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  • What you need to know & are not told about hurricanes
    Editor of the Fabius Maximus website Science & Nature 14 September 2017

    Summary: Millions of words were expended reporting about Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but too little about the science connecting them to climate change. Here are the details, contrasted with the propaganda barrage of those seeking to exploit these disasters for political gain. Let’s listen to these scientists so we can better prepare for what is coming. Failure to do so risks eventual disaster.

    https://fabiusmaximus.com/2017/09/14...of-hurricanes/

    Comment


    • What's wrong with climate change?

      Why do we have to keep the climate static?
      "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by gunnut View Post
        What's wrong with climate change?

        Why do we have to keep the climate static?
        Climate has been changing for 4.5 billion years, and it will continue changing long after the human species no longer walks this planet.

        http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/09/...ed-co2-impact/

        Comment


        • German court hears Peruvian farmer's climate change appeal

          A German court began hearing an appeal Monday by a Peruvian farmer who accuses energy giant RWE of contributing to climate change that is threatening his home and livelihood in the Andes.

          Saul Luciano Lliuya argues that RWE, as a major historic emitter of greenhouse gases, must share in the cost of protecting his hometown Huaraz from a swollen glacier lake at risk of overflowing from melting snow and ice.

          A lower court in the western city of Essen where RWE is based dismissed the initial lawsuit last December, ruling that Luciano had failed to demonstrate a direct link between the German utility and the flood risk.

          Luciano, who is also a mountain guide, is now hoping the higher court in the city of Hamm will side with him in what German media have likened to a "David versus Goliath" battle.

          "RWE is one of the largest emitters in the world," the father-of-two said in a statement issued by the pressure group Germanwatch, which has been advising him.

          "These companies have not taken responsibility for the consequences of their emissions. You don't have to be a lawyer to know this isn't just," the 37-year-old added.

          Luciano wants RWE to pay 17,000 euros ($20,000) to help pay for flood defences for his community in Peru's northern Ancash region.

          He also wants the German company to reimburse him for the 6,384 euros he himself has spent on protective measures.

          Luciano bases his claims on a 2013 climate study which found that RWE was responsible for 0.5 percent of global emissions "since the beginning of industrialisation"—which he says makes it at least partly responsible for his plight.

          [...]
          https://phys.org/news/2017-11-german...r-climate.html
          https://phys.org/news/2016-11-peruvi...an-energy.html

          He's not having much success with it though; first instance court threw out the case without even hearing either side, the second instance court now is at least acknowledging that there might be a case, and before opening proceedings at all has given RWE two weeks to respond before they decide on whether to give the trial a chance. The money amounts named in the article above are somewhat misleading - he's basically asking for 30 bucks as RWE's share in how much he has had to invest to secure his house from climate-induced flooding, and it's notionally a civil case that's about this demand. His case in itself of course has a different intention than that money, and is sponsored by various climate protection groups.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Shilpa111
            Hi guys,Global warming is causing a set of changes to Earth's climate,"Green house effect" is a Global warming that happens the earth atmosphere trap heat,these gases in light but keep heat for escaping called a green house.
            SA 8000 Cost in Italy

            OHSAS 18001 Audit in Bahrain
            Ohhhhh! Thanks buddy. If only someone posted this at the beginning of the thread ten years ago... thanks for clearing that up.

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            • i dunno about you, Wooglin, but responding to spam bots is probably not productive...:-)
              There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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              • Originally posted by astralis View Post
                i dunno about you, Wooglin, but responding to spam bots is probably not productive...:-)
                Its at least as effective as responding to AGW true believers.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by zraver View Post
                  Its at least as effective as responding to AGW true believers.
                  Ha! So true!

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                  • Science or silence? My battle to question doomsayers about the Great Barrier Reef

                    Around the world, people have heard about the impending extinction of the Great Barrier Reef: some 133,000 square miles of magnificent coral stretching for 1,400 miles off the northeast coast of Australia.

                    The reef is supposedly almost dead from the combined effects of a warming climate, nutrient pollution from Australian farms, and smothering sediment from offshore dredging.

                    Except that, as I have said publicly as a research scientist who has studied the reef for the past 30 years, all this most likely isn’t true.

                    And just for saying that – and calling into question the kind of published science that has led to the gloomy predictions – I have been served with a gag order by my university. I am now having to sue for my right to have an ordinary scientific opinion.

                    My emails have been searched. I was not allowed even to speak to my wife about the issue. I have been harangued by lawyers. And now I’m fighting back to assert my right to academic freedom and bring attention to the crisis of scientific truth.

                    The problems I am facing are part of a “replication crisis” that is sweeping through science and is now a serious topic in major science journals. In major scientific trials that attempt to reproduce the results of scientific observations and measurements, it seems that around 50 percent of recently published science is wrong, because the results can’t be replicated by others.

