobby groups? Farmers/growers, grain processor, the beef, pork and poultry industries all have strong lobbies in Washington. It's easy for Washington politicians to blame oil companies since peoples' attention is on the price at the pump and the pain in the wallet.

"I'm sorry to be redundant about this, but I don't think people fully appreciate the logic. Meat eating is either the number one cause of GW or it is not. If it is the number one cause, then why are the GW people not talking about it?

Finally, there's a natural inclination to think of oil as the culprit, not just because Big Oil is so widely demonized, but because we've all been conditioned from childhood to think of smokestacks and tailpipes as pouring out evil, filthy pollution. Never mind that we emit carbons and that they're organic. Oil companies are "bad." Farmers are "good."

Thus, it is counterintuitive to see meat as the problem. Frankly, I don't think man's oil consumption or meat consumption emits enough carbon to change the climate. But I believe in being fair."

. . . we've all been conditioned from childhood to think of smokestacks and tailpipes as pouring out evil, filthy pollution.

They do! Stand behind an idling car and take a deep breath. Coal plants are notorious emitters of heavy metals, soot (if not with the latest clean technologies), and even 'radioactive' ash that is not entirely eliminated from the coal. But that is another issue.

Traveling to Houston or any major metropolitan area after living well outside the area, perferably upwind, one can 'taste', 'smell', and 'see' the difference. I traveled through the LA area and was astounded by the brown air. The guy I was with laughed about my reaction - but he didn't seem to realize that he had started to wheeze and develop sinus congestion, which he did not have when the trip began 2 hours earlier far to the south. Once we left LA, his wheezing and congestion disappeared.

We do need a rational discussion of issues such as GW, pollution, energy policy, etc. We do not need inuendo, hearsay and name-calling, nor coercion. I simply want the 'facts', and I will decide for myself. If something is a theory then let's identify it as such, and let's see the evidence, and reasonable alternative explanations - not someone's wild fantasy.

 

[Andre]

Traveling to Houston or any major metropolitan area after living well outside the area, perferably upwind, one can 'taste', 'smell', and 'see' the difference. I traveled through the LA area and was astounded by the brown air. The guy I was with laughed about my reaction - but he didn't seem to realize that he had started to wheeze and develop sinus congestion, which he did not have when the trip began 2 hours earlier far to the south. Once we left LA, his wheezing and congestion disappeared.

We do need a rational discussion of issues such as GW, pollution, energy policy, etc. We do not need inuendo, hearsay and name-calling, nor coercion. I simply want the 'facts', and I will decide for myself. If something is a theory then let's identify it as such, and let's see the evidence, and reasonable alternative explanations - not someone's wild fantasy.

There is the core of the matter. The confusion between pollution and use of fossil fuel. We need most definitely stop that pollution. Most certainly. But then we have to fight pollution and that is not the same as fighting global warming. That would be rearranging the deck seats of the Titanic.

If fighting pollutions means reducing CO2 due to other energy sources, that's fine, but it should not be the purpose. The purpose should be clean air, irrelevant if it contains 280, 380, 560 ppmv CO2. But if you start working with the wrong perception of reality, you end up making the wrong decisions.

 

[Evo]

Strong lobby groups? Farmers/growers, grain processor, the beef, pork and poultry industries all have strong lobbies in Washington. It's easy for Washington politicians to blame oil companies since peoples' attention is on the price at the pump and the pain in the wallet.

Yep.

They do! Stand behind an idling car and take a deep breath.

The worst car polution I have ever encountered was in Bangkok. Driving around in a tuk-tuk, I really thought I was going to be asphyxiated before I got to my destination.

We do need a rational discussion of issues such as GW, pollution, energy policy, etc. We do not need inuendo, hearsay and name-calling, nor coercion. I simply want the 'facts', and I will decide for myself. If something is a theory then let's identify it as such, and let's see the evidence, and reasonable alternative explanations - not someone's wild fantasy.

Wouldn't that be nice?

 

[Evo]

Okay, so here's Kyoto. Scroll to annexA to see the list of greenhouse gases. Note numbers two and three.

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html

I found more of the answers I was looking for here https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1284252&postcount=114

 

[StuMyers]

The point wasn't whether Kyoto was good. I'm not qualified to make that judgement. I was first told that everybody was ignoring met and nit. I said the IPCC report mentions them as a significant problem. I was then told that nobody was proposing a control of met and nit, so I mentioned Kyoto. You then hollered that I hadn't posted an explicit link to something that comes up in a 2 second google search, so I did. As for my attitude, I'm simply responding in kind.

