I like nature- I am a dirty, crunchy, organic-eating, bike-riding hippie.

[W I S N E R !]

As witnessed here, we can probably have an endless debate about the science of global warming and climate change; each side will line up their sources accordingly. While I certainly have my views on who's right, let's, for the sake of argument, agree that we do not know anything certain about human impact on climate change.

So, if I am to err in my judgment, why not err on the side of compassion and conservation?

Why not conserve energy, not because we're tree-hugging hippies or because we're ruining the atmosphere, but because waste is simply careless?

Let's take CO2 and global warming out of the picture: Why not look for cleaner fuels so I can ride my bicycle through Downtown L.A. without getting smog-lung and children in urban schools can play in clean air?

Why not take a "greener" approach to energy, transportation, and daily life- not to thwart some global apocalypse, but just to create cleaner rivers and beaches?

So maybe cutting and burning the world's rainforests contributes to climate change. So what if it doesn't? Aren't there other, even more immediate reasons we should stop? How about biological diversity? What's that worth?

Would it really hurt to try? What if we don't?

I don't want my children to inherit a cesspool, but that's precisely what we're creating, especially in and around our cities. If you don't believe we're doing major damage to this planet in ways other than global warming, I'd love to know where you live so I can buy a home there. Come down to Los Angeles and I'd be happy to give a tour of the lovely ecosystems we've created through our habits…like the beaches closed to sewage contamination, the smell of diesel when you're out for a bike ride in traffic, those beautiful smoggy sunsets, oh, and the stunning trash-choked L.A. river.

Hell, maybe someone can bring a scientist to tell me this isn't really happening.

BTW, thanks for all the sources posted Ernie.

[Brett .]

Steven, et. al.,
I think you identified the key point when you said "i have often wondered how those who care deeply about the environment reconcile owning the equipment they carry while backpacking"

Looking at the other posts, some of us do what we can in all areas of our lives to reduce, re-use, recycle, and use sustainable materials. BUT, this site is BP-Light, the more processed and "value added" products tend to be lighter and higher performing. These are typically not made from sustainable materials. However, there are enough exceptions to that rule (IMO) to warrant opening a Gear forum (not a thread, a forum like "Gear Deals", etc..) on light weight "eco-gear". or "sustainable-gear". To start it off, let me suggest that down, wool, rechargable batteries, wood snowshoes (like mine) are examples of less impactfull backpacking choices.

But, honestly, most of us have closets, maybe a garage wall, full of gear, bought for incremental gains in performance or incremental losses of weight. Personally, I am trying to weed my collection down to a couple multiple-use items for each requirement. For example, my Petzl Tikka and Photon Microlight replaced a box of other flashlights. My TNF DIAD and Marmot ION replaced a rack of jackets. etc.

I would like to hear how other posters have reduced their gear footprint? Did going lightweight result in fewer high-performance items?
..And I propose a challenge; if you really care about resources, pare your gear down to one or two of each item, and donate/sell the rest, to save that item from having to be made new for someone else.

[Steven Hanlon]

i just composed an email to a local boy scout leader offering several pieces of gear i have no intention on using again that have seen little use.

i try to limit my purchases to replace itmes as they need replacing. several items that do not fit this plan are items that will be used when car camping, such as my 2 man tent, my coleman stove, and a few Nalgene bottles. if i don't like it and can't return it, i donate it to a local scout troop.

i have always tried to live in such a way that my impact on nature is as minimal as possible. my worst addiction is gasoline, but my restitution is my career helping to preserve and maintain my state's natural resources.

for me, balancing my desire to have as little impact on the environment while living with the modern conveniences usually ends up with me picking convenience. i do try hard, but living in the suburbs of a major metro area and rasing a family sometimes means compromises.

