[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] : rare common sense in mitigating global warming..please see opinion piece from wsj.

Tue Jul 26 09:16:29 PDT 2022

Ted,

> None of the models are subjected to even a rudimentary test against
actual data sets

I find this hard to believe. Why would you believe scientists who've
developed these models wouldn't follow basic best practices of testing?
I've worked with data scientists who train an ML model on a portion of the
dataset explicitly so they can test the predictive accuracy against the
rest of the data. This is a bold accusation that isn't true. For example,
here's a site that looks at James Hanson's early models against the real
world.

https://redgreenandblue.org/2020/02/14/james-hanson-climate-models-vs-real-world/

> Unless we break the "Government--University--Industrial Complex which is
filling and feeding at the trough of Global Catastrophism -- we will be
condemned to destroying the engine which has lifted at least 1/2 the
planet's population out of 19th C life and rescued more than 1B from
Medieval abject subsistence life

What's left after you remove the government, universities, and
corporations? No one is saying take us back to Medieval days. I think
you've either misunderstood the intention or listened to wrong
interpretations.

> As for Catastrophism -- I use it mostly in Rhetorical sense to describe
the "Chicken Littles" of the world such as Gretta and Al Gore neither of
whom would know a Hadley Cell from an Onion Skin nor a Geological Trap from
a Mouse Trap

Well, this is embarrassing. I don't know what those terms mean either. I
also don't fully understand how a fractal antenna works, but I trust the
experts who design my mobile phone do. Division of labor is a hallmark of
capitalism and frees us from having to spend our days learning minute
details of everything around us. I do spend my time trying to assess the
integrity and honesty of the sources of information I consult, to try to
differentiate between conspiracy theories and disinformation. I use the
ladder of inference to help me decide if the source has applied inductive
or deductive reasoning in a truthful and honest manner.

