SkepticLance

To swansont I made the claim that an error bar of one standard deviation is not good science. It was my conclusion - not the author's. And you have not addressed my conclusion. One standard deviation includes only 68% of the data points. I was taught to work to 95%, not 68%. The vastly greater error makes the conclusions from those models very suspect in my opinion.

To Rev Ignoring all those ridiculous posts between yours and this one ..... Not really arguing with you, but I think you may be just a wee bit negative on things. First : Our environment record. I don't think it is as bad as you make out. Things have actually improved a lot over the past 100 years in the western world. You may recall the old 'pea-soup' smogs reported in literature for London 100 years ago. Those are now a thing of the past. The River Thames was then quite toxic. Today salmon swim in it. The same applies to the whole east coast of the USA. Once toxic. Now much cleaner. The real environment problems today are in those nations going through the stage of development that the west did 100 years ago. ie. China and Eastern Europe. And they are working to clean things up. Second : Capitalism. It is not the function of capitalism to clean up the environment. Their function is to make money and get it to their shareholders. However, responsible capitalists have as a guiding value the requirement to obey the law. Thus, it is the law (ie government) that has the role of driving the cleaning of the environment. This was true in the past, and is now true for the reduction of carbon emissions.

To pioneer In my opinion, the most likely chain of cause and effect goes like this. Ice age = hardship Thawing of ice = possibility of agriculture Development of agriculture = more food available More food = possibility of human vocational specialties, such as specialised tool makers and larger communities Then development of cities etc. The word 'civilisation' comes from a root meaning 'city dweller'. All this happened as a result of the warming of the Earth. Three cheers for global warming!

In a previous thread, I made the statement that GCMs cannot predict cloud formation accurately and this constitutes a major source of error in those models. I was subject to an attempt at personal ridicule for my trouble. This is what Dr. Franks says about the effect of cumulative errors relating to cloud formation on long term predictions. " The result is a little embarrassing. The physical uncertainty accumulates rapidly and is so large at 100 years that accommodating it has almost flattened the steep SRES A2 projection of Figure 1. The ±4.4°C uncertainty at year 4 already exceeds the entire 3.7°C temperature increase at 100 years. By 50 years, the uncertainty in projected temperature is ±55°. At 100 years, the accumulated physical cloud uncertainty in temperature is ±111 degrees. Recall that this huge uncertainty stems from a minimal estimate of GCM physical cloud error." Does this not make predictions from the GCMs rather ridiculous?

To Rev Can you be more specific about which crops took over your garden? If it was glyphosate resistant canola, why did they take over? Do you rely on glyphosate for weed control? Can you not dig them out, or use an alternative herbicide?

This morning I read an article by Dr. Patrick Frank. http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v14n01_climate_of_belief.html He presents a sceptical argument in relation to global warming. He does not deny global warming as such, but throws real doubts on the reliability and accuracy of the computer models used by such organisations as the IPCC. Before I go any further, let me make this clear. I am not trying to deny anthropogenic global warming. This argument is purely about the reliability and accuracy of climate computer models. Dr. Franks suggests, with considerable evidence to support this, that these models are not to be relied upon. He points out that the predictions for the next 100 years (shown on the graph in his article as figure 1) include error bars that are merely ONE standard deviation from the mean. In other words, 32% of the data points generated by the computer programs lie outside these error bars. This is simply not acceptable as good science. I was always taught that we need to work at the 95% confidence level. 68% is simply not good science. In addition, this is only those errors that are internally generated by the computer model. It does not include errors that come from input data that is uncertain or plain wrong. A major source of this kind of data copmes from uncertaincies surrounding cloud formation. Franks, in his figure 3, shows levels of cloud formations at different latitudes as from direct observation compared to model prediction. The error from the models compared to reality varies from 5% to 85% depending on latitude. When you add these errors to the internally generated errors, we get results with error bars that make the results totally meaningless. To those who would like to comment, I would ask you to actually read the article first. Thank you.

