Allison,
Allison,

Don’t you find some of the projects as being over the top/unrealistic? I say this because of all the projections the one that gets the most press is the absolute worst case scenario (in terms of inputs) which is not only extremely unlikely to happen at let alone become catastrophic.

Example, See Figure 29.3 (Chapter 29 of the report). Everyone is talking about this one outlying scenario.

Allison, I agree that
Allison, I agree that “climate change” is real. It has been happening for the past zillions of years so I am sure that it will be for the foreseeable future. Is it man-made? I don’t know. Is it a threat? I don’t know.

I can remember the first presentation that I saw on “global warming” (before they changed the name to “climate change”) at ASHRAE. The presenter showed the famous graph of temperature and CO2 cyclical fluctuations over the past zillion years as was obtained from ice core samples in the arctic, if I remember correctly. What I immediately noticed from this graph was that the CO2 fluctuations lagged the temperature fluctuations, which is an indicator that temperature changes have a direct impact on CO2 levels, not visa-versa. This is what resulted in my initial skepticism that CO2 changes CAUSE temperature changes as predicted by the current models. I am sure that there is a relationship, but it is not clear to me as to the actual interaction. There are clearly some “negative feedback” mechanisms in our atmosphere that have kept our planet from going completely unstable and either turning into a global ice ball or steam bath. Since the current atmospheric scientists seem to be using these models to predict through extrapolation that we will spin out of control (warming?) if we don’t do something now, I continue to have my skepticism. During this ASHRAE presentation, I was sitting next to an old friend, Victor Goldschmidt, who made the same observation on the cause/effect relationship that I saw. He has since spent a lot of time looking closer at the data as it has developed and is now an ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer and gives talks on this topic that I find to be quite interesting, especially since I have always respected his other work that he has presented at ASHRAE. For any of you that are involved with a Local ASHRAE Chapter, I recommend that you invite him to speak at your chapter via the ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer program.

Joe, I was being snarky with
Joe, I was being snarky with the man being part of nature comment. I agree with you that it is irresponsible to pollute when polluting can be avoided, and when we do pollute, we need to take responsibility for cleaning up our mess that affects all of nature. Ironically, when we are irresponsible, we do the most harm to ourselves. Nature heals from our destructiveness a lot better than we do.

JoeD,

JoeD,

Thanks for jumping in with some very good arguments from a skeptic’s point of view.  If I read your comment correctly, your problems with the climate change debate are:

1. The data showing a rise global average temperatures are not accurate enough for us to know with high confidence that global temperatures really are rising.
2. Climate modeling is complex and inaccurate.
3. Scientists are subject to the flaws and biases of human nature and may be finding results that support the direction they want to keep going in.

All good points.  We could go deeper into each one and discuss scientific uncertainty, measurement techniques, data analysis, modeling assumptions, peer review, scientific deadends, and more.  For me, this all comes down to whom you choose to believe. 

I don’t have the time or the background knowledge to digest all of the climate data, analysis, and conclusions that climate scientists have published.  My guess is that you don’t either.  Those of us who aren’t doing a deep dive into the data, thus, have to base our opinions about this topic on summaries written by others.  The closer the authors of those summaries are to the actual scientific work, the more accurate those summaries are. The contrapositive is also true:  The further you get from the source, the less accurate the summary. 

The basic question then comes down to whether or not we should believe close-to-the-source summaries.  You lay out some good reasons to question the results.  And you’re right about the last one:  Human nature does influence the behavior of scientists.  Take string theory.  I used to go to a lot of physics seminars and went to several on that topic.  I wasn’t a theorist and didn’t understand all the math, but some aspects of string theory seemed unscientific to me.  One of the basic tenets of science is that the ideas are able to be confirmed or not by experiment and it seems I recall some parts of string theory weren’t testable.  But string theory caught on and the bandwagon effect gave it momentum.

Is that what’s happening with climate change?  Maybe.  Time will tell.  The science of climate change started at least as early as 1827 when Joseph Fourier calculated that the Earth should be significantly colder than it is but the atmosphere traps heat to keep it warmer.  A lot of work on the subject has been done in the intervening 191 years.  Here’s why I believe they’re on the right track:

• Yes, there may be uncertainty in temperature measurements, but there’s so much more evidence that the Earth is warming.  Glaciers are melting.  Sea ice is getting thinner.  Sea levels are rising.  Permafrost is melting, putting a lof buildings in arctic regions at risk as well as creating other problems.
• Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased significantly in the past couple of centuries, primarily as a result of burning fossil fuels.
• The role of CO2 in trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere seems clear.
• Yes, modeling climate change has enormous complexity, but so does modeling hurricanes and other weather events.  Meteorologists don’t get it all right, but their track record is pretty good.

So I choose to believe the close-to-the-source summaries that climate change is real, it’s caused by humans, and it’s a threat. 

Robin, I reject the idea that
Robin, I reject the idea that what we (mankind) does is “natural” and thus can’t hurt the planet. We have had a bad history of locally polluting our water and air with very serious short-term effects, and we passed laws to reduce or eliminate this pollution with great success. For the most part, this has been good for everyone and I hear no one complaining about it, with the exception of some cases where we may have gone overboard with these regulations. So our history shows that we can damage the environment and we can fix it. But we must be reasonable. “Climate Change” is a difficult topic because it is harder to see the direct impact, and if there is one, it will be very difficult to solve due to the time scales involved.

Robin, you said, “The facts
Robin, you said, “The facts are that Gore was worth 1.7 million before getting into the environmental business and is now worth 100 million…”

Allison provided information on where Al Gore earned his money. How he donated money earned from his environmental work. You call this information “hype” but provide no other information to dispute it. The horse you see not drinking is looking at you from a mirror.

