Understanding the threat of climate tipping points

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
21

How do you get that idea out of the under 40s views? They are the ones who want action not words.

Pete

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22

Exactly. The under-40s decide to eliminate those who are (say 65+) and “takers, not makers”. They ARE “taking action”–just NOT the action one would expect.

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For me, it’s not about the science. It’s about the lack of leadership and of setting examples. The politicians and the elites lecture us about the planets impending doom if we don’t change our carbon footprint. Then they get in their private jets, go on their luxury yachts and continue to maintain multiple large homes.

When they change their lifestyle, I’ll change mine. I guarantee my carbon footprint is smaller than theirs.

Lead by example.

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It’s real enough. The question is, how much are you willing to pay? How much are states willing to raise rates?

And in New York last year Siena College did a poll and found a majority (54%) would be willing to pay $20 or less per month (per household) to “adhere to the many components of New York’s climate plan”.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/f/?id=00000186-9ea1-d147-a7f7-dea3c0e00000

DB2

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Yes. And that must be posed as an intelligence and morality and political problem rather than as a consumer one. It must be addressed to h.*** Sapiens rathr than h. Economicus. It must be addressed to the “all you all” rather than merely “you”.

I gave up on handling the dangers of GCC politically the moment Gore sighed while listening to Bush in the prez debates. I turned to creating arks of survival for species and ecologies, and to discovering and fostering renewed future looking moral and spiritual foundations for mankind.

d fb
***How I wish we were not under the censorious rules of the grotesquely frightened illiterate uncultured idiot editor mechanism here at MF. However it is a perfect reminder for the misplaced priorities of our time.

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For Al Gore, GCC was the best possible thing that could happen. He’s now worth a few hundred million bucks [mostly] because of it. He flies all over the place on private jets, and has beautiful homes. I bet he emits 1000 to 10000 times as much GhG as I do!

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27

This is a nice, not too long, not too expensive, well written book presenting the evidence.

What We Know about Climate Change, by Kerry Emanuel
https://a.co/d/gaUa4G7

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28

Have any of you read the ipcc ar6 synthesis report?

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Thanks for the interesting post and link.

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Thank you but that was not the reply I was seeking. I want to know how bjurasz became a believer.

From Amazon:

The vast majority of scientists agree that human activity has significantly increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—most dramatically since the 1970s. Yet global warming skeptics and ill-informed elected officials continue to dismiss this broad scientific consensus.

No need to read the book, it says, “We are right and they are wrong.” Clickbait for the faithful. Consensus is not proof, it’s not science.

There are many religions all claiming to have the one and only true god. At most only one can be right unless it’s the same god in different garments. After much thinking after becoming an atheist I realized that there is a god, a meme created by humans.

I started thinking about how to respond to bjurasz.

  • Moving goal posts: AGW morphed into Climate Change. Climate has been changing since day one. Why the change, was AGW too easily debunked? Not powerful enough?
  • The Danish Climate Conference email scandal.
  • Why bring in an underage child actress? Great Hollywood stunt.
  • Why do Climate warriors travel in private jets?
  • CO2 is not a pollutant.
  • The founder of Green Peace had to resign when extremists took over the organization.
  • Malthus was wrong. The Club of Rome was wrong.
  • Why can’t the climate models predict the past. Supposedly the future is the difficult one to predict.
  • Green policies have left Germany in an energy bind. Why should other schemes prove better? Beware unintended consequence like the Obesity Epidemic based on the Government sponsored low fat food triangle.
  • Government funding of grants and the canceling of dissenting scientists.

In a vacuum the above can be dismissed or swept under the rug but the question remains, why is the notion so firmly promoted. It is quite clear that climate changes, sea levels rise and fall. Doggerland was underwater as was the connection between Siberia and Alaska.

In a secular world a new religion is needed to control the masses. Climate Change with CO2 playing Lucifer works nicely. Instead of fire and brimstone the oceans will eat you alive unless you do as you are told! NOW! Not a minute to lose! Think of the children! Greta begs you! Government paid scientist agree or they are canceled!

No.

The Captain

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31

Denny sees a world-wide government conspiracy, for reasons that make no sense. I see an evolving scientific view that started down some wrong paths but, as science does, has been slowly coalescing down a single path. The same thing happened with the solar-centric view of the solar system, of Newtonian Mechanics, of Relativity, of Quantum Mechanics, of Evolution.

The only thing that will convince Denny is when things get so bad there is no way to fix them. And even then, somehow I wonder if he will still not believe.

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32

The above is what bjurasz thinks that Denny sees and what bjurasz thinks will convince Denny. But bjurasz has not yet said what convinced him of the coming climate crisis.