Regards,
Jerry

On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 11:28 AM Ted Kochanski <tedpkphd at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jerry, et al
>
> The problem of creating models and testing them against models is the
> essence of the issue
>
> None of the models are subjected to even a rudimentary test against actual
> data sets
>
> As I proposed more than a decade ago -- spend some time [say 5 years]
> developing a model using a base data set [say 5 years]-- then let the model
> predict  data into the future [say 5 to 10 years] using [already measured
> data sets]
> Give the "winner" and a couple of runners-up huge prizes to isolate them
> from any "Dirty influences" including: {corporate, government and even
> NGO's and their dependencies such as universities who have sold-out to any
> of the preceding list} and to allow the winners to continue to refine the
> models
> I also proposed similar prizes for the development of instrumentation and
> necessary processing to collect the data and make it available to everyone
> on the planet who might want in on a future version of the model prize or
> even an "Einstein" sitting in some tropical rainforest and pondering
>
> Unless we break the "Government--University--Industrial Complex which is
> filling and feeding at the trough of Global Catastrophism -- we will be
> condemned to destroying the engine which has lifted at least 1/2 the
> planet's population out of 19th C life and rescued more than 1B from
> Medieval abject subsistence life
>
> Meanwhile we need to incentivize Nuclear and Thermonuclear energy as we
> can not build a modern western-level of lifestyle around wind and solar
> even with a lot of expensive storage
>
> As for Catastrophism -- I use it mostly in Rhetorical sense to describe
> the "Chicken Littles" of the world such as Gretta and Al Gore neither of
> whom would know a Hadley Cell from an Onion Skin nor a Geological Trap from
> a Mouse Trap
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 26, 2022 at 10:23 AM Jerry Harris <jerryharri at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Ted,
>> That's quite the extensive list of everything that affects global climate
>> - from cosmic rays to meteors. Yet, inexplicably, man-made impacts are
>> definitively only regional.
>>
>> As for the complexity of replicating on computers something as complex as
>> the Earth's atmospheric, oceanic, and land mass systems, that's the point
>> of creating models and testing their predictability against historic and
>> ongoing data sets.
>>
>> Were you using "catastrophism" in the geological sense: "The doctrine
>> that major changes in the earth's crust result from sudden catastrophes,
>> such as the impact of a large meteor, rather than from gradual evolutionary
>> processes"? If so, then I think the Earth's historical record shows that
>> both catastrophism and evolution are legitimate. Hence, climate change
>> could indeed be caused by a relatively "sudden" increase in the CO2 output
>> into the atmosphere by humans. Perhaps I've misinterpreted your use of that
>> word.
>>
>> Jerry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 4:02 PM Ted Kochanski <tedpkphd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Jerry,
>>>
>>> Lonborg is a true believer in environmentalism as opposed to
>>> Catastrophism
>>>
>>> Even the IPCC says that going "cold=turkey" on CO2 would have at best
>>> marginal effects on the predictions for 2100
>>>
>>> The whole issue of why the climate varies is still a most open question
>>> -- there are known naturally occuring aspects:
>>>
>>> long-term orbital changes [mostly periodic]
>>> long-term plate tectonic changes of the layout of the continents and
>>> oceans
>>> long-term, large scale volcanism [e.g. Deccan Traps in India, similar
>>> flows in Siberia ]
>>> meteoric impacts
>>> small-scale short-lived volcanic events [e.gh. Mt. Pinatubo]
>>>
>>>
>>> Oceanic Circulation changes:
>>>
>>> Pacific Decadal Oscillation [PDO]
>>> El Niño–Southern Oscillation [ENSO]
>>>
>>> Oceanic Atmospheric Circulation changes:
>>>
>>> North Atlantic Oscillation [NAO]
>>> Arctic oscillation [AO] aka Northern Annular Mode/Northern Hemisphere
>>> Annular Mode [NAM]
>>>  Antarctic oscillation aka Southern Annular Mode [SAM]
>>>
>>>
>>> Solar Activity changes
>>>
>>> Solar brightness
>>>
>>> Solar Magnetic Field extent -- influencing penetration of galactic
>>> cosmic rays into the earth's atmosphere
>>>
>>> Solar spectral changes
>>>
>>> Humans have more or less local/regional impacts mostly due to "urban
>>> heat islands" and land-use pattern changes
>>>
>>> Finally we have the highly contentious matter of impacts directly caused
>>> by human emissions of CO2, CH4, and other lesser "greenhouse gases"
>>> The effects of these themselves are then "multiplied" by changes in
