Congrats to US and China on Climate Change

[BigBallinStalin]

I zipped through the articles by the Environmentalist, no-PhD guy and Forbes, but none of them addressed methodological issues. How is the data being 'manipulated'? Steve Goddard just shows two different graphs, sites old quotations, and screams 'Manipulation!!' Okay... how?

("manipulated." Adding an additional control variable or removing one can be called 'manipulating' the model. That's what econometrics is: manipulating models through statistics. There's nothing inherently wrong with that because 'manipulating' refers to modifying.... The Forbes article lightly mentioned that manipulation can simply be running a different regression with a better model and/or better data).

[Metsfanmax]

People like me? Look dude, you are the parrot. I don't know, I don't care, I don't believe you, I don't trust you, I don't trust who you parrot, I don't trust your plan (or rather, the plans you parrot).

If you don't know and don't care, and don't have any clue what it is you are actually talking about, then shut the f*ck up about NOAA. You're free to admit that you are uninformed about scientific issues, and to have no opinion on the issue of climate change. But don't then turn around and start talking about how you don't trust NOAA because they "falsify" data. That's some sneaky, dishonest as hell bullshit right there.

[patches70]

People like me? Look dude, you are the parrot. I don't know, I don't care, I don't believe you, I don't trust you, I don't trust who you parrot, I don't trust your plan (or rather, the plans you parrot).

If you don't know and don't care, and don't have any clue what it is you are actually talking about, then shut the f*ck up about NOAA. You're free to admit that you are uninformed about scientific issues, and to have no opinion on the issue of climate change. But don't then turn around and start talking about how you don't trust NOAA because they "falsify" data. That's some sneaky, dishonest as hell bullshit right there.

I don't trust NOAA. Why should I? NASA in regards to this issue admits itself there was an error, and that it's no big deal-

http://www.geotimes.org/aug07/article.h ... 607_2.html

Of course they'll say it's no big deal, otherwise that would look really bad. You can't deny that there is something going on because they admit it.

Trust, dude, and you never address the conflict of interest problems either. Can't you admit that the threat of global warming is good for NOAA and NASA budgets? I hope you can at least be that honest with yourself.

Then with that in hand, what problems do you then foresee happening when you have such conflicts of interests?

Unless you would contend that scientists are somehow not apt to all the normal range of emotions, temptations and other less flattering traits we human beings have.

And your great plan is to hand it off to a central power to organize the response via carbon taxes. You toss in the caveat that those funds not be misused and to that I have to ask from what planet do you come from?

Trust dude, you don't have it. Scientists who make predictions that don't come to pass don't have the trust. Politicians who point to the scientists and run on the platforms from the scientists studies don't have the trust (thank God!, one would be nuts to trust politicians). The major spokespeople for global warming (asshats like Gore) don't have the trust of people because regular people with common sense see the massive amounts of money he's making and say "Hey, wait a minute...." and thus don't trust said spokespeople.

It's not my fault, dude, that you apparently fail to take into account human nature and that people don't trust assholes like the Gores, governments, politicians and climate scientists. So, what you need to do is come up with a plan that leaves out people like Gore, governments, politicians and corporation from the solution. If you can do that then man, Mets, you will be off to the races in first place getting people to buy into your alarmism.

Good luck with that!

[mrswdk]

I zipped through the articles by the Environmentalist, no-PhD guy and Forbes, but none of them addressed methodological issues. How is the data being 'manipulated'? Steve Goddard just shows two different graphs, sites old quotations, and screams 'Manipulation!!' Okay... how?

("manipulated." Adding an additional control variable or removing one can be called 'manipulating' the model. That's what econometrics is: manipulating models through statistics. There's nothing inherently wrong with that because 'manipulating' refers to modifying.... The Forbes article lightly mentioned that manipulation can simply be running a different regression with a better model and/or better data).

For example, China is the world's largest green energy market and the world's largest producer of solar, hydroelectric and wind power, but some people 'manipulate' those statistics in order to try and downplay China's achievements.

[Metsfanmax]

Of course they'll say it's no big deal, otherwise that would look really bad. You can't deny that there is something going on because they admit it.

