What Alarmists Often Don't Understand.....the Burden of Proof is on YOU

Since my job is providing steel for Alarmist cars and electricity for their computers, there are so many posts here that I would like to respond too, but do not have the time. But I see a thread, running through the threads, that occurs often.

What Alarmists usually ignore (well they ignore a LOT of stuff) is that the burden of proof of MAN MADE climate change is on them:

- simply showing that the climate is changing does not PROVE it is man made. The climate has been changing as far back as scientists can find evidence. Much further back that the creation of the first SUV's......

- YOU (the Alarmists) are the ones who what to tax us back to the pre-industrial era, to give up out lifestyle, and in extreme cases, give up national sovereignty. YOU have to prove the alternative is MUCH worse. The skeptics DO NOT have to prove it is NOT happening (it is notoriously difficult to prove a negative in science - often impossible,....for example...PROVE to me that there are NOT dinosaurs in the Smoky Mountains.) I saw one recent thread where an Alarmist claimed victory because he claimed skeptics failed to PROVE the climate variations are natural. Peak Profit (I think it was) tried to explain to the alarmist this same burden of proof idea, but it zoomed over his head. Climate change has been happening for millions of years NATURALLY.....YOU have to prove that is changed and is man made. THAT is the new idea. The FACT that climate varies in natural cycles IS already proven.


- Alarmists must PROVE that climate change is both MAN MADE, and unduly HARMFUL. Skeptics only have to show that you have failed in your burden of proof (which is painfully simple to do).


I know this simple point will be ignored by many alarmists, but I wanted to post it anyway.....

 

Since I keep pointing out that denialism is a political cult composed of the right-wing fringe bleating out their PC mantras, I do appreciate it when they bleat out some more PC mantras to prove me correct. Every denialist here simply can't resist posts of pure wingnutty goodness. In contrast, the reality-based community leaves the politics out of it. AGW science is a rational movement, while denialism is an emotional movement.

Anyways, the burden of proof has clearly been met, through the various IR radiation measurements. There is no other possible explanation for those, other than AGW theory. The atmosphere is behaving exactly as AGW theory predicted, and the world is warming in response. Smoking gun located. The burden of proof now rests on the denialists, who will have to show why the basic physical laws we've understood for over a century are actually wrong.

Basically, this is the tired old trick of trying to set impossible standards of evidence. Since we can't "prove" smoking causes cancer, or that CFCs made the ozone hole, or that mass DDT usage ravages bird populations and fails catastrophically at controlling malaria, or whatever else it is the fringe was ordered by their masters to feel outraged about, no action on their pet issues is ever justified. Naturally, these standards of evidence go out the window when they themselves wants government action. For example, we know Elmer was _not_ screaming that we needed to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that Saddam had WMD. That kind of glaring hypocrisy is yet another reason to ignore their faux-outrage.

 

Actually, that isn't what he said, or even implied. Those who don't understand how science works really have a tough time with the idea expressed by the OP, but those of us who do this for a living are quite familiar with it. We set up ideas, test them, model them, experiment away, and then hand off the results to a fierce competitor (called peer review) and let them poke holes in the idea. If they can. Only then, generally, does a scientist cut the idea loose to see what happens. But the burden of proof is on the originator of the idea, its value can only be determined after a thorough vetting, and will continue to be debated as long as there is uncertainty on the issue. Which is how "the science is settled" gang reveals how little they know about science every time they spout such nonsense.

Warmers have some serious holes in their logic, vast holes in their understanding of the other processes involved, and do a horrible job at properly quantifying how these uncertainties propagate throughout their models and conclusions. Which is why they can't backcast their models over even known data, like the past ice age, because they don't work at understanding what can be considered a completely natural system, without human contributions to the trace gases in the atmosphere.

 

I have cut out the meaningless rant parts of your post.

burden of proof has clearly been met, through the various IR radiation measurements
If you want me to reply you are going to have to post a little more detail

The atmosphere is behaving exactly as AGW theory predicted,
LOL...Really?? ("Hide the Decline"....). Which of the dozen or so IPCC climate models are you saying has proven out?? (Hint:none) Of course you can take the Jean Dixon approach and make so many predictions that one hits by chance.......

