Climate nonsense
I’ll get this out of the way first – I’m a skeptic whenever the people predicting/promoting something depend on the thing they predicted/promoted continuing so they can get another taxpayer funded grant so they can continue to predict/promote the subject. Thus I am skeptical of man-made global warming.
Note that I am not denying climate change – the climate has changed MANY times in the past, and the earth has been both much hotter and much cooler than the current climate. Man wasn’t even around during most of the previous changes – our recorded history only goes back about 6000 years, and the oldest agricultural based civilization discovered so far is about 12000 years old. It’s interesting that that corresponds to the beginning of the current interglacial period….
Who caused the previous climate changes? Isn’t it even a possibility that the small changes in climate we’ve measured over the past 100 years are entirely natural? Where is the evidence that is man CAUSING climate change? (Again, I’m not denying that climate change may be happening – I simply do not think it’s been proven that man is the cause of any climate change which may be happening.)
With that out of the way, I ran across this web site while reading through a small wind newsgroup email tonight. In his email, the author dismisses a study contradicting his view by saying “Both articles referenced in this thread are deceptive attempts to create sensationalism where there is none. In both cases a single new observation has changed the results of climate predictions by a tiny amount. The magnitude of the changes are carefully not mentioned because they are trivial.”
I find that statement from him strange because on his website he talks about chaos theory and how it’s misunderstood. On his website (linked above) he states “That is why we have the butterfly effect. Quite literally, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in South America could cause a storm in Europe a few years later.”
To which I say bullshit. That’s the same as saying when I cough or fart, I could cause the moon to wobble on it’s axis or purple aliens to emerge on Mars. There is ZERO basis for such a ridiculous claim, and the burden of proof is on the person making the outlandish claim. It’s also interesting that Lorenz first used the term when quoting a meteorologist who was making fun of Lorenz’s own faulty weather modeling scenario.
Anyway, he can’t have it both ways. He cannot (logically anyway) claim that “the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in South America could cause a storm in Europe” yet dismiss a factual observation as “trivial”.
Note: Entering incorrect data – even a small error – into a calculation is not the same as a seagull flapping it’s wings. Or me farting. Just because a computer model exaggerates the error does not mean it actually happens in the real world. For an ancient example of how something may be valid in math, yet be totally wrong in practice, you can read about Achilles and the Tortoise.
There’s so much more here, but I’m not going to get into a point by point rebuttal of it tonight. But I do want to quote one more section. Towards the bottom, he states: A big shake-up is required. In 2008 we received a warning shake in the form of the credit crunch. (Excuse me, but WTF does he think the unsustainable debt loads of companies and individuals has to do with global warming? The answer is in his next few sentences…
Instead of governments spending incredible sums of money supporting the very organisations that caused the problem they should be injecting the funds into helping the victims of the deceipt [sic] and into reviving the economy by funding clean renewable energy. Until this happens I am reliant on this website to raise the cash I need to take real practical steps toward delivering clean energy solutions.
As he clearly states – he’s in this to raise cash. And until the government (you and me via taxes) gives him the money he wants, he’s trying to scare people into giving him cash. As “proof” of the dire nature of his predictions, he says “It could well get out of control to the extent where we would not be able to stop it at any price! As the planet gets hotter the methane would be released even faster until it could kill all life on earth! If you do not believe me read my essay about SETI.”
Ok, I “do not believe him” so let’s see WTF his essay on SETI has to do with global warming…..
Hmmm…. The only unbreakable laws we know of are the laws of nature. I propose that there is such a law and that it is called “Free Will”. Until enough of us ask for contact from friendly aliens they will stay strictly outside the realm of our senses.”
This sounds suspiciously like churches asking people to pray for rain, or world peace, or a sick friend…. If you’d truly believe in it, it would happen. Even if there’s absolutely zero evidence for it.
He sort of sounded believable when sticking to basics about global warming, but saying that we can’t contact the “friendly aliens” because not enough of us are asking for contact is strictly wacko stuff. No science, no theory, this isn’t even a fucking hypothesis! It’s a mad man’s delusion….
Sorry, he has some webpages with assertions. And he’s hoping his assertions will convince people to give him money – until he can get your money from the government without having to ask you for it directly.
Enough of this. I’m not wasting anymore time on him. The earth has gotten warmer since the 1980’s, and we don’t know why. There are many theories, but I haven’t seen a single one of them that also explains why the earth got so hot from the 1920’s through the 1940’s. A valid theory must take into account all known data – no exceptions. When even one bit of reality contradicts it, it’s no longer a theory – it’s back to being a hypothesis.
gk
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But that doesn’t mean I can’t learn and grow out of it. Eventually.