Thread: GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHANGE TRUE/FALSE

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

But when I read that sentence of yours I've gotta wonder: Why bother participating in the first place then?

because there are still interesting and important questions that can be discussed competently.
science is not a democracy it's largely meritocracy, however our western societies are currently based on political equality (everybody gets to cast one vote). so while somebody's opinion on science may be completely irrelevant due to their incompetence/ignorance, their opinion on how the society should be organized is perfectly valid and important.

Originally Posted by Kngfish

Not just my opinion bost most hard scientist I know feel the same way. This is not a platitude, we spend a small fraction on the hard science compared to this environmental simplistic stuff because it has the emotional attachment that gets popular opinion going.

My feeling is that this is mostly a perception because of politically driven propaganda. As far as I can tell there haven't been drastic changes in funding. Yes, these days 'green/clean energy' is another buzz word that seems necessary to be included in funding applications, the same way say 'nano' and 'bio' became a necessity in the last decade or so. Here's an overview of the federal spending on science&engineering research nsf.gov - S&E Indicators 2010 - Chapter 4. Research and Development: National Trends and International Linkages - Federal R&D - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

As far as education goes, the republicans (with the exception of the bushs' administrations) and now the teapartiers have been running on dismantling the department of education since its creation. Here in US federal involvement has been fairly minimal, everything important is determined on state level. Even the No child left behind program left it up to the states to decide how to set testing standards and the current Race to the top is also leaving it to the states to come up with their own solutions.
Usually the teachers want more money, but as far as I can tell from comparing different states more money doesn't seem to automatically improve education.
I'm in NY which has the largest public school system and as far as I know the latest attempt of setting and meeting higher standards ended up in improving test scores by making the tests easier.

The tenure system for teachers has been around for a long time and it seems to produce rather good results, but everybody seems to want better. At higher education level it works extremely well, but higher education prioritizes research over teaching. Incentivizing teachers based on quantitative metrics seems quite reasonable, so it may be mostly a matter of finding a good balance for it.

I also know that for quite some time federal funding for academia has been requiring fairly large 'outreach' component to the projects, which seems to be a good way to improve interest in science.

So, I really don't have any better ideas how to improve the science education beyond of what is currently being tried, but a lot of the arguments on the subject that I see seem to be purely politically/self-interest based. I actually like the way the current administration has approached the issue.

Originally Posted by gugi

because there are still interesting and important questions that can be discussed competently.
science is not a democracy it's largely meritocracy, however our western societies are currently based on political equality (everybody gets to cast one vote). so while somebody's opinion on science may be completely irrelevant due to their incompetence/ignorance, their opinion on how the society should be organized is perfectly valid and important.




My feeling is that this is mostly a perception because of politically driven propaganda. As far as I can tell there haven't been drastic changes in funding. Yes, these days 'green/clean energy' is another buzz word that seems necessary to be included in funding applications, the same way say 'nano' and 'bio' became a necessity in the last decade or so. Here's an overview of the federal spending on science&engineering research nsf.gov - S&E Indicators 2010 - Chapter 4. Research and Development: National Trends and International Linkages - Federal R&D - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

.

If there is a political agenda driving the science, it is surely behind the Enviro movement. Kids making solar ovens gets way more attention than the kids in lab doing a titration. Look at NASA and how it is being treated and diminshed. I don't know Gugi, I doubt my views on this have little to do with politics from either side. All politicians can do is set standards for mediocrity and more layers of menutia . So much money being spent on polically correct issues that are embarassing to me as an educator and many of my higher thinking students.
Once in a while, I actual want teach. Each group that comes into power has their own agenda and the crap never leaves
Thanks for the link, but that kind of funding is not the main problem, it is now a huge beaurocratic infrastructure with many tentacles at all levels of gov't that are involved.
I try very hard not to look at what is happening in the scientific community from a poltical point of view, but the momentum and shift and propoganda toward greener science is obvious.
That is fine, but like I said, the tree huggin pansy sniffers are not going to advance the real science.
More later.
Mike

Scientific consensus is that Climate change is happening, and that our man's contributions to the atmosphere since the industiral revolution have contributed significantly.