To agentchange it is a shame that you used two separate graphs. When the two are graphed on the same sheet, using the same time scale, it becomes clear that warming precedes CO2 rise. In fact, by about 800 years on average. In other words, the warming is the cause and the CO2 rise is the effect. Though people will jump on me and say that the increase in CO2 becomes the cause, driving warming further. The data is clear. Initially at least, the warming occurs before CO2 increase. Thus, at least at first, the warming is cause and CO2 increase the effect. How can this happen? The best explanation I have seen is related to gas solubility in the sea. As the sea warms (for whatever cause), the CO2 dissolved in it loses solubility and gases out, increasing the level in the atmosphere.

Re alchemy In the 1950s and 1960s crops were modified by mutation. The gene plasm was exposed to radiation or to mutagenic chemicals. Thousands of different mutations resulted, and the crops that were grown from these were tested and weeded out until only beneficial (to humans) mutations remained. Dozens of these mutant crops are still being grown, to the benefit of the entire human species. I would suggest that THIS approach was alchemy, not GM. Random mutation carries the risk of unpredictable results, much more so than using known genes. Today, a small number of genes are routinely inserted into various plants. The results are generally well predicted, since these are well known genes, with well tested effects. Even so, the final result undergoes safety tests by the hundreds before being permitted to become part of our normal agriculture. Do you call this alchemy?

To swansont There was a major article in Scientific American (July 2006, page 59) about liquifying hydrogen and sending it down a pipeline. The twist was that the pipeline was made of aluminium and was also used as a superconducting conduit for electric power. Naturally the whole had to be VERY heavily insulated - against heat and electricity. The authors were suggesting the system as a whole national grid. I do not know how practical or likely the idea is, but the SciAm authors are usually very expert in their field.

Golden rice is now in its Mark II version, which has enough beta carotene to supply a child with vitamin A at levels preventing disease. The genes for this can be cross bred into any number of rice varieties, maintaining genetic variability. The anti-GM mob are still working hard to ban this variety, and hence condemn 500,000 children each year to death. There is now a food crisis under way. Waiting in the wings to make this much worse is a new form of stem rust which attacks wheat. Current wheat varieties cannot resist this disease, and many millions of people could die of starvation due to crop losses. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/opinion/26borlaug.html?_r=2&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin We MUST breed a new strain of wheat to resist this disease, or else genetically modify wheat to achieve the same end. Millions of lives depend on it, and we cannot afford to be held back by the superstitions and dogmas of the anti-GM crowd.

What iNow is getting at, I suspect, is that chimps can be taught to use sign language, and communication can be excellent.

GE misused has the power to cause real problems. The worst would be if it was used in bio-warfare. We have a case already where a mouse-pox virus was engineered and the relatively benign virus became a very lethal killer of mice. To do the same to smallpox could create something able to kill humans by the billion. However, I really cannot see any way to stop governments applying GE to bio-warfare. I am cynical enough to doubt that governments abide by international treaties, either. I suspect the treaties just drive the research underground, to make it even more secret. However, I think we have to leave bio-warfare out of this discussion. Talking about that is like asking if nuclear fission is useful, and concentrating the discussion on the A bomb. Outside of bio-warfare, I believe GE will be a great boon to humankind. It is in its infancy now. The earliest modified crops are just 12 years old. Most such crops to data have been made by commercial companies and used to make money, with the other benefit being to make life a little easier for farmers. The irony is that the few crops engineered for altruistic reasons have been scuppered by the anti-GM mob, who claim their main thrust is to fight against multi-national corporations. Thus, golden rice (vitamin A enriched) which could save literally millions of human lives, has never left the laboratory, since the anti-GM mob have successfully lobbied various governments to stop its release. If we can only stop that kind of idiocy, then GE can be a great boon.

