Climate Encounter with an Ostrich
The following is the syntactically cleaned (but still long-winded) transcript of an encounter with a climate ostrich.
No reasonable human should ever wish to read through the entire conversation. But may this serve in the public domain as a resource for those who wish to separate what is from what isn’t.
Climate Realist Marc Morano Debates Bill Nye the Science Guy on Global Warming
I’ll watch it. But before watching it I did a quick search of Marc Morano’s name.
He’s a communications guy. A political publicist. He’s worked as the communications director for a number of politicians and lobbying firms.
As such I’m going to hold his opinion in a much lower regard than any scientist on the matter. Not that I’m saying Bill Nye is necessarily a scientist, I don’t know his credentials… but the juxtaposition is already false. If Marc Morano would like to do some research and get it published in a peer-reviewed journal, he can be my guest. Then his views would carry more water with me.
One more google of his funding turns out that his Climate website is entirely funded by the heir to the Mellon oil regime. The conflict of interest is laughable. As if his lack of scientific credentials weren’t enough, this guy is literally a paid shill for big oil.
Like I said, I’ll watch the video, but you’re going to have to find someone more convincing than this.
…he’s also not even good at what he’s being paid to do.
…that wasn’t convincing in the least.
As I commented in response to your Facebook comment on B’s status, you keep making the mistake of attacking the character of the people making an argument instead of attacking the argument itself. Morano may not be a climate scientist, but he destroyed the conventional arguments made by climate alarmists (represented here by Bill Nye) and did so in thorough detail using scientific facts and data. Attack his arguments, not his credentials or his political orientation.
I attacked no character. I cited his credentials as improper for the conversation at hand. He’s a publicity operator offering his opinion on scientific facts.
That has nothing to do with his character, rather it tells me that I shouldn’t hold his opinions with any scientific value.
I asked that you present a scientific, alternative explanation for the global rise in temperature. Supplying the opinions of a PR man paid by an oil company does not suffice.
Must it be an attack on character if I point out to you that the doctor you’re seeing is a quack? Yes or no, the information is still relevant.
I will address the content though: Nothing about that video “destroyed” the scientific evidence behind the rise in global temperature. He does not point to a single peer-reviewed study that offers an alternative explanation for the warming of the earth.
If you have reason to believe that any of his points “destroyed” the leading scientific opinion, I ask that you refer me to those parts.
The release of CO2 into our atmosphere is harmful (ie. there is a cost). Right now nobody is paying for that cost. How would a libertarian solve that?
The emission of C02 is by definition not harmful and therefore not an act of aggression that would need to be prohibited in a libertarian society. C02 is an essential compound for human and plant life, so to say that its emission into the atmosphere is pollution is preposterous.
When I said you attacked Morano’s character, I was referring specifically to your discrediting of him prima facie because of the fact that he is not a scientist and cited no peer-reviewed studies. Again, in your last response you still failed to counter the points that he made. Bill Nye also failed to counter his points and Nye, like you, implied that Morano’s arguments should be discredited because he receives money from oil companies. None of that is relevant in the slightest when evaluating the merits of his arguments. Global warming alarm-ism boils down essentially to an elementary confusion of correlation with causation. You say that C02 emissions have been rising in tandem with global temperature and then conclude that one causes the other, which is simply false. Moreover, global temperature have stabilized over the last decade while C02 emissions have continued to increase. If your theory were true, the global temp would continue to increase, which it has not. Man-made global warming is a hoax, pure and simple.
I’ll address content.
C02 is an essential compound for human and plant life, so to say that its emission into the atmosphere is pollution is preposterous.
That is a non-sequitur. Water is an essential compound for human and plant life yet we can still drown in it. I assume you would concede that CO2 concentrations beyond a certain point (say 99%) could also be harmful to humans? Yes, we would drown in that too.
But that’s not the argument I’m making. I’m not saying higher concentrations of CO2 is directly harmful to human and plant life, I’m saying CO2 simply traps heat. The higher the concentration of CO2 the more heat our atmosphere traps. And a hotter atmosphere has profound changes for the human and plant life inside. This is not a black and white world. There are no “good elements” or “bad elements”. There are only elements and they each affect their surroundings differently.
