Bravus prepares himself for the flood of retractions and apologies...

[karl]

Karl made a claim about what is happening with arctic ice. I showed, simply, clearly and with data from a source he himself had recommended, that his claim was plain wrong. Did he correct his claim? No, he went off into a rant about a whole variety of other issues, leavened with absurd claims about the claims and the goals of myself and others. Where is the respect for the data and the truth?

Well, the thread title is satirical, of course, and this exchange is a perfect illustration for it.

Yes, sorry about that. I am more concerned with the environmentalists' push for global governance and deindustrialization than I am with the temporary state of a small fraction of the world's ice.

I believe you are trying to make a big deal out of a select subsegment of the environment similar to what you have done over the miniscule fraction of greenhouse gasses caused by the CO2 generated in industrial countries.

By the way, what ever happened to your panic over the ozone layer?

What I have posted about Cap and Trade is self-evident. Cap and Trade will do nothing for the environment. It WILL add another layer of international governance. The main thing it will do (besides hiking the price of everything) is accelerate the migration of industry to third world countries where it will make it even cheaper (comparatively) to make products.

The question remains - IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT? If not, why not?

I thought you liked the comparatively non-industrial status of third world countries. They are so pristine, you know, what with the loincloths and the campfires. Why do you want to mess that up?

If you get those guys out of their loincloths into hard hats, and send us back to wearing loincloths, what have you accomplished?

[karl]

Karl made a claim about what is happening with arctic ice. I showed, simply, clearly and with data from a source he himself had recommended, that his claim was plain wrong. Did he correct his claim? No, he went off into a rant about a whole variety of other issues, leavened with absurd claims about the claims and the goals of myself and others. Where is the respect for the data and the truth?

Well, the thread title is satirical, of course, and this exchange is a perfect illustration for it.

Yes, sorry about that. I am more concerned with the environmentalists' push for global governance and deindustrialization than I am with the temporary state of a small fraction of the world's ice.

I believe you are trying to make a big deal out of a select subsegment of the environment similar to what you have done over the miniscule fraction of greenhouse gasses caused by the CO2 generated in industrial countries.

By the way, what ever happened to your panic over the ozone layer?

What I have posted about Cap and Trade is self-evident. Cap and Trade will do nothing for the environment. It WILL add another layer of international governance. The main thing it will do (besides hiking the price of everything) is accelerate the migration of industry to third world countries where it will make it even cheaper (comparatively) to make products.

The question remains - IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT? If not, why not?

I thought you liked the comparatively non-industrial status of third world countries. They are so pristine, you know, what with the loincloths and the campfires. Why do you want to mess that up?

If you get those guys out of their loincloths into hard hats, and send us back to wearing loincloths, what have you accomplished?

[Bravus]

What happened to the panic over the ozone layer? The countries of the world got together in 1990 and put together the Montreal Protocol, banning the use of the CFCs that were damaging the ozone layer. And now the ozone layer is visibly repairing itself.

So it's a bit hard to use that as an example to argue that we should do nothing about greenhouse gases.

[Bravus]

Oh, and I believe it was *you* who raised the question of the arctic ice. I just actually checked the facts. I'm not obsessed with it or making a big deal of it: I'm just chipping away, bit by bit, at the misinformation.

[Bravus]

I've also said here, clearly and repeatedly, that cap and trade is a very bad approach to addressing climate change. So your ranting on that score misses the target with me.

[Bravus]

See, I think this is the source of your main confusion. You've got it into your head that I'm using the science of climate change as a strategy in order to bring in cap and trade. You think cap and trade is my goal. That's beyond backward. I'm compelled to accept the reality of climate change by the scientific evidence. Then we need to start thinking and talking about approaches to mitigating it. My preferred ones would actually be high-tech, and would enhance the standard of living in western countries.

[Bravus]

Incidentally they'd also enhance the standard of living in the developing world - something you seem to think is inherently bad. That's only because you see economics as a zero-sum game: if someone wins, someone else has to lose. But finding really fantastic energy solutions could mean everyone could win.

[karl]

Oh, and I believe it was *you* who raised the question of the arctic ice. I just actually checked the facts. I'm not obsessed with it or making a big deal of it: I'm just chipping away, bit by bit, at the misinformation.

Is this your scientific observation, Bravus? That I raised the question of arctic ice?

Try LHC, who was complaining about my quote from Therebuster's link regarding rainfall in the Amazon.

And, while it's cute for the environmentalist movement to claim credit for fixing the ozone layer (at the expense of millions of asthma sufferers who must now pay four to ten times the amount they formerly payed for their inhalers) an inconvenient truth is that the things that were banned were not causing the hole in the Ozone layer.

