Evidence for Climate Change: The Water Knife

[WriterMs]

Beginning in 2013, several studies looked into "dark money" foundations that do not allow the public to trace where their money comes from -- meaning polluters can fund climate change deniers and not be so visible. Google "climate denier funding" or similar and you'll get pages of results. (If you remember the 60s, think back to how many doctors and scientists stood up to say that tobacco does not cause cancer.)

Here is the beginning of an article about one scientist who is used as a star in refuting man-made influence. I"m sure that more than a $1.5 million from the fossil fuel industry did not sway his opinion. Is he a "money scientist?" His own correspondence calls his research and testimony before Congress "deliverables." I'll post a link to the full article at the end of the quoted material. Also note that his credentials have also been misrepresented (such as he has never been employed by Harvard).

For years, politicians wanting to block legislation on climate change have bolstered their arguments by pointing to the work of a handful of scientists who claim that greenhouse gases pose little risk to humanity.

One of the names they invoke most often is Wei-Hock Soon, known as Willie, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who claims that variations in the sun’s energy can largely explain recent global warming. He has often appeared on conservative news programs, testified before Congress and in state capitals, and starred at conferences of people who deny the risks of global warming.

But newly released documents show the extent to which Dr. Soon’s work has been tied to funding he received from corporate interests.

He has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers. At least 11 papers he has published since 2008 omitted such a disclosure, and in at least eight of those cases, he appears to have violated ethical guidelines of the journals that published his work.

The documents show that Dr. Soon, in correspondence with his corporate funders, described many of his scientific papers as “deliverables” that he completed in exchange for their money. He used the same term to describe testimony he prepared for Congress.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/u...ate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?_r=0

 

[highdesertranger]

well now I have home work.  ok so on bob's graphics there is no links that I can look into so I really can't comment on them at this time.  but on bandc's post with the link you can look at.  did any body read it?  it's on wiki commons.  did anybody have any questions?  any points you would like to bring up that shows the science is settled?  I am not saying that man is or isn't causing global warming.  there are plenty of holes in both hypothesis,  and yes you can follow the money on both sides with a little homework.  so to dismiss one side or the other is not science,  it's emotion, imho.  to blindly accept something is not good,  to accept it because you want to believe it is equally not good.  question everything.  I don't care who says what,  question it.  this video shows what has become of the environmental movement.  sheep going to slaughter.  blindly following the one in front of you,  doing as everybody else is doing.  it's sad so sad.  because the movement had so much potential back in the day.
. 
to bad people learned how to exploit it.  I guess it's human nature.  it's still sad.  highdesertranger

 

[SoulRaven]

Bob,

I tend to just go to a search engine with whatever term I'm interested in. Then if I want all sides of a subject, I will type in the term, along with "scam", "hoax", "controversy", "opposing views" or something similar.

I do basically the same thing except for different reasons by adding something like "follow the money", "money trail", "what role does money play on" xxx subject. The wording doesn't have to be exact, and you may have to play with it a little to come up with what you're looking for on different subjects.

In the case of climate change, http://www.globalclimatescam.com/ is as good a place to start as any. They've got a lot of interesting articles with the references you're requesting.

I'm not really taking sides on this subject, because I have come to the conclusion that there are too many opposing views on the subject for my liking. So what I can do is just be aware and mindful of any pollution that I generate, and perhaps modify my purchasing habits if I don't agree with some supplier's pollution policies.

As for the money wagon, the whole system is terribly flawed. There are typically two ways of funding, the first is usually that somebody pays for a study, and not surprisingly, that study almost always supports the views of the people paying for it. The next means of funding usually requires getting published first. To get published, you are subjected to "peer review", and unless you are confirming the findings of the prevailing winds of that peer group, your chances of getting published are very very slim, which means that your chances for funding are equally as slim. This current model is broken because it stifles opposing views regardless of their validity.