>>> atmospheric water vapor [by far the most prevalent and impactful
>>> "greenhouse gas"] -- but this is poorly understood as it is a very complex
>>> 3D circulation between ocean water, vertical conveyance by tropical
>>> thunderstorms and conveyance poleward by the prevailing westerlies in
>>> temperate latitudes with some less well understood interaction with polar
>>> ice and snow
>>>
>>> Even the most capable computers can not handle the complete system of
>>> processes which we think we understand and apply it to a non-spherical
>>> earth [we only include a generic friction parameter to account for things
>>> such as small as the Appalachian Mountains] -- and then there are the
>>> unknown processes which we have no way of accounting for in the models
>>>
>>> That's predominantly why the modelers compare themselves to each other
>>> rather than the "ground truth" -- just look at the "spaghetti plots"
>>> produced for tropical storms/hurricanes [some of them have predicted
>>> trajectories perpendicular to some of the others]
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
>>> PS: As someone pointed out all of the carbon buried under Pennsylvania,
>>> etc., in the form of Coal, Oil, Natural Gas was once in the atmosphere --
>>> plants don't get the carbon for photosynthesis from the limestone rocks
>>> [another amazingly large repository of carbon once in the atmosphere]
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 25, 2022 at 2:11 PM Jerry Harris <jerryharri at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Marvin,
>>>> I think you've proven my point with Lomborg. It's not just the media
>>>> that has called out his shifting and inaccurate claims, but real climate
>>>> scientists have as well. He has long discounted the cost and severity of
>>>> climate change, striving to spin a silver lining whenever possible:
>>>> - his claims that rising CO2 levels will increase crop yields
>>>> - his statement that since more people die in winter months, a warming
>>>> planet will be good - ignoring that the data includes indirect influenza
>>>> deaths and that a warming planet will increase malaria deaths
>>>> - illogically claiming that the elites' "obsession" with climate change
>>>> lead Germany to become solely reliant on Russian gas pipeline
>>>>
>>>> I think Lomborg is the human version of the young woman/old woman
>>>> optical illusion. Some of what he says is sensible and reasonable, and some
>>>> of what he says is selective and contradictory. With his constant shifts he
>>>> can always cherry-pick those claims that turn out "right".
>>>>
>>>> Jerry
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 8:40 PM Marvin Menzin <mmenzin at icloud.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Fyi.. more on the remedies for warming..
>>>>> Lomberg does not deny warming.. but he advocates a serious cost
>>>>> benefit analysis on remedies before going whole hog
>>>>>
>>>>> He favors nuclear power, and also believes it is a mistake to   push
>>>>> green power  so fast that it disrupts poorer nations  from  getting richer.
>>>>>
>>>>> he is one of the few  who challenges rapid disruptive  approaches that
>>>>> harm the prospects for a better life for the worlds poor nations in the
>>>>> name of  rapidly saving the planet..no matter what the bad side effects .
>>>>>
>>>>> Lomberg has written lots of articles on this theme and is considered
>>>>> controversial in most media.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>>
>>>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>>>
>>>>> *From:* Marvin Menzin <mmenzin at icloud.com>
>>>>> *Date:* July 23, 2022 at 9:52:33 AM EDT
>>>>> *To:* Isaac Menzin <isaacmenzin at gmail.com>, sammy hepner <
>>>>> sammyhepner at gmail.com>, Joseph Menzin <joemenzin at gmail.com>, Abe
>>>>> Menzin <abemenzin at hotmail.com>, jon menzin <jon.menzin at gmail.com>,
>>>>> sally tyszka <smtyszka at comcast.net>, abby hepner <abbyhepner at gmail.com>,
>>>>> Orly Shitrit <shitrit.orly at gmail.com>, daniel menzin <
>>>>> dmenzin at gmail.com>, Larry Menzin <lmenzin at american-tech.com>, ari
>>>>> menzin <arimenzin at gmail.com>, Marit Menzin <mmenzin at verizon.net>,
>>>>> hannah hepner <hehepner at gmail.com>, adam menzin <menzin24 at yahoo.com>,
>>>>> Marion Menzin <marionmenzin at gmail.com>, Eleanor Menzin <
>>>>> eleanormenzin at hotmail.com>, Roberta Menzin <rmenzin57 at gmail.com>,
>>>>> tara rosenthal <trosenthal429 at yahoo.com>, kobi shitrit <
>>>>> shitrit.kobi at gmail.com>, lev menzin <levmenzin at gmail.com>, David
>>>>> Hepner <dlhepner67 at gmail.com>, jordan menzin <jamenzin at gmail.com>,
>>>>> talia menzin <tjmenzin at gmail.com>, Julie Menzin <
>>>>> julie.a.menzin at gmail.com>, MARGARET MENZIN <menzin at comcast.net>