A quick research in the databases of the Montreal Gazette, the Globe & Mail, the New York Times and La Presse shows that ozone coverage for these publications first peaked in 1989, when the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer came into force for its 47 signatory states. It peaked a second time in 1992, when the Montreal Protocol was reinforced, the ozone level in the stratosphere reached a record low, and Canada developed its now familiar UV Index.

One doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see a link between the push for global government and environmentalist hysteria.

The ozone hole was the issue du jour until the mid-nineties. It was all downhill from there. BBC news had claimed in August of 2006 that the hole was stable. Yet, the hole reached a record size as late as October of 2006 (27 million sq km.) The ozone hole dropped in size by 50% between 2001 and 2002, and then went right back to it's decades-long average size in 2003, demonstrating to puny man that he is not in charge of the atmosphere. But the record size of the hole in 2006 did not make the news, because that would have cast doubt on the "scientists'" new issue du jour - for which we are now pushing global government - greenhouse gasses. Wonder what the issue will be after we "fix" that?

I'm eager to hear your high tech, western society enhancing solution to the environmental catastrophes which are being currently featured in the news. The only one that currently makes substantial sense is nuclear power, and if we EVER get another plant online in the US it will shock the socks off of me. We all know we need and have needed new nuclear power plants in this country for decades, but do you see any? This is the USA. We have the ability to build them, but we cannot get past the obstructionism of the environmentalist movement.

[phkrause]

See, I think this is the source of your main confusion. You've got it into your head that I'm using the science of climate change as a strategy in order to bring in cap and trade. You think cap and trade is my goal. That's beyond backward. I'm compelled to accept the reality of climate change by the scientific evidence. Then we need to start thinking and talking about approaches to mitigating it. My preferred ones would actually be high-tech, and would enhance the standard of living in western countries.

Excellent posts bravus!!

It seems everything has to be political otherwise there'd be nothing to talk about or should I say argue about. It would be really nice if we could all discuss things and not jump to conclusions about everything, or that everyone has an agenda like in the political threads.

[Bravus]

Well, since there seems to be no chance of getting a correction of the mistaken claim about the arctic ice, I guess I'll follow the redirect to the issue of ozone.

I'm afraid the problem is exactly the same: cherry-picking one exceptional data point, and ignoring the overall trend.

Here's the graph of the maximum extent of the ozone hole from 1980 to 2009:

There's a missing data point for 1995 because there was no satellite in position to measure the size of the hole in that year.

You will see that, indeed, 2006 shows the record extent of the hole, at over 29,000 square km.

But picking individual data points doesn't describe the trend: all natural phenomena vary year-on-year. It's the multi-year trend that shows what's happening. I added a 5 year moving average to the graph (the black line) that shows the trend.

The trend for size of the ozone hole at the moment is that it is approximately constant or decreasing slightly. That's as opposed to a dramatic rate of increase from 1980-about 1991 ( few years before the gap: sorry I couldn't figure out how to better label the x-axis). The peak of the moving average was in 2000.

CFCs can take decades to break down in the atmosphere, so we would not expect an instant decrease in CFCs and corresponding instant decrease in the size of the ozone hole in 1990. We would expect it to take a decade or two to show up... and that's exactly what we're seeing. The overall recent trend is slightly downward, and toward repair.

The same will apply to climate change, with the exception that it takes about 50 years for the atmosphere to recover from CO2. Changes we make now will benefit our children and grandchildren. Changes we fail to make now will harm them.

OK, one more claim checked against the actual data and found wanting. Next issue?

[Guest]

I know you mean well with all that mumbo jumbo, but this a rather strange way to apologize. Making us wait like this and all.

[there buster]

Quote:

You will see that, indeed, 2006 shows the record extent of the hole, at over 29,000 square km.

Wow, that's really impressive. I forget, now, how large was the hole in 1960? Or 1930?

Wait, it wasn't discovered till 1985. Well then, we have 35 whole years of observations. Impressive.

[Bravus]

Um, those data start from 1980... but that's just a quibble. Point is, really extensive use of CFCs was not occurring before about the 70s, and we know the hole was very small in 1980.

By all means quibble and nibble around the edges. The point is that the claims that are being made, and proclaimed to be damaging to the science of global climate change, are being demonstrated again and again, based on the data, to be false.

What was that line of bonnie's again, about if you have to mislead to support your case...?

[there buster]

Point is, really extensive use of CFCs was not occurring before about the 70s, and we know the hole was very small in 1980.[/quote

Yeah. So I missed the part about what the hole looked like in 1960. Or how about 1940?

Was it larger? Smaller? Nonexistent?

[Guest]

Yeah. So I missed the part about what the hole looked like in 1960. Or how about 1940?

Was it larger? Smaller? Nonexistent?

That would seem to be the 64 thousand dollar question. To bad they can't answer it. That would give some meaning to the data that has been collected since 1980.