Yes, "something going on" is scientists calculating temperature records. Sometimes scientists make mistakes. Then, these mistakes get found and corrected, as indicated. It's a huge leap to go from a minor mistake that doesn't affect any large-scale trends, to them "falsifying" data.

Trust, dude, and you never address the conflict of interest problems either. Can't you admit that the threat of global warming is good for NOAA and NASA budgets?

I don't know if that's true. I mean, NASA's budget has been nearly monotonically declining since the Apollo program:



(I couldn't find a similar figure for NOAA, but a look at their 2014 budget request suggests that their research budget has been roughly flat the last five or six years.)

There are many Republicans who think we need to fund climate science even less than we already do, likely because they disbelieve in anthropogenic global warming. So it's not obvious to me that if this is really the strategy climate scientists are engaged in, that it's actually working.

Then with that in hand, what problems do you then foresee happening when you have such conflicts of interests?

This type of question is unfair. Many of the most important discoveries of the 20th century happened through government funding. For example, the accelerated expansion of the universe (i.e. the discovery of "dark energy.") Do you question those results? Do you think that the astronomers falsified data to prove that this dark matter and dark energy exist so that they could get more grant funding? Do you think that high energy physicists falsified data about subatomic particles so that we could build the Large Hadron Collider? Do you think that paleontologists invented fossils to prove the theory of evolution so that the NSF would fund more dig sites? The answer to these questions is probably "no" since there's no particular reason to believe this is the case, and because we have a system of peer review, run by egotistical scientists who generally love the opportunity to disprove a competitor's work.

So why is that suddenly on this one issue in one particular field, do scientists suddenly get accused of falsifying data to generate grant funding? What makes this issue different from any of the others?

[patches70]

What makes this issue different from any of the others?

Nothing! That's what you don't get. For most people this just seems to be yet another attempt to relieve more people of more money.

So why is that suddenly on this one issue in one particular field, do scientists suddenly get accused of falsifying data to generate grant funding?

It's not this one particular field, Mets, though you don't wanna see that. We have the same arguments about education, immigration, welfare, virtually any issue you could name and they all have their particular sciences all arguing with each other.

So it's not "suddenly", and it's not just global warming, it's all shit, man. That's what you have to fight as well as just trying to get people to believe you. You have to not only get people to understand and buy into the science (from institutions that people don't trust anyway), but you have to also fight against the dirty hands that have always gotten their claws into everything to bring us to this point of supreme distrust.

Hey, it's not my fault, it was like this when I got here. Same as you.

The thing is, you have your whole identity invested in this, though you probably won't admit it. Which pretty much sucks for you, might as well just call you Cassandra for now on. Cursed to see the future and doomed to never be believed. You can thank your advocates like Al Gore and other rich mother fuckers who say we all have to sacrifice to save the planet when they are sitting pretty. They don't have to sacrifice a damn thing and they stand to make gobs of money investing in carbon exchanges.

That makes people distrustful, and rightfully so Mets. It's not my fault you don't see that. But you'd be much better served accepting that truism.

As to your identity, I can understand your devotion and sympathize. We all have to have faith in something I suppose. Hopefully the day will never come when you realize things aren't as you thought they were and thus be forced to confront your belief system.

So, what are we in for, Mets, if we do absolutely nothing at all to address global warming? When will the Earth be uninhabitable? When will our cities flood? When will the ice caps melt? When will everything go extinct because of Global Warming?

You can't answer that, even if you had data that actually pointed to a time because you'd fall into the same problem those false prophets had when they predicted the end of the world on some certain date to see that date come and go and alas we are all still here still living miserably.

Life goes on as it always has, badly. So the saying goes.

And thus you may understand that most people have enough to deal with without having to listen to your brand of prophecy and thus people are skeptical.
Find comfort in the fact that many people will humor you and pay lip service to your information. It'll make you feel good, feel like "Hey, I think I'm actually reaching some people" and you'll go on blissfully unaware, and a touch happier. Good on ya.

Take comfort in me, I roll my eyes at you and especially at the fear mongering of other more distasteful alarmists, but I do more for the environment then you'd ever imagine. Except I don't do what I do to save the Earth or to fight global warming. I don't give a shit about that because everything you talk about is beyond my control and I have no desire to control others, even if it means the end of the planet.
So, I tell you and everyone else coming with their hand out and desire to pick my pocket to piss off. Save the world in your own garden and stay out of mine.

