I think I was seven when I first read about buying and selling indulgences in a novel set in 16th-century Belgium. The idea struck me as rather dumb even then, at least from the point of view of the buyers.
Are we having some kind of neo-middle-ages now? Blasphemers are being burned at the stake, world leaders talk about impending end that is about to befall us for our sins and in general sound like apocalyptic madmen, and otherwise perfectly sensible people are buying carbon indulgences. Sold, no doubt, by people who are strongly and publicly concerned for the environment.
As I have said before, I am a simple woman who doesn't know much about climate science. No, I am not pretending to be a prole here, but of my two degrees one is in Linguistics and the other is in Computer Science, and none is in Meteorology or Climate Science. So probably I shouldn't be saying anything. On the other hand, these considerations about the lack of education don't seem to deter anyone else, starting with Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an avid air traveler and an engineer.
(A mean-spirited Guardian commenter calculated Mr. Pachauri's travel miles for the period of Jan 07 - July 08 at 443243, based on his his public appearance schedule. Mr. Pachauri supports heavy aviation taxes, which IPCC will undoubtedly pay for him.)
There is some disturbing point about science and faith in here somewhere. We take our science on faith; we believe in whatever they tell us in secondary-school astronomy much the same way as some centuries ago people believed when they were told that the sun revolved around the earth. What makes the difference is the scientific method and the scientific consensus; how much faith are you ready to put in either of those after those emails from Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia got published? Especially since the message is pretty much "the end is nigh, give us power and money"?
(A very disturbing off-topic aside: the reason we abhor the human sacrifices of the ancient cultures is that we know they didn't work; if they did, we'd be totally doing it all the time.)
Anyway, as I've said before, I might not know much about climate, but I sure know politics, religion and bullshit when I see it. I am sure I am the least environmentally conscious person in the Western world. I use energy-saving lamps because I happen to like them, public transportation because I live in a place where it is very good, and I wouldn't ever think of giving up anything I really wanted for the environment. But you know, I suspect that if I really cared, like all those politicians surely do, I'd at least consider some small sacrifices. Like, flying first-class in a commercial aircraft instead of taking my own private jet? Or maybe at least carpooling, or rather private-jet-pooling with some other dignitary coming from the same city?
But that's just me, and that's probably why they don't invite me to any summits. Prince Charles and Gordon Brown apparently felt it was unprincely or un-prime-ministerial to share the same private jet.
Just before the summit, the Copenhagen airport reported that it was expecting 140 extra private jets, and was unable to accomodate them all, so they'd have to be parked in other Danish airports and in Sweden. More than 1200 limos were ordered.
Is it just me, or does it seem to you that those people don't believe in the imminent apocalypse any more than I do?
Wish we knew the names of everyone who attended the global warming (sorry, it's climate change now) summit in private jets and then came home and told the peasants not to fly on vacation. People should know their heroes.
Monday, December 21, 2009
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8 comments:
What needs to be done in light of the CRU email leak is throw out everything in climate science dependent on the temperature database maintained by CRU and see what's left. I've got the impression that a lot of papers referred to the CRU temperature database.
In order to recognize the "trick" in Mann-made global warming, you only need elementary knowledge of statistics.
You need to know how to
- select your samples so that they have positive correlation to your expectations
- calculate weighted average, in which samples with positive correlation have more weight than those that haven't
And you've got a blade in your hockey stick.
Then you adjust the computer model parameters to produce the same graph and run the model 50 years to the future. What you should get is catastrophic global warming with deadly consequences to the planet.
What's so damning about those leaked emails? I haven't anything that would be worrisome IMHO, though I've only looked at a small portion of the emails.
Not only anchien cultures.
Human sacrifices are still practised in african black magic.
joonas
What's so damning about those leaked emails? I haven't anything that would be worrisome IMHO, though I've only looked at a small portion of the emails.
Actively consipiring to keep those papers from being published in peer-reviewed journals (regardless of their scientific value) that were sceptical of the views of those involved in the email conversations.
Science can sometimes be MUCH more politicized or otherwise corrupt (grant money, reputation depending on the success of a particular theory) than the naive view of things suggests. Climate science is not physics where controlled experiments are relatively easy to do. In climate science, there is no such luxury as the object of inquiry is the entire atmosphere of the Earth. Access to detailed information on the past of the Earth's climate is rather limited, too. It involves patching together a vast array of datasources using complex statistical methods. So much is at stake that something better is required than the piece-of-shit global temperature history database not even it's maintainers cannot understand being used at CRU.
Yeah, what are the actual errors in the processing of the CRU database? Isn't the data in the public domain so I guess skeptics are frantically -trying to find these errors.
The "hockey stick" appears to be real as it has been reproduced many times using different datasets and statistical methods.
Yeah, what are the actual errors in the processing of the CRU database? Isn't the data in the public domain so I guess skeptics are frantically -trying to find these errors.
The raw data is gone. The CRU researchers claim they lost it when the unit moved to their current building. And the algorithms they use to process the raw data are intractable even to themselves.
Actively consipiring to keep those papers from being published in peer-reviewed journals (regardless of their scientific value) that were sceptical of the views of those involved in the email conversations.
Can you point to any actual example of this in the mails?
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