I'll go with the consensus, seeing as the scientists who are denying it are the same people who worked with the tobacco companies to claim that nicotine isn't addictive.

And people talk about the "political agenda of the scientist" as if the big oil corporations don't have any agenda in keeping us addicted to their products.

Originally Posted by Kingfish

If there is a political agenda driving the science, it is surely behind the Enviro movement. Kids making solar ovens gets way more attention than the kids in lab doing a titration.

Yeah but where is all this alleged money that is being wasted on useless research? I can certainly point to the money that is being spent on technology that actually turns national park type of scenery into moonscapes, so if we're going to go by the amount of money spent I'm afraid your agenda theory will end up with the exact opposite result than what you're claiming.

You teach chemistry, so I'm sure you realize that making solar oven, performing titration, solving a partial differential equation, making a crystal radio, or shaping a piece of ice into a loupe to set an ant on fire is just as good for the purpose of kindling interest in science and just as useless as a scientific breakthrough. In my view the goal of school and early college level science education is to teach students simple logic and stem some curiosity and creativity in their minds.


The problem is that if you look at the current trends of the society (globalization, increase of living standards and energy cost of that), as long as you are willing to extend the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness to all human beings you are looking at some rather dramatic increases of energy use in near future.
The thing is that burning fossil is not the most efficient use of solar energy, it's just the cheapest. And mid 18th century chemistry tells us that using that energy comes at a cost of ending with vast quantities of carbon compounds. Refusing to acknowledge this is incompetence, refusing to quantify the consequences of it is stupidity, and I don't have much use for either.
I have no expertise on the matter, but I have enough rational thinking to support scientific research on this subject and want the policies to take into account the results of this research. From what I've read in the scientific literature the science on it looks to me pretty legit, to the extent that I can judge another field.


As far as NASA goes, the same is true with the funding for say high-energy physics - it's been going down for a while more or less because the american society doesn't see much financial return on it's investment.
Just look what the biggest chunks of federal money is spent on and that will tell you what is being valued. The good news is that the space research doesn't need government level funding anymore - there are private enterprises that are getting into it and turning it into a regular profit-driven business. I have no problem with the government pulling out of it and leaving it to the private business.


Lastly, every time the oil prices spike everybody jumps on the bandwagon of how the politicians have been talking for decades about energy independence and never do anything. Well, all these 'green and clean energies' are part of that, along with nuclear energy. The truth is that if it were an easy problem it would have been solved by now. But it's not. The research into improved energy storage (batteries) and more efficient solar energy conversion (photovoltaics) has been going on for decades with only marginal improvements compared to say improvements in computing where miniaturization has been doubling every two years for decades.
I mean, if you can put a really good solar panel on your roof and some very efficient batteries in your attic and not have to pay a single dime for electricity and gas ever again, wouldn't you like that? Or do you reject the idea only because a 'tree hugging pansy sniffer' tells you that you're immoral and evil person for using the cheapest current solution of burning fossils?

Or say I work on high-temperature superconductivity - why wouldn't I get money for my research under 'green energy' as it can potentially eliminate the losses on electrical power transmission and thus save not only on your electrical bill, but also on coal pollution?

Or why would you subsidize corn production, so that you can convert solar energy into cellulose then cellulose into ethanol and then burn ethanol to release the energy, and not subsidize the photovoltaics which convert solar energy directly into electricity which can be used directly into whatever type of energy you need?

There is of course a lot of money into these things, that's because they are rather important. The same way there was money into railways, paved roads, pipelines, electrical lines, communication lines. All these things have profited people who have bribed politicians, but at the end of the day they have also dramatically improved the standard of living of almost everybody in the society.

As you can see there's a lot more politics than science in the established system, and as far as I can tell the current administration's relationship with science is in the direction I like.

Or why don't we just switch cars over to diesel here in the states and consume 30% less energy and lessen the evil CO2? Our gov't is being strangled by litigation and short sighted beaucratic unrealistic CARB standards. There is very little common sense left in policy making when we send lawers to DC.

