Gerontion

Gravity is a theory. Evolution is a theory. Relativity is a theory. And, yes, climate change is a theory. There's nothing very remarkable in what I wrote.

All of which has no bearing on how true or false the theories of anthropogenic climate change are.

^^ Actually, I had in mind Britain and America - I don't really know enough about the Germany or Sweden to have an informed opinion. I was objecting more to the idea that there's some kind of culturally determined incompetence in running a power station; it's the offensive 'They can't do it because they're Thai' rather than the more sensible 'Governments can't be trusted to look out for the people'. The former is just pretty much straightforward racism, the latter is a reasonable statement which might or might not be true.

In his column on Bad Science, Ben Goldacre recently talked about zombie arguments. Denialists are addicted to them - no matter how often you point out the mistakes in these, they just won't die because some idiot's going to say the same thing over and over and over again. He's a good example:

Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.

This thread is only four pages long and this argument's already coming round for the second time. You also have things like this gem:

Canada plans to reduce emissions by 20 percent compared with 2006 levels by 2020, representing approximately a 3 percent cut from 1990 levels but it simultaneously defends its Alberta tar sands emissions and its record as one of the world’s highest per-capita emissions setters.

I see. Climate science is wrong because the Canadian government are hypocritical liars.

I can't be arsed to answer - or indeed read - the rest of your pointless cut-and-paste. If you're interested - which you're not: ignorance is, after all, bliss - you'll find responses to all the standard denialist arguments on the internet.

if someone disagrees with you, write them off as uninformed.

Well, as your posts seem to consist almost entirely of facile strawman arguments against Al Gore and the like, it's a reasonable assumption; links to youtube videos of that imbecile Monckton are not the hallmark of someone with an interest in science.

many of the authors of those reports have been exposed by Climategate as having demonstrated a systematic, self-serving, ruthless readiness to invent, fabricate, distort, alter, suppress, hide, conceal or even destroy scientific data for the sake of reaching the answer they want.

There are a ton of explanations of the CRU emails on the internet, you can begin at realclimate.

Even in its most pessimistic assessment, IPCC rates, by the year 2100, the most likely rise of global temperatures as 4C and a sea-level rise of between 26cm and 59cm.

Why not read this thread? I've already posted the revised projections for sea-level rises in The Copenhagen Diagnosis. And, if you are abreast of the topic, you'll be well aware the IPCC reports are by their very nature conservative documents because (a) they represents only the most established facts and ignores areas were research is anything less than iron-clad (for example the amplifying effect of feed-backs) and ( there's a significant time-lag between research and IPCC reports; current research, which is evolving very rapidly, is not represented in the reports. As a consequence of this, current research points to significantly worse outcomes. But at 4 degrees the chances of self-reinforcing feedback systems spinning away becomes significant. For example, at 4 degrees, if not long before, there's a significant chance of (i) the Amazon drying out and releasing a vast store of carbon (ii) the melting of ice worldwide decreasing albedo and so increasing warming (actually happening already), (iii) melting of the permafrost releasing enormous amounts of methane (possibly happening now, the research is unclear) and these leading to (iv) pulling the trigger on the clathrate gun, which will possibly trigger an extinction event similar to the PT boundary event. These won't happen now but it's quite possible - not certain, but possible - that we'll set in motion a chain of events which will lead to these outcomes. At these elevated temperatures all sorts of exotic horrors are possible including increasing anoxia and acidification of the oceans, the loss of ice cover, significant disruption to the Asian monsoon and the thermohaline circulation system, complete drying of glacier-fed water systems, crop failure through heat stress, the spread of disease, mass migration through the flooding of heavily-populated coastal plains, and, with that, the loss of huge areas of fertile land. And that all means war. The IPCC doesn't, I think, speculate on outcomes beyond 2100. That doesn't mean either that they're unlikely or that they're insignificant. Many denialists seem to confuse not knowing everything or not being certain about everything with knowing nothing and having no idea of possibilities but this is bad reasoning; the fact that these outcomes are statistical, rather than logical, doesn't mean that they're insignificant. Of course, as you're so set in believing that this is all either a gigantic mistake or a gigantic lie, you must know this all already in far, far more detail than I do.

Do you have so little faith in the resilience of our species?

World population will peak at at least 9 billion. In a stable climate with everything working well, it's going to be hard to support that many people. In a world with a degenerating climate it'll be virtually impossible. We've known about climate change for at least two decades - Margaret Thatcher made a speech to the UN in 1989 on the dangers of climate change - and yet we've moved at top speed in exactly the wrong direction. At Copenhagen, the Americans are offering to cut their CO2 emissions by 3% and the Chinese to increase theirs. I have faith in the bottomless stupidity of our species, not its resilience.

Wikipedia ranks its reserves 39th in the world and "in 2007, Thailand had natural gas production of 25.91 billion cubic metres and consumption of 35.35 billion cubic metres." That doesn't sound too much like a long-term solution.

This - like the nuclear power post - reads just like an academic writing lesson. Is a teacher getting his/her students to post on Thaivisa? If so, it's not a bad idea.

the IPCC isn't saying anything remotely like that, nor are "mainstream scientists."

