Who should I believe, AGW/ACC advocates, or deniers?

In the end, Connolley was banned from Wikipedia editing.

Massive Cover-up Exposed: 285 Papers From 1960s-’80s Reveal Robust Global Cooling Scientific ‘Consensus’

By Kenneth Richard on 13. September 2016

Beginning in 2003, software engineer William Connolley quietly removed the highly inconvenient references to the global cooling scare of the 1970s from Wikipedia, the world’s most influential and accessed informational source. It had to be done. Too many skeptics were (correctly) pointing out that the scientific “consensus” during the 1960s and 1970s was that the […]

“All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.“

William Connolley, now "climate topic banned" at Wikipedia

 

I'm surprised that you find that article compelling.

Another climate scientist replied with this comment in your link:

Roger A. Pielke Sr. says
4 NOV 2005 AT 9:33 PM

James-regarding your comment #8, I completely agree with you that we need to apply models to better understand climate system processes in response to the spectrum of natural- and human- climate forcings and feedbacks. I have numerous papers that utilize this approach. However, to communicate to policymakers that the models provide skillful multi-decadal regional and global predictions grossly oversells their capability. We can both agree that we should work to minimize the human alteration of the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, but still disagree whether we can skillfully predict the climate consequences of such actions.

 

Hmmmm your favourite misinformation site which has its own agenda and seems to have misrepresented what happened

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Connolley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Connolley

So accuracy was not an issue more the way he edited

and this dispute was ten years ago so any influence he may have had is long gone

 

Why it's important to scorn Connolley.

"I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. the will to a system is a lack of integrity."
--Friedrich Nietzsche


“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters”
― Albert Einstein

 

I just don't have enough knowledge on the subject to understand most of what you wrote. But, thanks anyway.

 

The guy appears to be an example of a climate modeler with an agenda.

Here is another article describing his administrator and editor behavior at Wikipedia:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wikipropaganda-on-global-warming/

and here is an interesting blog about him:
https://nz.general.narkive.com/QoSMxOXX/william-connolley-topic-banned-by-wikipedia

 

Ok, let me try again then.

One thing I might mention first though, is that another way you could have written the title of this thread is,
Who should I believe, AGW/ACC alarmists, or realists?

Yes, that is one of the claims that the advocates make, that long term averages make the models simpler and more reliable. But even among advocates this is in dispute as you can in my example above,
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...ates-or-deniers.590629/page-3#post-1072832381

Deniers dispute this because they do not believe that long term forecasts are possible with current computer power, modeling fidelity, and data reliability. Especially the reliability of past global average temperatures and CO2 levels based on marginal proxy measurements which are used to "calibrate" the accuracy of the models. Deniers also often dispute the contribution and role of CO2. It's a basic fact that the solubility of CO2 in water is very temperature dependent. This is why a two liter bottle of coke should always be chilled in the fridge before it's opened. Warmer water releases CO2, so as the planet warms there's more of it in the air.

Both sides generally agree we've on average had warmer weather and milder winters for a couple of decades.

Interestingly, Houston temperature and humidity has been unusually cooler and lower these past two summers and we just had a winter storm that blew through like nothing we have ever seen. About a month ago it was cooler here in Houston than it was in Seattle.

 

And he is ONE person

ONE

How about all the other thousands of scientists out there?

 

I think the question shouldn't have been framed as 'warmer' but framed as 'unusually extreme'.


Well, to list it totally unbiased, Who should I believe, those that are for 'AGW/ACC or those who are against? Because 'deniers' is biased for 'for", as is 'realists' biased for 'against'. It's not that the persons who feel one way or the other are biased, for all I know they might have it right, It's just that the title would be if written that way. ( but it's too late for me to change the title, I wasn't thinking too hard when I submitted the OP ).

I will continue to study the subject, but deciding on whom to believe is not easy for a layperson.

But, if I were a lay person and law/policy maker, I would approach it from this vantage point:

On whose side of the argument should I err, if err I must?

If I err with the believers, and they are wrong, we could lose money and effort though both may be substantial

If I err with the deniers, and they are wrong, we could lose everything

Given the above, if you were a law maker/policy maker and a layperson, which path would you take?

 

I disagree with your risk assessment.

You assert that the worst case from agreeing with the alarmists is that we could waste time and money.
You assert that the worst case from agreeing with the realists is that we could lose everything.

This past winter in Texas we had the opposite of a warming event, but the alarmists will claim that the cold snap is a result of climate change, choosing to phrase the language so as not to call attention that the entire premise is that the relevant man made forcing, due exclusively to CO2, is in the direction of hotter weather. These same people, will simultaneously assert that short term dynamics are of no consequence compared to the long term averages that they claim are undeniable, although their models, the actual models offer zero ability to correlate their claims with the recent heat wave in the PacNW. But they will nevertheless not miss a chance to let a weather event go to waste. Even if it's a Winter storm in Texas.