-Steve

[Miguel Arboleda]

If I've learned anything from the whole ultralight movement it is that going lightweight doesn't just apply to when I am going backpacking. Not only do I now use the ideas with bicycle travel, kayaking, globetrotting, and commuting, but I also feel that all the principles apply to the way you live your life daily as well. If you could look at everything in your life, in your house, in your office, in your neighborhood, and try to see where it would be lighter and more efficient and where one item can serve many needs, then your life as a whole will grow lighter, too. Less expensive, safer, more efficient, healthier, less to worry about, more mobile, less impact, cheaper to sustain, easier to understand and fix, more to go around. I'm in the midst of moving right now and I have the opportunity to look at all my belongings in the same way I first started looking at my walking equipment nine years ago. There's a lot to get rid of, but first I have to identify the essentials items, and that is not quite the same as when I go backpacking, though the idea is similar.

[Ernie Elkins]

"Why not conserve energy, not because we're tree-hugging hippies or because we're ruining the atmosphere, but because waste is simply careless?"

That's a very reasonable approach, Craig, and it’s the kind of approach that actually stands a shot at getting something done. We live in a culture where excess is a sign of success (Hummers, McMansions, etc.), but it's encouraging to see that even big business is beginning to realize that sustainability just makes (economic) sense. Wal-Mart (Wal-Mart, for God's sake!) has concrete plans for doubling the fuel efficiency of its trucks within a decade, making its stores 30% more energy efficient, and cutting its solid waste by 25% within three years. As far as Wal-Mart is concerned, waste is careless because it's expensive, and the same is true for all of us in our everyday lives. We save money when we replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, when set the thermostat a little lower in the winter and higher in the summer, and when we choose to drive a more fuel-efficient vehicle (bikes included!). Regardless of the scale, money can be a great motivator, and the upside is that our financial self-interest also happens to be in the best interest of the world as a whole.

“If I've learned anything from the whole ultralight movement it is that going lightweight doesn't just apply to when I am going backpacking.”

Hear, hear. I tried to make a similar point earlier in this thread, but I came nowhere near the eloquence of your words, Miguel.

Moving on, thanks for the challenge, Brett. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from watching episodes of “Life Laundry” on PBS, it's that getting rid of unnecessary stuff (whether you sell it or give it way) can be a liberating experience. Our closets are full of stuff that we don’t need and never use. Why not put those items back into the marketplace, where they can be useful to someone else? Let’s identify what’s essential to our needs (as Miguel said) and sell the rest on eBay! In my case, the more I’ve thought about that, the more I’ve realized that I don’t need a lot of the things that I used to think I couldn’t live without. For example, I’ve discovered that I don’t need a stove when backpacking. It’s a small thing, but that’s one less thing I’m carrying and quite a few fuel canisters that I won’t be consuming.

Finally, when it comes to sustainable gear, that gets a bit tricky. Down might be better than synthetic insulation, but, then again, how much energy goes into providing for the geese that produce those feathers? How much of an impact does raising them have on their local environment? Of course, down lasts longer and is cleaner in the end (I would imagine that it decays much faster). My guess is that down is the better choice, but I’m not sure that it’s a settled issue. My point is that most everything we use has a cost that’s not easy to calculate. We can do our best to make an informed decision (base layers made from fermented, extruded corn [a new product from Nau] are probably a better choice than non-recycled synthetic ones), but the best choices aren't always clear. One guaranteed way to make a difference, though, is to use less and to use the things we buy for as long as possible (or at least to pass them on when we’re through with them).

[Brett .]

Ernie, very well said. I dont think I can add much more, except to say that Miguel's earlier post about an 'UL mind' really resonated with me. A couple years ago I gave up my McMansion, and most of my possessions. I did it to take a job overseas, and I was getting divorced at the time. It was difficult, but liberating. Turns out I didn't need most of that stuff. I had a garage full of boxes, full of stuff, but for the life of me now, I can't remember what most of it was. I think it was stuff I needed to repair/service the other stuff I had; in a vicious circle.

Everything we own takes a moment of our time, and a tiny increment of our budget, to keep it organized, clean, working, insured, etc.. It is so true that 'the less you need the more you have'. For me now, success is having what I want, and happines is wanting what I have. This Lightweight movement initially caused me to buy MORE, but as I learned more, now I have the knowledge to pare down my gear to a smaller number of multi-function items. And weight is not THE only measurand of 'goodness'; having a smaller number of items in my pack, and in my gear room, is also preferrable.

