• Global Warming

Barry, At last some-one in LS has admitted that GW is actually real. That's a step forward from drawing the covers over your head and denying it I guess.  Your accusations of doom and gloom peddling are totally pathetic. Your whistling in the dark "The answer is not to live sustainably within the framework of crude Nature. " reveals to me a deep seated fear of the unknown.

I guess you just have no idea at all of the energy content involved in natural processes such as tides, winds, insolation etc. You are just the same as King Canute Barry, you have as much ability to control these things as he did and you and your ilk are just as delusional.

Like I have said, until you have built your artificial space habitats and massive fusion powered spaceships and mastered genetic engineering (Could you find an intelligence gene or two to add into your clones?)  you had better pay some attention to crude nature. Or maybe you could just become a brain in a vat, at least the vat for the entire LS would not need to be very big.

Dalek

P.S would your proposed sea wall for Brisbane be like the one around New Orleans?

 

 

 

Dalek, you couldn't be futher from the truth when you say I have a deep seated fear of the unknown. My commitment to the notion that humans can solve natural problems and can progress much further hardly implies fear of anything!

 

Furthermore, I'm very much like your nemesis, Doctor Who, in that "I like impossible".

 

Your post about the power of nature indicates that you are actually afraid of the known.

 

As for the sea wall around Brisbane, it would be beter than the New Orleans type precisely because humans learn from experience. But if a wall be needed, then a wall be built.

 

I remain sceptical about the global warming hypothesis, though I do know, of course, that humans have always changed the natural environment and do so increasingly. My democratic instincts abhor the suppression of dissident voices in the scientific community who challenge the mainstream catastrophist view.

 

Barry

 

 

Barry, I think an argument about who is the bravest is a tad infantile. but I do challenge "My democratic instincts abhor the suppression of dissident voices in the scientific community who challenge the mainstream catastrophist view".

There is no mainstream catastrophist view, that is the view of a very few in the scientific community who naturally get all the publicity. The uncontested mainstream scientific view is that there are measurable changes in various parameters associated with the atmosphere , sea levels and ice cover etc, there is less of a consensus as to the exact mechanism causing this. Beyond this there is much dispute (as there should be) and much to learn, there is a consensus about this. There is no "mainstream catastrophist view", that is just an invention of people like Bolt and all those other right wing nutbags.

My view is to agree that there are measurable effects, I believe that they may be due to our dependence upon carbon consumption. My focus is upon improved electricity generation and distribution systems. Improvements in these systems drive up our standard of living and reduce our absolute and relative energy consumption.

"Catastrophe theory" does not have any impact upon efforts to increase the efficiency of electrical systems and improvements in generation, these developments are driven by hard economics.

Dalek.

dalek, I think the "mainstream catastrophist view" that you say "naturally gets all the publicity" is actively promoted by the Greens. I take your point about the scientific community. As an occasional reader of Andrew Bolt, I think he identifies and successfully repudiates the catastrophist view when it rears its head, usually via the Greens.

 

Two concepts that were new to me, and which really made me think, on becoming involved in this site are: 'pseudo-left' and 'unsustainable development'. Both need to be taken out there to a wider audience. I don't know how anyone can make sense of current politics without the former, and unless the latter is actively advocated to a wide audience the mainstream assumption of 'sustainable development' will continue to have mothers' milk status. (I don't know why I'm being so polite, and I know you don't accept either notion).

 

Barry

 

 

 

 

Barry, there is no such thing as "sustainable" development, we are in heated agreement here. There is developement that is plain stupid and dangerous such as the greenies "hydrogen economy" and there is developement that is downright dangerous such as the tobacco industry or the devlopement of lead citrate for sweetening stuff by the Romans.

All serious development disrupts the present, changes the productive forces and social relations and is basically unsustainable  in that sense.

Does that mean we should do stuff that is basically stupid, like take up smoking, re-instate lead citrate or pipe hydrogen into every home?

