69 posts tagged “science”

Talk radio is interesting.

For what seems like years now, conservatives on the radio have been trying to "debunk" global warming claiming that the science is wrong and there are political agendas with climate change, etc.  They claim we don't know what is going to happen because we are talking about planetary climate models and these models possess assumptions.

Yet it what seems to be a very short period of time with regard to the emergence a new H1N1 flu strain that has jumped from pigs to humans and now from human to human -- there are all kinds of calls for government intervention, closing the Mexican border, and calling up the National Guard.

The irony in all of this is that we don't know how this new strain is going to pan out.  It could be a major pandemic that, at worst, kills many people or, at best, it could just be another mild flu strain that will have to evaluated every flu season during flu shot development.  There are many assumptions here, but no conclusive data either way yet.  That is why CDC is sort of in this - be prudent, but don't go Defcon 1 just yet.

So with global warming science -- there are years and years of data and evaluation on the subject and conservatives cry foul.

Now with swine flu -- there is a full court press to politically pile on to the Obama administration for not doing enough.

Ain't politics grand?

James Lovelock thinks this is the only idea that can realistically reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere:

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO₂ down quite fast.

My only issue with this is the massive global movement that would have to happen to have a large effect.

I love reading articles that seem to count their chickens before they hatch.  Take this one about how 2008 we will be known as the year that anthropogenic global warming was disproved.

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming.

The three main events that are cited are the current dip in global temperature, the Manhattan Declaration, and the economic downturn / global recession.

First, the current leveling of global temperature is not a predictor of anything.  If you look at the instrument temperature record there are plenty of subtle downturns over the course of the temperature anomaly (but the prominent slope of the graph is up).  So to say that the current downturn is evidence to debunk climate change is disingenuous.  There is just not enough evidence at this point to back that claim and there is no reason to think that the overall warming trend is not stopping.

Second, the Manhattan Declaration is not what I would call a turning point in terms of scientific dissent on climate change.  I mean -- you probably need a few hundred more medical physicians, bachelors of chemistry, engineering majors, and masters of administration to beef up your list of climate experts to seriously have any credibility.

Third, the case about politicians not wanting to spend money to implement solutions because of the global economic mess is not evidence to say climate change is not happening anymore.  It is just a sign that politics and the economy are not in a perceived condition to start addressing the problem in broader contexts.

There is not a smoking gun in all of this.  Skeptics still think there is a simple key to turn and lock the door on this all together.  One year is not going to prove anything.  Heck, three years is not going to prove anything.  There will probably need to be decades of data to prove it has stopped or reversed.

I am sure they will wait.

What I find interesting with the global warming skeptic camp is that they can easily glom onto headlines when it is convenient to their belief system while ignoring other contradicting, more compelling data sets.

Take for instance the latest set of buzz regarding 2008 and its status on the warming hierarchy.  RealClimate has a great post about this.

The great thing about complex data is that one can basically come up with any number of headlines describing it - all of which can be literally true - but that give very different impressions. Thus we are sure that you will soon read that 2008 was warmer than any year in the 20th Century (with the exception of 1998), that is was the coolest year this century (starting from 2001), and that 7 or 8 of the 9 warmest years have occurred since 2000. There will undoubtedly also be a number of claims made that aren't true; 2008 is not the coolest year this decade (that was 2000), global warming hasn't 'stopped', CO₂ continues to be a greenhouse gas, and such variability is indeed predicted by climate models.

And George Monbiot has an excellent observation about the skeptic camp.

Until now, the "sceptics" have assured us that you can't believe the temperature readings at all; that the scientists at the Met Office, who produced the latest figures, are all liars; and that even if it were true that temperatures have risen, it doesn't mean anything. Now the temperature record - though only for 2008 - can suddenly be trusted, and the widest possible inferences be drawn from the latest figures, though not, of course, from the records of the preceding century. This is madness.