 

[Art]

Here's the actual report. I haven't had time to do more that scan through it to understand the adjustments made, I'm assuming they are fair. I'd have to see if I can find other papers that discuss this report. There is a difference between skewing data, data mining and trying to find a fair means at data representation to give a more realistic view. Adjusting data is not always bad if it is done consistently and in the right way, for the right reasons.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wmo/ccl/rural-urban.pdf

To members, please make sure that a report is publicly available before you post nothing but an abstract requiring a subscription.

Thanks for the link Evo. I've read it and found it's even more biased than I anticipated.

The authors set out to try and eliminate the difference in the temperature records between urban and rural areas in an attempt to eliminate the heat island effect which is one of the weak links in the AGW theory.

Presumably they couldn't think of ways to justify increasing the historical temp recordings from the rural stations so they focused on trying to reduce the temperatures in the urban records instead under the guise of correcting for inhomogeneities in the data set.

After making (some fairly arbitrary in some cases) adjustments for 5 areas - elevation, latitude, time of observation, instrumentation, and nonstandard siting all of which coincidentaly helped reduce the urban temperature records they came to the not unsurprising conclusion that there is no heat island effect of any note

In cities where even fudging the figures didn't supply the answer they wanted they put it down to micro-environment anomolies.

A few questions spring to mind.

As they were not looking for trend information why bother using historical data. Why not simply confirm/set up accurate measuring stations and collect fresh information untainted by inhomogeneities? Then there would be no need for any adjustments.

Why does it appear that no effort was made to determine if there were unique rural conditions which would exagerate their temperatures. Only urban anomalies were looked for.

What effect would lowering all of the urban temp records have on the calculations of overall global temperatures? Though presumably in case this embarrasses the AGW club they have left themselves an escape route by admitting the adjustments made may introduce new errors.

Can anybody say confirmation bias??

It seems the purpose of this project was simply to muddy the waters by claiming either a) there is no temperature difference between rural and urban areas or b) the data is too unreliable to use so as to weaken the 'heat island effect' argument against AGW.

 

[Art]

The point wasn't whether Kyoto was good. I'm not qualified to make that judgement. I was first told that everybody was ignoring met and nit. I said the IPCC report mentions them as a significant problem. I was then told that nobody was proposing a control of met and nit, so I mentioned Kyoto. You then hollered that I hadn't posted an explicit link to something that comes up in a 2 second google search, so I did. As for my attitude, I'm simply responding in kind.

Stu the point was politicians are ignoring it. As has been pointed out all the talk from politicians is about carbon taxes and zilch about the rest.

As a rough and ready comparison if you google on "carbon tax" there are 750,000 hits compared to 1,300 for "methane tax" and 643 for "nitrogen tax"

 

[turbo]

It seems the purpose of this project was simply to muddy the waters by claiming either a) there is no temperature difference between rural and urban areas or b) the data is too unreliable to use so as to weaken the 'heat island effect' argument against AGW.

There is bias on both sides, and lots of finger-pointing against one's scapegoat du jour. As Andre will gladly acknowledge if you ask him, Central Maine has shown a very steady increase in average winter temperatures since the 1950's. I used to ice-skate on ponds, bogs, etc by Thanksgiving day when I was a kid, and now you're lucky if you can find safe ice to skate on by January 1. Ski resorts are being sold off and the costs of trying to run them is going through the roof because the cost of pipes, water, electricity, and labor to run snow guns on cold nights is horrendous. Did I mention that man-made snow is usually crap for skiing and attendance is way down??

Now, there has been no concurrent increase in average summer temperatures, but that could be in part due to the haze that we experience all summer long, with the accompanying EPA ozone warnings, due to the coal-fired power plants in the midwest. Their permitting processes relied on local testing of contaminants and particulates, so the operators of these plants just built taller stacks to shoot the contaminants higher into the atmosphere so that the local monitoring stations couldn't detect them. I worked as environmental chemist for a few years before switching to process chemistry and it was my job to ensure environmental compliance of the mill's stack effluent (chemical recovery boiler, power boilers and lime kiln) so I am well aware of these loopholes. As a result of this short-sighted lack of oversight and reasonable regulation, Maine suffers a level of air pollutants that is far out of proportion to our population. It's pure economics. A tall smokestack (just a simple tube) is easier to build and far cheaper to maintain than real pollution-control technology (scrubbers, etc), so the power company lobbies buy off our idiots in Congress to allow them to continue to pass the pollution on to another region. What's worse, if a particular power plant is a heavy polluter, the owner can barter "pollution credits" with another plant and continue to pollute, on the badly misguided notion that pollution "averages out". As long as people are distracted by false claims and red herrings, our environment will continue to suffer.

