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Post by BNC Moderator on Jul 29, 2012 15:25:10 GMT 9.5
Richard MullerCALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.
Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases. Where to now for the deniers?
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Post by anonposter on Jul 29, 2012 15:49:12 GMT 9.5
Where to now for the deniers? I think we all know that the majority of those who deny global warming aren't doing it because the science is inadequate. There are a few who are and if their objections are met are likely to change their minds but probably very few such people left (most of them will have already changed their minds). |
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Post by wilful on Jul 30, 2012 11:13:56 GMT 9.5
I have to give golf claps only to Muller. It's nice that his own personal researches convinced him that his professional colleagues weren't incompetent or lying. But it's a pretty arrogant approach. He could have just accepted the science in the first place.
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Post by davidm on Jul 30, 2012 17:18:40 GMT 9.5
Muller's thesis that temperature rise over the last 250 years has been strongly influenced by human intervention seems plausible to me. Between cutting down trees and burning coal it is hard to imagine otherwise. I'm reminded of William Blake's more or less environmental-spiiritual poem 'New Jerusalem', written around 1800 where he talks about the smog("clouded hills") produced from the coal burning of the "dark satanic mills."
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Post by gordon on Aug 1, 2012 15:20:27 GMT 9.5
Was Richard Muller ever a Denier/Skeptic ?
“… carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate.” (Richard Muller, 2003).
“If [Al Gore] reaches more people and convinces the world that global warming is real, even if he does it through exaggeration and distortion — which he does, but he’s very effective at it — then let him fly any plane he wants,” (Richard Muller 2008)
Richard Muller, 2008: “There is a consensus that global warming is real. …it’s going to get much, much worse.”
MODERATOR
As per BNC Comments Policy, please supply links/refs to the quotes you have given, so context may be established.
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Post by trag on Aug 17, 2012 2:30:43 GMT 9.5
Where to now for the deniers? I think we all know that the majority of those who deny global warming aren't doing it because the science is inadequate. There are a few who are and if their objections are met are likely to change their minds but probably very few such people left (most of them will have already changed their minds). I was very very skeptical of AGW for a long time. There were two primary causes for this, one of which is still (mostly) valid. 1) Back around 1992 - 1995 time frame I either read or heard a story, probably either on U.S. NPR, or in SciAm of a climate modeler, who flat out stated, "Our model didn't predict warming, so we'll have to go back and rework it until it does." He wasn't saying it failed to match historical data, he was saying it didn't give the predictive results he wanted, so it must be wrong. That left me skeptical from there forward. I wish I had noted down the reference at the time, but I had no idea it would come to be so significant. I just made a note in my head not to trust that field of science for a long time. 2) In the popular media, the problem of AGW is inexorably linked with ridiculous (non) solutions such as renewable electricity generation, conservation/efficiency improvements beyond the economically rational, and simple calls for folks to massively inconvenience themselves and/or just all live the way the Greens want them to. It is difficult for a human brain to accept AGW when it is linked to so much jackassery. If the Greens had presented AGW as, "Hey! All this CO2 is a problem. Here's why. What should we do about it?" Things might have gone better. Instead they basically barged up and grabbed the steering wheel with barely a 'scusa and assumed they had the one and only true solution. Of course that left a bunch of folks just reacting against the whole topic. I wonder if this might represent a public relations opportunity for nuclear power if presented cleverly. Instead of (or in addition to, but separate from) arguing with the renewable crowd, start from home plate. Make the AGW argument, but show a future which not only solves AGW, but is also brighter and richer than we would have had otherwise. I think that kind of dreamy optimism, presented by itself, might sell better than getting down in the bio-fuel manure with the renewable crowd and wrestling with them. What western society really needs these days, in my opinion, is some optimism and the spirit of Bob, The Builder, "Can we build it? Yes, we can!" Only with some real assurance that what we build will pay off. I think optimism and promise might sell people on solving AGW a lot better than the neo-catholic guilt, mortification and indulgences of the renewable crowd. But when nuclear argues with the renewable crowd, it gets tarred with the same brush. I suspect we could convert a substantial segment of the "denier" crowd to pro-nuclear/AGW-credible with an optimistic, improved-future presentation. At this point, there is significant tribal pressure to believe in AGW. If we remove the impediments that the renewable "solution" imposes, then that tribal pressure will do its work on more of the deniers, while directing them into the nuclear camp, instead of the renewable camp. |
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Post by gordon on Aug 17, 2012 10:52:06 GMT 9.5
Sorry Moderator Here are two of them with links There is a consensus that global warming is real. There has not been much so far, but it’s going to get much, much worse. (2008) www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/physics-the-nex/Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate. (2003) muller.lbl.gov/TRessays/23-Medievalglobalwarming.htmlMODERATOR
Thankyou for responding as requested. |
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Post by anonposter on Aug 17, 2012 16:49:19 GMT 9.5
2) In the popular media, the problem of AGW is inexorably linked with ridiculous (non) solutions such as renewable electricity generation, conservation/efficiency improvements beyond the economically rational, and simple calls for folks to massively inconvenience themselves and/or just all live the way the Greens want them to. It is difficult for a human brain to accept AGW when it is linked to so much jackassery. I think a better statement would be that it's difficult for some people to accept it under those conditions, mostly those of an individualistic or hierarchic personality. If the Greens had presented AGW as, "Hey! All this CO2 is a problem. Here's why. What should we do about it?" Things might have gone better. Instead they basically barged up and grabbed the steering wheel with barely a 'scusa and assumed they had the one and only true solution. I very strongly suspect that much of the green movement isn't about solving global warming, but about changing society to their vision (low tech, small scale, living in imagined harmony with nature, etc) whether the rest of us want to live that way or not. I wonder if this might represent a public relations opportunity for nuclear power if presented cleverly. Instead of (or in addition to, but separate from) arguing with the renewable crowd, start from home plate. Make the AGW argument, but show a future which not only solves AGW, but is also brighter and richer than we would have had otherwise. I think that kind of dreamy optimism, presented by itself, might sell better than getting down in the bio-fuel manure with the renewable crowd and wrestling with them. may appeal to you. |
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Post by BNC Moderator on Aug 17, 2012 16:58:59 GMT 9.5
BNC has, in fact, evolved from a climate change information blog to one promoting solutions to the problem, which includes nuclear power as a large and necessary component of non-carbon energy sources. When people are presented with a workable alternative to fossil fuels, denial of the science seems, in most cases, to disappear.