I have assessed various "perpetual motion" schemes for both Government and private industry over the years and have been impressed by the enthusiasm for disruptive change shown by the proponents. The fact that all these schemes can be shown to be pure thermodynamic nonsense does not diminish the enthusiasm.

Having said all that, there is a sense in which development needs to stay within the laws of physics , if we stray to far from equilibrium in the thermodynamic sense we will have to pay for it one way or another. It is easy to show that it is technically impossible to extend the present consumption of energy and water by people in the developed world (us)  to the global population unless the efficiency with which we use and generate energy is massively improved. (in essence that is what this is all about- the global warming deniers want to restrict developemnt to the developed world and bugger the rest)

This does not preclude the developement of starships and all that stuff beloved of LS supporters but it does mean that the limits to thermodynamics must be respected. The so called global warming debate is in the end about thermodynamics, not exactly a subject you will get in the average arts degree.

There is absolutely no scientific doubt about the impact of CO² forcing in the atmosphere, there may be argument that the present levels may be offset by various mechanisms, but no serious person in the field would deny that a significant increase in present levels would have serious consequences. Just as the Romans failed to see the consequences of adding lead citrate to their food so many in the present community fail to see the consequances of continually increasing the level of CO² in our atmosphere.

The true irony is that those who oppose the possiblity of negative consequences from CO² addition to the atmosphere are those who want to continue business as usual without change. Those who think change is a good thing and want to radically improve the generation and consumption of energy, are the progressives surely. Those who stand on a stump and cry "change is bad" are the reactionaries.

As for the "pseudo left" I am a bit too busy debate about straw men. (now you can sool your attAck dogs onto that one

Dalek

I've had a feature article published at Online Opinion called Energy Options. There is a  comments  section that people  can read and add to.

The main points I make are (1) increased R&D is the best response to concerns about global warming and (2) despite, claims to the contrary, there is very little evidence of climate change so far.

Everyone must hope you are right when you say that global warming is an exaggerated danger!  I recently had a conversion with a Christian fundamentalist and I can say that he agrees with you 100%. In his opinion, God placed reserves of coal,  oil and gas in the earth to be discovered and used by humanity as we see fit. He certainly wouldn't have made it combustible if it had been unsafe for us to burn it!

Engels famously coined the term scientific socialism to describe Marxist theory; and so I would have expected any forum run by Marxists to take a genuinely scientific view. Few, if any , of us are climate scientists and we really have little option but to accept the opinions of the overwhelming majority of scientific workers in the field. They may not all share our politics but they should nevertheless be regarded as our comrades and to accuse them of deliberate dishonesty does our movement  no service at all.

Of course, there are genuine differences of opinion in the scientific community as to the  extent of the problem, but to sieze on these in a partisan fashion to try to discredit certain arguments puts us in the same camp as religious fundamentalists and neo-con capitalists.  Hope and faith isn't enough.

 

 

For a cyberman, you're remarkably similar to a dalek! Engels wrote Socialism: Utopian and Scientific to repudiate the 'greenies' of his day. 'Scientific socialism' was never meant to mean uncritical acceptance of what scientists tell us. Marx, and all the great Marxists since him, have had in common a critical and rebellious approach to life and learning. Religious fundamentalists, by contrast, believe they have found the absolute truth in a single text. Marx's personal motto was: 'De omnibus dubtandum' (Doubt everything).

 

The "differences of opinion in the sicentific community" make it difficult "to accept the opinions of the overwhelming majority of scientific workers in the field". The majority might be wrong - and, on my reading of Australian scientisits like Kinnimonth and Plimer - there is reason to be skeptical about the more catastrophic scenarios. (Pilmer, by the way, is an outstanding fighter against the Creationists and other fundamentalists). It's not just about whether the planet is warming up, but about the extent to which this is being caused by human industrial activity. And then there's the big question (if human activity is in fact a major source) of what to do about it. On this, there is no scientific consensus and it is not a specialist-scientific issue.