Now, lets look at the consequences on the Texas grid due to the wind and solar content Texas depends on nowadays on its Ercot grid. Here is a link to real time info on power source content,
http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/real_time_system_conditions.html

In this link, in the table, solar is listed as PVGR, and as a few moments ago wind and solar accounted for about 18% of total available capacity. The balance of the other power comes from fossil fuel and two nuclear power stations.

Now, most folks are not aware of this, but the way the power grid works, at least one of its features is that it must be regulated such that source power to the grid is regulated to match demand. So the MWs shown in the Ercot real time data means that of the total available capacity, only the demand load is being supplied at any given instant in time. When demand exceeds capacity it has to be cutoff, or shed, or it will overload the system.

Here's a link to the concept, https://www.e-education.psu.edu/ebf483/node/705. Note that in figure 9.3 there is a typo in the bottom right corner of the figure that should say over-frequency Generation tripping.

Now, in Texas during our recent winter storm we lost much of our wind power due to freezing rain that locked some of it up, and probably a loss of power in those not affected by freezing rain due to lubricants not designed for such cold weather. Such that as it got too cold for the lubricant the viscosity likely increased to the point that it inhibited the rotation of the machine. At night of course we always lose all of our solar power as we have no infrastructure on the grid to store it. This is a good time to mention the Tesla Hornsdale battery. It has about a 200 MW/h capacity. In order to sustain the current solar power being produced on the Ercot grid over night somewhere around about a 100,000 MW/h battery is required. That's 500 Hornsdales.

So, no solar, no wind, and we even lost several fossil fuel power sources because we don't design for operating at 0°F temperatures here. This last problem can be fixed, but we have a state government with a short memory and other more pressing priorities.

Now then, I ask you, who lost everything? The official count of deaths is currently at 210 people, but other sources can be found estimating that it is likely closer to 700 or 800.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/texas-winter-storm-power-outage-death-toll

***
As an aside, note that the alarmists have become so successful with their messaging that these days we now have environmentalists calling for more nukes! So some of these folks apparently think the best option for the environment was never to close your local nuke plant, SONGS. What are your thoughts about that? Nuclear power station located on what was once named Earthquake Bay, right on the coast? Fukushima is all worth it to get rid of dirty CO2 emissions?

 

First, know that I haven't decided which group are right, I don't know, but reading the arguments, they are too technical for me to understand. I have observed more extreme weather in America, that's all I know. And the Ice caps are shrinking, are they not? Wouldn't that suggest the earth is warming? ( and yes, I understand that it doesn't prove AGW/ACC in the 'anthropogenic' side of the argument ).

You are on the 'against AGW/ACC hypothesis.

So, it begs the question:

Could you be wrong? If yes, On a scale of 1 - 100, 100 being 100%, what is your level of certainty?

( I would pose the same question for the pro AGW/ACC folks ).

 

Antarctica ice isn't shrinking and the Arctic ice has been stable but at low level for over a decade now.

There are no increase in severe weather in America, fewer major Tornadoes and no trend in smaller ones. Fewer landfalling major Hurricanes and no increase in tropical storm energy.

Yes Earth has been warming since 1979, but not warming in the last 6 years.

 

My question is why you think science deniers aren't also a part of the AGW faithful? These, clearly, are not mutually exclusive groups.

 

First, to answer your earlier proposition, I cannot accept your proposed deal to commit to buying and reading "Walking Among Us". It is just not something I am interested in reading. But I didn't start a thread asking for advice about such a subject, whereas you did start this thread. If you take the time to watch the video you will hear an interesting story about some of the social upheaval caused by the Little Ice Age as one of the examples of irrational responses to extreme weather. Witch hunts, literal actual witch hunts:

One example of the violent scapegoating occurring during the Little Ice Age was the resurgence of witchcraft trials, as argued by Oster (2004) and Behringer (1999). Oster and Behringer argue that this resurgence was brought upon by the climatic decline. Prior to the Little Ice Age, "witchcraft" was considered an insignificant crime and victims were rarely accused.[37] But beginning in the 1380s, just as the Little Ice Age began, European populations began to link magic and weather-making.[37] The first systematic witch hunts began in the 1430s, and by the 1480s it was widely believed that witches should be held accountable for poor weather.[37] Witches were blamed for direct and indirect consequences of the Little Ice Age: livestock epidemics, cows that gave too little milk, late frosts, and unknown diseases.[40] In general, as the temperature dropped, the number of witchcraft trials rose, and trials decreased when temperature increased.[39][37] The peaks of witchcraft persecutions overlap with hunger crises that occurred in 1570 and 1580, the latter lasting a decade.[37] These trials primarily targeted poor women, many of whom were widows. Not everybody agreed that witches should be persecuted for weather-making, but such arguments primarily focused not upon whether witches existed, but upon whether witches had the capability to control the weather.[37][39] The Catholic Church in the Early Middle Ages argued that witches could not control the weather because they were mortals, not God, but by the mid-13th-century most populations agreed with the idea that witches could control natural forces.[39]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Cultural_responses

And if you watch just the first 15 minutes you will see the reason MC wrote State of Fear, rather than a man made environmental disaster novel that he had originally begun research on in support of building a realistic plot.