I was referring specifically to your discrediting of him prima facie because of the fact that he is not a scientist and cited no peer-reviewed studies.
I was not discrediting him. I was distinguishing him as a publicist (he who gets paid to speak publicly in representation of specific viewpoints) from a scientist (he who gets paid to follow a process* and report the results, on their face, regardless of what they turn out to be).
The process is key. Determining what is and what isn’t in this world requires a scientific method. And while I will admit there can be all sorts of flaws in this process, we humans have established a cycle of hypothesize, test, observe, get reviewed by other scientists, publish in order to maintain as much uniformity in how we come to know what we know. Reject this method and you reject virtually all modern scientific knowledge.
[He] receives money from oil companies. None of that is relevant in the slightest when evaluating the merits of his arguments.
The scientific process requires the disclosure of funding and the disclosure of conflicts of interests. Funding provides a motive. I will not reject his arguments outright given his funding, but I will surely take into account his conflicts of interests when evaluating what he tells me. It would be foolish not to.
Global warming alarm-ism boils down essentially to an elementary confusion of correlation with causation. You say that C02 emissions have been rising in tandem with global temperature and then conclude that one causes the other, which is simply false.
You’ve built a straw man- that is not what I argue. And why would I? As you point out, it is a logical fallacy. Rather, I argue this: CO2 concentration correlates with higher temperature AND (because) CO2 concentration causes a rise in temperature. We know both facts through separate experiments- I am not falsely attributing one to the other.
The first is easy to see, you and Moreno admit as such. Through ice coring we can see the content and the temperature of the atmosphere back hundreds of thousands of years- 800,000 years to be exact. Temperature and CO2 correlate perfectly. Of course this does not mean causation one way or another. But it does immediately raise a red flag.
The second is more important- higher CO2 concentrations cause a rise in temperature. We know exactly how much radiation (heat) an increase in CO2 causes. There is a formula for it:
dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co)
That is “change in radiation = 5.35 times the natural log of CO2 concentration over a baseline CO2 concentration”. This equation was originally expressed in 1896 by physicist Svante Arrhenius. This effect has been studied for over 100 years in literally thousands of peer reviewed papers: it’s known as the greenhouse effect. A more modern peer-reviewed paper set the baseline CO2 concentration in that equation to 228 parts per million. We’re now at 405 parts per million.
Plug those numbers in and you get:
dF = 5.35 ln(405/228)
dF = 1.97
Now radiative forcing necessarily causes more heat, but this doesn’t prove that the surface temperature of the Earth will actually warm, because there might be some other natural mechanisms to reflect the heat or dissipate it in some other way. We’ll call the factor between radiative heat and surface temperature “climate sensitivity”, h.
dT = h * dF
That is, “change in surface temperature = climate sensitivity times change in radiation”.
This peer reviewed paper has found that h value. The conservative estimates are h=0.54 degrees C/radiative forcing, and their extremnestimates are h=1.2 degrees C/radiative forcing.
This puts projected surface warming caused by current CO2 between:
dT = 0.54 * 1.97
dT = 1.066 degrees Celsius (low estimate)
dT = 1.2 * 1.97
dT = 2.36 degrees Celsius (high estimate)
The empirical temperature increase has been shown to be ~0.85 degrees Celsius, which means we’ve got between 0.15 and 1.5 degrees of warming in the pipes, even if we managed to cut all CO2 emissions and hover at 405 ppm.
One last bit: any scientist with a spectroscope can measure the chemical source of radiation (heat). The particle that it’s leaving from essentially leaves a “fingerprint” identifying the source via it’s wavelength. I know this is not a conspiracy because I’ve done it in my sophomore physics lab. Here is a chart that displays which type of particle is reflecting the radiation from our atmosphere onto Earth. That chart comes from this peer-reviewed paper. The paper found that CO2 reflects the most radiation back to earth of any other chemical in our atmosphere other than water vapor.
How do you reconcile your view with the fact that temperature has risen prior to an increase in global C02?
That is very easy to do:
I just said CO2 causes temperature increase. That doesn’t mean it exclusively causes it.
