Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[trish]

But Yvonne, you must agree that's a very unpersuasive argument. It strikes me of having pretty much the following form:

Premise 1: Well understood principles of physics and chemistry predict that the "sudden release" (over the time scale of a couple hundred years) of fossilized greenhouse gasses will slow the rate at which the Earth can radiate energy but not slow the rate at which it receives energy. The prediction correlates with the meteorological records (man made records, ice core records, tree ring records, the northward shifting of habitats etc.). The overwhelming majority of climatologists are persuaded by the evidence and the physical theory that indeed the Earth's climate is undergoing a period of heat imbalance due to the release of fossil carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses and is consequently seeking a new equilibrium which will result in noticeable climate shifts.

Premise 2. We get to decide what if anything we want to do about the climate change. Tax fossil fuel consumption? Encourage the invention and use of other forms of energy production? Forget about it? What to do about climate change is a separate issue, distinct from the issue that climate change is currently being driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

Premise 3. Some Hollywood movie stars endorse the idea that we should enact conservation measures to help offset if not equalize the current unequal rates at which the Earth gains and loses energy.

Premise 4. Some of those Hollywood movie stars (to which premise 3 refers) are not perceived as leading very conservation minded lives.

Conclusion: Therefore the whole theory of global warming is bogus.

You don't have to base your conclusions on what non-experts (whom who find irritating) tell you. You don't need premises 3 and 4. Indeed, premise 3 and 4 are absolutely irrelevant. You're smart enough to look into it yourself and arrive at a conclusion based on rational procedures.

[trish]

Let’s examine the charge that Michelle Bachmann as made (and that has been repeated here) against climatologists. It is the charge that the model of global climate change endorsed by most climate scientists is a scam for raking the dough and getting rich on grant money. Obviously Michele doesn’t know how the grant system works.

The average university climatologist will make somewhere between $35000 to $100000 a year. Those near the top end of the range are the rare and considered the big guns of climate theory. Compare that to what the average oil company CEO makes. Compare it to what the secondary executive officers make.

What happens when a climatologist wins a grant?
The scientist never touches the money directly. The money goes through the university system and the grant funding agency. The scientist’s salary doesn’t go up. The grant does not supplement his or her salary. Instead the scientist draws his usual salary from the university, but the university reimbursed for that salary by the grant writing agency. See how that works. What else happens?

There’s usually equipment to by and people to hire. The climatologist will need to buy equipment and set up a lab. She will have to hire lab assistants and research assistants; i.e. jobs are created. They are typically filled by graduate students who work for very low stipends and free tuition. The climatologist research the equipment to buy, make out an order and submit the order to the grant funding agency. The agency will okay the order and pay the suppliers directly, or the university will pay the suppliers directly and then be later reimbursed by the grant funding agency. Similarly, the stipends for the labs and research assistants will be paid for my the university and the university will be reimbursed by the grant funding agency. It used to be the case that research involved a certain amount of travel. Of course it still does depending on your experiment. But it also involved traveling from one school to another to visit with colleagues in order to exchange ideas, advice, expertise etc. Skype has reduced the need for those sorts of one on one in-person conferences.

So far I don’t see a lot of money going to those alleged professorial swindlers. So what’s in it for the scientist who applied for and was awarded the grant?

Well here’s the deal. When not on a grant a research scientist is expected to teach, monitor the research of doctorate students and share in the executive responsibilities of the department and university. But when a research scientist has a grant, she will be relieved of some portion of these duties in order to work on the research for which the grant was awarded. That’s it. That’s the big deal. That’s what Michelle thinks scores are climatologists are falsifying their research for and risking their careers for...a diminished teaching load for a semester or two. Of course the real reward is the opportunity to explore a hypothesis, discover a tiny truth, push the boundaries of knowledge and perhaps contribute positively to the progress of science.

There is simply no big money to be made by faculty through the grant system. Now, as I already mentioned, there are some big guns who make in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars a year. They’ve acquired those salaries through competition with their peers. Universities want professors with big names to draw students. Also professors with big names have those big names because they’re good, and because they’re good they can get grants. If they can get grants, their salaries will be paid by the grant agency, not the university. So the university will offer the big guns bigger salaries. Not so difficult to follow is it?