To Rev That is quite a comprehensive reply, with los of good material to ponder. I am going to shove my oar in with a few points also. First : I believe that, while synthetic chemicals can cause harm if misused, so-called natural toxins do far more harm. As a minor example : today's local newspaper was reporting on 22 people poisoned with a natural poison called tutin that came in honey. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10506819&ref=rss The worst 'natural' chemicals of the lot are those that are found in smoke. Tobacco smoke is thought to kill 400,000 to 500,000 people per year in the USA alone, and more than that in China. World-wide, the death toll is in the millions. Yet smoke, from whatever source, has to be considered 'natural'. Incense smoke causes lung cancer, as does marijuana, and the smoke attached to smoked meat causes lip, throat and stomach cancer in those peoples who eat a lot of smoked meat. Icelandics are the worst affected. http://www.purlife.com/Stomach.htm You mentioned pressure treated wood. That is the process that uses cycles of pressure and vacuum to impregnate wood with copper sulfate, sodium dichromate, and arsenic pentoxide. The New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture some years ago carried out a test to see what would happen if CCA treated sawdust was mixed with soil, and vegetables grown in that soil. Sorry I do not have a reference for this, but the trial was done many years ago before reports were placed on the internet. The end result was a slightly elevated level of arsenic in the tips of root vegetables. Apart from that, the vegetables were perfectly wholesome and fine to eat. It appears that the toxic salts are really hard to leach from the wood, and do not enter the food chain except to a very minor extent. Final point is that, as chemical use increases, so does human life-span. In third world countries, the abuse of toxic agricultural chemicals is really bad, and this definitely harms people's health. In first world countries, I see little evidence of that happening.

Whether your definitions are based on IQ, brain power, abstract thinking ability etc., they are all relative. There are no black and white criteria. I suspect that a lot of human morons are less intelligent than a lot of chimps. We have a continuum of brain power ranging from Albert Einstein at one end, and a bacterium at the other. There are no sharp discontinuities where we can say " "beneath this level is a non person." Where we draw the line will always be a subjective decision.

In another thread we started discussing the impact of agri-chemicals on human health and the environment. This is a subject that needs its own thread. I have titled it 'chemophobia' after the often irrational fears many parts of society have of chemicals. There are several questions here. 1. Are agri-chemicals a net benefit or detrement? 2. Are they over used? 3. Is organic farming any better? 4. What about chemicals in industry and in the home? 5. What about chemicals of a more 'natural' source? 6. Where is the main benefit and where is the main harm from chemicals? 7. What changes should be made? 8. Should we be afraid? Comments?

To Rev The question of chemicals and their impact is a good one, but not appropriate to this thread. I am starting a new thread under the title 'chemophobia'.

To yourdad My choice is based on brain power. A tetraplegic human is more a 'person' than a chimp because he/she has more brain power. A chimp is more a 'person' than an anencephalic for the same reason. Where I would get into real trouble making a choice is deciding whether to save two bottlenose dolphins or one human. I simply do not know which has the most brain power, and hence is more deserving of saving. I would certainly allow a human to die to save a whole pod of those dolphins. You will note that the bottlenose dolphin is just about the only animal in our size range with a similar ratio of brain weight to body weight compared to humans, and is hence very likely to be close in sheer brain power.

I agree with coreview that nuclear fission must become more and more important, whether using pebble bed technology or some other form. Deep geothermal will, I think, be more limited to certain geographic areas, such as Iceland. Here in New Zealand, a pilot project is under way to mount enormous propellers inside Cook Strait to run on the very substantial tidal flow. Tidal power has the potential to supply my country's future needs for at least the next 50 years. Wave power is probably the most energy rich of all 'renewable' sources. Once the bugs are out of the system (main bug being that the frequent '100 year' storms tend to wreck the entire wave power plants) this can supply a very large part of the entire world's power needs.

To yourdad In reply to your post 41, I would definitely save the chimp. As I said earlier, an anencephalic is just a lump of meat with blood flowing through it. Not a human. It can only be a baby lump of meat, since anencephalics do not live long. Chimps, as you pointed out, have many human characteristics. However, they are not human, so must be accorded, by my subjective system of values, less priority than a human - if that human has a normal functioning human brain. So if the choice was to save a chimp or a tetraplegic human, then I would save the human.