In the end, it's the same old story. We get the "facts" that Big Money wants us to get, and that same Big Money is used to attempt to silence or discredit anybody opposed to them. The truth is frequently totally disregarded in the process.

Today, with the internet, the chances of obtaining those opposing views is greatly improved. Publications that were previously only available to a very small audience, are now available for viewing by the world. Who's right, or who's wrong, or even if there is a definitive right or wrong, is anybody's guess.

 

[B and C]

I don't know where to start.  I do not have the gift of gab or being a writer, hence I don't talk a lot and am a really bad, slow typist.  This topic is huge and I am sure whole books have been written about it (on both sides).  

As a people in totality, what can be done to change our impact to the planet????  No one is addressing this in a meaningful manner, just speculation on how to do it, but even then are hypocritical.  

Just by us existing, there is an impact, good or bad.  Chasing the money and who is on what side does nothing to solve this problem (if it is a man made problem).  I am neither a denier or beliver (does this make me a denier or an ostrich?).  The earth has gone through cycles long before we came into existance and will continue to go through them long after we as a race are gone.

If climate change (new term from global warming and global cooling since those terms didn't work) is man caused, then to me, there is too many of us.  Natures way is survival of the fittist.  With the advent of modern medicine, we have made it so the weakest of us survive and reproduce, thus having a larger impact.  

Each and every person leaves a footprint on the planet.  This cannot be changed with the current technology.  If our existance is detrimental and can't be changed by current technology, what does that mean?  We are doomed?  No hope?

Mankind has been around a long time by being able to adapt to his surroundings.  Those that cannot adapt will surely die.  Those that can adapt (survival of the fittist) will carry on.

We will not come up with the answers here (pessimistict?).  Therefore I choose to live my life the way that makes me happy.  Isn't this the truest form of freedom?   Change is inevitable.  I do have grandchildren and hope they will do the best they can with what we leave them with.  I cannot live their life for them.  I would like to leave a habitable plant though.  I just do not have the means to make much of an impact.  This may all just be an exercise in futility too, as an asteroid could come crashing down and change everything in an instant.

I hope I have not stepped on too many toes........

Brian

 

[Gary68]

the thing is that 100% proof of climate change is very easy to prove,here

the top 1/4 of the u.s. and all of canada was once covered by a mile thick sheet of ice and now it is not

seems pretty simple to me,i just can't understand why some people are trying to blame me for it,i've only been around for about 50 years and 99.8% of the warming happened thousands of years ago

and since we dont know why it happened i currently subscribe to the pole shift theory but that could change with evidence


[video=youtube]

 

[akrvbob]

I have a completely different view of scientists than you guys do. They are in it for love of science mostly, and secondarily for fame, not money. Unless you are funded by private industry, there is NO money in science!! No one I ever quote or consider their opinion is funded by private industry. If they are funded by private industry, I disregard anything they have to say!

The majority of all climate scientists who publish papers on climate change work either for Universities or for the government. In the US that is mostly NOAA or NASA.

Those with PHDs and experience are paid well, but no one is getting rich from it. Just guessing wildly I'd say $80,000 to $120,000 a year. Maybe the department head at Harvard or Yale makes a lot more, I have no idea. Most working scientists are at best middle or upper-middle class.

Tenured professors have nothing to gain or lose by their opinions, they can't be fired, they won't get more money for their opinions. If they get funded or not has no impact on them. The results of their studies has no impact on them.They can't be fired, they won't be paid less or more.

On the other hand, publishing a bad paper full of bad science that someone else disproves hurts them terribly. At that level ego and fame is their primary motivator, money means almost nothing.

A scientist that proves (using good, reproducible science) that global climate change is NOT caused by man will have changed the course of history and will go down in the history books BIG TIME! He can write books about it and become world famous. That's what motives scientists.

A new discovery makes them famous forever.
Writing a paper disproving someone else's discovery makes them nearly as famous.
Writing a bad paper makes them infamous and reviled forever.