You wanna convince someone to pay attention to global warming? Go talk to the Chinese. Those fuckers are polluting and destroying rampantly. They merely poison themselves, but if you wanna save someone, they need the saving. My soul is sound, your global warming Gods won't punish me since you have no idea the extent I go to protect my own little corner of the Earth. That which I have control off. You do whatever you wish to your garden, but if you mess up mine, I'd sue your ass.

That's one thing you should certainly be advocating for a whole hell of a lot more. Greater property rights. If someone damages or pollutes my property, be they my neighbor, corporation or the government I should be able to seek restitution to the point that it would be so cost negative for them that they wouldn't ruin anyone's little piece of the Earth in the first place. That would actually give people a real incentive to, you know, protect the Earth as you put it. Instead we live in a society that covets everyone else's stuff, just like you covet everyone else's carbon taxes.

Naw, I'll have to pass on your donation scheme, I have better things to spend my time and money on that will be of much more benefit for me and mine.

[Metsfanmax]

The thing is, you have your whole identity invested in this, though you probably won't admit it.

You should consider how this philosophy applies to yourself. You have your identity invested in something. It is the belief that government is generally to be distrusted. This is biasing you to be skeptical of something that has near-universal agreement from the people who study it. So why aren't you considering how this idea applies to you? Might your universal skepticism not be leading you astray on some issues that scientists are actually right about? You might call me Cassandra, but I might call you this kid:

That makes people distrustful, and rightfully so Mets. It's not my fault you don't see that. But you'd be much better served accepting that truism.

But it's actually even worse than universal skepticism. At least that is consistent, if not ignorant. But you're not just universally skeptical. For some reason, you're only skeptical of the government. NASA's budget is just under $20 billion, and its Earth Science budget is only 10% of that. Meanwhile, last year's profits for the US oil and gas industry was $33 billion. Now, it's usually fossil fuel interests that are the most vocal opponents of anthropogenic climate change theory. So if the hypothesis is that people will do dishonest things to keep making money -- who should we really trust here?

That's one thing you should certainly be advocating for a whole hell of a lot more. Greater property rights. If someone damages or pollutes my property, be they my neighbor, corporation or the government I should be able to seek restitution to the point that it would be so cost negative for them that they wouldn't ruin anyone's little piece of the Earth in the first place.

When is the last time you sued Peabody Energy for the 10,000-odd deaths that are caused each year by air pollution from burning coal?

[mrswdk]

You wanna convince someone to pay attention to global warming? Go talk to the Chinese. Those [mutually respected fellow citizens of this planet] are polluting and destroying rampantly. They merely poison themselves, but if you wanna save someone, they need the saving.

I don't think you understand how pollution works. Air pollution from northern China reaches Korea and Japan from time to time, and some very small amounts supposedly even reach the west coast of the US.

[Metsfanmax]

You wanna convince someone to pay attention to global warming? Go talk to the Chinese. Those [mutually respected fellow citizens of this planet] are polluting and destroying rampantly. They merely poison themselves, but if you wanna save someone, they need the saving.

I don't think you understand how pollution works. Air pollution from northern China reaches Korea and Japan from time to time, and some very small amounts supposedly even reach the west coast of the US.

I think it's fascinating that he made that argument to begin with. It seems that for a difficult to measure quantity like pollution, he just trusts government statistics that suggest that China is now responsible for more pollution than we are. Yet for a quantity that you can measure with a thermometer, he thinks there's a big government conspiracy afoot.

[BigBallinStalin]

I zipped through the articles by the Environmentalist, no-PhD guy and Forbes, but none of them addressed methodological issues. How is the data being 'manipulated'? Steve Goddard just shows two different graphs, sites old quotations, and screams 'Manipulation!!' Okay... how?

("manipulated." Adding an additional control variable or removing one can be called 'manipulating' the model. That's what econometrics is: manipulating models through statistics. There's nothing inherently wrong with that because 'manipulating' refers to modifying.... The Forbes article lightly mentioned that manipulation can simply be running a different regression with a better model and/or better data).