 

There is more in common between the Greens and the religious fundamentalists, as both believe that Nature was, 'in the beginning', perfect - and that humans have ruined it ever since. Marxists, by contrast, see Nature as a constant process, always changing.

 

Out of idle interest: what would you say if the overwhelming majority of scientists recommend an expansion of nuclear energy as part of the solution?

 

Barry

 

Cyberman:

Hope ought not, enter into it!  And it’s not that either the argument is sound or it’s not, because other unforeseen factors even dare one say, currently unknown unknowns, will alter the predictions that arise from the competing scientists. 

But I can’t help thinking that while Esplanade and coastal prices of real estate continue to rise faster than other areas, and the science has confirmed a thickening in the Antarctic - and masses of wealthy continue to holiday in the tropics and move to warmer climes such as Florida; California; the South of France; Spain; Queensland etc that one ought to take the bet that the issue is hyped and where there are any issues that arise in the future they will be better handled if humans are immensely more wealthy than we currently are.

As for the various God-botherers perhaps it is God’s little way of returning all to her

Anyhow a ‘genuinely scientific view’ starts with philosophy.  Biology is a science, yet recall the appalling ‘science’ generated by the likes of Professor Paul Ehrlich, one of the real fathers of the global warming hysterics.  Current great warriors over the wimp words ‘climate change’ are biologists like Tim Flannery and bourgeois economists like Stern, both massively overpaid burdens on the working classes. 

I find it utterly revolting to even contemplate listening to yet another rich fuckwit like Al Gore who continues to peddle his garbage despite it being shot through with pseudo science.   Not one correction has been forthcoming from this money grubbing bourgeois.

The majority of scientific workers that are running with the green herd are also yearly asking for a personal rise in their salaries and attempting to acquire the house on the beach. They do not share my politics.  I regard them as my teachers and encourage all poor and working people throughout the world to emulate them.

I think it important to discredit those that would enrich themselves while in reality requiring vows of poverty from others.  Carbon taxing is an attempt to lower standards of living below the pathetic levels that we in the industrialized world have achieved and what the rest of humanity is going to achieve regardless of those that fear the teeming masses.

Indeed at this stage I see nothing but vacuous science removed from politics, and laughably held above politics; above class interests and so I am unapologetically ‘in the same camp as religious fundamentalists and neo-con capitalists’ in yet another united front. 

Holding the views of a tiny minority I’m quite used to joining with others. 

"For a cyberman, you're remarkably similar to a dalek!"

Well I don't know about that! I guess I might have chosen the name to side with him to some extent.

"Out of idle interest: what would you say if the overwhelming majority of scientists recommend an expansion of nuclear energy as part of the solution?"

There's a difference beween science, engineering, and politics. Whether or not the climate is warming, to what extent, the degree to which human activity is responsible, and the likely effects are all questions to which we look for scientific answers. What to do about it is an engineering question to the extent that we can only do what technology will allow. Which of the engineering possibilities we choose is a political question.

"Anyhow a ‘genuinely scientific view’ starts with philosophy"

I'd say it was the other way around. For instance, if you look at the quantum mechanical behaviour of a photon, it is just so weird that it defies human comprehension. The saying goes that you more you try to understand QM, the more you realise that you just can't. General relativity is much the same but we know it all works and produces results which agree with observations. So, the scientific method starts with observations, this in turn may or may not lead to a successful theory to account for it all, and if you understand all this then you'll know that your world philosophy has to be adjusted to suit. Religious fundamentalists, of course, don't understand this and start off with Genesis, or whatever.

I'm not saying that global warming is as hard to understand as quantum mechanics and we aren't going to find an Einstein to come up with a neat "E=mc2" style theory to account for it all. The earth's climatic system is just so complex that the only chance we have of providing the correct answer is to build better and better computer models to give the right predictions. Looking at 10 year, or even 30 year, world temperature averages is nowhere near enough. 