Based on my study, deniers are motivated by money because they are privately funded (see the proven example above) proponents are motivated by actual concern and ego.

Here is one page that gives wages for scientists:
http://www.jupiterscientific.org/sciinfo/sciencesalaries.html

According to it my guesses are high.

 

[B and C]

OK believers (and deniers).  

We agree that something on our planet is happening. Let's just assume all the liberal professors (don't get all huffy) and gubermint funded university scientists are right.  The earth is not in one of its cycles and we are causing this change.  We are not discussing if there is a problem or not.  I think everyone will concur that change is happening. This discussion has only been about the cause (you and I or natural). However it is caused, there is no discussion on a way to remedy, stop or reverse it here.  Up until now, it has just been a shouting match and pointing fingers.

What is the PLAN?  This is my whole point.  Whether global warming, global cooling or climate change (whatever you want to call it) is man made or not, it is happening.  What is the PLAN?

What are you and I going to do different?  

I personally drive an RV that gets 11.5 MPG pulling a toad.  This is fairly respectable compared to a class A that may get ~8 MPG (more or less).  Can I convert it to run on solar?  No way.  I still have a S&B place to spend the Winter and it also has a carbon footprint.  Another option, sell (or give) it all and become a hunter gatherer and I better not build a fire to cook anything over and I would still be creating methane gas just like any mammal even if eating uncooked food.  The entire population can not do this though.  WE (I include myself) are the scourge of the earth.  Until there is technology that turns our carbon footprint into energy again, nothing changes.  I can keep downsizing and trying to make my footprint as small as possible, but I just suffer more the lower I go.  Maybe just dig a hole and crawl into it and die (wait, doesn't decomposing bodies contribute too?).  This still changes nothing.  There are billions of people.  We will still have the elitists that will just try to buy their way out. Carbon TAXES changes nothing but makes me, the little person suffer.  Does that change anything?

There really isn't a PLAN anywhere, just a bunch of people trying to make money (or the gubermint collecting TAXES) off a phenomonem (natural or man made).  They talk a great game of switching to greener energy, but it is not viable enough at present and I doubt that being totally solar would do any good anyway. Think of all the reflected heat into the atmosphere (oh my!). I am waiting for the all electric RV though.  Even an electric motor ionizes the atmosphere.

This is my whole point.  My life is going to go on and so is yours until such time as technology catches up or it again becomes the survival of the fittest.

Just my $0.02 worth.

 

[SoulRaven]

B and C,

I'm kind of like you, not really taking sides, and mostly just doing what I can to reduce my own carbon footprint by both my actions and my buying power.

I do happen to believe this whole thing is money motivated though...

In the end, probably the best thing that can be done as far as a solution goes is called birth control. I chose to do my part of helping solve the overpopulation problem by not having any kids. If each couple was limited to no more than two children, we could at least hold the population in check. I think that's as good a place to start as any.

Further, forget all of this climate change baloney, that people can argue about, make it simple and undisputable that everyone can understand and something they will be willing to get behind. Something like "We are destroying the Earth", or "We are overpopulating the Earth". Geek Speak will never get the numbers of people behind it that we need to make a difference.

If the masses understand a simple and undisputable problem exists, the masses will force the necessary changes to be made.

 

[B and C]

Thanks OG.

I hate to say the Chinese probably had it right, but went too far with only one child.  I think it takes a birthrate of 2.3 children per couple to sustain population at its present level.  It would take a veerrry long time to bring the population levels down to a sustainable level.  I don't think the poor countries could do anything except grow their population.  I am not as optimistic as you on the masses doing something.  Sex is too powerful of a drug 

We tried our part too.  Had one and then he married a gal that had two and he had two more with her.  That is one busy household.  Wears us out pretty quick when we get around them.  Wouldn't take for them though.....




I still think it will come to the survival of the fittest however that comes to be.  Probably will be wars over drinking water and/or food........