For example, China is the world's largest green energy market and the world's largest producer of solar, hydroelectric and wind power, but some people 'manipulate' those statistics in order to try and downplay China's achievements.

Nah, China is a big ball of pollution. I read it on someone's blog.

That reminds me. There was a green solution for the US: let people buy Chinese solar equipment without a tariff. Instead, the tariff was increased because 'jahbs'. Such a shame that the US missed this opportunity.

[BigBallinStalin]

So... what was the NAOO methodology issue?

[mrswdk]

I zipped through the articles by the Environmentalist, no-PhD guy and Forbes, but none of them addressed methodological issues. How is the data being 'manipulated'? Steve Goddard just shows two different graphs, sites old quotations, and screams 'Manipulation!!' Okay... how?

("manipulated." Adding an additional control variable or removing one can be called 'manipulating' the model. That's what econometrics is: manipulating models through statistics. There's nothing inherently wrong with that because 'manipulating' refers to modifying.... The Forbes article lightly mentioned that manipulation can simply be running a different regression with a better model and/or better data).

For example, China is the world's largest green energy market and the world's largest producer of solar, hydroelectric and wind power, but some people 'manipulate' those statistics in order to try and downplay China's achievements.

Nah, China is a big ball of pollution. I read it on someone's blog.

That reminds me. There was a green solution for the US: let people buy Chinese solar equipment without a tariff. Instead, the tariff was increased because 'jahbs'. Such a shame that the US missed this opportunity.

No doubt government efforts to block out any and all competition will be resulting in a high quality, affordable domestic alternative being created some time soon. That's how innovation works - duh!

[patches70]

Hey, Mets, you can blast me all you want, but you need me and people like me to buy into your plan. In fact, you need a whole lot of people to be willing to "pay double per gallon of gas" as I think you said you'd be happy to. A lot of people won't be happy to do that, sadly for you and your cause. And unfortunately for you there are millions upon millions who just aren't buying your carbon tax plan. It's not like all those people have never heard of global warming either, it's just perceived as another con job.

You need more than science, dude, you need charisma. You need people to trust you and believe you. Not you, per say, but whomever the spokesman is. The messenger matters, you may not accept that, but you should give that a thought.



On an aside and speaking of messengers, I remember during the Haiti disaster not too long ago. All the news outlets talking about it. Massive earthquake killing so many people. It was horrible to be sure. I forget what news channel but they had Danny Glover on. This guy goes on about that the earthquake was caused by global warming. I had to laugh.

Here it is, mets, I'd ask you a small favor if you would. Listen to Danny Glover and give me your take on his- since Copenhagen fell apart "this is what happens". That he blames the earthquake on global warming. How scientifically sound is Danny Glover's assertion?


And if his assertion is unsound, then how come no one tells Danny Glover to shut up? He isn't helping convince anyone. Unless somehow global warming causes tectonics.
Call me crazy, but I bet if we eliminated all CO2 emissions or whatever, get the Earth to exactly where you think it would be the most healthy, there would still be earthquakes. I'm going out on a limb with that, but that's why I'm asking you the expert.


Anyway, good luck with your advocating.
You can post a lot of science stuff pretty nice, but you sure as hell aren't doing a good job of getting anyone give a shit. Especially when there are people like Glover who reach a whole hell of a lot more people than you ever will spouting stuff that makes people laugh. Then again, using the Haitian disaster to push one's global warming stance is pretty dicey.

Stuff like that mets, that's the kind of thing you need to get a handle on because that doesn't help your cause. Not that you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a charismatic message out. The fire and brimstone line doesn't work so well with global warming as it has with religion.
That's why people like you try to work through government, because you think government can force everyone to do what you want. That is an ill advised plan, sir. It won't turn out like you'd hope. You've got to convince people to willingly get on board.