 

 

I didn't quite finish what I was saying ....

The reason that we need to be doing much more than collating temperature averages, important though this data might be, is because of the  CO2 levels which currently stand at 381ppm. This is over 100 ppm higher than in pre-industrial ages and furthermore is rising rapidly with 30 ppm increase in the last 17 years. Even if world temperatures had actually fallen in the last 100 years, and even if polar ice caps had increased in area we'd still have a potentially large scientific question to answer.

The levels of CO2 are not the only factor of course, methane may be even more important and needs to be fully included in any meaningful model.

Interesting though it may be to try, its really not possible to decide how much of a problem we may have just  by debating the issue.

There's a difference beween science, engineering, and politics. Whether or not the climate is warming, to what extent, the degree to which human activity is responsible, and the likely effects are all questions to which we look for scientific answers. What to do about it is an engineering question to the extent that we can only do what technology will allow. Which of the engineering possibilities we choose is a political question.

I agree fully with that point by Cyberman. I'm inclined to assume that the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists has to be taken seriously by governments and that others should focus on the engineering and political questions rather than getting into scientific debates with them.

But "looking for scientific answers" is very different from simply accepting as authoritative the opinions of scientists, whether an overwhelming consensus or not.

That is so fundamental to the very conception of science that one naturally gets very suspicious when one sees scientists trying to shout down their critical colleagues on the basis that their views are "official" and "the debate is over".

Claims are being made in support of specific political measures such as carbon tax in the name of "science" and it has been campaigned for with religious fervour by Greenies on the basis of their world outlook rather than any actual understanding of climate science.

The economic modelling involved in predictions of likely effects are quite absurd, claiming to model the future of an economic system which only took off a couple of hundred years ago for a couple of hundred years ahead.

The sheer naivety of that calls into question how seriously we should take claims by a consensus of climate scientists that their current climate models are good enough to support their conclusions. Climate is aggregated weather and the weather is notoriously chaotic with reasonable forecasts only a few days ahead. Its a very big claim to have successfully modeled a chaotic non-linear system.

Ptolemy's epicycles were a great fit to astronomical data (better than Copernicus), but his model was wrong. Kepler's model actually made successful predictions. That is an example on modeling a relatively static system but illustrates the classic fallacy of assuming that a model which accounts for past data predicts the future.

I'm particularly suspicious because of having studied a similar campaign involving climate scientists concerning "nuclear winter". They wrote authoritatively about nuclear warfare, in a way that showed complete ignorance of actual strategic plans (eg taking seriously the concept of "Mutual Assured Destruction" instead of studying how nuclear weapons would actually be used in conterforce warfighting ). It was unmistakably dishonest and I suspect there is some serious dishonesty going on now too.

The Heartland Institute has launched a nifty new Web site, which provides

•  a primer on global warming;
•  a collection of documents listed by topic and author;
•  links to the web sites of A list skeptics;
•  news and commentary pieces; and
•  links to blogs and think tanks.

 
The document collection is part of Policy Bot "the Internet's most extensive clearing-house for the work of free-market think tanks, with more than 17,000 studies and commentaries from over 350 think tanks and advocacy groups."

What is the background of the Heartland Institute? According to Wikipedia they have been implicated in the past in accepting money from the Tobacco industry. Let me guess. To expose the "myth" of the health risks of cigarette smoking?

Of course its not too hard to find "nifty" websites saying that we've all nothing to worry about, no doubt funded by oil and coal interests. Well they would say that wouldn't they! Is it really necessary to explain this on a Marxist website? Or, is this a "Marxist" website  funded by Exxon?

