“Truth? You can't handle the truth!”

[Tjm86]

Bloody Hell!  It's the mutant offspring of the political thread!   

[JPMaybe]

[/url]...but what would be the point? You would undoubtedly find some fault with them all and extrapolate that fault, real or imagined, to indicate an overall lack of plausibility for any data you don't like.

Yet again I prove to be more of a masochist than Jim. And I had to cut out this particular portion for its shear, bald-faced, up-is-down lack of introspection and myopia. Not one of those graphs refutes the fact of a massively increased rate of global heating that just happens to coincide with the industrial era. If you're going to do the Gish Gallop at least make it relevant (not that you could, because contrary data just doesn't exist).

[Proudhuff]

Amongst all the festive beer cheer you might have missed this:

Green energy projects are now the largest generator of electricity in Scotland, according to new figures.

Department of Energy and Climate Change statistics showed almost half (49.7%) of Scotland's electricity demand came from renewable sources in 2014.

Scotland exported 23.7% of what it generated.

With that figure taken in to account, renewables provided 38% of electricity generated - above both nuclear, at 33%, and fossil fuels, at 28%.

Scotland has a target of generating 50% of its energy from green sources by 2015.




In 2014, Scotland generated 49,929 GWh of electricity with renewable electricity generation delivering 18,962 GWh.

Renewable generation for last year was up 11.9% on 2013, which was a previous record.

The sector north of the border employs 21,000 people directly and last year produced almost a third (29%) of the UK's renewable energy.

Sources of renewable electricity include hydro, wind, tidal, solar and biomass developments.



rest of info here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-35160271

[Hawkmumbler]

Jesus Sharky, next you'll be telling us Dinosaurs never existed!

[The Legendary Shark]

So, Tordels, all swans are white?  I'm sure there are conspiracies, on both sides, but I wouldn't say that all pro-ACC research is funded by the carbon tax lobby or governments and therefore invalid. If I wanted to make that argument, all I'd have to do is point to people like Al Gore, who make millions out of carbon trading and such. But that's the beauty of science - you can actually establish who was right, it's not a talent show.

I agree that the idea of increased yields and reduced water use is no excuse for continuing to pump too much CO2 into the atmosphere - I never claimed otherwise. I was pointing out that, as gaseous emissions go, CO2 is not as bad as dioxins, for example. The greatest threat from our high CO2 emissions, from what I see, is the acidification of the oceans - which is a serious problem.

The desertification of agricultural land cannot be laid at the door of CO2 - there are myriad causes from deforestation to over-exploitation of water sources to over-farming to urbanization to the damming of rivers.

JPM again moves the goalposts. I never claimed to have irrefutable proof. Neither does anyone else. The climate is so complex and dynamic that irrefutable proof one way or the other is practically impossible to find. The fact that the climate is warming anyway due to natural decadal, centennial and millennial fluctuations, and that the Earth is coming out of an ice age, is fairly well established. To put the two data sets together (in this case, industrialisation and temperature trends) is bound to show a correlation, but this is almost certainly confirmation bias. Studies have indicated that, historically, atmospheric CO2 content lags behind temperature fluctuations by between ~600 and ~1,000 years.

The El Niño phenomena on its own raises the surface temperature of the tropical pacific anywhere between .5c and 3.0c (and rarely even higher) depending on its intensity. This has a noticeable knock-on effect on the global climate for around six months; so comparing atmospheric CO2 content to atmospheric temperature during an intense El Niño phase, or even a weak one, will invariably lead to false correlations.

Further, many of the climate stations used for gathering data are located in urban areas, where it is well known that microclimates diverge from the overall norm. A sensing station in the car park of a university is bound to show skewed results. Building a wall near to a sensing unit, or parking cars next to it, also skews results. Reliable satellite data is also a fairly recent development, with more sensitive instruments only being put into orbit from around 2000 onward, so much of the pre-2000 satellite data is unreliable.

Complicated computer generated climate models are notoriously unreliable and have failed to predict actual warming to any realistic degree. The climate continues to do its own thing, no matter what the predictions say.

Then we add the conspiracies, the money, the human fallibilities and all the other stuff and it adds up to a huge mass of uncertainties and contradictions. There is simply no irrefutable proof one way or the other and to demand it before you'd even begin to look at counter-indications seems a bit silly to me.

To quote Donald Rumsfeld (dear God - shoot me now!), "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." The climate is a massive confusion of these things in a constant state of flux. So yes, JPM, you're absolutely correct - I do not have irrefutable proof - if anybody did, we wouldn't be having this discussion!

And Huffy - well done, Scotland!

[The Legendary Shark]

Jesus Sharky, next you'll be telling us Dinosaurs never existed!

Don't be ridiculous. Of course dinosaurs existed - who do you think built the Moon?

[JPMaybe]

To quote Donald Rumsfeld (dear God - shoot me now!), "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." The climate is a massive confusion of these things in a constant state of flux. So yes, JPM, you're absolutely correct - I do not have irrefutable proof - if anybody did, we wouldn't be having this discussion!

You've got absolutely nothing. You don't know what confirmation bias means. You have absolutely no relevant education.You think your generation of quantification-free hypotheticals ad nauseum means a damn thing compared to known physical properties and the body of evidence that makes AGW as much a fact as evolution. 95% of climatologists.

We would still be having this conversation because no standard of evidence would be sufficient for you.  You're part of the reason the next generation will be facing a desertified hellscape to live on.

Congrats, your boundless solipsism and intellectual arrogance means you're a shill for the corporate forces you claim to oppose.

[The Legendary Shark]

And a merry Christmas to you, too, JPM.

[ZenArcade]

Dinosaurs built the moon: I've never heard such claptrap. Surely it ihas been established beyond all possible doubt that it is made from cheese. Z

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Yeah, but it's cheese made from Dinosaur milk

[The Legendary Shark]

S'right - that's why it's green cheese, innit?

[Dandontdare]

Nothing earth-shattering, but an interesting article about conspiracy theorists:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/26/the-truth-is-rushing-out-there-why-conspiracies-spread-faster-than-ever

[Jim_Campbell]

Jim, your predictable and tiresome trademark ad hominem attacks aside

Actually, I'm not prepared to let that one slide.

It's not an ad hom to point out that you are re-presenting arguments that held no validity and were comprehensively and authoritatively refuted the last time we had this exact same discussion.

It is, in fact, a very clear demonstration of the utter futility of 'discussing' anything with you, since it is apparent that this 'just asking questions', 'enquiring mind seeking after truth' schtick of yours is more likely the unquestioning adoption of a contrarian stance to the mainstream opinion on no sounder basis than the fact it is contrarian.

There is, as JPMaybe points out, no standard of evidence presented against the flimsy arguments you advance on the hot-button-topic-du-jour which you will accept. Today, global warming, will we be back to vaccines tomorrow? Or shall we do another round on the World Trade Centre?

Jim

[W. R. Logan]

It's at times like this that you can see why there was an exodus of people away from here.

[Jim_Campbell]

It's at times like this that you can see why there was an exodus of people away from here.

Weren't you leaving forever? Or was that me? ;-)

Cheers!

Jim