Brian

 

[GotSmart]

My plan.  

Use as little non renewable resources as possible.  

Avoid blister packs, buy used whenever possible

Use solar as much as possible.  

FACT.  We once were under a huge ice sheet.

FACT.  The entire southwest was in a drought about 1,000 years ago.  

FACT.  Entire parts of the world have changed from old growth forest to cities in the past several hudred years, and parts of the middle east have changed from forest to desert.


Everything points toward man has caused many of the current problems, but as Bob has said, if you can absolutely prove one way or te other, you will be the most famous person ever.

 

[akrvbob]

Are scientists really just greedy *******s who will lie and falsify data to keep their masters happy? I poked around google to see how much money is in science and the answer is not much. This thread on a physics forum was enlightening.

A Newbie posted this question:
I'm aware that physicians are among the highest paying jobs but is it possible to earn an income close to that of a physician as a physicist, chemist, biologist or other scientist? I could just as easily go to medical school and obtain an MD in the long run but what I'm really getting into chemistry for is to make my contribution towards mankinds knowledge and to making the world a better place and all that but its a petty many scientists don't even earn half the money that your average general practitioner does.

Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/do-scientists-make-good-money.366703/

The answers were basically no, don't go into science for the money. I thought this one was helpul:

In general, scientists don't make a lot of money. At my university, an untenured assistant professor makes between $50k and $60k. A tenured associate professor makes between $80k and $100k. A full professor makes about $130k. Not bad, but that's after six years of grad school and four years of postdoc. Not to mention that your chances of becoming a professor after your postdoc is less than 1 in 2 (that's in physics, I think it's even worse in chemistry). I know they say not to become a doctor for the money, but if money is what you're interested in, you really don't want to become a scientist. We get paid pretty badly, we're on short term appointments (like grad school and postdoc) unless we're lucky enough to get a professorship, and we have to beg for funding all the time. You've got to love what you do in order to go this route, because you don't get paid that well.

Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/do-scientists-make-good-money.366703/

There may be good reasons to be a denier, but that scientists go into science for the money isn't one of them.
Bob

 

[Gary68]

Bob,i believe that science is as dogmatic as any religion
take the great flood for example,we know after the ice age the oceans have risen about 400 feet,we know ice dams broke and sent massive amounts of fresh water in to the oceans and every ancient society has a story about it but in no way will science do anything that will validate a religious story,there was no flood they say

offgrid,we have made great strides,the rain isnt melting trees in new jersey like it was when i was a child but in portland,or every time a good rain happens the sewage system overflows and dumps raw sewage in the columbia river so...

and dont worry about the population,the herd will be thinned,one way or the other the herd is always thinned

 

[Gary68]

not to mention the thousands that want to be a scientist and the 3 job openings

 

[akrvbob]

Is it too late to stop climate change? Probably! Here is a post I wrote in another thread about a possible solution that might work. If we did it soon it could save our great grand-children a lot of heartache.

But there isn't a chance in hell of it happening:
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
There is nearly universal agreement that there is a tipping point of climate change when we have set in motion so many feedback loops that they are like a run-away freight train and nothing can be done.

There is no consensus on whether we have reached the tipping point yet. The problem is so big and there are so many variables, no one knows for sure. Personally I think it's to late, we've reached the tipping point but maybe not, it's just a guess.

There is a possible solution though if we declared WW III on climate change and did the exact same things we did in WW II.

1) Rationing of all fossil fuels and carbon producing machines.
2) Victory Gardens in every square foot of growing space and basically stop or scale-back factory farming.
3) National mobilization for production of alternative energy and fuels.
4) Throw all money neccessary into the science of not building better weapons and atomic bombs but a way to save the ecosystems future.
5) National Propoganda campaign to get the country behind our last hope.

We did it once before, I believe we might could do it again. You don't want to underestimate the American people once they are determined to do the right thing. We can do amazing things--or horribly terrible things.