                    And if observations and measurements can’t be replicated, it isn’t really science – it is still, at best, hypothesis, or even just opinion. This is not a controversial topic anymore – science, or at least the system of checking the science we are using, is failing us.

                    The crisis started in biomedical areas, where pharmaceutical companies in the past decade found that up to 80 percent of university and institutional science results that they tested were wrong. It is now recognized that the problem is much more widespread than the biomedical sciences. And that is where I got into big trouble.


                    I have published numerous scientific papers showing that much of the “science” claiming damage to the reef is either plain wrong or greatly exaggerated. As just one example, coral growth rates that have supposedly collapsed along the reef have, if anything, increased slightly.

                    Reefs that are supposedly smothered by dredging sediment actually contain great coral. And mass bleaching events along the reef that supposedly serve as evidence of permanent human-caused devastation are almost certainly completely natural and even cyclical.

                    These allegedly major catastrophic effects that recent science says were almost unknown before the 1980s are mainly the result of a simple fact: large-scale marine science did not get started on the reef until the 1970s.

                    By a decade later, studies of the reef had exploded, along with the number of marine biologists doing them. What all these scientists lacked, however, was historical perspective. There are almost no records of earlier eras to compare with current conditions. Thus, for many scientists studying reef problems, the results are unprecedented, and almost always seen as catastrophic and even world-threatening.

                    The only problem is that it isn’t so. The Great Barrier Reef is in fact in excellent condition. It certainly goes through periods of destruction where huge areas of coral are killed from hurricanes, starfish plagues and coral bleaching. However, it largely regrows within a decade to its former glory. Some parts of the southern reef, for example, have seen a tripling of coral in six years after they were devastated by a particularly severe cyclone.

                    Reefs have similarities to Australian forests, which require periodic bushfires. It looks terrible after the bushfire, but the forests always regrow. The ecosystem has evolved with these cycles of death and regrowth.

                    The conflicting realities of the Great Barrier Reef point to a deeper problem. In science, consensus is not the same thing as truth. But consensus has come to play a controlling role in many areas of modern science. And if you go against the consensus you can suffer unpleasant consequences.

                    The main system of science quality control is called peer review. Nowadays, it usually takes the form of a couple of anonymous reviewing scientists having a quick check over the work of a colleague in the field.

                    Peer review is commonly understood as painstaking re-examination by highly qualified experts in academia that acts as a real check on mistaken work. It isn’t. In the real world, peer review is often cursory and not always even knowledgeable. It might take reviewers only a morning to do.

                    Scientific results are rarely reanalyzed and experiments are not replicated. The types of checks that would be routine in private industry are just not done.


                    I have asked the question: Is this good enough quality control to make environmental decisions worth billions of dollars that are now adversely affecting every major industry in northeast Australia?

                    Our sugar industry has been told to make dramatic reductions in fertilizer application, potentially reducing productivity; our ports have dredging restrictions that threaten their productivity; scientists demand that coal mines be closed; and tourists are scared away because the reef is supposedly almost dead – not worth seeing anymore.

                    Last August I made this point on Sky News in Australia in promotion of a chapter I wrote in “Climate Change: The Facts 2017,” published by the Australian free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.

                    “The basic problem is that we can no longer trust the scientific organizations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, even things like the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies … the science is coming out not properly checked, tested or replicated and this is a great shame because we really need to be able to trust our scientific institutions and the fact is I do not think we can any more,” I said.

                    The response to these comments by my employer, James Cook University, was extraordinary.

                    Rather than measured argument, I was hit with a charge of academic serious misconduct for not being “collegial.”

                    University authorities told me in August I was not allowed to mention the case or the charges to anybody – not even my wife.

                    Then things got worse. With assistance from the Institute of Public Affairs, I have been pushing back against the charges and the gag order – leading the university to search my official emails for examples of where I had mentioned the case to other scientists, old friends, past students and my wife.

                    I was then hit with 25 new allegations, mostly for just mentioning the case against me. The email search turned up nothing for which I feel ashamed. You can see for yourself.

                    We filed in court in November. At that point the university backed away from firing me. But university officials issued a “Final Censure” in my employment file and told me to be silent about the allegations, and not to repeat my comments about the unreliability of institutional research.

                    But they agreed that I could mention it to my wife, which was nice of them.

                    I would rather be fired than accept these conditions. We are still pursuing the matter in court.

                    This case may be about a single instance of alleged misconduct, but underlying it is an issue even bigger than our oceans. Ultimately, I am fighting for academic and scientific freedom, and the responsibility of universities to nurture the debate of difficult subjects without threat or intimidation.