 

OK, here's your circumstances, in favor of a lot of stuff:

1. CO2 is the main atmospheric forcer, of many industrial gases and CH4, which also proliferate;
2. In a non-anthropogenic environment, CO2 ALWAYS peaks, at 280 ppm, to turn downward, to 180 ppm, while temperature variously jumps around, to gradually decline, over 80-100K years, or shoot up, over 5-10K years, in every single cycle, over the last 650,000 years, but perfectly defined, over the last 450,000 years;
3. SOMEBODY got to burning everything, which will catch fire, but that SOMEBODY started burning fossil fuels, to release sequestered CO2 and all sorts of NO2 and SO2, but THEN, that SOMEBODY got chainsaws, to cut forests, with deadly efficiency, so CO2 concentrations accelerated, particularly by the 1950s, so CO2 is now at 400 ppm and accelerating, upward, toward 1000 ppm, while CH4 is no longer measured, in ppbillion;
4. SOMEBODY (try Heartland Corp. and a lot of zombies) is trying to pretend SOMEBODY is not responsible, for derivative CO2 and CH4 out-gassing, from warming lands and waters, during global warming (GW);
5. SOMEBODY is pretending the GREENHOUSE EFFECT doesn't exist, despite clear science, in favor of atmospheric blanketing, generally, wherein molecules with three atoms or more contribute, to a consistent GREENHOUSE EFFECT, which always fluctuates, around CO2 concentrations, so CO2 is the main forcer, at play;
6. SOMEBODY is running a hold-up, so Democrats, like Al Gore and black Obmaney smoke all the dope they want to, back in high school, but when it comes time to man up and end the drug war, to get funding, for re-greening AND for CO2-neutral biomass research, which even comes close, to catching Henry Ford's hemp resourcing, to make ethanol and plastic, as far back, as the Model T, SOMEBODY doesn't man up, but SOMEBODY keeps proposing lame carbon credits, despite SOMEBODY smoking Maui-Wowie in Hawaii and crack, in NYC, or SOMEBODY snitched out a H.S. football team-mate, for smoking, when SOMEBODY should just shut T.F.UP, about that AND carbon credits, if SOMEBODY doesn't want to be President, so he won't sue over Florida irregularities or the popular vote totals, in 2000, so SOMEBODY keeps making money, for lame support, of AGW and ACC climate emergency, but all SOMEBODY really has is how a return to punky Congress is "an emotional moment;"
7. SOMEBODY keeps preventing Democrats, from using the term "sea-level rise," in climate relief legislation, in sea-swamped, subsiding Virginia and North Carolina;
8. SOMEBODY keeps trying to cut the budgets, of the DOD, Navy, and CIA, who got needed climate change and national security strategy media, so the CIA is clamming up, about what is happening, so SOMEBODY doesn't just get them back, to supporting Middle East or other dictators;
9. SOMEBODY won't man up, to how solar intensity is relatively low, for the last few decades, but temperatures have stayed high, and they just broke a lot of high-temp RECORDS, despite heat exchange, from the increasing melts, which include Arctic and Greenland and permafrost perennial ice!!!!!!!!!!
10. SOMEBODY keeps submitting pictures, of ANIMALS, with chainsaws, with links, to climategate and wattsupwiththat.com, instead of links, to NASA, NOAA, AGU, or other scientific media;
11. SOMEBODY thinks it's ALIEN Global Warming, since China and India are burning coal and oil, in their emerging ecomomies, and Mexico has a deadly drug war, which eats up a lot of US funds, since the DDD-rats won't admit they need to stop copying dead DDD-rats, like Woodrow Wilson or FDR, or dead Republcans, like Nixon, but DDD-rats just keep on keeping on, with their copying, of Op.Wide Receiver and Project Gunrunner, so re Op.FF, the black Obamney Admin. is stonewalling Congress AND the Bradley Manning defense, and only because white Obamney was about to get outed, for Bullygate, did Joe Biden out black Obamney, to nominally support gay marriage, but black Obamney and his bogus USDOJ just keep busting pot clubs, while states keep violating USCA 4 security, to modify sentences or attack equality, by actually unconstitutional referendums;
12. SOMEBODY needs to woman up, about how their men are running DDD-rat and Republican sell-outs, to AIPAC, petroleum, prison industry, and war industry, which are all unconstitutional, but when the Constitution was ratified, slavery was illegal, and women were chattel property, when married, but not enough women can see any straighter, than men can, but hey, Dr.Jill Stein won the Green Party nomination, against cool babe Rosanne Barr, so MAYBE SOMEBODY SHOULD WOMAN UP, FINALLY, since the DDD-rats and Republicans are just more man-down B.S.!!

 

As an example of why modelers must be watched with great care, lest someone take them seriously, I present the modeling work of Hansen, he of all warming, all the time fame.

How have his models worked out? Here is one, with enough reality to compare it to to demonstrate why models are fine and all, but please, lets not take them too seriously.

Hansen versus reality

Amazing how people can see the patterns they want, even when the patterns don't appear to be there. Let us now speculate....has Hansen since reconsidered his all warming, all the time position, or is he still at it...except now his model is BETTER because he "fixed" it?

 

In fact, you have been proven wrong.

The term, "denialism" proves that AGW alarmism is an emotional movement.

It clearly has not.

Bald lie.

Bald lie.