The horribly sad and ironic thing is that in WWII we were fighting someone who was committing a holocaust and atrocities against humanity. This time we are fighting ourselves because we are the ones who are committing a holocaust and atrocities to the planet that gives us everything we need for life.

The WW II generation is called the greatest generation. In the future, we will be called the worst generation who ever lived on the planet for what we are doing.
Bob

 

[Gary68]

whaaa,stop the cast iron killing machine,are you nuts? do you know what that would do to the employment numbers? would never get elected that way

the small farm is already in motion where i am,cost a little more but the product is way better

 

[GotSmart]

http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/summaries/1984.html

How long as it been since anyone read 1984?

Without war, this society would not function...

If the labor were re directed to things such as correcting climate change~~~ Who knows what would happen!

 

[Brian_and_Jesse]

The explanation I just gave you fully and totally explains the very rapid rise of temperatures and no other explanation can. Scientists have considered each and every one (just like the volcano explanation) and ruled it out.

When a theory fully explains the facts, and no other theory can, it is generally accepted as the truth. But it still has to stand the test of time and this one has, everything that has happened and everything we have learned since it was first presented fully agrees with the theory. That's why we have 97% consensus among climate scientists on the theory  presented.

You presented another popular alternative theory, the theory that our current warming is just part of natural climate change over time. That theory has been fully disproven, it is as wrong as the volcano theory. I don't have time right now to break it down for you but if you will go to this NASA page they make it very simple why it has been rejected as a possible explanation for the current facts.  

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php

In a nutshell its this

The current rate of extremely fast warming is unprecedented. Nothing like it in the past record  has ever happened before and there is no explanation for it.

"As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.

Models predict that Earth will warm between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius in the next century. When global warming has happened at various times in the past two million years, it has taken the planet about 5,000 years to warm 5 degrees. The predicted rate of warming for the next century is at least 20 times faster. This rate of change is extremely unusual."

A diagram from the page. Something happened about 1900 that sent the temperatures skyrocketing, what could it have been? The most simple, logical explanation is that it's humans pumping carbon into the air. 

This is one page, there are hundreds of them out there. The theory I gave works 100%, none of the others do, that is why only deniers ridicule it.

I'll tell you what I'm doing in another post soon.
Bob

Evening, Bob!

Would you mind explaining HOW, in your view, humans manage to outdo the natural occurrences in nature with regard to CO2 emissions?

It's *very* difficult for me, living in fire country, to imagine how a few mountain people with wood stoves could possibly outdo even one forest fire, let alone the number that rage around here (and the rest of the world) annually.

While an avid environmentalist, gauging CO2 emissions isn't my area of expertise, so a comprehensive list of how we're messing up the planet with our production of it would be most enlightening.

Thanks in advance,

Jess.

 

[Wandering]

Ok folks , kindly explain the Maunder Minimum..

 

[akrvbob]

Brian and Jesse, the key thing to understand is that for millions of years the earth has developed a balanced system of pumping carbon into the air and then having a way to remove it. It has actually had a very balanced system. Forests are a huge part of the system. For millions of years forests have been pulling carbon out of the air and they  have been burning which pumped carbon into the air.

There have always been forest fires and there always will be.

The earth has worked out a system to remain in basic balance with some constant natural variability. The earth got hotter and it got colder but it always maintained a temperature that favorable to life on earth a a whole.

Then men came along and we started to cause more forest fires which threw more carbon in the air. And we started to slash and burn the rain forests and that threw more carbon in the air and prevented those forests from removing carbon. And we burned fossil fuels at incredible rates and that threw gigantic amounts more carbon in the air. All that extra carbon in the air has caused the earth to warm which is causing more droughts in some areas and more floods in others. In the drought areas it is causing many more forest fires that throw much more carbon in the air.

