[LINK] Propaganda, manipulation and the abuse of media [Was: IPA, astroturfing and fantsy themes/Science under attack]

[Frank O'Connor]

On 22/02/2012, at 4:33 PM, TKoltai wrote:

> A hundred years ago, very few people would have believed the concept
> that an IOU was  capable of replacing the Silver dollar. 
> 
> Yet here we are with a banking system built on IOU's that few can redeem
> for what they were led to believe was the true value. (Try and swap a
> dollar for an .85% of an ounce of Silver...)

You're seriously equating IOU's and finance with climate change and Nature?

> The spreading of any meme is fine art. One person standing in the street
> and looking up whilst another one is going through the crowds and saying
> in an incredulously voice, "I think I just saw a UFO up there..." can
> create an entire wave of people looking up with the resulting UFO
> sighting report on Channel seven obviously occurring a few hours later.

Oh good ... now climate change and global warming is just a metaphysical meme. I was worried for a while there.

> Are NOX, CH4, CO2, (etc) gases making the temperature rise ? Probably -
> they can shown to do so in a closed test bed environment.
> Are CFC's bad for the Ozone layer, Probably.
> 
> Are any of those elements causing temperature change across the world ?
> 
> Doubtful when we consider that the mass of water that the Earth is host
> too is our planet's  dominant thermostat. Whilst plankton levels are
> rising, they are doing so mainly in estuaries and not the open ocean.
> (This suggests agricultural fertiliser runoff growth enhancement and not
> temperature).

Huh? ... The water temperature is rising too, Tom Old Son. Just because something is a heat sink doesn't mean that it doesn't warm up.

And since it does warm up, water vaporises more than in cold temperatures. Humidity increases. Clouds form. True, these protect the ground from radiated heat, but not from heat trapped by the increasing greenhouse effect that occurs above the cloud layers.

And that humidity (read 'trapped heat') has gotta go somewhere doesn't it. From the Indian and Pacific Oceans to downtown Sydney and Melbourne. From the warm Atlantic currents that wash up against the West Coasts of Ireland and England to a horrific winter in Europe.

Rises in sea temperature have other nefarious effects (reducing the ability of water to hold oxygen for example reducing its ability to support aerobic life, or fuelling cyclones, hurricanes, tornados and other meteorological disturbances) but lets not get into that.

> My first summer in Sydney in 1994 was spent looking out the window of
> Level 22 at Norwich house at the lead petrol pall that floated over
> parts of Sydney.
> 
> Since that time thousands of trees have been planted, Leaded petrol has
> stopped being served at the pumps and we can almost see the horizon.

Excellent ... some well thought our anecdotal evidence. I can remember when Melbourne baked from November through to March, and as kids we lived in the public swimming pools or down at the beach. Over the last 20 years the summers are cooler ... probably due to a number of factors similar to what I outlined in the preceding rejoinder ... but that has not stopped average annual temperatures from increasing.

> Fact 1. Our solar system is in an elliptical orbit lasting around 25,000
> years.
> Fact 2. The Ice Cores in Antarctica show temperature and methane
> temperature rises every 25,00 years with a major temperature extinction
> level event every 125,000 years.

Great ... we're back with the solar ellipsis and the ice cores. I needed more of that. I mean ... I can't get enough if it. Tell us more about the solar ellipsis and the ice cores, Tom ... we need to know.

> I'm not going to go there folks, any more than I already have, but
> please view: (and make up your own minds)
> http://kovtr/data/Link/25Kyearsantarticicecoregraph.png which is a
> composite of Methane in the atmosphere correlated to the corresponding
> periods temperatures in the Antarctic ice cores over the last 400K+
> years.

But you did go there, Tom ... and you keep going there. Last night's valiant attempt to raise the pan evaporation rate as an issue was at least different (although there are explanations for same that have to do with ambient humidity and the big problem of equilibrium) ... but leave the ice cores alone for a while.