But what I truly find interesting about all of this is the inference of how the global warming / climate change movement is rooted in some sort of religious cult whackoism.  That there is this giant conspiracy among climate scientists to push a global socialist agenda.  That there is this belief system that twists science to push that agenda.

Well, the science speaks for itself.  In my mind it is the skeptics that use religious type of arguments (much like misguided creationist cherry-picking type arguments against evolution) to prove it is all hype and not science.  Using a talking point here to disprove the mountain of evidence there.  That is not science.  That is religion.

There is no smoking gun for skeptics.  Either you address all of it or none of it. 

The irony of linking climate change to religion is that we will have an answer to what is being predicted now in due time.  We are not waiting for a rapture or a second coming here.  We are not talking about predicting god in a computer model. 

We will definitely have more observations and even better understanding in the near future.

Present day hypotheses will be answered.   

But one thing is for sure.  And that is science and data will be at the heart of policies in the next administration.

Sometimes you just have to laugh...

"The Large Earth Collider will surely gain us priceless scientific insight by offering a brief glimpse of the universe at the moment of its destruction," Fermilab director Gordon Josephs said. "But because the Collider achieves this by hurdling Earth into another large celestial object, there are some who feel the risks associated with annihilating our world are too high. All I know for certain is that this rigorous debate will only end when we activate the VLEC, make the Earth collide with another planet, and obtain results through firsthand observation."

"That's just good science," Josephs added.

I wonder if the password combination to start the Collider is one, two, three, four, five?  :P

Here we go...

Based upon what I have been reading about this October anomaly, I am reserving judgment as to what is going on at NOAA and GISS in terms of data collection and data analysis.

But...  Conspiracy?  Massive code tampering?  I highly doubt it.  But then again I also didn't believe 9/11 was an inside job.

My take is that this is a government operation.  And like most government operations there are errors.  And are we surprised?  Is this "error" enough to disprove the extent of global warming?  Of course not.

Would we be surprised if the bean counters in Washington screwed up counting beans every now and then?  No.  Would that mean that they were grossly wrong in the number of beans in the government pile?  No.

Over at RealClimate, you can read the other side of the coin.

The amount of literature out there suggesting that man-made carbon emissions are what is causing our overall trend in warming is astounding.  What does one month mean to the overall trend?  Not much.

If you look at the overall trend, you have to consider the cyclical nature surrounding the 5-year average plot.  Some years it is up and some years it is down, but the signal in the cyclical annual averages still points to continued warmth.  This year could just be a relative down year.  But that doesn't change that we are still warming up more and more...

And we must not use one location (Russia) or one year of data (or one month) as a signal that global warming is or isn't happening.  You have to look at this from a signal v. noise perspective.  More data = better analysis.

Here in Denver it finally snowed for the first time this year this past Friday in the metro area.  A few days before the all time latest record for the first snowfall of the season for the city.  Does that mean that global warming is in full force?  I would never argue that, but I have read plenty of blogs that make that argument from the opposite perspective (e.g., record snowfall, coldest winter for a particular area = no global warming).

UPDATE:  I forgot I blogged about another NASA correction over a year ago.  These things happen and corrections are made.  That is science.  Much was said then about the correction as being a chink in the global warming armor.  But look at the correction and ask yourself if the overall trend had changed?

I doubt the October anomaly will change much at all once corrected.

Wait Newt, if the sun is responsible for the increase* in warming, then why be "prudent" about stopping carbon loading into the atmosphere?

If you are right, then why hedge the bet? 

If humans are not responsible, then why cut back on carbon emissions?

If the answer is truly, "we don't know," then how can you rule out human contribution to global warming?

*clarification for Ted  :)

Can the left be honest about this fruit fly thing with Sarah Palin?

Ever since Hitchens posted an article about it last week, the lefty blogs have gone to town about how Palin is anti-science.

Now first off, I admit, as Hitchens talks about, Palin isn't exactly pro-evolution or pro-climate change in terms of science.  But I think it is a stretch to then say in a blanket statement that she is anti-science because in conjunction with her religious convictions she has made a "gaffe" about fruit flies.