Bald lie.

Bald lie.

The standard of evidence is only impossible for those who are objectively wrong.

Wrong.

It certainly isn't justified by screaming that the sky is falling, we're all gonna DIE, unsupported by sound, evidence-based science.

Blatant ad hominem.

 

Roy, grow up. The grownups aren't particularly interested in your tantrums. They're kind of cute at first, with the little arms and legs flailing all over, but they get old fast.

 

(cough...spit...cough...) Let me get this straight..YOU are chastising another about pitching "tantrums"?????

denialism is a political cult
right-wing fringe bleating
PC mantras
bleat out some more PC mantras
pure wingnutty goodness
we know Elmer was _not_ screaming
glaring hypocrisy
faux-outrage

(now I need to drain the coffee out of my keyboard.....)

 

As I tell the others, if you're going to dish it out freely, expect to get a little back.

As that will take a lot of time, I'll require $200 ahead of time sent to a Paypal account. Indicate your acceptance, and we'll work out the details.

Seriously, the info is out there, and my time is not free. Get it yourself. You weren't reasoned into your position, so you can't be reasoned out of it. For the frustration and time spent trying educate the uneducable, I demand payment up front.

When you parrot dishonest debunked denialist nonsense, that confirms how pointless it is to waste any significant time on you. Honest people can and will find the info themselves, and I won't worry about the rest.

If you actually want answers in good faith, start by displaying good faith yourself. Lose all the political screeds, which would demonstrate that you're not just a political cultist trying to score propaganda points.

 

Lots of denier rants for mamooth, but not one deflection, for all of post #5?

So I guess PF's and Heartland's finest have no answer for the greenhouse effect, CO2 concentration circumstances, including that posed, by CHAINSAWS, projections based on either instruments or proxies, CH4 concentration migration, or the certainty, of passing the PETM, to challenge the P-T extinction, for all time killer, by Mass Extinction Event 6.

Just saying.

 

Which has all been done. Repeatedly, but only by the AGW scientists. You're reversing reality.

I keep asking the denialists for the TheoryOfDenialism which explains the observed physical measurements, and they won't point to one. Apparently, most think yelling at scientists somehow validates their own secret unpublished theory. Almost no one on the denialist side will subject their theories to peer review, yet your accept their opinions. When you only demand peer review from one side, it calls your sincerity into question.

Yet you can't point to any. You just wave your hands around about models and uncertainty.

Of course they hindcast their models. Not being idiots, scientists know a model ain't no good if it can't hindcast well. You also rely on a logical error about how if you shoot down models, you shoot down AGW theory. Models are just one piece of many. Even if the models didn't exist at all, the earth would still be warming, and we'd still be seeing the atmospheric effects on IR radiation. That alone would prove the theory.

Oh, your graph on Hansen's prediction is wildly off. I'm not sure where it came from, given that it doesn't even look like the graph in the 1988 paper.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf

Yes, when the topic is Hansen's 1988 paper, I look at ... Hansen's 1988 paper. The bigger problem is how your graph uses an obsolete UAH data set of observed temps, one that was recognized back in 1998 as showing temperatures that were way too cold, due to satellite calibration issues. Here's a more accurate reproduction, with an accurate real-world temperature applied. Hansen's prediction that corresponds to actual CO2 emissions -- Scenario B -- tracks very close to the observed temperatures.



Let us now speculate ... have you since since reconsidered your position, given that your data was invalid, and that your side as a whole was fooled by it? Or are you still at it, finding some way to "fix" your bad data so you can still demonize Hansen? Perhaps you can claim that correctly calibrating the satellites was an insiduous warmer plot to fudge the data.

Remember, it's no sin to be fooled. It's what you do after that counts. You can take the people who fed you the bad data to task, or you can go after the messengers who reveal the denialist scam.

 

This is typical denialist evolution. First THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING!!!

Then they admit (after roasting through a few hot summers and mountains of evidence) that there is global warming.

Then they scream IT IS NATURAL!!! giving no evidence or proof as to the mechanism that forces this natural global warming.

If it is natural please tell me what is going on to force this natural cycle instead of disputing the evidence on the other side.

Show me the reason for this natural forcing...AGW people have been open with their evidence. Now show me yours.

Once again...what force or forces in nature are causing this warming?

Convince me I am wrong. I triple dog dare ya.

 

Which is why I cannot understand how some can on one hand claim to understand the scientific process whilst on the other denying the vast body of work that has been done in climate science using those principles

 

No problemo

So where do you want to start

The IR effect of CO2?? - think that needs more elaboration?

The signature of CO2 that is anthropogenic?

The amount of CO2 we are dumping into the atmosphere on a daily basis?

The unprecedented (in geological terms) deforestation of the planet?

The changing Ocean PH?