>>>>> *Subject:* *rare common sense in mitigating global warming..*
>>>>>
>>>>> 
>>>>> A sidewalk in London, July 20.
>>>>> By
>>>>>
>>>>> Bjorn Lomborg
>>>>> July 21, 2022 6:36 pm ET
>>>>> Photo: andy rain/Shutterstock
>>>>>
>>>>> Such arguments are misleading. It’s true that as temperatures rise the
>>>>> world will experience more heat waves, but humans also adapt to such
>>>>> things. In Spain, for example
>>>>> <https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-021-00542-7>,
>>>>> rising temperatures have actually led to fewer heat deaths, because people
>>>>> have adapted faster than temperatures have gone up. It simply took air
>>>>> conditioning, public cooling centers and better treatment of maladies that
>>>>> are caused or aggravated by heat, such as heatstroke and heart disease.
>>>>>
>>>>> The exclusive focus on heat deaths is also misleading. Across the
>>>>> world, low temperatures are much more dangerous
>>>>> <https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext> than
>>>>> high ones: Half a million people die each year from heat, but more than 4.5
>>>>> million die from cold. While rising temperatures will increase heat deaths,
>>>>> they will also decrease cold deaths. A recent Lancet study found
>>>>> <https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1548650946544209920> that
>>>>> rising temperatures since 2000 have on net reduced the number of
>>>>> temperature-related deaths. Researchers concluded that by the end of the
>>>>> 2010s, rising temperatures globally were causing 116,000 more heat deaths
>>>>> annually, but also leading to 283,000 fewer cold deaths a year.
>>>>>
>>>>> Moreover, politicians’ singular focus on climate change ignores that
>>>>> people are much more worried about rampant inflation, especially rising
>>>>> food and energy prices. And climate policies are making those problems
>>>>> worse.
>>>>> OpinionMorning Editorial Report
>>>>>
>>>>> All the day's Opinion headlines.
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> Much of the extreme energy-price increase that normal people are
>>>>> dealing with is caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine. But things wouldn’t be
>>>>> nearly as bad if the West hadn’t thrown up green roadblocks to its own
>>>>> energy security, such as President Biden’s moratorium on gas leases or
>>>>> Europe’s refusal to dig into its substantial shale gas reserves. Climate
>>>>> policies also increase energy prices by subsidizing renewables like solar
>>>>> and wind. That makes it even harder to adapt to the extreme temperatures
>>>>> climate activists bemoan. You need cheap and reliable energy to afford air
>>>>> conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter.
>>>>>
>>>>> Rising fuel prices are also making food more expensive. Low-cost
>>>>> synthetic fertilizer is one of the greatest technologies humanity has
>>>>> invented for feeding the world, but it’s mostly made with natural gas. Even
>>>>> with almost a billion people at risk of starvation, climate-obsessed
>>>>> bureaucrats still object
>>>>> <https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-split-over-fertiliser-plants-poorer-nations-food-crisis-bites-2022-06-20/>to
>>>>> producing more fertilizer because of the fossil fuels required.
>>>>>
>>>>> The cost of green policies will become even harder to bear if
>>>>> politicians make good on their promises to hit net-zero emissions.
>>>>> Achieving this globally by 2050 would cost more than $5 trillion a year for
>>>>> the next three decades, according
>>>>> <https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/the-economic-transformation-what-would-change-in-the-net-zero-transition> to
>>>>> McKinsey. That would be one-third of total global tax revenue. If every
>>>>> American were to shell out more than $5,000 a year
>>>>> <https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1431599612616445958>, it
>>>>> would only get the U.S. 80% of the way there by midcentury. Hitting 100%
>>>>> would likely cost more than twice that. The European Union already pays €69
>>>>> billion
>>>>> <https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/76c57f2f-174c-11eb-b57e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en> a
>>>>> year in subsidies to support its renewables. But if the EU persists with
>>>>> its even stauncher promises of net-zero, that annual climate policy cost is
>>>>> likely to exceed $1 trillion.
>>>>>
>>>>> No wonder there’s political pushback to environmental grandstanding.
>>>>> The Netherlands has been roiled by protests since the government mandated
>>>>> in June that nitrogen-oxide and ammonia emissions, which are produced by
>>>>> livestock, must be slashed by 70% to 80% in some parts of the country. As
>>>>> many as 40,000 farmers demonstrated against the measure last month. Holland