Have you ever read any of the IPCC publications? Somehow, I very much doubt it.

Kofi Annan's organisation, Global Humanitarian Study, recently carried out a study of the current consequences of climate change and found that there are an estimated 300,000 deaths a year right now from climate change, along with annual economic losses of $125 billion. Of course, these deaths happen far away from TV cameras, and the corpses have brown and black skin so they're obviously far less important than some rich guy's flashy car or foreign holiday. And, if you look at work on the consequences of temperature rises of, say, 4 degrees and over, you'll find that really large-scale death is very much within the realms of possible outcomes. Our species won't go extinct within 100 years but this century we can certainly create the conditions which make its extinction a distinctly raised possibility.

....

If you read one of my previous posts you can understand that I wouldn't like my country to have a nuclear plant either. The reasons I have might be questionable but in no way they are racist or implying that Thais are not smart enough (or Italians). I love the mai per rai attitude, like I like the Italian attitude, but I think these are not compatible with managing a nuclear plant.

The Thais can leave the 'mai pen rai' attitude at the door when required, otherwise the surgeon would not be able to operate & the pilot would not be able to fly.

You perhaps need to look into the background of medical malpractice and air accidents (and the subsequent responses of the authorities dealing with this issues here in Thailand) before you take the stand on those particular examples.

Examples of official incompetence and state indifference to the safety of the nation are hardly restricted to Thailand; I think you'd find plenty of examples of those in nations which have nuclear power at the moment. If that's a reason for not having nuclear power - and I think it is a reason for not having nuclear power - it applies across the board, not just to Thailand.

But I am scared when she rides a 125 cc motorbike (for many reasons). I would be terrified if she decides to buy a 800 cc bike. This is more or less the same.....

Your wife can't ride a big bike so it follows that Thailand can't run a nuclear power station. How f*cking ridiculous can you get? Perhaps you'd like to shore up your prejudices with a bit of Victorian bigotry about the Asiatic mind being unsuited to science.

You may well be correct - but the point I am trying to make is that solar & other renewable energy sources are not yet viable enough to meet the rapidly increasing energy requirements of Thailand in the coming decade.

Yes, that's probably true (you can see the growth of demand at http://www.indexmundi.com/thailand/electri...onsumption.html - it's fairly shocking) but I'm not sure that nuclear is a solution. I'm very doubtful that there's any strong moral argument for imposing on future generations the kind of troubles which nuclear power generates along with its electricity. I think the only reasonable solution is to attack things from the other end; demand - or at least growth in demand - has to be curtailed. For example, I don't have any figures but cooling must account for a significant share of the load and there's huge room for savings there. How often to you see buildings being built which show any consideration at all of passive cooling techniques? How often is AC run in rooms which have no insulation? It's absolutely inexplicable to me how everyone here builds these vast unshaded concrete heat traps - often surrounded by acres of tarmac and concrete, just to get things really toasty - and then runs AC non-stop in rooms which have single pane glass. Concentrating retail units in shopping malls is, likewise, a foolish misallocation of resources. Secondly - and this is a more general problem - if you're going to have less energy going around, you need to make sure that it's fairly allocated. It's utterly unreasonable to say to some dimly lit upcountry village, sorry pal, you've got to make do with you've got whilst vast temples to mindless over-consumption - like Gaysorn or Emporium - burn through their own power stations and that means wealth redistribution and the dismantling of the nauseating class system under which Thailand labours. Energy problems aren't problems - or aren't wholly - problems which get solved by engineers, they get solved by political action, too.

As far as nuclear power goes it is regarded as being very clean with respect to carbon emissions

That's not really true. The extraction and processing of ore is extremely energy intensive, as is the construction of power plants. One estimate says - relative to an average coal fired power station - nuclear power produces between a third - for high-quality to ore - to equal - for low-quality core - emissions of CO2. On top of that, you're bequeathing a terrible legacy to the future; the waste is going to be around for millennia.

What I personally don't understand is the point some anti-GW proponents make is that since they believe the warming cycle is natural, then we should pretty much ignore it.  

Yes, I always wonder about this as well. It's extremely common to hear people say man-made climate change isn't real - someone no doubt said it on this thread - because the climate is naturally variable but - aside from the fact that it's a shitty argument because the two parts of it are completely unconnected - the obvious response is well does pumping bazillions of tons of greenhouse gases into a system which you agree is unstable sound like a good idea? The answer is obviously no. And the corollary of that is the necessity of curbing the emission of greenhouse gases: you end up in exactly the same place.

I didn't realise there was any legitimate qualification to become a 'climate scientist'. Although some of the lower educational establishments offer such courses to those who have the very lowest of 'a' level passes and who can't get on any other course (apart from sociology)

Cambridge is highest-ranked in Earth Sciences by RAE and they run a research programme in "Climate Change and Earth-Ocean Atmosphere Systems". MIT also have a "Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change" as well as a department of "Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences". Those were just the first two universities which I checked. If you want to look for yourself, I'm sure you'll find that most universities of standing run similar programmes.

What's you degree in?

Not in climate science or a related field. As I said earlier in this thread, my knowledge is that of an educated layman.