[Guest]

Not to the beginning of time, don't be silly. But certainly longer than thirty years. That may seem like a long time to you, but comparatively speaking it's nothing. Especially when you look at it in it's proportion to the whole picture.

I don't know what other topics you're talking about, but if you're talking about when someone tries to convince people that the Bible is wrong, or that it's not nearly as important as we thought it was, or that we'd be just as well off without EGW, then you're right. You will never have enough evidence for that either.

[Bravus]

The issue karl raised was about 2006, the evidence presented addressed that issue.

So sorry I couldn't present evidence that's in-principle unavailable. These are satellite measurements, so asking for the 1940 values is...

It's about integrity, telling the truth and being willing to admit when a mistake has been made. It's about looking at the actual, real evidence around us, instead of the fantasies and conspiracies we imagine in our heads.

It's about being secure enough to say "Well, guess I was mistaken".

[Bravus]

One reason I *went* to look at the ozone hole data was in case I was wrong. I had claimed the ozone layer was getting better, karl had said that 2006 was the worst year ever. If the evidence had shown that my claim was wrong, I would have withdrawn it immediately.

[karl]

Go to the NASA "ozone hole watch" site here: http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/

They've been monitoring it since 1979. It increased in size dramatically until 1989. It has been relatively stable since, but the big surprise is not so much the record size of the hole in 2006, but the halving of it in 2001. Obviously, all that work of global banning of CFC's paid off "big time" for a very "short time."

Or not. Definitely not.

[Bravus]

The graph on the previous page actually shows 2002 as the dramatically smaller - but nowhere near halved - year for the hole. Will have a look at the data above shortly.

It's the overall pattern, not single dramatic data points, that is the concern, though.

[Bravus]

Here's the graph from the page karl linked above, with the moving average added in the same way. It looks very similar to the earlier graph, and 2001 is right on the moving average. 2002 is lower, but by no means half the moving average. The trend is the same too - flat or slightly downward since about 2000.

[there buster]

the point is, the whole CFC's caused the ozone hole is hooey. Maybe. Maybe not. Since we don't know if the hole was larger before CFC's were in common use, we don't know if there is any causal link.

There's also plenty of evidence the Medieval warm period was warmer than today, at a time with essentially no "fossil fuel" use, but somehow that makes no difference concerning the green hysteria today.

Global warmists cooked the data to show what they wanted, but because a British newspaper prints an editorial on an unrelated matter, we can ignore the data being cooked.

It simply doesn't matter what the data or other scientists say. All that matters is that the (continually changing) computer models match the expectations of the alarmists, so we must believe!

And if we don't, we're unscientific troglodytes.

It really doesn't matter how many times this theory is disproved. It's a matter of faith among the lefties.

[Bravus]

Leaving aside the fact that the alleged 'cooking' of the data by the Brits (a) is shown to be a myth if the emails are read at all accurately and ( pertained to tiny subsets of the whole dataset, the British scientists had no access to the NASA temperature data, which completely independently showed the same trends.

[Bravus]

I should also acknowledge that both the points karl made were factually accurate, they were just being used in a misleading way.

1. Record rate of ice growth in the arctic? Yes, in the annual recovery from a dramatically falling minimum. There is less ice there each year, and the rapid growth in fall is matched by rapid loss in spring.

I was a little gobsmacked when I re-read the original article:

Quote:

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 11:55 AM

By: Phil Brennan

Are the world’s ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory? Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.'

This is an article written in February, toward the end of winter. It says "Last January (in winter) there was lots of ice. By October (the end of summer) there wasn't much ice. Now it's winter again, and there's a lot more ice: almost as much as there was last winter." That's *exactly* what the data show, but it's also utterly natural that there's more ice in winter than in summer (duh!), and not at all evidence of 'scare mongering' to note that a few more years of 'almost as much' will eventually mean 'very little'.

2. Ozone low in 2001 and high in 2006? Well, off by a year on the minimum, but generally true. But it was used to claim that the ozone layer is not recovering, when the data as a whole clearly show that it is, or at the very least not getting worse at the rapid rate it used to be.

In both cases the strategy used is 'cherrypicking': choosing specific narrow data points that support a position while ignoring general trends that don't.

[Bravus]

the point is, the whole CFC's caused the ozone hole is hooey. Maybe. Maybe not. Since we don't know if the hole was larger before CFC's were in common use, we don't know if there is any causal link.

Except that, you know, there is a very clear causal mechanism: CFCs do break down ozone, and one CFC molecule can stay around for a long time and break down a lot of ozone. We can see that in the lab. And we can sample the ozone layer and find the CFCs there. Chemistry says that when those two things are in contact, breakdown occurs. So it's not all correlational, because there's a causal mechanism.