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Post by davidm on Aug 18, 2012 1:39:18 GMT 9.5
[/size][/quote] This I believe is part of the reason that nuclear is up against it. It has linked itself too closely with insupportable cornucopia thinking. Some of the specific ideas are fine to help buy us time but ultimately useless if they take us in a Jevon Paradox loaded endless growth direction. MORE TREES, LESS PEOPLE! |
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Post by trag on Aug 18, 2012 2:23:10 GMT 9.5
Yes. :-) It does. I think Larry Niven (perhaps with Jerry Pournelle) wrote a short piece arguing that rather than just figuring out how society can survive, we should set our goal to be living with style. Which necessarily means with plenty of energy. |
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Post by davidm on Aug 18, 2012 3:21:13 GMT 9.5
I notice that the article first mentions desalination as a great beneficiary of this flood of energy that supposedly awaits us - unlimited fresh water.
One thought on that is for the near future the escalating number of plants are going to be for the most part fossil fuel driven which suggests an interesting cycle. The plants will increase global warming thereby widening droughts and depleting inland water supplies making desalination plants more necessary. It kind of reminds me of the Mafia supporting prohibition to increase their monopoly. ;D
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Post by anonposter on Aug 18, 2012 16:10:39 GMT 9.5
This I believe is part of the reason that nuclear is up against it. It has linked itself too closely with insupportable cornucopia thinking. Never mind that it's the cornucopians who tend to be right and the Malthusians who get proven wrong time and time again. Some of the specific ideas are fine to help buy us time but ultimately useless if they take us in a Jevon Paradox loaded endless growth direction. If we don't continue to grow our economy we go extinct. It's either endless growth or extinction, only one of those is completely unacceptable. |
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Post by davidm on Aug 18, 2012 21:50:47 GMT 9.5
This I believe is part of the reason that nuclear is up against it. It has linked itself too closely with insupportable cornucopia thinking.
Placing us on the brink of extinction is not my version of winning the argument, nor is the growing number of starving people. Some of the specific ideas are fine to help buy us time but ultimately useless if they take us in a Jevon Paradox loaded endless growth direction. You keep asserting what seems to me an absurdity and offer nothing to back it up. Why you think that we must either grow or die is beyond me. It completely ignores past precedent. |
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Post by anonposter on Aug 18, 2012 22:51:59 GMT 9.5
Placing us on the brink of extinction is not my version of winning the argument, It doesn't look like we are on the brink of extinction, other animals on this planet, yes we've put them there, but not us. nor is the growing number of starving people. Yet we've managed to increase food production faster than population has managed to grow, isn't that what we'd need to do to deal with starvation? Starvation these days isn't due to a lack of food, but due to bad government not allowing their population to get the food which does exist. You keep asserting what seems to me an absurdity and offer nothing to back it up. Why you think that we must either grow or die is beyond me. It completely ignores past precedent. Past precedent is that those who don't grow eventually go extinct, just like 99% of all species to ever inhabit the Earth. It's only a matter of time before we have another asteroid impact or a super-volcano erupts or whatever and the small scale civilisation you propose is simply not going to be up to dealing with such situations. |
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Post by davidm on Aug 19, 2012 3:57:51 GMT 9.5
Past precedent is that those who don't grow eventually go extinct. It seems to me its a matter of intelligent choices rather than Star Trekky fantasies. Plenty of species have done just fine without becoming technologically driven empires. Our natural history is one of seeking harmony with mostly local support systems. We're in a position to upgrade that but pretending to be masters of the universe because we've unlocked some of its secrets is a kind of hubris that will finally take us off the cliff. Nukes potentially buy us some time but finally we are apes with big data bases and we need to find a sustainable existence appropriate to our nature. To me that points us toward self-sustaining communities. And if we can make it to the next meteor strike or super volcano I'll be just fine with that. I even bet we'll have some scaled down technology for at least some folks to weather the storm. |
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Post by BNC Moderator on Aug 19, 2012 13:45:58 GMT 9.5
David M you are getting way off topic here. This thread is for comments about climate change denial in the light of Muller's conversion. Please move to a suitable thread. Any more comments here will be deleted.
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Post by davidm on Aug 19, 2012 16:06:37 GMT 9.5
Moderator, sorry about participating in the diversion but I didn't bait anybody. The diversion started here with a call for unlimited energy. The association with unlimited growth was quite explicit. |
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