Just as lean manufacturing and 'just in time engineering' revolutionized and simplified company inventories, the same principles can simplify ones life. Actually, my climbing instructor here demonstrates these principles every trip we go on. He carries a little pack of old multi-use gear, and his climbing equipment, and buys his food at a convenience store on the way to the climb. He seems to only think about the climb, and his gear is almost an afterthought. Quite the opposite of me; but I am making progress.
Sometime soon I hope my gear is all dialed-in, and I can approach a hike or climb with a UL mind, a zen mind. The gear should just be an extension which facilitates my desired result, like the golf club or tennis racket in the hands of a pro.
Hm.. that was a rambling post.. to summarize; UL: good, fewer items: good. Extend UL to rest of life: good. :)

[mark henley]

I will Second your comments on Miguel's earlier post.

I also went through a divorce and a big move about 5 years ago. My boys, ages 18, 16, and 8 at the time were crushed that we had to move on from our old life …

So …. it started small, where I just took some old wooden furniture out to the burn pile and set it on fire …. and over the course of a week, my boys and I burned so much stuff from our former lives …. even to the point of tearing down a half completed outbuilding and burning the plywood and 2×4's, and tossing the wooden frame and headboard from the marriage bed on the pyre. (We didn't burn the mattress, plastics, or anything but paper and wood).

It was aspiritual thing … we cremated our old life and made way for the new. What we didn't burn we donated or took to the dump. In the space of two weeks, we moved on as best we could. Zen is almost too light a word to describe the relief of not only moving on, but getting rid of these boat anchors that were tied to my ankle.

The funny thing is that I've moved several times since then, and each time I move I throw away another chunk of that former life that I still, unwittingly, have been carrying with me, and lose another link in the chain of complexity that my life used to be.

That's one of the things that has been so appealing to me with my journey to SUL hiking ….. the Zen like quality of losing my dependence on "Stuff" and the clarity of focus I get on each trip. I realize that easy packing, setting up camp, re-packing, more miles, less effort, less body stress are all great benefits from UL and SUL … but it doesn't compare to the feeling of liberty I have from traveling without carrying my garage on my back any longer.

Tom Elpel talks, in his books, about "the art of nothing", which is the almost spiritual nature with which our ancestors approached the land, the wild, and the world with nothing but the tools they could make with the materials at hand and the food they could grow or catch.

I feel much more comfortable carrying food, a stove, a sleeping bag, and a tarp, but the concept of how to approach nature can still hold true.

Example … instead of carrying a candle lantern, I carry a tea light candle and a empty soda can …. cut out part of one side and you have an instant tea light candle lantern for under an ounce. It was very liberating to give that candle lantern to some scouts in the area … and it's not just 4 ounces less to carry … but 4 ounces of liberty I've added back into my life.

[larry savage]

As a graduate from the original dirt bag hippie school of bentness I've found this lifestyle is getting a little more difficult to maintain.
Around these parts everyone who owns a hybrid parks it next to a big ol'; suv that they use to haul their bicycles down to the local trail to do a loop and meet up at that coffee place.
Had to move my really old trailhead rig around front to cut up a fallen tree and I got 2 parking tickets in 2 days and a towing notice because the law sez ya can't park for more then 24 hours on a city street, the much newer unregistered truck across the street is gonna be there forever as near as I can tell

At $28,000.00 Subarus cost a bit more then they did a couple of decades ago, a camping spot goes for 14 dollars a night, 2 week maximum with a tow truck and the deputy on the 15th day.
We might be listening to Josh Ritter and the Decemberists instead of Dylan and Credance but we got to have an iPod nano to do it.
Gotta have a laptop to post on our favorite bb too …I am an absolute gear doggie, I'll post like a mad punter on the gear page but don't post a single trip in the trip reports.
Yeah ul backpacking can teach us a lot about living simply but the view from 1968 hasn't changed much,… except for the size of every glacier and snowfield in the world. I try hard not to compromise my values, it's a new year's resolution that I've hung onto for 40 years … sometimes I make it until March, I hope you all can do much better. peace

[Lorraine Pace]

Gotta love it. Seems Mars is experiencing "global warming," too. Must be all the pollution Gore creates at his home and while flying around the globe drifting accross space. :-D

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Shucks. Now who would have thought it possible?