*And before you go on about how Glover isn't a scientist, the point is you have tons of people make all kinds of wild claims, predictions that don't come true and down right hypocrites (Al Gore et al,) who are just making a mockery of everything you advocate. Those messages harm your cause or whatever you'd call it. This type of stuff is important because you are trying to use science to convince people of taking a certain action and to get people to go along with that they have to believe you. People have a hard time doing that even if you are completely 100% right because of the above. But nobody ever says a word to people like Glover and your cause or whatever you call it, suffers for it.
People are bombarded with a lot of information, often times contradictory, offensive or absurd. <shrugs> Maybe I've done a poor job of illustrating that point, I dunno. But you are fighting a losing battle if you keep ignoring that particular problem.
And simply saying- "But it's not a con job!" won't get you very far, as I'm sure you'd imagine.

[shickingbrits]

Data manipulation:

BBC decides to only publish pro-global warming propaganda.

Two scientists take the same set of data. One shows a downward curve, the other shows a hockey stick. One gets hired at a lucrative salary, and impressive title, the other doesn't. The one who gets the job pesters and bullies the second to manipulate his data, refuses to submit the data he used to investigation and when a FOIA is filed is found to say things like: "I used Mike's nature trick to hide the decline", they are cleared of any wrong doing.

NASA adjusting temperatures to show today's temperatures are higher than the the 30s, while previous, unadjusted data shows that the 30s were warmer.

NOAA doing the same thing.

Temperature data collection showing that 9/10 of the stations don't comply with regulation. They are positioned near asphalt, which gets 15 C hotter than surrounding air. Place near heat vents. Moved from rural to urban settings.

And back to the idea of the BBC: non of this was published by a major media outlet. The only bit that was published is the clearing of those who "used Mike's nature trick to hide the decline."

But then once called out, the NOAA readjusted the data:

http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/30/noaa- ... on-record/

Again not published by a major media outlet.

But don't worry, it isn't manipulation, they “used world’s best practice and a peer reviewed process to modify the physical temperature records that had been recorded at weather stations across the country.”

As long as all the alarmists agree to modify the data, then it's ok.

Another amusing example of manipulation:

"This issue is called ‘climate sensitivity’, the amount the temperatures will increase if CO2 is doubled from pre-industrial levels. Climate models have predicted the least temperature rise would be on average 1.65°C (2.97°F) , but upper estimates vary a lot, averaging 5.2°C (9.36°F). Current best estimates are for a rise of around 3°C (5.4°F), with a likely maximum of 4.5°C (8.1°F)."

There are scientists who state that CO2 causes no warming, where are they in the above paragraph? These estimates are in continual flux, often using the manipulated data for the modeling. Well, those who don't manipulate the data aren't worth consideration, so they can be left out. Those who write reports invalidating global warming don't get hired, or soon get fired, so they don't count. And the major media outlets won't publish them anyway, so they don't count.

If you just tweak this, leave this out, discount these folks, then you get the desired result. Good science.

[Metsfanmax]

Hey, Mets, you can blast me all you want, but you need me and people like me to buy into your plan.

I don't need you and anyone like you to buy into the plan. Only 268 people who are very different from you. I would like to have you on board, and it would help in convincing those 268 people, but it's actually not necessary. Do I wish that I could just easily convince people using rational discussion? Of course I do. But I'm sitting here pouring out pages of information on the issue and people are still simply refusing to accept what is going on.

But you know why that is. It is because you don't want to agree with me. But ask yourself: what would you do if you believed that catastrophic global climate change was likely going to foment serious international conflict, and that the only way to avoid this is for all of the major industrialized nations to rapidly ramp down their greenhouse gas emissions? How would you handle that information? Would you just say "ah, f*ck it" because that war might happen in 50 years, when only your children and grandchildren have to deal with it?

You need more than science, dude, you need charisma. You need people to trust you and believe you. Not you, per say, but whomever the spokesman is. The messenger matters, you may not accept that, but you should give that a thought.

I give it a thought. A lot more than you might think. In fact, you sure do give me a lot of advice, but not much credit for thinking about it. I donate a significant amount of my free time to working on this issue. I pay attention to what matters. You, on the other hand, openly admit to not caring at all about the issue, yet you ladle out advice like it's worth a damn. In fact, in basically all of these threads you come in here boasting about how much you don't care about it, and how you want me to leave you out of my donation scheme. Well, naw, I'm not going to do that, because if you pollute and degrade my quality of life, you're going to pay for it*. Get over it. If you don't like it, call your representative and tell them you oppose a carbon tax. But you're not going to convince me that your opinion on this is worth anything at all when you're proud of how ignorant you are.