The typical research professor will make way less than the typical provost. And at a large school, the typical provost will make way less than the football and basketball coaches. In academia, the money is in sports, not academia.

In regards to climate, if you want to follow the money, you need look no further than the oil, natural gas and coal interests. The corporations and cartels that drill, mine and refine.

[Stavros]

The only thing I would add to Trish's last post, is that in the UK, we have something called the Research Assessment Exercise, which ranks departments and universities according to a set of indicators, one of which is the ability to attract research funding. Although universities still get a government subsidy, since 1981 the government has expected departments to be as self-sufficient as they can be, which makes the academics go out into 'the market' to find money for research projects. The hard sciences do well, because new research in chemistry in relation to the drugs/medicine business, computing software, engineering and so on -have practical benefits to industry.

Climate change is an oddball, being a toxic mixture of science and politics -and economics and social policy too if you want to extend it- there is a lot of money in it right now, comparable to the explosion of research on HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, so its the kudos of having a world-renowned Centre for the study of this or that, or an eminent much-quoted/cited professor -in a sense, it is a pity that the need to attract research funding can sometimes make it look like the search for that money is more important than the research its supposed to be doing, but thats academic life.

Spare a thought for some poor sod in an English department who wants research funding to write a book on Images of Transexual Desire in the English Novel Between Richardson and McEwan...and yet publishers still agree to waste paper printing books about Shakeseapeare, like there is anything new to say about him.

[Ben]

The best environmental song...

[Ben]

[russtafa]

well global warming is as popular as as a turd at a pool party in Aussie

[Ben]

Published on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 by The Hill (Washington, DC) EU Climate Chief ‘Shocked’ at US Debate

by Ben Geman

European Union climate chief Connie Hedegaard is disposing of diplomatic niceties when describing U.S. political battles over climate change.
“I’m shocked that the political debate in the U.S. is so far away from the scientific facts,” she said, according to The Copenhagen Post.
“When more than 90 percent of researchers in the field are saying that we have to take [climate change] seriously, it is incredibly irresponsible to ignore it. It’s hard for a European to understand how it has become so fashionable to be anti-science in the U.S.,” Hedegaard said in the Post account, which reprints comments she made to the Danish paper Politiken.
“And when you hear American presidential candidates denying climate change, it’s difficult to take,” she said.
Her remarks come amid a split in the GOP presidential field, where candidates including Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann dispute the mainstream scientific view that the planet is warming and human activities are a key factor.
The European Union in 2007 committed to cut its overall emissions by at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and has offered much steeper cuts if other major emitting countries agree to an international deal.
The EU has also implemented a cap-and-trade system to curb emissions from power plants, factories and other facilities.
In the U.S., climate change legislation collapsed on Capitol Hill last year, while Environmental Protection Agency plans to craft greenhouse gas standards for power plants and refineries are under attack by Capitol Hill Republicans and some major industry groups.
EPA recently said it would delay the unveiling of proposed emissions standards for power plants that had been slated for Sept. 30. The agency maintains that it's committed to issuing the rules.
Internationally, hopes have faded — at least, for now — for a binding emissions-reduction treaty any time soon to replace the Kyoto Protocol, although the last two major United Nations summits have led to more modest agreements on deforestation, climate finance and other matters.
The next big U.N. climate summit will take place in Durban, South Africa, in late November. “In Durban we will attempt to lay out a plan with deadlines for when we will arrive at a legally binding agreement that includes both the U.S. and China,” Hedegaard said.
President Obama on Sunday attacked Perry on his climate views, drawing a counterattack from the Texas governor's camp. The president also said it’s imperative that “our planet doesn’t reach a tipping point in terms of climate change.”

© 2011 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp.

[russtafa]

climate science is a lot of bull and the left loves to suck up this bull which is made up by the UN scamer's, the real problem is their are far to many people on this earth

[trish]

...the real problem is their are far to many people on this earth

Too many people demanding oil and gas, burning it as fuel and releasing the anciently sequestered, infrared opaque carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, preventing heat radiation from escaping into space and fucking the the oceanic/atmospheric balance of energy and causing a global climate shift. Haven't you noticed whole bands of flora and fauna moving poleward?

Seems to me russtafa would like the UN to implement incentives for nations to downsize their populations. We should start with putting a limit on the number of children bigots are allowed to have.

[russtafa]

yeah yeah i seriously doubt it