Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming by AURaptor

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming

POSTED BY: AURAPTOR
UPDATED: Monday, September 19, 2011 08:34
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Friday, September 16, 2011 6:59 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Fascinating discussion, shows me how smart and thoughtful most of you are. I'm impressed. What the scientist is saying is "incontrovertable" is that the world is warmer than it was before, and that, to me, scientific measurements are showing that to be true. Unless there is some way in which 7 is a smaller number than 2 is possible, as we measure it, to simplify it. Certainly science may find a way down the line to prove that false, so it isn't incontrovertable, but there are some things which I believe will never be "proven" wrong, so while I don't like the word used in the context of science (which is always evolving), I don't have that much difficulty with the claim.

As far as the original article, when I read it I saw it as something worded to convince of one thing, while the actual facts of the matter are different than the conclusions pushed. The conclusion pushed seems clearly to highlight that someone in authority is protesting a statement of the truth of man-made climate change, when that is not what he actually DID. A casual reader might see this as "proof" that someone in authority has stated that man-made climate change is false, and that's what I believe it was worded to indicate. When I got to the bottom and saw it was from FauxNews, it all fell into place. They chose someone who would be viewed as reputable, from the "Nobel Prize winning" bit and the fact that he's a scientist, then twisted his protest to cast doubt on something which a) he was not protesting, and b) he has such a strong reason not to believe in that he's gone to considerable lengths to align himself with the belief it is not. That makes him prejudiced, in my view, and his conclusions questionable. He appears to be more someone who has already made up his mind and has an investment in being right, from having a website to argue against it to resigning from a scientific body over it.

The other thing I noticed was how Raptor's posts were completely at odds with the debate being held; except for his last post, he offered nothing but snarks and visceral language which was intended to elicit responses. Everyone else was debating science and language; he was just popping in to snark about liberals and call himself "fair and balanced". It reminded me yet again how irrelevant he is to any serious discussion.

The third thing that struck me is that science, being a evolving thing, and unable to prove or disprove anything to the point where everyone will agree with it, means that we can debate endlessly just about anything. This means that man-made climate chance can never be completely agreed upon. Ergo, it can never conclusively be used as a reason to do anything about it. Ergo, as humans, we will never make a sincere effort to combat it, we'll just go on arguing about it, which means we are doomed if it is real. It's a failing of human nature which leaves loopholes for those who want nothing done to use effectively to combat any effort to take any action.

Given we don't need man-made climate change as a reason to try and mitigate man's continued toxification of our environment, I wish less attention could be paid to the possibility and more attention paid to reversing the myriad negative effects on us and our environment, of which (proven absolutely, universally true or not) we have plenty of examples to convince us. There are too many ways we are willing to engage in doubt of negative effects, or absolve ourselves of blame for same, which can be used to keep us from taking action, and those who have an investment in keeping us from taking action know how to keep that debating going for their own profits.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 16, 2011 7:05 AM

BYTEMITE

I guess the problem we're running into here is that I view all facts as subjective, and facts are correct until proven wrong. As such, I tend to think there's always an inherent uncertainty about everything.

Which is why I'm simply unable to agree that anything is incontrovertible, including data or well-supported scientific conclusions, even if I might agree with the sentiment that those conclusions are true.

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Friday, September 16, 2011 7:11 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
The third thing that struck me is that science, being a evolving thing, and unable to prove or disprove anything to the point where everyone will agree with it, means that we can debate endlessly just about anything. This means that man-made climate chance can never be completely agreed upon. Ergo, it can never conclusively be used as a reason to do anything about it. Ergo, as humans, we will never make a sincere effort to combat it, we'll just go on arguing about it, which means we are doomed if it is real. It's a failing of human nature which leaves loopholes for those who want nothing done to use effectively to combat any effort to take any action.

Oh, that might not happen. Science may not be absolute, but science and policy are by necessity two different things, and policy is determined by compromise. Eventually if enough people decide, maybe if not to do something directly about climate change, they might be willing to do alter personal habits to reduce their own personal ecological impact for different reasons. Which would be a win for everyone whether they believe in climate change or not.

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Friday, September 16, 2011 7:20 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I also googled for the actual text, given the "..." in the posted article. The actual text was revised to include

Quote:
The evidence for global temperature rise over the last century is compelling. However, the word "incontrovertible" in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the 2007 APS statement is rarely used in science because by its very nature science questions prevailing ideas. The observational data indicate a global surface warming of 0.74 °C (+/- 0.18 °C) since the late 19th century. (Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html), to me, they were correct in clarifying the statement. Nonetheless, I disagree with scientists stating "The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring" insofar as it is within text which begins "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate." Saying the EVIDENCE (of warming) is incontrovertible is one thing; beginning the treatise the way they did and following "incontrovertible" with "global warming is occurring" evidences for me very close to a clear statement that global warming is man made. That's not what it says, but that's what it's intended to be read as. That makes their statements as biased as the dissenting scientist's in my view.