 

 

cyberman, I'd be much more interested in critiques of the actual science, as well as the engineering and politics. When I was a member of the Australian Conservation Foundation during the 1980s, I eventually became fed up with the tendency to repudiate 'inconvenient' scientific studies simply by establishing that they were funded by vested interests. It is the science that has to be repudiated, regardless of the funding source. If the funding source has paid the piper and called the tune, then this will be revealed in flaws in the science which will be easily refutable. In my experience, the environmentalists tend to avoid the difficult thinking of repudiating the science and prefer to merely point to sinister funding sources.

 

Looking at it another way: does the nuclear industry have a vested interest in promoting the 'global warming' case? If there were studies funded by it, that supported the catastrophic scenario for global warming, wouldn't the science still need to be debated?

 

The global warming profession is itself a powerful and richly-funded vested interest, probably worth billions internationally. There's no substitute for the science, in my opinion. And I must add that I don't think Marxists are into conspiracy theories; that's the domain of the far Right.

 

Barry

 

If there is so much evidence out there for the "myth" of global warming let's start by looking at references and articles written by scientists who can clearly show that they are independent and genuinely mean what they say. I don't think that there are that many.

The ruling classes, at least sections of them,  are  well aware of the global warming problem. It is a major inconvenience for many, that their coal and oil reserves have to be used at a slower rate and of course those with interests in nuclear power are going to make the most of their good fortune. However, its going to be even more inconvenient for the sections of the ruling class who have interests in neither form of energy to have their assets disappear beneath sea level, and so many of them will support the nuclear power option.  Its just common sense that this will happen and,  and its not a far-fetched conspiracy theory. Hopefully, as Marxists, we will have enough intelligellence to look behind the arguments and analyse the motives of those making them. Of course, it doesn't make them necessarily wrong but we do have to take into account who is saying what and why.

My background is physics and engineering, but even so I honestly don't feel qualified to debate or offer meaningful critiques on the science of global warming in detail.  I'd probably have to give up my job and go back to uni for a year or two. I'm not saying that only scientists can make a meaningful contribution to the debate, but, in the end, it does come down to which group of scientists you choose to believe. I can understand the need to be sceptical,  but why ignore the overwhelming body of scientific opinion? I can understand a fundamentalist Christian who might say that there is no need to do anything much because we'all be rescued by the second coming!  But what's the motivation of a committed Marxist for  being, unlike Marx himself during his lifetime, so anti the accepted scientific opinion of the day?

  

I can't see why someone like, say, Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, shouldn't be seen as independent and genuinely meaning what he says as a science-based skeptic. While not knowing what Prof Carter's motives might be, I still think the motives behind an argument should never outweigh the legitimacy or otherwise of the evidence and logic of the argument itself. As I said in my previous post, it is the science that has to be addressed - along with the engineering and political responses - rather than merely being content with identifying 'sinister' funders of research, as so many 'greenies' seem to be. cyberman may like to persuade me as to where Bob Carter has it wrong in this article by him: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=848  

 

As for cyberman's continued reference to fundamentalist Christians and the suggestion that they share much in common with the skeptics, I don't think the comparison holds any water at all. Skepticism is the opposite of religious faith. I do not know of any on the 'Christian Right' who say that there's nothing to worry about because Christ will return (though there probably are such people) but I do know that Rev Ted Haggard, president of the US National Association of Evangelicals - with 30 million members - regards global warming as a serious danger to the world, much like the Greens, and that he sees "stewardship" of the planet as a "God-given dominion". Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1491-2005Feb5.html  It's the usual quasi-religious position of the Greens, though expressed overtly as a theological position: humans went wrong when they rebelled against Nature (and God). As cyberman has claimed to represent a Marxist position, I am obliged to point out that Marxism asserts that human beings continue to free themselves precisely by working against the constraints of both Nature and God.

 

Barry

 

 

Cyberman, I was quite struck by your (repeated) references to some connection between marxism and looking for petty, self-seeking interests as the direct explanation for things. That is a very widespread understanding of marxism, in a period when there is hardly any significant support for marxism and lots of undiluted reactionary gibberish being passed off as being associated with it.