Diesel, as you know is a cleaner fuel than gas in terms of emmisiions. Stinking Californiating laws are driving the country away from immediate things we really can do..Such a simple solution that would have a profound effect and not involve taxing an ailing electorate.

Originally Posted by Kingfish

Diesel, as you know is a cleaner fuel than gas in terms of emmisiions.

It's not. Roughly 50% of the cars on the road in Europe are diesels. It's true that the exhaust particulate emission has reduced considerably over the past few years due to common rail technology and the use of particulate traps.
I work on diesel powered passenger automobiles every day and the particulate traps on the newest vehicles are giving us maintenance headaches, because if the vehicles aren't subjected to hard use on a daily basis the traps block up beyond the ability of the technology to re-generate them.
In Europe the days of the diesel automobile are numbered because it looks like only gasoline engines will be able to meet future Euro spec. emission limits.
Just stand in our workshop for 10 minutes and you would soon realise that diesels aren't as clean burning as gasoline engines

Lets be honest here. The only reason climate change has turned political is because the giant corporations that pollute our air and water don't want to spend more money on reducing their pollution. The republican party has decided to side with them and together they have convinced many people who choose to ignore the science that either it isn't happening at all, or that human activity has no contributing factor at all.

Originally Posted by welshwizard

It's not. Roughly 50% of the cars on the road in Europe are diesels. It's true that the exhaust particulate emission has reduced considerably over the past few years due to common rail technology and the use of particulate traps.
I work on diesel powered passenger automobiles every day and the particulate traps on the newest vehicles are giving us maintenance headaches, because if the vehicles aren't subjected to hard use on a daily basis the traps block up beyond the ability of the technology to re-generate them.
In Europe the days of the diesel automobile are numbered because it looks like only gasoline engines will be able to meet future Euro spec. emission limits.
Just stand in our workshop for 10 minutes and you would soon realise that diesels aren't as clean burning as gasoline engines

I respect your work and opinion, but I look at it in terms of effciency. Diesels produce less CO2 because they are about 30 more efficient overall. (That is pretty close if you do the basic stoich given the slightly greater density of the diesel) They are not the only answer, but for long distance driving, they are the greenest pragmatic solution. Hybrids work well in populated areas.

As far as particulate emissions and NH3 injection and all that other stuff. We have to polute to some degree. Government standards are set to unrealistic standards and we get no place. Common sense goes out the window, the average man gets screwed and the political class ride around in jets.

Most of us are not buying it anymore.........and getting very ****ed off

Originally Posted by markevens

Lets be honest here. The only reason climate change has turned political is because the giant corporations that pollute our air and water don't want to spend more money on reducing their pollution. The republican party has decided to side with them and together they have convinced many people who choose to ignore the science that either it isn't happening at all, or that human activity has no contributing factor at all.

You seem to forget that Mr. Al Gore is the one who discovered a way to make a fortune by promoting global warming without any solid proof. And from that point on it became more political. Also there's a lot of corruption on the way the data has been handled.

On the other hand, the believers of global warming never mention what are they doing to minimize the problem.

Originally Posted by markevens

Lets be honest here. The only reason climate change has turned political is because the giant corporations that pollute our air and water don't want to spend more money on reducing their pollution. The republican party has decided to side with them and together they have convinced many people who choose to ignore the science that either it isn't happening at all, or that human activity has no contributing factor at all.

Mark,
do you honestly think giant corperations are Republicans?????????????They donate to both parties. 2008, Dems won the corperate, banking and insurance company lotto. Look it up. Besides, they have there hands tied, you might be very interested to see where the big monies are comming from and then try to figure out what they want to get out of their Manchurian candidates..It really should be illegal....those 501c3. How can the IRS let them get away with it?

Boy did we ever get duped on that "reform". Now we have individuals, really wicked ideologs indirectly forming public policies that HATE our system of representative government.

United we stand,...Divided they screw us and blame the other party. Don't be so naive to think that either of these parties deserve that kind of confidence to seperate us on real issues.

The tea party is looking better each day..