The statement is worded in such a way as to use the "fact" of warming to extrapolate it being man made, and uses sentences such as "Greenhouse gas emissions are changing", which is stated as fact, rather than "greenhouse gas emissions appear to be changing". In that respect, the APS is definitely unscientific.

The wording is cute, but has some validity:
Quote:
Because the complexity of the climate makes accurate prediction difficult, the APS urges an enhanced effort to understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to provide the technological options for meeting the climate challenge in the near and longer terms.
"Enhanced effort to understand" is valid, providing technological options is an assumption that it is man made.

I can see why someone who didn't believe climate change is man made would be angered by the statement. I also think the scientist in question goes beyond dissent in his disagreement. Both the statement by the scientists in favor of believing it is man made and the article about him resigning over it are propanganda, in their ways.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 16, 2011 7:24 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Byte, agreed (your second post). But people doing so on an individual basis would never have sufficient effect, in my opinion, to counteract the volume of what is being done with negative consequences. There is too much power pushing for no change, it would take at LEAST a nationwide effort to counter the myriad ways in which our environment is changing which we can be relatively certain industry, etc., are causing. As long as "scientists" debate, there is fodder for those against change to use. They're already winning, on this issue, given fewer people believe climate change is man made than did before. They've cast enough doubt, carefully worded (and I believe bought off enough "scientists") to keep the debate going. While we debate, little or nothing gets actually DONE.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 16, 2011 7:28 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"unable to prove or disprove anything to the point where everyone will agree with it"

So, do we use the Polish veto to determine science? Do we put it up to a vote and if one person disagrees that the earth is a globe we have to put that fact in our 'unproven theory' bin?

Wow.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Friday, September 16, 2011 7:46 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Oh, btw - I also read the complete statement. I thought there was an deplorable level of weasel-wording and implication. That said, the 'incontrovertible' statement itself was limited. And that is the only statement I am defending.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Friday, September 16, 2011 7:49 AM

THEHAPPYTRADER

Just adding my 2 cents, which ain't exactly 'inconvertible' but I suspect the real argument for most folk is whether or not the climate change is the problem we think it is and if our CO2 emissions are really the cause. That would be my argument anyway.

It's my understanding we have some evidence of a 'Medieval Climatic Anomaly' from around 950–1250 and much evidence of a 'Little Ice Age' that occurred from around 1550-1850. I think it's evident that the Earth's climate has and will change, but how much of that is the fault of our CO2 emissions? Is it really more closely linked to destruction of forest and the like or is it something that's just going to happen anyway, with or without our help?

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Friday, September 16, 2011 8:06 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
Both the statement by the scientists in favor of believing it is man made and the article about him resigning over it are propanganda, in their ways.

Agreed. This is why I lament the direction the discussion has gone. It's "We're all gonna die!" and "We'll be fine. Drill drill drill!" Meanwhile big oil and energy plays both sides to the hilt and profits obscenely, with built in loopholes to any legislation that might be passed to prevent us all from going over a cliff.

No discussion, in my experience, can lead only to stagnation and corruption. It never leads to better understanding of anything or improvement of conditions.

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Friday, September 16, 2011 8:13 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Kiki:

Quote:
Do we put it up to a vote and if one person disagrees that the earth is a globe we have to put that fact in our 'unproven theory' bin?

No, my point was that until enough of THOSE IN POWER are convinced there's a problem, little or nothing will be done. It's happening right now, and will probably go on happening until (if it's true), it's too late to reverse the effects. I believe we should continue to investigate, but in the mean time, given we have what I believe is enough evidence of the negative impacts of the current situation (whether it's causing climate change or not), we should be doing something about it rather than waiting for a consensus that something should be done.

Could you clarify

Quote:
No discussion, in my experience, can lead only to stagnation and corruption. It never leads to better understanding of anything or improvement of conditions.

for me, please? The two sentences seem to be a dichotomy, the way they read.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 16, 2011 8:18 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:

Just adding my 2 cents, which ain't exactly 'inconvertible' but I suspect the real argument for most folk is whether or not the climate change is the problem we think it is and if our CO2 emissions are really the cause. That would be my argument anyway.

It's my understanding we have some evidence of a 'Medieval Climatic Anomaly' from around 950–1250 and much evidence of a 'Little Ice Age' that occurred from around 1550-1850. I think it's evident that the Earth's climate has and will change, but how much of that is the fault of our CO2 emissions? Is it really more closely linked to destruction of forest and the like or is it something that's just going to happen anyway, with or without our help?