>>>>> is among the world’s 10 largest food exporters, and these policies would
>>>>> decimate the country’s agriculture industry while global hunger is rising.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sri Lanka is the epitome of elite environmentalism gone wrong. Pushed
>>>>> to go organic by activists and the World Economic Forum, the government
>>>>> banned synthetic fertilizers in April 2021. Food production collapsed and
>>>>> the currency defaulted. Hungry and outraged citizens launched protests,
>>>>> overran the presidential palace, and forced the government to resign en
>>>>> masse and the president to flee the country.
>>>>>
>>>>> It’s entirely possible to help the climate and working families at the
>>>>> same time. The policies to do so are innovation-focused. Policy makers need
>>>>> to recognize that they simply can’t eliminate fossil fuels with current
>>>>> technologies. The world gets almost 80% of its energy from fossil fuels,
>>>>> and even if all current climate policies were fully implemented, by
>>>>> midcentury fossil fuels would still provide more than half of all energy
>>>>> used world-wide, according
>>>>> <https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/4ed140c1-c3f3-4fd9-acae-789a4e14a23c/WorldEnergyOutlook2021.pdf> to
>>>>> the International Energy Agency. Instead of sending energy prices sky-high
>>>>> by trying to force a transition to renewables prematurely, policy makers
>>>>> should focus on funding research to develop clean energy sources that are
>>>>> actually affordable and reliable. And instead of badgering farmers to go
>>>>> organic, governments should invest in research to develop varieties of
>>>>> crops and agricultural practices that deliver higher yields with a smaller
>>>>> environmental footprint.
>>>>>
>>>>> Some of these technologies are already in development. Greater funding
>>>>> could bring them to fruition more quickly and do a lot more to help limit
>>>>> emissions than the policies activists now hawk. These sorts of sensible
>>>>> measures would cost much less than policies like net-zero, leaving more
>>>>> money to meet the world’s many other challenges.
>>>>>
>>>>> It’s starting to dawn on some elites that their policies are creating
>>>>> political dangers. Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s vice
>>>>> president, has said that many millions of Europeans may not be able to heat
>>>>> their homes this winter. This, he concludes, could lead to “very, very
>>>>> strong conflict and strife.”
>>>>>
>>>>> He’s right. When people are cold, hungry and broke, they rebel. If the
>>>>> elites continue pushing incredibly expensive policies that are disconnected
>>>>> from the urgent challenges facing most people, we need to brace for chaos.
>>>>>
>>>>> *Mr. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting
>>>>> fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. His latest book is
>>>>> “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor,
>>>>> and Fails to Fix the Planet.”*
>>>>>
>>>>> WSJ Opinion: Executive Beast Mode and the Democrats’ Apocalyptic
>>>>> Politics
>>>>> [image: WSJ Opinion: Executive Beast Mode and the Democrats’
>>>>> Apocalyptic Politics]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>>
>>>>> ===============================================
>>>>> ::The Lexington Computer and Technology Group Mailing List::
>>>>> Reply goes to sender only; Reply All to send to list.
>>>>> Send to the list: LCTG at lists.toku.us      Message archives:
>>>>> http://lists.toku.us/private.cgi/lctg-toku.us
>>>>> To subscribe: email lctg-subscribe at toku.us  To unsubscribe: email
>>>>> lctg-unsubscribe at toku.us
>>>>> Future and Past meeting information: http://LCTG.toku.us
>>>>> List information: http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us
>>>>> This message was sent to jerryharri at gmail.com.
>>>>> Set your list options:
>>>>> http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/jerryharri@gmail.com
>>>>
>>>> ===============================================
>>>> ::The Lexington Computer and Technology Group Mailing List::
>>>> Reply goes to sender only; Reply All to send to list.
>>>> Send to the list: LCTG at lists.toku.us      Message archives:
>>>> http://lists.toku.us/private.cgi/lctg-toku.us
>>>> To subscribe: email lctg-subscribe at toku.us  To unsubscribe: email
>>>> lctg-unsubscribe at toku.us
>>>> Future and Past meeting information: http://LCTG.toku.us
>>>> List information: http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us
>>>> This message was sent to tedpkphd at gmail.com.
>>>> Set your list options:
>>>> http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/tedpkphd@gmail.com
>>>
>>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.toku.us/pipermail/lctg-toku.us/attachments/20220726/bf32c08e/attachment.html>