These Western wildfires are horrible, but bankrupting PGE and blaming it for the Camp Fire of 2018 was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in my life. Transmission lines spark sometimes, transformers blowout. I've seen some folks assert that ExxonMobil should be held accountable for some of the more recent wildfires, either in the Western US or I think maybe this piece of insanity came from down under. Last wildfire season there were something like 11,000 lightening strikes that initiated the fires around Santa Cruz. The West is having an extreme drought, well, it had one even further into the Midwest back in the thirties, Grapes of Wrath.... Every hurricane is an extreme weather event. Every F5 tornado is a nightmare. The alarmists would have us all believe that if we control CO2 then we can control the weather. It's a fundamentally flawed proposition, imo.

 

Let me simplify all of that for you then.

The bottom line during the Texas winter storm is that the push to Green Energy helped to kill between 200 and 800 people when we lost power.

So that's an example of why those who believe that the worse thing that can happen from controlling CO2 is that we waste time and money versus potentially losing everything are not getting the math correct.

***
The Earth is a big place and there is even valid debate about how much of it is getting warmer, how much is staying the same and how much of it is getting cooler - among meteorologists, and climate scientists. Apparently, if you dig into some of it you may run across an article that claims the tropics aren't getting any warmer at all. And that snowfall in Antarctica has increased thereby increasing its icecap.

I don't disagree that North America seems to be getting warmer with hotter summers and milder winters. These cycles happen and it seems like a complete scam to me that there is any likelihood that we can control these cycles by controlling CO2.

***
Could I be wrong? Of course I could be wrong, but presently I am pretty much stuck at no, I'm not.

 

Given the sheer volume of research (not opinion blogs but published peer reviewed research) the number of scientists who support this (over 97%) and the paucity of researched validated support that shows it is NOT happening, well for me it is a no brainer.

I am an unabashed science nerd. Show me hard solid evidence and that means peer reviewed research, not “sum bloke on da internetz”. Better yet show me a meta-analysis and systematic reviews of the published research (highest level of research findings) and o am all in. This is why I stand by the IPCC reports. They are authored by hundreds of volunteers reading thousands of research papers, each section of each chapter usually has a couple of hundred research citations. It has an extensive and open errata process, it is under the auspices of the UN so no one government has undue influence, it is what the governments of the world are using to set policy when they meet to discuss international targets. Despite decades of the denialosphere trying to take these reports apart there have only been a handful of errors found

So, with all of that why would I look elsewhere for evidence?

Look at what happened with Berkeley Earth project. A group of scientist sceptics challenged the validity of the temperature records

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth

Came to the conclusion that the record was accurate

 

@Patricio Da Silva

Another thing that comes to mind is if you go back and look at the arguments the alarmists use and pay close attention you will notice that they often attempt to educate folks that the climate is not the weather. When pressed they have to admit that their models are insufficient to couple with actual weather models to predict anything specific.

And yet, they will post opinion pieces like this,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/rapid-attribution-of-pnw-heatwave/

Now, this is a site that claims to be science based and qualified professionals, who admit that climate models are not sufficiently advanced to couple with weather forecasts and yet they will assert that various events ranging from the recent NW US heatwave all the way back to the Texas winter storm and every rash of tornados or outcomes of hurricane season are all but impossible without man made CO2 emissions.

 

I see that you too do not know what the 97% means. Repeating misinformation should be avoided.

 

Dr. Mass was on top of this heat wave days before it showed up, he along with fellow Meteorologists made the predictions of the incredible heatwave that were based on THREE separate weather events that converged in the PNW, he then followed the amazing weather event as it happened and then afterwards made a post showing that Global Warming didn't cause it.

From his Blog.

Cliff Mass Weather Blog

June 24, 2021
Incredible Temperatures Are Being Predicted and Confidence Is Now High That It Will Occur

After passing about 5 posts on this topic at his blog to this:

July 05, 2021
Was Global Warming The Cause of the Great Northwest Heatwave? Science Says No.

He works and lives in Washington state.

I saw this first hand living in Eastern Washington.

The State record high remains unbroken despite the heatwave.

 

Why is it that this is all you seem capable of doing for someone who claims to be an unabashed science nerd? Continually making the main point of your argument that everyone who is qualified agrees and that all dissent is marginal and that anyone who disagrees with you is using unreliable sources or some bloke on da internetz or a shill for Big Oil.

All of the science data is super marginal. If these were drug trials the product would never get approval.

 

Interesting. So, no disasters ahead? That's good.

What I want to know, is how is it another climate scientist, reading the same data, comes to the opposite conclusion?

??? That's what baffles me.

 

Can you explain this?

Also,
I'm no longer using the term 'deniers' which presumes they are wrong, I'm referring to both groups merely as 'for' or 'against' AGW/ACC because I honestly do not know who is right.

 

Ask yourself which one of those is a wealth redistribution scam, and then make your decision.

 

I'm not sure there is a "correct science". Science is the continual study and investigation of the world. Forming hypotheses, designing experiments to conform/disprove each and forming new hypotheses from the results. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

I'll watch it, for sure.