[Brian James]

What I took from the Crighton article were not the anecdotes, but the principle: Environmentalism is dogmatic, partially faith-based, rigid, and emotional. Any social movement with those characteristics is dangerous!

Read the article but don't get caught up in the anecdotes. I think that most religions are founded on, defended with, supported, and "proven" by anecdotes. Many modern Christians have anecdotes and stories of how *obvious* and *irrefutable* it is that Jesus exists, healed their brain tumour, hates homosexuals, hates geologists who think the world is older than 5000 years, hates biologists who observe speciation, helped them get their new Camaro, or whatever it is that they believe. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence proves and disproves nothing.

The start of the article made it pretty clear that Crighton believes that our behaviors impact the planet. He said we need responsible environmentalism. The reason for the anecdotes was to show that our current system of environmentalism is flawed and partially faith-based.

I can't disagree with that.

EDITED to remove slopp analogy

[Brian James]

PS For discussion of humans' inability to understand coincidence and complex natural systems, see this article from Scientific American:

http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/textbookdisclaimers/wackononsense.pdf

Truths that are "obvious" to the layperson are anything but. This includes understanding climate change.

Just ask an Engineer, a Doctor, a Mathematician. Anyone who is trained to think analytically: what may seem clear to the human brain is often the farthest thing from the truth. It's a limitation in our ability to think, and it's why we need structured systems of analysis. Before structured thought was invented, we burned witches and only bathed once a year. When we invented analysis, we learned that many of the things that *seemed* to be causing our woes were, in fact, coincidence. And many of the things that *seemed* benign were, in fact, killing us.

I believe that modern societies still seek boogeymen. Our bureaucrats are naturally inclined to support popular opinion, and thus we get travesties such as the banning of DDT.

But when it comes to something as important as the environment, I believe that we need more verifiable and scientific systems of thought. If we go by public opinion to understand what is wrong with the world, we will wind up doing wacko things.

One example is invading Muslim countries to somehow *reduce* terrorist leanings in the peoples of those countries. Seems to make sense initially, but it's totally insane when you analyze it.

[paul johnson]

Brian, Is that really the correct URL in your Post? I've searched it for the "warm", "climate", "global", and "mars" and those four words do not appear in the PDF document.

However, the PDF was quite humorous in places, though rather shallow (but its intended for a more popular audience instead of a scholarly one, so the lack of depth is understandable – though it somewhat misrepresents in places both sides of the argument, but in particular the creationist side, but also given its bias, it's understandable). It made for an interesting read since my original background before taking up a lifelong career in Engineering and Applied Research was Biology (undergrad and grad school, including courses at both levels in the subject matter the PDF tried to deal with). Thanks for providing it. It strengthened my faith. It's always good to have a "refresher" in a subject area. Appreciated it.

BTW, it was actually some Creationists who many years ago began pushing the use of the term "speciation" (though the term existed prior to this point in time) in contra-distinction from evolution. Though Creationists generally use the term to describe genetic processes and variation that exist and are permissible within Mendelian laws of genetics. Interesting subjects. Much to contemplate.

[Erin McKittrick]

"Environmentalism is dogmatic, partially faith-based, rigid, and emotional. Any social movement with those characteristics is dangerous!"

An interesting way to look at it…

Social movements are generally made up of a bunch of people who feel very passionately about something, regardless of their level of education in that subject (some know lots, some not so much)… The most ardent supporters of any movement are usually quite unyielding.

So I'd argue that your criticism applies equally well to all social movements.

Are all social movements are dangerous? All will shake up the status quo – depending on your viewpoint that could be either dangerous or desirable.