Which bit exactly do you want verified???

 

Hmmmm - interesting where that image is located

http://globalwarmingisunfactual.wordpress.com

"Global Warming is unfactual" which seems to have an equivalent grasp on science as it has on grammar - but following the trail we end at "Wattsupmybutt" now please explain how anyone with even a high school education can abide the tripe and drivel not to mention the disinformation that oozes from THAT site?

Looking further we source it to 'David M.W. Evans" now being an Aussie meself I am familiar with Dr David Evans and a climate scientist he ain't and he never has been. He is a computer scientist and engineer whose link to climate science is that he did some work on a computer program associated with what someone was doing with climate science.


His original article where that suspect diagram came from is here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/26/the-skeptics-case/
The rebuttal to that article is here http://www.skepticalscience.com/david-evans-understanding-goes-cold.html

 

(Shakes Head in utter dismay at the brainwashing....)

1) Natural variation has been going on for millions of years........FACT
2) These variations DWARF the variation that has happened in the past 100 years.......FACT
(Do I HAVE to post all the charts AGAIN or do you stipulate to 1 and 2 above?)

3) (follow carefully this takes deduction)....since man was not around during all that it was caused NATURALLY..........(still with me)

4) Therefore it is no leap of logic to assume the current TINY variation is NATURAL.....UNLESS proven otherwise. I do not have to prove the causes of natural varition to know it exists...

Really.....I have 2 cats and a German Shepard that could understand this.....

 

Which bit exactly do you want verified???

That this is causing the variations when natural cycles have been doing it (and MUCH more) for millions of years?

Let me try and put this is a way you can follow, because you are not grasping the argument.

Imagine a pot of water on the gas stove (this is the climate). The blue flame under the pot varies from a tiny flame to a big blaze with random variations in the gas pressure (these are the natural forces). The temperature of the water therefore varies greatly over time (still with me). Also we have a meter plotting a chart in real time showing the temperature. It would look something like:


Now I am going to model the CO2 with a teaspoon of hot water since man made CO2 is a small fraction of natural CO2 which is a small fraction of all Greenhouse gasses (it works out to like 1/10 percent). I pour the spoon into the pot, while you watch the graph. Did you see the effect of the teaspoon of hot water???? Probably not, and if you did you would have to use a magnifying glass. Man made CO2 is that tiny of an influence in the big picture of things.

That is why the AGW religion is so funny.....

 

Any particular reason your graph has the actual data ending in 2005?.....Hummmmmmmmm???

 

Because the graph was made in 2007. Which just shows how long ago the "Hansen was so totally wrong, so you warmers are so dumb!" nonsense was debunked.

It could have been seen from the image link, but the full article is at RealClimate (which will cause all the denialists to ignore the content and scream that it's all obviously a forgery.)

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/

Now, if you'd like to claim that more recent temps prove Hansen was so totally wrong, no one is stopping you. The propagandists who want a demon to hate can choose to fixate on a primitive 1988 model, but the actual scientists have better things to do.

 

Really dumb model, displaying a gross misunderstading of the issue. It's not even remotely about the temperature of the emitted CO2, it's about how it blocks EM radiation over a certain spectrum.

The more correct model would be to put a drop of India ink in the water, and watch the water turn totally black. Even though there's only a few ppm of ink molecules, all of the visible light is blocked. According to your "A trace can't possibly have any effect!" theory, it's impossible for that to happen. Since it does happen, it's clear your theory is nonsense. The only question now is whether you cling to it as a religious belief, even after the total debunking of it.

 

The bit where a "climate optimum" somehow turns into a "climate apocalypse."

 

I don't deny the vast body of work on any topic, good, bad, or otherwise. I just note that the vast body of work does not encompass the knowledge necessary to understand past climate change events yet (or the drivers behind them), so drawing conclusions about the current climate, and its direction, seems a bit premature. Those who then claim that "the science is settled" are obviously WAY to far down the rabbit hole....which then calls into question their scientific objectivity on the topic. Professionals, scientists, they too are capable of allowing their belief systems to interfere with the facts of the matter, peak oil being the example I am most familiar with, but certainly the same issues appear to exist within the climate change debate as well.

And very few of those people ever mention Ruddiman, which itself is very, very interesting, should someone be interested in the motivations behind a belief system on this particular topic.

 

Why do you think anyone is interested in your strawmen?

 

But Ruddiman's work, if it was correct, would support the AGW side, so what's your point?

That is, Ruddiman says early farmers had some effect on the climate through livestock methane emissions and land clearing. It supports AGW theory, in that it says it's pretty dang easy for humans to affect climate. It's still unclear as to whether it's correct, but nothing in it is a problem for AGW theory. That would be why it's not getting a lot of attention, because evidence supporting AGW science is pretty common.