Here it is, mets, I'd ask you a small favor if you would. Listen to Danny Glover

Y'all have Glenn Beck and Mel Gibson. Your move.

*Edit: Just want it to be absolutely clear that I will nevertheless fight tooth and nail to ensure that your equal share of this revenue is returned to you. That's because this isn't about punishing people, it's about incentivizing them.

[Metsfanmax]

There are scientists who state that CO2 causes no warming, where are they in the above paragraph?

I can't think of any well regarded climate scientists who make such a claim. Even Judith Curry and Richard Lindzen, who are both generally legitimate scientists and very well known for publicly doubting the consensus estimate of the climate sensitivity, say it's probably 1 degree Celsius or more. If you find me a Ph.D. climate scientist out there who thinks that CO2 doesn't warm the Earth, I'll be absolutely flabbergasted. I'll be absolutely flabbergasted because it's basic, fundamental knowledge that it is the combination of carbon dioxide and water that makes our Earth's temperature livable. Go ahead and calculate what the Earth's temperature would be if it were in equilibrium with the Sun's radiation only. Hint: it's cold.

[shickingbrits]

No answer to the data manipulation done by the scientist you "regard well". When it is such scientist that you admire, those who don't manipulate data must be those you disregard.

Well, I don't know where we can go from here.

I have stated and you have failed to disprove that CO2 causes cooling, that water is the dominant player, that other GHGs play a significant role which have been greatly diminished, that you have no solutions to offer except taxation, that one solution to the danger of cooling because of CO2 is to inject real GHGs in the atmosphere, that the government will make headlines with non-deals that will then be lauded by your community.

What you have proven: that CO2 cools the upper atmosphere (after repeatedly saying it doesn't), that water is the dominant player in GHGs, that you willfully ignore any evidence against your theory, that you disclude any scientist who disagrees with your theory, that you are happy with manipulated data, that you wish to tax everyone at $6,000 per head per annum, that you don't intend to offer any solutions to avoid this tax or to reduce CO2 emissions, that you don't care how this money is spent.

What you have failed to prove is that CO2 causes dangerous levels of warming, that the government will use the taxes to anyone's benefit, that you are fair and unbiased.

Welcome to the real world, you don't get to get together with a bunch of clowns and tell the world that you all agree that you need our money. This isn't Burger King where the employees are obliged by the insurance companies to hand over the money regardless of whether the robber has a gun or not.

[Metsfanmax]

No answer to the data manipulation done by the scientist you "regard well".

I am not bothering to respond because you don't even understand what you're talking about. For example, you (like most people who got mad about this) probably think that the "decline" of "hide the decline" fame is a decline in temperature. Actually, that's not the case, it's a decline in something else entirely. Read more about it first, and then we can talk.

I have stated and you have failed to disprove that CO2 causes cooling

I asked for your source for this claim, and you have yet to come up with it.

What you have failed to prove is that CO2 causes dangerous levels of warming,

There's thousands of research papers and many, many review papers and assessment reports that testify to this fact. You're ignoring them, seemingly, because of one yet-to-be-produced "John Hopkins" paper. So yeah, I don't know either where we can go from here.

[shickingbrits]

I understand that google is difficult for you.

Whenever you made a claim, I did my own research on your claim and have yet to ask you to source it.

Mets to do list:

Blame oil companies
Ignore contradictory evidence
Attack the person
Say stuff like water will rise by a foot by the end of the century


Not to do
Don't mention the government gains far more profit from oil than do the oil companies
Don't forget to include the contradictory evidence in the consensus category (CFCs caused global warming says peer-reviewed paper, hmm let's attack the guy, but let's include it in the consensus category, NASA says CO2 causes cooling, well anything that causes cooling also causes warming, include it in the consensus category, John Hopkins says water mitigates warming effects of CO2, says warming effects of CO2, include it in the consensus category)
Don't mention the data, just attack the person.
Don't mention that water levels rose a foot between 1800-1950.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 111055.htm
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... mar_saber/

Here you go. Hack away.