The planet’s natural atmosphere has gone through many phases. This planet has been heated to the point of sterilization by more than one asteroid and it’s endured ice winters for millennia. There’s not a doubt in my mind that mechanisms other than CO2 might influence the earth’s temperature.
None of this has to do with the fact that we know scientifically, two things:
carbon dioxide scatters more radiation- and therefore heat- toward earth at a rate of h* 5.45*ln(CO2ppm/238ppm)
Humans and corporations dump a ton of carbon into the air- more than any in human history. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere rose from 238 to 405 ppm in the last century. We passed the sustainable limit, 350 ppm in 1985.
What makes 350 ppm the sustainable limit? If we are currently at 405 ppm and the global temp has leveled off and even started to decline slightly, then how can you say that we have reached an unsustainable amount of C02 emissions?
Furthermore, what will it take to convince you that you’re wrong? If the global temperature is actually falling (as it is now) and C02 is increasing, as it has been for a long time now, then why is that not enough to convince you that humans have a negligible impact on the global climate?
I’ve told you exactly what it will take to convince me that I’m wrong. And I would be happy to be convinced if you presented me with the proper evidence. You’ve presented nothing so far.
Please cite the study that is showing that global temperature is falling, because this is simply factually incorrect.
Here are global temperatures since 1880 measured by four difference meteorological agencies across the world.
What about that graph would leave you to believe: “global temperature is actually falling… as it has been for a long time now”
And you’re asking about the 350ppm number. That comes from this peer reviewed paper by James Hansen et al.
I didn’t say that the temperature has been falling for a long time now. I said that C02 has been increasing for a long time now despite the fact that the global temperature has not risen for the at least the past decade and very recently has declined slightly. That is a fact.
Also, how do you account for global warming that ended ice ages long before humans even existed? How can you be sure that the global warming we are seeing now (which are aren’t anymore, since temp isn’t rising it’s actually falling slightly at the moment) isn’t a natural process that is taking place in spite of human activity, not because of it?
You keep making claims about my position that I do not hold.
how do you account for global warming that ended ice ages long before humans even existed
No time have I ever said that global warming is caused EXCLUSIVELY by humans.
You continue to see the world in black and white. The earth’s atmosphere is an incredibly complex mechanism. NO SHIT the earth has warmed and cooled in the past. The earth once was a swirling ball of gas too hot for any life to survive on. It’s been struck and sterilized repeatedly by major asteroids and the atmosphere has undergone drastic changes in composition as vegetative life developed. At one point in the earth’s history it rained for literally tens of thousands of years straight. At another point, the atmosphere was so dense with oxygen that insects grew to be the size of modern mammals.
I’ve never denied that there are all sorts of things affecting the earth’s temperature. Maybe we’ll get lucky and something will happen in tandem with the CO2 caused warming. In fact the ocean’s have gladly helped to absorb some of the additional heat. But there are endless other effects to consider- the decreased albedo of the shrinking arctic icecaps has caused the earth’s surface to absorb more heat than it used to.
The point is there are a million things happening to change the earth’s temperature. But there are two facts that you continue to avoid that we know to be scientifically true:
(1) carbon dioxide traps heat
(2) Humans and corporations dump a ton of carbon into the air
We can quantify both of those numbers. As I showed you in a previous post, we can directly translate CO2 emissions into resulting change in temperature. We’ve found the change in temperature predicted by the amount of CO2 that we have (and are on pace to) release to be disastrous.
As for your temperature graph, your graph shows a climate trend over 20 years. I sent you the exact same graph with all temperature data in recorded history. Your graph nitpicks a very small slice of the data that happens to illustrate a point.
If you prefer, I could zoom in on the last 4 years and show you that temperatures have risen dramatically since 2012. But that would be dishonest because climate change doesn’t make itself blatantly evident on a 4 year scale or a 20 year scale. (We should count ourselves lucky for that.)
One last bit: I am going to question your source on that. I tried to hunt down the blog that it’s on and trace it back to some established source but the guy doesn’t provide any citations. I’m going to include the same chart again, this is sourced from four of the most prominent meteorological data sets and it shows the scale to when we started keeping records in the 1880s.