To Rev I have no problem with the use of chemicals in agriculture, as long as it is done in a properly managed and educated fashion. I would oppose the use of atrazine for the reasons I gave earlier, but I see no real problem with glyphosate, which is quite rapidly biodegradable, and low in toxicity to soil animals, birds, fish, amphibians and people. I have a plot of land which is overgrown with kaikuia weed. I am replanting it in native rainforest species. To prepare for planting, I spray the weed with glyphosate, and plant my native trees in the patch of dead weed. If I did not do this, the weed would strangle the young tree. When the trees are tall enough, they will shade out the weed and thus kill it. Until then, I have to keep spraying to keep it from harming the trees. I would get more upset about the widespread use of copper sulfate as an organic spray to control fungal attack. Copper sulfate is a liver toxin to people and has killed people, and is extremely toxic to earthworms - is not biodegradable and can stay in soil for decades. The use of this chemical shows that organic farmers are just as stupid and environmentally irresponsible as other farmers everywhere.

Swansont said "Choosing 1998 as one endpoint is cherry-picking, as it was an anomalously high value. Choose 1997 or 1999 and re-do the analysis, and see what you get" The proper approach is to use the five year running mean. This shows a small warming over the past decade, but less than the previous two, which is what I pointed out.

To yourdad We all have our own way of defining humanity. To me, it is based on mentality. This is why I have no strong anti-abortion views. The fetus being aborted has very little brain and hence very little humanity. In the same way, a baby which is born suffering from anencephaly is really little more than a lump of meat with no humanity. For those who do not know; anencephaly is a neural tube defect in which the bulk of the brain never develops. The baby is born with limited hind brain - enough to keep the heart beating for a short time, but no part of the brain that leads to intelligence, self-awareness etc. However, any person with a brain, and with consciousness, must be considered by my code of values to be worth saving. As a basic rule of thumb, if a person can communicate and respond to other peoples communications in an intelligent manner, he or she must be considered human and his/her life of great value.

I was reading through one of Bascule's references : http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/ and I came across something interesting and (to me) amusing. The past decade has seen little temperature rise overall. 1998 was a very hot year, and it was exceeded marginally by 2005. However, the period overall really showed no, or next to no overall warming. This period involved significant increase in CO2, and the greenhouse effect should have resulted in an increase in temperature of 0.18 Celsius or thereabouts. It did not. Why? The answer is simple. The last 5 years have been years where sunspot activity has diminished substantially. This has countered the expected warming. Bascules reference says : "Several analyses have extracted empirical global temperature variations of about 0.1 C associated with the 10-11 year solar cycle. Just pointing out to Bascule, Swansont etc that sunspots DO have a substantial effect on global temperature. Of course, over the next few years, with sunspot activity increasing, there will be a sizeable warming.

To Rev You might be interested to now that there is also a canola that is genetically modified to be resistant to atrazine. Atrazine is a MUCH, MUCH worse herbicide than glyphosate (active in Roundup). It degrades more slowly; is more toxic to people and to soil animals, and is a very potent 'gender bender' for amphibians, and is a suspected cause of dramatic drops in wild frog populations. The interesting thing is that glyphosate resistant canola is the target for major protest action by the anti-GM brigade, while atrazine resistant canola is not. Why??? The reason is that the latter was a natural mutation that was selected and propogated. In my opinion, both canolas were genetically modified - just one by man and one by nature. The latter is the one leading to real abuse of the natural environment. To Mr. Skeptic. Please don't go down that path. 'Adequate precautions' is an incredibly subjective definition. GM crops today undergo up to 1000 different laboratory and field tests before approval. The anti-GM mob define this amount of testing as inadequate. I define the anti-GM mob as irrational, unreasonable, and off their heads.

Ultinately a value system is subjective, and cannot be justified using strict objective criteria. Asking for such is a waste of everyone's time. I am subjectively rather fond of the species Homo sapiens. My value system puts human life right up there, and I make no apology. I do not need to justify it. According to my subjective value system, a human life is worth more than a billion ants.