> Anyone viewing that will doubtless consider it the best empirical
> evidence that there could and should be some doubt about Global Warming
> being caused exclusively by man.

I can't remember any global warming researcher or climate scientists saying global warming was EXCLUSIVELY CAUSED by Man. A few radical greenies have said same, and been mainly ignored by the rest of us. What climate scientists have been saying is that:

1. There is demonstrated and widely achieved empirical evidence and data that the Earth's average temperature is increasing ... 

2. There is demonstrated evidence that the concentration of greenhouse gases is increasing - especially since the 18th Century ... and that it appears most of the releases of same by humans over the last 50 years have yet to get to the upper atmosphere.

3. Given that the connection between greenhouse gases and heat retention in planetary systems has been pretty conclusively demonstrated in any number of studies from the 19th Century onwards ... it's a good bet that there's some form of correlation between the two.

4. That the increase in greenhouse gases has to some extent been caused by humans and their technology, to some extent by the reduction in the CO2 sinks that ever decreasing vegetation provides (and lets remember that's not necessarily a bad thing, as too much vegetation and other chlorophyll based life in our distant past caused some horrific ice ages - the air was intoxicating though and the arthropods mammoth), that the warming feedback - in the aforementioned oceans and free standing water bodies was causing little numbers like water-borne anaerobic algae and the like to die off ... further reducing the efficiency of that natural carbon sink (and krill food), and that any number of other feedback loops not directly related to humans were in the mix. We have our feet in any number of pies ... many indirectly.

> In fact mankind has assisted in the reduction of methane (and naturally
> occurring global warming) by chopping down millions of acres of forests.
> Which we then replaced with Cattle for beef patties in McDonalds
> burgers...

That was a joke ... right?

> I'm not worried, the ice core tells us that there is a fair way to go
> before we reach an extinction level event. Just 12.5K years ago the CO2
> was at 380 PPMV with methane at 700 and 25,000 years ago it was .....
> (ahh, the last time we were at the same orbital point and in an ice
> age.)  Ahh, I'm seeing a pattern.

You hang in there with that Ice Core, Tom ... it's obviously providing you with a great degree of comfort.

> The jobs that will be lost when the Carbon tax is introduced will merely
> ensure a change of Government.

Ahhh ... so your whole argument was in effect economic and political.

Makes a lot more sense than that impartial objective Scientific Method I know ... with all those nasty replicable results and evidence and a 95% adherent rate amongst the experts. I mean, the fact that its been shown that turning your back on the global warming argument and siding with the deniers can be a very lucrative move only serves to highlight how low the 95% of climate change scientists have sunk ... the Evil Commies! How could they let scientific integrity get in the way of a buck?

Burn 'em all at the stake I say!

> Apart from eliminating all particulate matter emissions into the
> atmosphere, one should "Follow the Money" to see where it leads.
> 
> A common theme in movies is to collate all different discipline
> experts... If we're serious about exploring climate change we need
> Oceanographers, Geologists, Marine Biologists, Astronomers,
> Climatologists, Vulcanologists, Seismologists and maybe even a couple of
> Physicists.
> 
> Relying on one element of science to predict a likely outcome in the
> absence of consensual agreement across all the disciplines is a bit
> lame.
> It's akin to a Lawyer claiming 20 under Par... With a straight face.

Mmmm ... everybody is an expert at everything in science if they have a science degree ... those Masters and Doctorates just confuse the issue. And why must science persist with the idea of reductionism, and putting together huge data sets from across the planet, and being able to replicate said data before they believe its veracity, and being so damned sceptical that they try to prove not their theories, but the opposite of their theories ... the Null Hypothesis.

Come to think of it ... who even needs a science degree ...

Yeah ... everyone's opinion means so much more than the actual data or evidence. In these days of Twitter and Facebook and a free and objective press if its said, if its an opinion ... hell, it must be true.

                                  Regards,