Stated simply, there have always been forest fires and the earth balanced it out. But we are adding so much more carbon in the air that the earth can not balance it out, it takes millions of years for the earth to adjust but only 150 years for us to pump all this extra carbon into the air. We are simply moving too fast for the earth to react quickly enough.

The damage we are doing is causing more forest fires which of course just do much more damage. In other words, about half the forest fires are man-made and they are part of the human causation of the extremely fast global warming of the last century.

Read this study from Yale university:
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/fires_burn_more_fiercely_as_northern_forests_warm/2643/

Wildfires last summer burned more than 9 million acres across the U.S., predominantly in the West and Southwest. Only two other times in the past 50 years have fires burned so extensively: first in 2006, then again in 2007. Twice more in the last decade fires fell just short of claiming this much acreage.

Increasingly, forestry experts say this ominous trend bears the fingerprints of climate change: As average air temperatures rise and water evaporates more rapidly from vegetation and soil, the parallel rise in precipitation needed to offset these changes has not kept pace. Most models predict the deficit will only worsen in years to come.

“The initial signs of climate change — they’re here,” says Amber Soja, a senior research scientist at NASA who studies the interaction of fire and climate. “We have evidence in our wildfires.”
Bob

 

[akrvbob]

Very briefly the Maunder Minimum was a period of time where the sun basically stopped having sun spots and is believed to have caused the last Little Ice age. A new Maunder Minimum is a possibility, not likely, but a possibility. 

However, the very same scientists that are telling us it is a possibility are also assuring us even if it happens, that it's impact will be more than offset by man-made warming. In other words, it's unlikely to happen but even if it does it would only cause a slight delay in the disaster we are creating, but it won't be much and it won't be for long. Here are two articles that say exactly that:

[font='Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif]http://www.newscientist.com/article...owest-low-in-four-centuries.html#.VZYl-flViko[/font]

[font='Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif][font=arial, sans-serif]The sun's activity is in free fall, according to a leading space physicist. But don't expect a little ice age. "Solar activity is declining very fast at the moment," Mike Lockwood, professor of space environmental physics at Reading University, UK, told [/font][font=arial, sans-serif]New Scientist[/font][font=arial, sans-serif]. "We estimate faster than at any time in the last 9300 years."[/font][/font]

[font='Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif][font=arial, sans-serif][font=arial, sans-serif]Lockwood thinks there is now a 25 per cent chance of a repetition of the last grand minimum, the late 17th century Maunder Minimum, when there were no sunspots for 70 years.[/font][/font][/font]

[font='Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif][font=arial, sans-serif][font=arial, sans-serif][font=arial, sans-serif]But Lockwood says we should not expect a new grand minimum to bring on a new little ice age.[size=medium] Human-induced global warming, he says, is already a more important force in global temperatures than even major solar cycles. Temperatures have risen by 0.85 °C since 1880, with more expected, according to [/font][font=arial, sans-serif]the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[/font][font=arial, sans-serif].[/font][/font][/font][/font][/size]

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
See this article in the Gaurdian (LIA = Little Ice Age):
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...g/14/global-warming-solar-minimum-barely-dent

[font='Guardian Egyptian Web', 'Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif]Human Influence on Climate Change is Bigger than the Sun's[/font]


[font='Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif]The bottom line is that the sun and the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth are very stable. Even during the Maunder and Dalton grand solar minima, global cooling was relatively small - smaller than the amount of global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions over the past century.[/font]

[font='Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif]A new grand solar minimum would not trigger another LIA; in fact, the maximum 0.3°C cooling would barely make a dent in the human-caused global warming over the next century. While it would be enough to offset to about a decade's worth of human-caused warming, it's also important to bear in mind that any solar cooling would only be temporary, until the end of the solar minimum.[/font]

[font='Guardian Text Egyptian Web', Georgia, serif]The science is quite clear that the human influence on climate change has become bigger than the sun's. At this point, speculation about another mini ice age is pure fantasy.[/font]