[shickingbrits]

Sorry if you were going to reply Mets.

Since the scientific community has reached such a high rate of consensus, I see no reason to fund them a further $50b so they can get the last few percent to agree. With such a high rate of agreement, we don't require lobbyists on the issue.

Instead, I think we should thank them for their work and dismiss them.

The funds that were allocated for their research can be converted to awards for students who come up with solutions. The award should cover the cost of their education. Since their tuition covers the cost of research facilities, all patents derived from their research should become the the property of each and every citizen (not the government). If covering their education leaves an excess of funding, these funds can be used to put their discoveries into use, shared by each and every citizen.

Some examples of research accomplishments that students paid for with their own funds but got no part of:

Zero-energy greenhouses
Cheap and effective battery made of common products
Low wind energy turbines
Rocket-stoves and ovens

Though each of these ideas proved effective, none have seen the light of day.

All in favor, say Aye.

[notyou2]

Sorry if you were going to reply Mets.

Since the scientific community has reached such a high rate of consensus, I see no reason to fund them a further $50b so they can get the last few percent to agree. With such a high rate of agreement, we don't require lobbyists on the issue.

Instead, I think we should thank them for their work and dismiss them.

The funds that were allocated for their research can be converted to awards for students who come up with solutions. The award should cover the cost of their education. Since their tuition covers the cost of research facilities, all patents derived from their research should become the the property of each and every citizen (not the government). If covering their education leaves an excess of funding, these funds can be used to put their discoveries into use, shared by each and every citizen.

Some examples of research accomplishments that students paid for with their own funds but got no part of:

Zero-energy greenhouses
Cheap and effective battery made of common products
Low wind energy turbines
Rocket-stoves and ovens

Though each of these ideas proved effective, none have seen the light of day.

All in favor, say Aye.

So where did your sheep avatar go? Why did you make a new account?

[shickingbrits]

Making a new account is against the rules.

I quite clearly am a rule follower. I was acquitted of being a multi.

Why some people may make a new account, pure speculation...

Perhaps their wife was annoyed with the amount of time they spent on CC and deliberately got them banned. The wife then changed the account password. If it were a long ban, let's say 6 months, then the person couldn't rejoin for that period of time anyways. After that period of time, the person would have to somehow bother getting a new password, and being a spontaneous decision, might not bother with the formalities when their old account had been reduced to a rookies points anyways and the username had been denied changing by admin prior to the ban.

But who knows the devious minds of rule breakers? Probably not even worth speculating.

[Metsfanmax]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 111055.htm

Thanks. I don't have a whole lot of time right now to look into this. However, I skimmed the paper. It is quite technical so it would take a bit to digest. However, if the summary is to be trusted, the key part is

Hence, this effect may actually slightly weaken the more dire forecasted aspects of an increasing warming of our climate, the scientists say.

The paper itself, in the conclusions section, is simply arguing that some of the negative feedback effects from water might be as strong as the positive feedback ones. If that's true, it still leaves the warming directly from the CO2 itself, which is non-negligible. Either way, it's not arguing that water is negating the effect of CO2. It states openly the well known fact that CO2 triggers more water vapor, and argues that there's another feedback which may ultimately counteract this water feedback.

Anyway, I feel like we've made progress. We agree that carbon dioxide is trapping heat in the planet, and now we're just discussing whether that's enough to significantly warm the planet.

[AndyDufresne]

Making a new account is against the rules.

I quite clearly am a rule follower. I was acquitted of being a multi.

--Andy

[mrswdk]

Making a new account is against the rules.

I quite clearly am a rule follower. I was acquitted of being a multi.

Why some people may make a new account, pure speculation...

Perhaps their wife was annoyed with the amount of time they spent on CC and deliberately got them banned. The wife then changed the account password. If it were a long ban, let's say 6 months, then the person couldn't rejoin for that period of time anyways. After that period of time, the person would have to somehow bother getting a new password, and being a spontaneous decision, might not bother with the formalities when their old account had been reduced to a rookies points anyways and the username had been denied changing by admin prior to the ban.

But who knows the devious minds of rule breakers? Probably not even worth speculating.

Sounds like someone's hypothetical wife needs a bit more hypothetical discipline.