Re: [Marxism] Freeman Dyson on scientific heretics and climate change

[Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Hopson wrote:

> However, I find the idea that soil conservation could
> be an active countermeasure to CO2 increases from
> fossil fuel burning quite interesting, and could
> possibly be a way of promoting better soil management,
> organic farming, etc.

you got your work cut out for you then, see below.

its kind of cute how people criticize big time science and its hierarchy 
at one moment, but when some well known knucklehead speaks their 
language, the savior has arrived. in fact, its kind of interesting that 
now, after a long time with climate modelers working in the trenches, 
that we see these big name scientists come out and grab some limelight 
of their own on topics they wouldn't touch years ago. i don't remember 
dyson writing these kinds of critiques in the 80's or 90's when the 
modeling efforts really started to ramp up.

on the other hand, it makes sense, now that climate models have entered 
mainstream thought, that plenty of people start punching away. the 
science certainly will benefit from this. for example, i heard the other 
day that one of the big climate skeptics found a mistake in some US 
temperature data analysis by Jim Hansen. and so it shall continue. i am 
not sure why NASA and/or Hansen locked this data up the way they did (i 
hear he has admitted the error). but when i see guys like Dyson shooting 
from the hip like this, plus the full range of denialists out there, i 
see ideological battle lines being drawn.

now dyson says:

> But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The 
> models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good 
> job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. 
> They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the 
> chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not 
> begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is 
> muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It 
> is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building 
> and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure 
> what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is 
> why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

dyson knows this is so of all fields, that for some stuff our theories 
work great, and other stuff is really messy and ugly. so he's really 
presenting boilerplate here, not cogent arguments. furthermore, it's 
important to note how he leaves out modeling of radiation in 
atmospheres, which also has it share of successes (that speaks to his 
"the clouds, the dust" bit). and he knows full well that the real muddy 
world of temperature and pressure and humidity and rain is measured 
quite extensively. though he is curiously silent on the Bush 
administrations efforts to thwart further satellite measurement efforts. 
so the bit about sitting in air-conditioned buildings and running 
computer models is the giveaway on where this guy is coming from.

more on models and Dyson's criticism when the sun sets.

> His essay focuses solely on the scientific heresy of going against the 
> mainstream consensus,

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

> and of not being afraid to work outside your specialty, 

right on!



Les




Rising temperatures "will stunt rainforest growth"
Plants suffering in the heat could make global warming worse.

Michael Hopkin

Global warming could cut the rate at which trees in tropical rainforests 
grow by as much as half, according to more than two decades' worth of 
data from forests in Panama and Malaysia. The effect — so far largely 
overlooked by climate modellers — could severely erode or even remove 
the ability of tropical rainforests to remove carbon dioxide from the 
air as they grow.

The study shows that rising average temperatures have reduced growth 
rates by up to 50% in the two rainforests, which have both experienced 
climate warming above the world average over the past few decades. The 
trend is shown by data stretching back to 1981 collected from hundreds 
of thousands of individual trees.

If other rainforests follow suit as world temperatures rise, important 
carbon stores such as the pristine old-growth forests of the Amazon 
could conceivably stop storing as much carbon, says Ken Feeley of 
Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in Boston, who presented the 
research at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in 
San Jose, California.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070806/full/070806-13.html (i think its 
free)




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