But look at what Palin said about fruit fly research (note bolding is me):

In her speech, Palin said the federal government could finance the new investment by taking some of $18 billion it spends each year on earmarks, specific projects that are designated by members of Congress.

"That's more than the shortfall to fully fund the IDEA," she said. "And where does a lot of that earmark money end up? It goes to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good -- things like fruit fly research in Paris, France, or a public policy center named for the guy who got the earmark. In our administration, we're going to reform and refocus. We're going to get our federal priorities straight, and fulfill our country's commitment to give every child opportunity and hope in life."

I think her issue wasn't about the science, but about where our money was going:  France -- as in overseas.  Can't the French fund their researchers?  What about funding fruit fly research here in the states?  Note she didn't say: "things like fruit fly research in North Carolina."

Obama goes nuts about companies that ship jobs overseas and the left worships.  Yet when Republicans criticize sending funding overseas it has the exact opposite reaction -- that the right is anti-science.  Incredible.

So the left is going crazy over this statement making it sound as if Palin would slash science funding because she doesn't understand what fruit fly research did for basic genetics a half a century ago.  Well...  I sort of agree, but mostly disagree.

I agree that Palin probably doesn't know anything about fruit fly genetics... but why didn't she just say "things like fruit fly research" and just leave it at that?  She was going for the fact that the funding was being sent abroad...

My issue here is from the perspective that the left is arguing that we need to fund this science and we may very well need to fund it.  But just because it is labeled as "science" doesn't mean it should be funded by the taxpayer.  There needs to be priorities in science funding just like there are priorities everywhere else in the budget.  And I think that is the aim of the McCain/Palin rhetoric -- we as a budget have to set priorities.

In a perfect world, we would fund every science project out there.  But guess what...  this isn't a perfect world.

And my second issue here is what everybody isn't talking about.  What would Obama do with the budget?  He seems to have grand plans for healthcare, tax breaks, new energy infrastructure, etc.  And he plans to do "pay as you go."  Where for every dollar he spends for his new plans, he cuts a dollar to existing projects in the budget.  To fund these grand ideas, my guess is that small projects will get the ax under an Obama administration.  And he is coy about what is going to get cut...

So would fruit fly funding to Paris, France make the cut when we are talking about helping folks here in America if Obama is in charge?  I don't know.  But nobody is asking. 

Like a mouse to a trap with cheese, a committed local climate follower sprung the hyperlink on Drudge today.

The article was out of Australia discussing a case study of a patient who was suffering from depression.

The utter irony of the situation is that the global warming deniers are really anti-science and for them to quote a scientific journal as further basis to prove that this other science is junk is too funny.  Especially when the cited study is about psychology.  If there is ever a question of modeling and trying to comprehend the unknown -- it is the study of how the mind works.  How convenient...

It also tells another story -- extrapolating one event to prove a bigger phenomenon.  That of taking a medical case study of a person who is obviously experiencing mental problems and concluding that all people who believe the science of climate change are somehow delusional.  That is the antithesis of science.

But the good news in all of this is if we we are willing to accept one side of the spectrum -- those who abnormally interpret how to act with climate change (as described in the journal article) -- then there logically has to be the other side of the spectrum -- those who are stubbornly, unwilling to recognize the scientific advances made in the understanding of how the climate is warming, partially due to humans, and then try to use the guise of rationality to defend their position.

I laugh when I read those who claim that climate science is "anecdotal" or "unproven."  Or that running models and tests are about getting the results you want to see.  As if the peer-review system would let anyone get away with that! 

The mind numbing arrogance about these sorts of thoughts is that this comes from the same people who see only what they want to see; the only difference is that they didn't run a model or a test.  They only claim to have made an observation:

It was cold yesterday -- so much for that global warming thing. 

Or how about this one:

There was this patient in Australia -- so much for that global warming thing.