 

[Art]

Turbo I fully agree with you and probably everybody else here that pollution needs to be tackled urgently, I just don't think a policy of 'the end justifies the means', which seems to be the attitude of many environmentalists, is the right way to address it, especially if the 'end' is actually the wrong goal.

 

[StuMyers]

...
As they were not looking for trend information why bother using historical data. Why not simply confirm/set up accurate measuring stations and collect fresh information untainted by inhomogeneities? Then there would be no need for any adjustments.
...
It seems the purpose of this project was simply to muddy the waters by claiming either a) there is no temperature difference between rural and urban areas or b) the data is too unreliable to use so as to weaken the 'heat island effect' argument against AGW.

I think you completely missed the purpose and analysis of the article. The point is to re-analyze the data more rigorously. The conclusion is that urban areas are NOT homogenously warmer than rural, and that previous data analysis failed to take that into account in a rigorous fashion. Figure 6 should show that quite clearly.

The article passed peer-review. I doubt a non-expert will be able to find obvious rational faults.

Stu the point was politicians are ignoring it.

Then why do I, who admittedly knows nothing, know about it? Why does it not count as mentioning when someone recalls Kyoto?

 

[Art]

I think you completely missed the purpose and analysis of the article. The point is to re-analyze the data more rigorously. The conclusion is that urban areas are NOT homogenously warmer than rural, and that previous data analysis failed to take that into account in a rigorous fashion. Figure 6 should show that quite clearly.

The article passed peer-review. I doubt a non-expert will be able to find obvious rational faults.

I know what they did my question is as they actually state in their paper they are not seeking to perform a trend analysis but simply to accurately compare rural and urban temperatures why bother adjusting old data when you will obtain far more accurate results with new data which doesn't need any adjustments? Even if they were primarily concerned about fixing the historical record I'm surprised they haven't added new data if only to confirm and reinforce their conclusions.

Then why do I, who admittedly knows nothing, know about it? Why does it not count as mentioning when someone recalls Kyoto?

As I already posted

As a rough and ready comparison if you google on "carbon tax" there are 750,000 hits compared to 1,300 for "methane tax" and 643 for "nitrogen tax"

I think that speaks for itself.

Most people get their news and thus their priorities from tabloid papers and other mass media outlets. Very, very few read international treaties.

 

[Astronuc]

The worst car polution I have ever encountered was in Bangkok. Driving around in a tuk-tuk, I really thought I was going to be asphyxiated before I got to my destination.

I had a similar experience in Monterrey, Mexico about 35 years ago. The black and brown smoke that was spewed out of buses and trucks was unbelieveable. I couldn't believe I was on the same planet.

 

[Art]

I had a similar experience in Monterrey, Mexico about 35 years ago. The black and brown smoke that was spewed out of buses and trucks was unbelieveable. I couldn't believe I was on the same planet.

I found LA to be the worst I've seen. I had a permanent sore throat whilst there and when you get up to the rim of the valley and look down all you could see was a brown fog.

 

[StuMyers]

I know what they did my question is as they actually state in their paper they are not seeking to perform a trend analysis but simply to accurately compare rural and urban temperatures why bother adjusting old data when you will obtain far more accurate results with new data which doesn't need any adjustments? Even if they were primarily concerned about fixing the historical record I'm surprised they haven't added new data if only to confirm and reinforce their conclusions.

They wanted to show that the past analysis was not sufficently rigorous, and that UHI's are more complicated, with lots of temperature gradients. That was the point. Can you find any reviewed articles claiming that thermometers in UHI's account for much of the recorded warming?

I think that (google search) speaks for itself.

You wanted to claim that politicians and scientists were ignoring met and nit. A google search is irrelevant. A google search of newspaper headlines is irrelevant. An examination of the data, and a look inside the treaty are relevant.

 

[Art]

They wanted to show that the past analysis was not sufficently rigorous, and that UHI's are more complicated, with lots of temperature gradients. That was the point. Can you find any reviewed articles claiming that thermometers in UHI's account for much of the recorded warming?.

Isn't that a double edged sword? If urban historical records are wrong through timing, instrument, elevation and whatever other discrepancies the same applies to all historical temp records urban, rural and sea which means there is no reliable baseline to work to and so no reliable evidence of GW.