Robin, you’re embarrassing

Robin, you’re embarrassing yourself.  Apparently your mind is so locked down that you have no capacity for understanding when it comes to this topic.  So you don’t even believe business publications like Barron’s and the Financial Post because they disagree with your dogma? 

Nobody wants to read your rants here, Robin.  Either learn how to say something useful, as JoeD did above, or stick to topics you can converse on intelligently.  That may sound harsh but you’re so predictable and dogmatic and wrong on the topic of climate change, it would be better for you to see what you can do to repair your reputation here.

You go on believing the hype
You go on believing the hype about Gore, Allison. The facts are that Gore was worth 1.7 million before getting into the environmental business and is now worth 100 million, which much of it is from large investments being able to be made from the money he scammed from his completely debunked claims about climate change and global warming. You are the proverbial horse that can be led to water that you refuse to drink. Where do you believe the trillions of dollars that have been extorted from governments around the world through taxation have gone that have been allocated to the environmental industry? The money goes to creating more lies about current climate issues such as regional droughts, floods and temperature swings, to political leaders who support regulations that support the environmental organizations who have provided their campaign moneys. Then there are people like Al Gore and Michael Moore whose lifestyles prove what environmental hypocrites they are who keep getting richer as tax provided moneys flow their way to produce propaganda films geared to entice more well meaning liberals to support more efforts for man to play God with nature.
So tell us, Allison; where has the now over a trillion dollars allocated to the environmentalist industry gone if not only to promote more falsified models to continue to keep naïve people in a constant state of confusion and fear about nature and to in the pockets of those at the top of the environmentalist industries food chain?
It did not elude me that in another of your religiously hyped threads about mankind being the culprit for nature’s negatives, you ignored my question about ground level ozone being claimed by the EPA to be smog and that ozone simply cannot do many of the things claimed by the EPA since ozone is so volatile it has a half life of only 45 minutes at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and therefore can only even exist when continually being created, mostly by sunlight interacting with VOC’s, whether produced by mankind or by nature. Let’s look at how many blatant lies and deceits have been spewed out, regurgitated by other organizations for financial gain and ignored by defenders of mankind’s alleged ability to control nature on a global level, when those lies are shown to be completely bogus. Just how many times do you need to be lied to before you start thinking for yourself? Or; is this just another situation where one should simply follow the money to find out why?

Nice try, Robin, but once

Nice try, Robin, but once again you’re regrettably uninformed.  Gore started with a family farm and royalties from a zinc mine (1).  After leaving public office in the year 2000, he founded an investment firm that’s done very well (2).  In 2013, he made $70 million when he sold a media company he started in 2004 (3).  And then there’s all the money he’s made as a member of Apple’s board of directors (4).

Oh, and if you want to talk about all the money he’s made from his films and books, it might interest you to learn that all the profits from those were donated to the Climate Reality Project.

Again, you might want to look for better information sources, Robin.

Sources

1. http://business.financialpost.com/news/how-al-gore-amassed-a-200-million-fortune-after-presidential-defeat/wcm/da139d1a-fa74-4fac-9171-427798151a0c
2. http://www.barrons.com/articles/al-gore-is-winning-at-investing-1488493210
3. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/al-gores-current-tv-sold-407573
4. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2003/03/19Former-Vice-President-Al-Gore-Joins-Apples-Board-of-Directors

Joe, the terms “Climate
Joe, the terms “Climate Change” and “Global Warming” “deniers” are terms that have been manufactured to make it sound like rational and logical thinking people who have the ability to see with their own eyes that none of the claims about what global warming and climate change were supposed to do to us over the past 40 years simply has not happened; not even close, are denying something that has been shown to be true. If fact, the terms “global warming” and “Climate change” are silly terms to create fear in folks about what has been occurring in nature long before mankind ever existed on planet Earth. Of course there is global warming. Global warming has been occurring steadily, with a few hundreds of years set back periods, since the beginning of the end of the last Ice Age some 11,700 years ago and has not actually ended. Global warming is a natural fact; period. Is mankind affecting change in global warming? Maybe, maybe not. It does not really change anything because the temperature of the Earth changes. Global temperatures have been much warmer than they are today, and all life on Earth does much better during those warmer global periods. So global warming is no big deal other than it will do more good than not.
The Climate Change hype is even sillier. Of course there is climate change. Climate has been changing worldwide since the Earth first formed and will continue to change. It is our perception of what climate change is that causes us fear and confusion. At the heart of all of the fear and confusion are environmentalists.
How about this one; if mankind is indigenous to planet Earth, everything we do is natural. In fact, even if mankind is not indigenous to planet Earth, we are still part of the nature of the Universe. Does anyone believe some river otter is whining about how river otters affect a lake being held back by an abandoned beaver dam? How about the beavers who turned a forest with a creek running through it into the lake in the first place? We need to stop thinking we can control nature and focus more on living with nature. That does include not polluting the air, water and ground. That means we should be focused on containment of products we use rather than constantly creating new products. The ancestry of those who blindly follow environmental model makers predicting dire futures are those who feared nuclear energy. Even earlier ancestors of them feared electricity and before that; fire.
I suppose the biggest concern of followers is who we choose to follow to shepherd us into the future. Following shepherd’s who demand we give them masses amounts of money and allow them to rule over us, controlling every aspect of our lives with not one prediction of theirs having come to fruition, is naïve insanity down a negative path. I choose to try my best to follow whatever entity it is that designed the nature of the Universe and provided us with natural laws of physics. Our use of science is to understand nature, not control it.