Link dump, climate change edition
sciencedaily reports a study claiming that acting on climate change need not be incompatible with long-term economic growth, which is one of schmengie's bugaboos. Unfortunately one of the study's conclusions is "use of emissions offsets is an essential ingredient in containing costs" which I know won't sit well with him.
Speaking of incompatible, you might not associate "luxury ski resort" with environmentalism but the CEO has an interesting perspective. There's a long blockquote where he justifies why bother having ski resorts at all, what they've done to make theirs greener, and his overall views on addressing climate change:
I always get in the same arguments with the hard core enviro community. They want me to do rinky dink stuff like bamboo f[l]oors and recycling, and I tell them it doesn't matter, that their personal actions don't matter because the problem's too big. That pisses people off -- they get mad at me and say every little bit helps. But every little bit doesn't help because the problem's too big. If everyone who was so inclined did every little thing from the Prius to the bulb, we still wouldn't solve this problem. It's gotta be a global mandate, not a voluntary thing. My day is full of people getting furious at me. Last week I had to send the FBI some death threats I was getting about calling the governor of Utah willfully ignorant on climate. This is war. This is a combat situation. and it's gonna hurt people the way wars hurt people. I like to say, we're gonna have to break things and hurt people to make this happen. Just being straightorward and truthful about these things instead of glossing and deluding people is incredibly valuable.
The Limits To Skepticism:
jamie found a long and painstaking piece up at The Economist asking and provisionally answering the question: "Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong?" The author, who is not named, spent several hours picking apart the arguments of one Willis Eschenbach, AGW denialist, who on Dec. 8 published what he called the "smoking gun" - it was supposed to prove that the adjustments climate scientists make to historical temperature records are arbitrary to the point of intentional manipulation.
The basis of TFA is that people jizzing themselves over Climate Gate should consider things like:
[H]omogenising historical temperature data records is extremely complicated. People who maintained weather stations starting in 1880 didn't think to themselves, "Maybe someday people will need to measure climate change, so I better put down a really accurate thermometer and then ensure nothing about the instrument or the surrounding area changes for the next 130 years."
Varied and inconsistent measurements over hundreds of years require adjustment and normalization if they are to be interpreted correctly. That being said, scientists should be up front about the adjustment and say what's being adjusted and why so people can decide for themselves.
From the conclusion:
[H]ere's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand. So for the time being, my response to any and all further 'smoking gun' claims begins with: show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here. Otherwise, you're a crank and this is not a story."
Speaking of incompatible, you might not associate "luxury ski resort" with environmentalism but the CEO has an interesting perspective. There's a long blockquote where he justifies why bother having ski resorts at all, what they've done to make theirs greener, and his overall views on addressing climate change:
I always get in the same arguments with the hard core enviro community. They want me to do rinky dink stuff like bamboo f[l]oors and recycling, and I tell them it doesn't matter, that their personal actions don't matter because the problem's too big. That pisses people off -- they get mad at me and say every little bit helps. But every little bit doesn't help because the problem's too big. If everyone who was so inclined did every little thing from the Prius to the bulb, we still wouldn't solve this problem. It's gotta be a global mandate, not a voluntary thing. My day is full of people getting furious at me. Last week I had to send the FBI some death threats I was getting about calling the governor of Utah willfully ignorant on climate. This is war. This is a combat situation. and it's gonna hurt people the way wars hurt people. I like to say, we're gonna have to break things and hurt people to make this happen. Just being straightorward and truthful about these things instead of glossing and deluding people is incredibly valuable.
The Limits To Skepticism:
jamie found a long and painstaking piece up at The Economist asking and provisionally answering the question: "Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong?" The author, who is not named, spent several hours picking apart the arguments of one Willis Eschenbach, AGW denialist, who on Dec. 8 published what he called the "smoking gun" - it was supposed to prove that the adjustments climate scientists make to historical temperature records are arbitrary to the point of intentional manipulation.
The basis of TFA is that people jizzing themselves over Climate Gate should consider things like:
[H]omogenising historical temperature data records is extremely complicated. People who maintained weather stations starting in 1880 didn't think to themselves, "Maybe someday people will need to measure climate change, so I better put down a really accurate thermometer and then ensure nothing about the instrument or the surrounding area changes for the next 130 years."
Varied and inconsistent measurements over hundreds of years require adjustment and normalization if they are to be interpreted correctly. That being said, scientists should be up front about the adjustment and say what's being adjusted and why so people can decide for themselves.
From the conclusion:
[H]ere's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand. So for the time being, my response to any and all further 'smoking gun' claims begins with: show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here. Otherwise, you're a crank and this is not a story."