I couldn't find the classic quote on the subject I was looking for, but this one might give you pause for reflection:

It is well known that a certain kind of psychology explains big things by means of small causes and, correctly sensing that everything for which man struggles is a matter of his interest, arrives at the incorrect opinion that there are only "petty" interests, only the interests of a stereotyped self-seeking. Further, it is well known that this kind of psychology and knowledge of mankind is to be found particularly in towns, where moreover it is considered the sign of a clever mind to see through the world and perceive that behind the passing clouds of ideas and facts there are quite small, envious, intriguing manikins, who pull the strings setting everything in motion. However, it is equally well known that if one looks too closely into a glass, one bumps one's own head, and hence these clever people's knowledge of mankind and the universe is primarily a mystified bump of their own heads.

Karl Marx, On Freedom of the Press, Chapter 6, May 19, 1842

Carter is just another statistics wonk. Unless a commentator has something to say about the underlying science he is not worth attending to. As has been said there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Most of the contra- global warming stuff I have seen is argument over the interpretation of stats.

To me the underlying physics and thermodyamics behind global warming are unassailable. There is also evidence that something is going on. Maybe it is just a "natural" change. Interesting that those who argue that there is no such thing as a "constraint of nature" then invoke "nature" to explain the data. 

Surely the logical thing to do is to improve the efficiency of generation and utilisation of power - including transport? Is this not the logical and progressive (in the economic and social sense) thing to do? No not according to the self styled Marxists at LS, its business as usual for them. Reduced CO² emissions are for limp wristed greenies not for middle class macho Marxists.

Instead they ally themselves with the doom sayer Christians, the nutbag right and half arsed commentators from the white supremacists brigades, who see rising sea levels as sent by god to punish the fuzzy wuzzies for being uppity.

Scientific method.

I always uderstood that observations driven by a postulate preceded theory, if the observations do not suport the postulate then too bad for the theory. If the observations from the theory fit within the philosphical framework of the observer then that is good for the philosophical framework. But if they do not It may not matter much or it may  matter a lot. Newtons laws are sufficient for navigation around the solar system but not really accurate enough for interstellar observations. Electronics on the other hand depends upon quantum effects, although "classical" explanations suffice in most aspects. We continually refine our models of the world, continually go deeper. Dialectical materialism,  (for example) gives real insights into many material things but to pretend that it is the end point of philosophical thought is delusional.

Many "Marxists" seem to believe that philosophical thought ended with Lenin, and Mao, in this they are no different from Christians who believe that the bible is the last word.

If Mao or Lenin or Marx or even Engels had written about global warming they would be out there manning the barricades. Pathetic.

Dalek

 

Arthur,

Surely you can't be serious when you say that there is "hardy any significant support for Marxism". Marx's influence has been very widespread over the past 150 years to the extent that many of his ideas are generally accepted by people who wouldn't otherwise consider themselves to be Marxist. The good listeners of BBCs Radio 4 network (UK) , not the most revolutionary group of people in the world, have just voted him the greatest philosopher of all time.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/greatest_philosopher_vote_result.shtml

Its all very well quoting Marx, we can all do that, but I think I might have a better understanding,  if you explained why you've used the terms "petty" and "self seeking". I really don't know what you mean!

Byork,

Bob Carter may be right. Let's hope he is. I have already made the point that what we should really be worrying about are not  world temperature averages, but the high and rising levels of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere. The fact that these levels are rising so quickly means that we are alraedy well past the level where the oceans and forests can soak up these pollutants. These are relatively  straightforward to measure and we need to do the calculations of what their effect will be in the future.

I've no problem with working against "constraints of God" since I don't think he exists!  I'm interested in your claim that Marx suggested we can work against nature. To some extent , of course, we can but there must be a limit. Do you have a reference for his quote on this?