2013/11/14 Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> > Hi Alberto, > > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Alberto G. Corona <agocor...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Yes. > > > > I proposed myself not to argue against sectarian apocalypticists because > > that is a waste of time, > > Mentioning apocalyptic narratives is an important point. These are a > fairly common social phenomena across History and they seem to be a > coping mechanism of people who are unhappy with some status quo, and > that also don't understand its complexities. The biblical apocalypse > in the context of the Roman Empire is one example. Another one is the > Illuminati conspiracy theories. They come from people who feel they > got a bad deal from life and initiate this fantasy were the status quo > is evil and it's going to get what's coming. >
That is exactly right. but it is necessary to distinguish between passive and active apocalipticism. The passives do not claim an special knowledge of nature. They believe in a supernatural phenomenon, and they rest waiting. The active ones believe in a natural apocalypse and claim an special knowledge of reality, so they reject any critics and are either open revolutionaries (like the marxists) or have a hidden agenda to subvert the social order. The core of their motivations are megalomania, pride and will of power. This is from Voegelin: The public interest has shifted from the nature of man to the nature of nature and to the prospects of domination its exploration opened; and the loss of interest even turned to hatred when the nature of man proved to be resistant to the changes dreamed up by intellectuals who want to add the lordship of society and history to the mastery of nature. And this from Vaklav Klaus, formet Czech president, that know first hand the ideological predecessors of the eco-alarmists: The debate on global warming is not about temperatures and CO2 levels. It is an ideological war between those who want to change us (not the weather) and those who believe in freedom, markets, human ingenuity and technological progress. Advocates of climate alarmism ask an unprecedented expansion of government intervention in our lives. We are being forced to accept rules about how to live, what to do, how to behave, what to buy, what to eat, how to travel. Is unacceptable. > > I sense this a lot in the global warming issue. It works well as an > apocalyptic narrative for people who dislike capitalism. It's even > associated with purification rituals and sin: vegetarianism vs. meat, > low carbon-emission cars vs SUVs and so on. > > This doesn't mean it's incorrect, of course. Only failed predictions mean > that. > > > but honoring those of you that are not seduced by > > the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it movement, I will say something: > > > > Climatic models are bullshit. if you look at how they adjust parameters > > looking at the climategate mails you will have no doubt. Starting from > that > > funny way for manufacturing models, it is no surprise that they predict > > nothing as Telmo said. > > I once heard some old professor give the following piece of wisdom: > any sufficiently complicated model is doomed to succeed. I agree. The > more parameters you have in a model, the less you can trust it. The > more you teak them to correct for failed predictions, the more > meaningless it gets. The more models you have for the same thing, the > less significant the correct predictions of a given model are. This is > just basic statistics. I notice that the skeptics tend to show the > predictions of a large set of models, while the proponents of the > theory show less of them. Then the skeptics are accused of cherry > picking, and this raises my eyebrows... > > > There is a model of the earth nucleus. It is very good. Why? Because it > > behaves like the real nucleus. It invert polarity every 14000 years I > > believe, dont want to fire up the wikipedia to get the real digits. That > is > > why it is a good model. > > > > What would be a good test of a climatic model?. We know that at the > glacial > > eras started when North and South America united by the istmus of Panama > > closed the free water movement between the atlantic and pacific. That > > changed the global water flow regimes and resulted in the two polar ice > > caps. > > > > It is easy to configure the continents in the climate models and see what > > happens in each configuration of the american continents. Why they dont > try > > it?. Because they know that their models are lacking decades of research > to > > get accurate enough for the simplest long term prediction. > > > > > > 2013/11/13 Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> > >> > >> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 7:49 PM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > Obviously there is more CO2 in the air than there has been for a very > >> > long > >> > time, and obviously the climate has changed somewhat in the last > couple > >> > of > >> > decades (warmest on record, again and again). It's hard to prove the > >> > connection, of course, but the circumstantial evidence is > overwhelming. > >> > Of > >> > 13,950 peer-reviewed climate articles published between 1991 and 2012, > >> > 24 > >> > rejected global warming. It's a little thing we've come up with to try > >> > and > >> > understand the world. We call it "science". > >> > >> This is just sophisticated arguing from authority, not science. > >> Science is the process of formulating a theory with which you can make > >> predictions and then testing these predictions. If the predictions are > >> incorrect, the theory is falsified. The number of papers that say > >> something and the amount of consensus is irrelevant in the face of > >> experimental falsification. Science is not democracy, it's empiricism. > >> All scientific revolutions started as minority views. > >> > >> There is overwhelming evidence in favour of the theory of evolution > >> because of the number of predictions it got right, not because of the > >> amount of papers that say that it is a spiffy theory. The theory of > >> anthropogenic global warming does not look so stellar because it > >> failed to predict the current cooling period. > >> > >> Given the tremendous human cost of reducing CO2 emissions, the > >> rational thing to do is to weigh the probability of the theory being > >> correct against this cost. I don't have an answer here, nor am I > >> qualified to give it. I know a bit about complex systems modelling and > >> this makes me very skeptical of "overwhelming evidences", especially > >> in the face of surprising observables against the models. > >> > >> > Obviously fossil fuel will run out anyway, so even without climate > >> > change > >> > we'd have to do something. > >> > >> Yes, but that something we have to do is very different depending on > >> whether or not we have to cut CO2 emissions and, more importantly, one > >> of the path leads to immense human suffering. > >> > >> Then there are the geo-engineering ideas that John mentioned. They > >> appear to be ignored. This makes the entire thing start to smell a bit > >> of religious moralism. > >> > >> Telmo. > >> > >> > I think nuclear is a good short term solution, > >> > for sure. Especially subcritical reactors. > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > On 14 November 2013 06:06, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> > wrote: > >> >> > >> >> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 5:54 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> > >> >> wrote: > >> >> > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 11:15 AM, Telmo Menezes > >> >> > <te...@telmomenezes.com> > >> >> > wrote: > >> >> > > >> >> >> > >> >> >> > I would like to point out that I did not write the first two > >> >> >> > sentences > >> >> >> you cite and I was being sarcastic when I wrote the third one. > >> >> > > >> >> > > >> >> > Sorry. > >> >> > >> >> No worries. > >> >> > >> >> Telmo. > >> >> > >> >> > John K Clark > >> >> > > >> >> > -- > >> >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > >> >> > Groups > >> >> > "Everything List" group. > >> >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > >> >> > send > >> >> > an > >> >> > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> >> > To post to this group, send email to > >> >> > everything-list@googlegroups.com. > >> >> > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list > . > >> >> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > >> >> > >> >> -- > >> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > >> >> Groups > >> >> "Everything List" group. > >> >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > send > >> >> an > >> >> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> >> To post to this group, send email to > everything-list@googlegroups.com. > >> >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > >> >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > >> > > >> > > >> > -- > >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > >> > Groups > >> > "Everything List" group. > >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > >> > an > >> > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com > . > >> > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > >> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > >> > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups > >> "Everything List" group. > >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an > >> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Alberto. > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Everything List" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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