I guess I see people acting on their passionate "faith-like" beliefs in any sort of social movement. Perhaps it would be better if they all acted on pure logic. But people aren't like that, and without those movements, things don't happen. I think we can all find at least one social movement in history that we're glad happened (like ending slavery, etc…)

-Erin
http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/WildCoast.php

[paul johnson]

Erin, good point. Personally, i can appreciate listening to or reading any well thought out, well presented, material on a subject of interest. Whether i agree with the conclusions or not is a separate matter from what i can take away with me to mull over, contemplate, and research further on my own. I dislike a presentation that is inflammatory (usually its those with the least real "meat" or content that resort to ridicule and condemning epitaphs). It reveals more of a spirit of pride in having to be right, than a spirit of investigation and respect. It is a combative spirit with little or no tolerance for those who differ. Such saddens me no matter which side of an issue it is attempting to put forward. Can peace come out of such? Yes, but only if the selfish, self-centered child in these individuals is placated by giving in to them. Mutual respect seems to be lacking all to often in propenents of these types of polarizing matters. Also, they typically fail to recognize that they too are guilty of the very same errors in reasoning or conduct as the ones that they so vilify as illogical or simplistic. Those that shout or ridicule the loudest are generally those to whom this shortcoming is most present in. So blind. So sad.

[Anonymous]

People can sit around and debate the relative merits of scientific environmentalism versus faith based environment-
alism, but the overwhelming consensus of scientists worldwide is that there are potentially disastrous changes in the environment taking place that are in considerable part due to human activity. They are not sure yet where it will lead, but the worst case scenarios are disturbing enough to lead them to counsel caution with increasing urgency. They seem to think that we are pursuing a course that could end life as we know it-not WILL, but COULD. It's not just warmer temperatures that result from higher level of CO2, but also a major drop in ocean Ph as a result of more CO2 dissolving in the oceans to form carbonic acid, with harmful effects on sensitive organisms, especially at the base of the food chain. The drop in Ph since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution has been greater that in the preceding 600,000 years, which overwhelms the ability of organisms to adapt. A subset of these organisms residing in the top 1 centimeter of the ocean produce ~80% of atmospheric O2, and function within fairly narrow environmental parameters. Indicator species such as frogs are disappearing at alarming rates in ecosystems as varied as the Sierra and Costa Rica while the debate rages.
Maybe I'm just a cranky old pessimist, but I get this queasy
feeling that one of these days Mother Earth is going to sluff us off like so much dead skin, reset the evolutionary process back to some sulphur metabolizing bacteria clustered around a heat vent in the Marianas Trench, and start over, hoping things turn out better the next time. Maybe it's time to stop slinging mud at each other and realize that we're facing a potentially existential crisis
which requires collective action and, yes, probably a considerable drop in our material standard of living, so that many others can live at all and ensure the future of humanity as a whole. Peace.

[Steve .]

I remember a couple of things about Michael Crichton in his autobiography "Travels". First, he wrote that the high point in his life (up to that point) was when he was in visiting his psychiatrist three times a week, living in Beverly Hills and racing around with his Porsche. Never knew being in therapy would be anyone’s high point.

He also wrote about spoon bending parties (“bending spoons with psychic power”) he attended and some retreat in New Mexico or Arizona where I think he wrote he was having a conversation with a cactus.

It was an entertaining book but my take on Crichton is that he was (is?) mentally unstable.

Here are some interesting quotes from Crichton’s article:
I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it.

And the definition of second hand smoke (http://www.medterms.com):
Second-hand smoke: Environmental tobacco smoke that is inhaled involuntarily or passively by someone who is not smoking.
Environmental tobacco smoke is generated from the sidestream (the burning end) of a cigarette, pipe or cigar or from the exhaled mainstream (the smoke puffed out by smokers) of cigarettes, pipes, and cigars.

Obviously when asthmatic people have an attack triggered by second hand smoke there is no health hazard. Crichton would probably also argue that fire fighters exposed to forest fire smoke (a non-tobacco type of second hand smoke) are not in any danger, aside from the obvious asphyxiation.

Crichton then writes, “I can, with a lot of time, give you the factual basis for these views [second hand smoke, DDT should never have been banded, etc].”

In my option, if Crichton had any sort of integrity he would provide quick references to articles to back up his point during his speech, e.g. Science, July, 1998. I would bet money that either Crichton is making things up or they are old studies, similar to how the U.S. governments use to view radiation.

[Steve .]

Having worked at NOAA while attending graduate school in Applied Mathematics and for several years after that I can tell you first hand that the majority of atmospheric and climate models are mathematical garbage.