Actually the things you cite that would make it appear all the recent climate change is natural convince me that humankind has had some influence.

The Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a period of very warm temperatures that led to the proliferation of the bubonic plague.

The Little Ice Age was due to something called the Maunder Minimum, which relates to cyclical variations in solar output.

But ultimately, the Climactic Anomaly was the outlier, while the Little Ice Age was a tiny taste of what the earth SHOULD have been like. According to ice age cycles relating to earth solar orbital periods that fluctuate over 20,000 years, every ten thousand years there should be a new ice age. Ten thousand years ago, something stopped the new ice age from occurring. Ten thousand years ago, humans discovered of slash and burn agriculture and the cultivation of rice paddies.

I do not believe these are unrelated.

So I see the Little Ice Age as was what should have actually be the peak of the last ten thousand years that should have been a MAJOR Ice Age period and wasn't. For a brief while, nature made a resurgence over the influence of man and expressed itself as it should.

But then, instead of deepening into a true Ice Age... The industrial revolution happened, and broke the Little Ice Age. You'll notice how well the timeline corresponds to that.

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Friday, September 16, 2011 8:20 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Happy, my point was that we have enough evidence that what we are doing now is bad for the planet that, tho' the investigation and debate of climate change should probably go on, we should be taking action to reverse the negative effects we pretty much KNOW are happening in the meantime. If we just go on debating whether climate change is natural or man made, what we're doing to cause it if it IS man made, before acting, it will probably be too late (which it already may be anyway).

I'm not really up for whether climate change is man made or not, to me it's irrelevant for the most part. We already know our actions are having massive negative effects globally in one form or another, those should be important enough to change.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Friday, September 16, 2011 2:23 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Unless they are proved wrong"

There is always a small chance - no matter how infinitesimally small - that something will fall away from urth. That boiling water will get hotter while the ice cube in it will get colder. That all the temperature measurements will be found to be wrong because the statistical errors found in all measurements just all happen to line up in the same direction - every time. Not a really big chance, mind you. Do you want to hang your skepticism on that?

Thing is, Kiki, that climate change deniers *DO* want to hang their skepticism on the 1-in-a-million chance that they're right. These are the same kinds of people who, if you pointed at an asteroid on a direct course to impact Earth and wipe out 95% of life on the planet and with a 99.999% certainty of such a hit, would still say "You will NOT raise my taxes one single penny as long as there's even the slightest chance this asteroid won't hit us!"

This is how wedded they are to their ideology.

Now, if we were to say that MUSLIMS are responsible for global climate change, Rappy and his tea-bagging no-nothings would be clamoring for the government to hurry up and do something about it!

As Rappy points out, this guy quit his job over the use of the word "incontrovertible". And Rappy says that this guy's claims are "absolutely right", which is no different than claiming that his own claims are "incontrovertible".

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Sunday, September 18, 2011 5:10 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I agree that whether people are causing, or contributing to, climate change isn't the main importance, either way we need to curb our negative effect on the earth so we can keep living on it successfully and it keeps giving us what we need.

The main thing I got from this conversation is that in some ways I'm glad there aren't any faeries because when something is pretend we can imagine it however we like, I can imagine them my way, Byte and Frem can imagine them their way and so on. But I do wish such things were real. I guess I'm torn. Oh well my musings aren't going to change anything, but I can still wish and imagine anyways.

That has nothing to do with incontrovertability, but that's what I got from this discussion nonetheless.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Sunday, September 18, 2011 5:16 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Now, if we were to say that MUSLIMS are responsible for global climate change ..."

That is effin' BRILLIANT! Plus it made me lol.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Monday, September 19, 2011 7:07 AM

BYTEMITE

Quote:
As Rappy points out, this guy quit his job over the use of the word "incontrovertible". And Rappy says that this guy's claims are "absolutely right", which is no different than claiming that his own claims are "incontrovertible".

Actually, I was the one who used the phrase "absolutely right."

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Monday, September 19, 2011 7:54 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Quote:
As Rappy points out, this guy quit his job over the use of the word "incontrovertible". And Rappy says that this guy's claims are "absolutely right", which is no different than claiming that his own claims are "incontrovertible".

Actually, I was the one who used the phrase "absolutely right."

You weren't the only one using that phrase. Rappy used it here, which is what I responded to:

Quote:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"It's poor science, and he's absolutely right."

Except he's a proponent of equally poor science in the other direction. Do you dismiss HIS poor science as well, based on it being poor science?

He has no 'poor science', in the least. He's absolutely right. You not liking to hear the truth does not make it any less valid.

Deal w/ it.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Monday, September 19, 2011 8:34 AM

BYTEMITE

Ah. In that case I'm not sure if any of your objections apply to me still, so I'll just wander around the back of the room in a befuddled haze.

...Where IS that rabbit...?

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