From the very recent Copenhagen Diagnosis, an interim IPCC report:

Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Subsidence is clearly a very pressing problem in Bangkok but climate change only adds to this; it reason to be twice as worried, not half as worried.

There's not an awful lot. If you've done the horses, you've already had the main tourist experience. Baan Sao Nak is nice - it's a big(ish) old teak house which is open to visitors and there's the usual set of temples to visit if you like that - Wat Prathat Lampang Luang is beautiful but it's a long way out of town so if you haven't got a car it's not going to be that easy.

I usually find a loud "meung na lair" at top volume works best.

Actually, maybe not.

khun may be too formal between friends, so for good balance I would suggest name+krap.

That sounds like good advice. If you're not sure, name+krap is going to be fairly safe.

4 Climate scientists have voted No, and 0 have voted Yes ------ kinda points to something.

That Thaivisa members lie about their qualifications, perhaps?

Good news. It's nice to see Thailand showing a degree of sense lacking in many of our home countries.

There are no research grants to explore the possibility that AGW is false, and even 'going it alone' will result in severe damage to any scientific reputation.

It's getting boring repeating this but, as I've already said, in the absence of any evidence, there's no reason to believe that's true; to claim that there's systematic bias in the science, you'd need some pretty solid proof. It's perverse in the extreme to, on the one hand, claim to respect science and, on the other, believe propositions for which no evidence is offered. Besides, two of the poster boys for denialism hold academic posts: Singer at Virginia and Lindzen at MIT.

Interesting to see those of us with degrees are now split 50/50

I never realised so many professional climate scientists were members of Thaivisa. I wonder why they don't contribute their extensive knowledge to this thread.

...as long as you know your numbers and a few verbs to get by...there's no incentive to learn the language.

Six go, eat twelve, three drive, eight put thirty-five...yup why bother with more?

I saw the title - Mockton isn't a scientist and has no expertise in this field. In fact, he has no scientific training whatsoever. Did you know that he claims to be a Nobel Laureate? He wrote a letter to the IPCC (they didn't ask him to, he just wrote them a letter) so he now claims that he's an IPCC reviewer and so shares in their Nobel prize. He made himself a little fake gold prize pin to celebrate. He also claims to be an HIV expert and is a self-admitted liar. On scientific matters, some decide to listen to a swivel-eyed loon; I decide to listen to scientists.

Hopefully the folks at Cooenhagen are using a reasoned approach in their discussions to come to a conclusion instead of the type of invective you are spewing forth at my comment. You are not helping the GW disussion with you small-minded attitude. Bye my friend.

Sorry, it wasn't a response to your post. This ^^ means that it was directed at the post above yours. Somehow - and despite denialists' weird beliefs to the contrary - I doubt anyone working in this area is unaware of the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere or of the historical variability in the climate.

^^ Oh yeah, cheers. I'll forward that on to Rajendra Pachauri. I don't think anyone's noticed any of that before. In light of this shocking revelation, they'll probably want to close down the Copenhagen talks and fuc_k off down the pub instead. Whilst you're at it, perhaps we could have your opinions on the LHC. Any interesting recordings from cloud chambers knocking around on your hard drive? Maybe you could save CERN a lot of hard work, too.

You're not disagreeing with me. You're disagreeing with many thousands of people who have far more expertise than you do and you're doing this without any significant evidence or justification. Really, read my post. It's not hard to understand. And, it's definitely not an extremist position, at least amongst those who study this stuff for a living.

So what you are saying is, that if you do not have the answer, then there is no question! I am really relieved to having had the good fortune to be enlightened by your wisdom. I wonder why everyone cannot see as clearly as yourself.

Jesus wept. No. I'm saying that we have a reason to believe that increasing levels of greenhouse gases are causing climate change and no good reason not to think this. If CO2 isn't causing climate change there has to be a mechanism causing this. There isn't one so in addition to our reasons for, we don't have reasons against ACC. Now, obviously that's a provisional position because, like any scientific theory, it's open to revision at any time but as things currently stand our best understanding of why the world is getting hotter is because we're taking lots of carbon out of the ground and putting it into the air and the long-term consequences of this will be bad.

pedantry is so unattractive. as is baiting.

True, so this'll be the last of it.

PC means nothing. It's a spectre conjured up by the right wing press to capture opinions which they don't like but which against which they can't formulate an argument.

You took exception to this. Finding a usage of the term in an obscure essay from the 1970s has no bearing on my statement. If the right hadn't decided that it was a useful way to attack progressive ideas, the term would have disappeared from use, possibly only to surface years later in an unread PhD on the rise and fall of fringe political language. As the wikipedia entry says - and as you quoted from it you presumably think it's correct - the term gained currency because the right use it as a catch-all in exactly the way which I described; it's the grunt of an ape when it doesn't get what it wants, nothing more and this is clearly how it's been used on this thread. You'd have to have an IQ in single figures not to see that.

You don't realize that the 1990’s are THIRTY YEARS after the 1970's?

Already weak on English and Politics and now showing a woeful grasp of basic Maths. Oh dear. Mother won't be pleased.