NCAR and NOAA typically use mathematical models that are called Primitive Equation models. Primitive Equation models make significant simplifications to the Navier-Stokes (equations of fluid dynamics) because the full equations of fluid dynamics are very stiff, computationally difficult. The simplifications make it feasible to have an “answer” to what the weather will be in 24 hours before 24-hours of computational time is up.

One problem with the Primitive Equations is that nobody has been able to prove that they are “well-posed”. For mathematical equations to be well posed they must meet three criteria: (A) a solution must exist, (B) the solution must be unique, and (C) the solution depends continuously on the initial conditions.

Criteria A is self-evident. A set of mathematical equations is only useful if they have an answer.

Criteria B implies that at any point in space at an instant in time there cannot be two solutions. For example, at an instant in time a particular point in space must have only one temperature, pressure, relative humidity, etc.

Criteria C implies that if you have a slight error in measuring your initial conditions, the data you feed into the model, the forecast will not wildly change. This is very important because measuring devices are pretty much never exact.

Another problem with the Primitive Equations that meteorologists and climate scientists use is that no one has ever proved they are a close approximation to the Navier-Stokes equations. That is to say, it has never been proved that the data coming out of the Primitive Equation models is even close to the true solution of the Navier-Stokes equations.

But wait, it is even worst than that. In order to keep their mathematical models stable, keep them from crashing, meteorologist have changed the viscosity of air in the models to something equivalent to molasses. Which is easier to pass a knife through, a vat of air or a vat of molasses?

There are many, many more problems with their models than that. And the interesting part is only meteorologists and climatologists are reluctant to adopt solid mathematical techniques in their models. As of 1990 plasma physicists, oceanographers, people working in electricity and magnetism had all adopted proper modeling techniques based on solid mathematics.

Interested parties can delve into technical articles from Heinz Otto Kreiss and/or Gerald Browning if partial differential equations and fractional Hilbert spaces is your thing.

[Brian James]

>>>People can sit around and debate the relative merits of scientific environmentalism versus faith based environmentalism, but the overwhelming consensus of scientists worldwide is that there are potentially disastrous changes in the environment taking place that are in considerable part due to human activity.<<<

This is why it is SO pressingly important to free ourselves from dogmatic and faith-requiring "science" and policy. Otherwise we could be barking up the wrong tree (eg buying hybrid cars and carbon credits) right up until the day of our species' extinction. We need real, verifiable science *now* to state what exactly *is* happening, and why, and *how* to fix it. Even if that science goes against politicians or the opinions of rich white people in the Western Hemisphere. (See the post above mine.)

PJ, the PDF I posted talks about the fallibility of human systems of reason. Humans are actually terrible at determining what is and isn't reasonable. We just can't do it on our own. It's why we as a society still buy lottery tickets and it's why we once jailed Galileo for demonstrating mathematically that the earth orbits the sun.

It's taught in the first semester of psychology in college. Our brains cannot accept coincidence: we always want one thing to have been caused by the other. It's a sad side effect of the way we're wired, and we had to invent structured thought before we could get anywhere as a species.

If we hadn't invented structured thought, we'd still be bloodletting, trying to turn lead into gold and using the streets as toilets. We need science to explain to us why something that is totally unimaginable and counterintuitive (e.g. tiny "animals" a thousands of times smaller than a hair are making you sick from Cholera so you need hygiene, not the banning of gypsies) is actually the truth. If we can't stop going by what "seems" right, we'll keep acting out this tragic Monty Python sketch in real time until we perish. ("…if she weighs as much as a duck, she must be a witch!" "…if I go carbon-neutral, the climate will stop changing! It only makes sense.")

Erin, I'm not suggesting that we should stop being environmentalists! Actually the contrary is true! Every single one of us needs to learn as much as we can about the choices we make and the lifestyles we lead as they relate to the environment. But if we keep up with the "popular environmentalism", we are doomed like ostriches with our heads in the sand. Witness the number of people who were reassured into thinking that the planet would probably be just fine… right up until around the time Katrina hit.

Now it's in the news, we're putting pressure on our politicians. It's popular again, and it's popular to make news stories that state approximately what people "feel" in their guts is going on: the climate is changing because we're driving too much and burning too much coal, so we should try to get our politicians to honor Kyoto and always recycle our cans.