                    We may indeed have a Great Barrier Reef crisis, but the science is so flawed that it is impossible to tell its actual dimensions. What we do know for certain is that we have an academic freedom crisis that threatens the true life of science and threatens to smother our failing university system.

                    Professor Peter Ridd leads the Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Australia and has authored over 100 scientific papers.
                    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/...-wind-and-oil/

                    Comment


                    • To be fair, it is absolutely disgraceful, and while the peer review process is fundamentally flawed it may not be easily reformed. Anybody in academia knows this, so it's really quite ridiculous by the individuals in the university. I guess a case can be made that the strength of the current peer review process comes over time and collectively , while many individual papers lack quality and should never be published, over time there is a selection process that can deliver results (and dissenting voices) where you can then judge an entire literature on a specific area of research. In the end, a small percentage of papers have significant influence and the hope is they receive greater scrutiny.

                      Also, I think its well established in Australia by the relevant expert academia that the situation with coral reefs is quite complex. There are multiple inter-related threats, both natural and human, our historical data sets are short, models crude, and often it's a change in diversity and species composition, not eradication, that is of greater concern, while the reefs are over huge geographical areas and depths so there is a lot of variation in vulnerability, damage and recovery, both spatially and temporally. In this sense, it makes the university's actions all the more bizarre.

                      While the university's actions are troubling, they are also a conspicuous and less important part of the problem generally. The real censorship stems from a more insidious source, fear of judgement and persecution, that used to be mostly silent and discreet but now has a more visible angry cousin on the internet too.

                      Comment


                      • Surveys of the reef have shown that it has coped with multiple changes in environmental conditions on a geologic scale. Sonar scans and core drilling show that during ice ages, as sea levels decease the reef has 'migrated' out towards the edge of the continental shelf and also slightly northward towards warmer waters at the equator. During warmer periods as ocean levels rise it migrates closer to the new shore line into shallower water and extends southwards a little bit further. But the timescales involved are simply not noticeable to humans.

                        The above doesn't mean however that the reef won't be damaged by rapid climate change, simply that it has the capacity to recover given enough time. On a global scale the problem with climate change is not so much its impact on the general environment but rather its impact on human civilization. Given time the ecology of the planet will always adapt, pine forests and tree ferns at the poles during periods of global warming, continental land bridges and a retreat to the towards the equator during cooling periods. IMO the problem lies elsewhere.

                        Our cities unfortunately are not portable and all of humanities great population centers are largely located along fertile river valleys and other localized areas of high agricultural productivity. Change the climate slightly even for just a few years and you potentially change those fertile locations. For example there are no less than 5 major river systems shared by India and Pakistan, the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi & Sutlej. These rivers are already under strain due to overpopulation, overuse and fluctuations in local climate conditions. They are home to hundreds of millions of people separated into hostile, nuclear armed states. What happens if/when climate change alters rainfall patters even lightly for decade or so? China is in an even worse position, a lot of it's existing fresh water resources are just about fully exploited already and heavily polluted due to boot due to industrial development - I doubt it would face collapse but it could make a play for water resources in other countries like Russia if pressed.

                        For it's part the US is already suffering from a decline in the reliably of water resources in the south west and Mexico is even more vulnerable. You think you have an illegal immigration problem now? What happens if climatic variability kicks in in a big way south of the border?

                        Point is, changes in local climatic conditions don't have to be extreme or even that long lasting if population levels in the areas concerned are already at or near maximum carrying capacity and water extraction has already peaked. Alternately more rain can be almost as bad since persistent flood events can also significantly reduce agricultural productivity along those same river valleys & flood plains. If the world had a population of 1 billion it woudn't necessary be a problem but 8-10 billion?
                        Last edited by Monash; 21 Feb 18,, 09:09.
                        If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

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                        • So....it's late August, where are we at with the hurricane count?

                          Remember after 2005 how all the so called "scientists" predicted hurricanes to be more frequent and more powerful?

                          https://www.usnews.com/news/articles...due-to-warming

                          http://www.climatecentral.org/news/s...orldwide-16204

                          Actually both articles are based on the same study. I also found numerous other news articles from different sources all regurgitating the same view from roughly the same time, early 2013.

                          We have had so far in 2018, 5 storms with 2 of them being hurricanes.
                          "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                          Comment


                          • Nothing but cherry picking. Now tell me you do know what a 5 degree celsius change means?

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                            • Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
                              Nothing but cherry picking. Now tell me you do know what a 5 degree celsius change means?
                              It means .... a lot!

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                              • Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
                                Nothing but cherry picking. Now tell me you do know what a 5 degree celsius change means?
                                Great argument. Very convincing!

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