A conspiracy is way too simple. We live in a complex world, not simply complicated but complex in the sense of the Science of Complexity, at the edge of Order and Chaos. A conspiracy has a joint aim or goal. In a complex system each player has his/her/its aim or goal. Sometimes these aims or goals align, sometimes not. Some human scientists are likely more interested in putting food on the table than the climate in a century from now. Politicians want to get elected. Business wants to make a profit. Others want to save your soul or line their pockets.

As for conviction, I don’t see the odds in favor of climate catastrophe but i do think it’s good to keep our house in order by transitioning to cleaner and better fuels like sunlight.

I happened on a relevant video

Chaos theory and geometry: can they predict our world? – with Tim Palmer

One interesting point he brings up is Hilbert’s Decision Problem which cannot be solved by any computer no matter how powerful, proven by non other than Alan Turing.

A bit over half way, after saying that we can’t predict the path of storms with accuracy, he says that we can predict climate quite well, changimg the subject quickly. Being a conspiracy theorist I think he is protecting his next lunch. The funny thing is that he closes with a four body gravitation problem that behaves beautifully for a few cycles before going bonkers.

BTW, bjurasz didn’t address a single one of the points I brought up, he just swept them under the rug as I predicted might happen.

The Captain

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33

I was just wondering if a) you don’t accept the earth as warming or b) you don’t accept the explanation as to cause (meaning: not our fault)?

In my case, I’m content to accept the general consensus of the scientific community (in particular, those who study this area). Science tends to be self-correcting. Along with the consensus there is some rationality/logic to the explanation and something people were concerned with a 100+ years ago: Did a 1912 Newspaper Article Predict Global Warming? | Snopes.com

However, I’m old; it will not be my world when the average temp is 150 degrees and biological processes are no longer possible. A couple of years ago I was bit more optimistic about our chances; but my attitude has changed. If intelligent individuals like Denny are not convincible then we have no chance.

I did find an interesting video that I thought might be useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1KGnCj_cfM

JimA

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That’s an easy one. Deniers would seize upon extreme cold spells as evidence that warming wasn’t happening, not realizing (as is typical) that mean global warming is associated with temperature extremes. Better to say climate change than global warming to deal with this disinformation campaign.

An irrelevant distraction. The scientific method is based on empirical testing, not hacked emails.

Again, attacking the integrity of a person or groups with no evidence. You are consistent at least.

Because it is faster than traveling commercial? Did someone advocate no private jets and then fly on one?

What does semantics have to do with the legitimacy of anthropogenic climate change?

Relevance? Green Peace is not a scientific organization.

Newton was right. Einstein was right. Modern climate science is based on the physics of Newton and Einstein.

What are you talking about? All climate models are validated by their compatibility with historical data. They also are pretty accurate in their future projections. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL085378

A lot of climate advocates were saying that Germany should have kept their nuclear reactors. Even Greta Thunberg. Greta Thunberg Has Embraced Nuclear Power: Will The Greens Follow?

What’s wrong with government funding of grants. If canceling scientists happened it is unfortunate, but I’m pretty sure they were rare events (if they happened at all).

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It’s not an either or issue. One can be in favor of solar panels and distrust the climate activists.

The Captain

sailed on a sailboat, not on a noisy gas guzzler.

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  • Deniers would → Deniers still do
  • An irrelevant distraction. → under the rug
  • attacking the integrity of a person → not against the person but against the sponsors
  • Because it is faster than traveling commercial? → kills Gaia
  • semantics → lies
  • Green Peace is not a scientific organization. → only science is god
  • Newton, Einstein → not doomsday champions
  • All climate models are validated by their compatibility with historical data. → not according to a post in this thread
  • What’s wrong with government funding of grants → canceing dissidents

The Captain

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37

That still leaves me wondering “if a) you don’t accept the earth as warming or b) you don’t accept the explanation as to cause (meaning: not our fault)?”
I suppose there could be a c) the earth is warming; it is our fault; but not worried!

Whether you like, trust or distrust activists is really irrelevant.

JimA

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They cause harmful policies.

The Captain

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Not an answer to my simple question, or do you not wish to take a stand?

“a) you don’t accept the earth as warming or b) you don’t accept the explanation as to cause (meaning: not our fault)?
I suppose there could be a c) the earth is warming; it is our fault; but not worried.”

JimA

40

But what did the e-mails show? That Michael Mann didn’t use the modern end of his tree ring proxy data. It declined and that was inconvenient, so he eliminated it, substituted thermometer data and spliced the two together.

That could be alright, but it wasn’t publicly discussed then. Phil Jones of the Climate Research Unit in the UK wrote in a e-mail about “Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years [from 1981] and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

It might or might not be okay to splice two quite different temperature series, but there is also the larger question about the reliability of tree-ring proxies. If the didn’t work in the modern era, how much credibility show we attribute to their paleo results?

DB2

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