How can you deny that trend?
I am simply saying that the relationship between C02 and global climate is correlated, not directly causal. Look at the graph you’ve sent me. The period between 1890 and 1910 shows cooling and yet this was the period of the industrial revolution, when arguably humanity began to emit more C02 than at any point previously in human history.
Moreover, the reason I chose the 20 year graph was to illustrate that the global temperature has stopped increasing for at least a decade and yet C02 has been rising. Yet another example of a non - causal relationship between C02 and global temp.
I am not avoiding the two facts you pointed out. However, they are far too general to be meaningful for your argument. Of course humans emit C02, it is an essential component of life and an inevitable byproduct of industrial activity. But as I pointed out, C02 is not necessarily the primary driver of global warming.
Also, I did not deny that C02 traps heat. The question is how effectively does it do so? The scientists are divided on this question and the climate models propagated on the assumption that C02 is incredibly effective at trapping heat have made predictions that the climate would continue to warm much more than it in fact has.
As you noted, the earth’s climate is far too complex to attribute warming to a singular cause. Moreover, to argue that in spite of this complexity the US gov’t could regulate industry sufficiently to reverse a natural cyclical climate phenomenon is the height of absurdity.
I am simply saying that the relationship between C02 and global climate is correlated, not directly causal.
No, that’s not what you’re saying. In fact you’re flipping back and forth on this issue, doing 180 degree swings while you parry at my position from different sides.
First your argument (to which it seems you’ve now returned) was that CO2 and temperature do correlate, but that they are not causal.
Then you argued that the temperature has stayed the same while carbon has risen. If that’s your position, then you want to be arguing that they don’t correlate.
My response to the first argument is this:
We know CO2 concentration to be causally related to heat trapping. See above equation.
My response to the second argument is this:
Climate temperature is clear-as-day correlated to CO2. And the only case you’ve presented that would contradict that statement is over a 20 year period. Climate is studied on a much larger scale. We have ice coring samples that show near perfect correlation over hundreds of thousands of years. Even on a scale as small as the last 100 years, temperature correlation with CO2 is clear as day.
Climate is most often measured on a scale of 35+ years according to the University of Wisconsin meteorology department. [OSS cites]((http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/weather-v.-climate)) a similar number at 30+ years.
One last point: Your 20 year graph only works because of the massive spike in global temperature in the late 1990s. Today in 2015, we are on the same trend line that you would expect us to be at since 1880. You’ve arbitrarily zoomed into the last 20 years to make it look like temperature is going nowhere. That’s not a flat field we’re sitting on, that’s a very high plateau.
I will include the chart again and ask the same thing. How can you look at this chart and say that climate temperature is falling? Remember: climate is measured on a 30+ year time scale.
Moreover, the reason I chose the 20 year graph was to illustrate that the global temperature has stopped increasing for at least a decade and yet C02 has been rising.
You’ve tipped your hand. This is how I know you’re arguing from a side and not dispassionately addressing evidence. “The reason I chose… was to illustrate.”
This is not how science works. You cannot choose your data to illustrate a point. It is very antithetical to the way that science is supposed to operate. You will never determine what’s what in this world if you pick your data sets with the motive of backing your preconceived notions.
You could more reasonably present your evidence like this: Temperature does not correlate with CO2 concentrations on a 20 year time scale.
That is a perfectly logical conclusion to reach when presented with that data. I will not deny that conclusion, if that is what you have been arguing the whole time.
But I will not back away from my other conclusion: CO2 concentration correlates with CO2 on any timescale measured from 800,000 years down to 100 years. I’ve reached that conclusion from these three datasets.
Another conclusion I’ve reached: higher CO2 concentrations add heat to the atmosphere. I’ve reached that conclusion from these datasets:
Another conclusion I’ve reached: the heat that CO2 concentrations are responsible for will change our planet’s temperature according to the following curve:
dT = h*5.35 ln(CO2/228)
(Where h is the climate sensitivity and CO2 is the concentration of Carbon Dioxide in ppm.) This translates to between 3 and 5 degrees Celsius over the next 50 years. I’ve reached these conclusion from these three sources.