You didn't actually address the questions I raised in relation to the report. Of course you don't have to but I'd be interested in your thoughts on the subject.

You wanted to claim that politicians and scientists were ignoring met and nit. A google search is irrelevant. A google search of newspaper headlines is irrelevant. An examination of the data, and a look inside the treaty are relevant.

On this we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[denverdoc]

a tempest in a teapot, but swirling, whirling like a kickboxer--thats how I think of hurricanes. Smetimes borderline between a swell, tropical storm, and full fledged fury, very hard to predict except in the sense a few kilowatts of energy can be amplified to hell's fury on one occasion, and ignored on the others. There is no argument that such cyclones feed on the heat released by the ocean. Let's see, looking for the last link re an arctic hurricane.

None. that the proposition that man has no influence on the planet or nature: are you kidding?

We can measure some data and infer from others, different conclusions.

I would submit that the liveability of a planet is somehow related to the number of species present and alive. There has been an alarming reduction in such creatures. Are we to blame? Not me!

 

[ShawnD]

I would submit that the liveability of a planet is somehow related to the number of species present and alive. There has been an alarming reduction in such creatures. Are we to blame? Not me!

On one episode of Penn & Teller Bullsh!t, Patrick Moore (former president of Greenpeace) said that species reduction claims are nothing more than estimates and there's basically no evidence of dwindling biodiversity on this planet. The episode was about the ignorant hysteria behind the environmentalist movement.

It's possible that he too is just making stuff up, but the scientific method doesn't require you to prove innocence. If you make a claim that diversity is going down, you need to back it up with evidence. At least give a URL or something.

 

[denverdoc]

On one episode of Penn & Teller Bullsh!t, Patrick Moore (former president of Greenpeace) said that species reduction claims are nothing more than estimates and there's basically no evidence of dwindling biodiversity on this planet. The episode was about the ignorant hysteria behind the environmentalist movement.

tell that to the frogs. If it weren't a matter of concern and maybe it isn't for most, why even have endangered species lists.? This is a see no evil hear no evil argumentnot worth the time of day.

 

[Gokul43201]

Presumably they couldn't think of ways to justify increasing the historical temp recordings from the rural stations so they focused on trying to reduce the temperatures in the urban records instead under the guise of correcting for inhomogeneities in the data set.

Why do you do this? Everyone here that has read this paper will now must realize that you have still either (i) not read it, or (ii) just not understood it.

As they were not looking for trend information why bother using historical data. Why not simply confirm/set up accurate measuring stations and collect fresh information untainted by inhomogeneities? Then there would be no need for any adjustments.

Are you actually being serious here? You want the author, who has applied a more careful analysis to existing data, to drop all that and instead (i) somehow find a boatload of money, (ii) go about building a statistically relevant number of temperature monitoring stations, (iii) sit about waiting for a statistically relevant number of years for the new data to come in from these stations and then (iv) publish the new data?

Why does it appear that no effort was made to determine if there were unique rural conditions which would exagerate their temperatures. Only urban anomalies were looked for.

What on Earth are you talking about? When did elevation, latitude, time of observation or type of instrument become unique characteristics of urban locations? The adjustments were applied to data from all stations, not just the data from urban stations. The medial rural temperature actually ended up being adjusted by a magnitude greater than the medial urban temperature.

Can anybody say confirmation bias??

This is ironic!

 

[ShawnD]

tell that to the frogs. If it weren't a matter of concern and maybe it isn't for most, why even have endangered species lists.? This is a see no evil hear no evil argumentnot worth the time of day.

P&T had an episode about the Endangered Species act as well, but that's a different matter entirely. From what I can find on the internet, USA has http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/SpeciesReport.do?dsciname=0&dcomname=1&dgroup=2&dstatus=3&dcurrdist=4&sgroup=0&ssciname=1&scomname=2&searchkey=comname&searchkey=sciname&header=TESS%20Search%20Results&searchstring=frog new species of frog. Do these new species count in our favour against the ones that are becoming endangered?

Frog numbers on the whole are going down, but the group "frog" isn't leaving any time soon. We probably are responsible for their overall numbers going down, but humans are rarely the sole cause of species extinction.
edit: By "rarely" I mean in a relative sense. If we make 100 species go extinct in one particular year, that sounds like a lot, but it's not much if that year had an overall loss of 1 million species. I'm pulling the numbers 100 and 1 million out of my ass, but you can see what I'm getting at.