But consider this: Imagine that a scientist found out tomorrow that driving has no meaningful effect on the climate, but in fact we all had to become vegetarians tomorrow because cows and chickens emit 1 million times more greenhouse gases than we previously thought. That would fall outside of what people generally *feel* is reasonable, (and outside of what they would be willing to do anyway,) and he would be laughed off the stage. It *sounds* ridiculous and I tell you it would never go to press. I think that's what Crighton's trying to say too.

Human "reason" is the danger element in a dogmatic and faith-based movement. Anywhere, anytime. Environmentalism included.

[Ernie Elkins]

Steve:

Your experience with climate modeling is disturbing. Do you think that what you saw at the NOAA is indicative of the state of climate modeling as a whole? How would you square that experience with claims from other scientists about the successes of climate modeling (see example here)?

Brian:

Your argument reminded me of a really thought-provoking point that Neil De Grasse Tyson makes in his book Origins:

"The honing of our five senses from birth through childhood allows us as adults to pass judgment on events and phenomena in our lives, declaring whether or not they 'makes sense.' Problem is, hardly any scientific discoveries of the past century have flowed from the direct application of our senses. They came instead from the direct application of sense-transcendent mathematics and hardware."

[Steve .]

Otherwise we could be barking up the wrong tree (eg buying hybrid cars and carbon credits) right up until the day of our species' extinction. We need real, verifiable science *now* to state what exactly *is* happening, and why, and *how* to fix it. Even if that science goes against politicians or the opinions of rich white people in the Western Hemisphere.

I think it is pretty obvious that we aren't going to have “real, verifiable answer” of what is fundamentally going on any time soon. It’s not because of “dogmatic and faith-requiring science"; rather it is because the earth/atmosphere system is exceedingly complex. It is as simple as that.

Here’s a question to ponder. Would you rather sit on a curb with a nose bleed and slowly bleed to death… or step in front of a moving bus, be rushed to the hospital, and have your injuries and nose bleed fixed?

Global warming is pretty much the same thing. Doing something now, even if it is painful and not the ideal course of action, is better than just sitting around waiting until it is too late.

That said, here is an interesting article: Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, National Academy of Sciences, 2001.

And a quote from the summary page:
”Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century.”

[Steve .]

Ernie,

Lets look at this statement in the article you provided "imperceptible differences in the initial state of the atmosphere lead to radically different conditions in a week or so."

The author’s statement is misleading. How have scientist observed that "imperceptible differences in the initial state of the atmosphere lead to radically different conditions in a week or so"? Have they performed a control study on two different Earth atmospheres? No, what the person is referring to is a computer model based on a set of equations Edward Lorenz came up with.

Basically Lorenz simplified the Navier-Stokes equations.

Then Lorenz “solved” the equations on a computer by performing a Fourier transform on the equations from physical space -> spectral space (think a series of sine waves); solved set of sine wave problems (up to a point) on the computer, and then used an inverse Fourier transform to get the data back to physical space (x-y-z coordinates). This physical space->spectral space->physical space thing happens many times during the “forecast”. Think once for every 90 seconds of simulated time: 960 times for a 24 hour forecast.

The problem with Lorenz’s equations is that in order to make things easy on the computers back in the early 1960s he truncated the number of sine waves in the series he solved. That simplification combined with round-off errors in the computers attributed to the so called butterfly effect. What he discovered was that when he ran his model straight through the 24 hour simulation period he got much different numbers than if he ran the model for a 1 hour simulation, wrote out the data, read the data back in and then ran the model for another 1 hour simulation, repeating the process until he had a 24 hour simulation.

When I was working at NOAA fifteen years ago Chaos theory was the rage. Some scientists at NCAR had another set of (turbulence?) equations that they claimed were chaotic. I don’t remember exactly because it was too long ago for my memory. Anyway, Browning who was a mathematician at NCAR at the time and Kreiss (whom I think was part of the National Science Foundation at the time) proved mathematically the equations were not chaotic. In fact, if you used random data you would essentially get the same answer. Very far from chaotic.

Anyway, back to the Climate modeling. The thing with climate modelers is that they will not, or at least back in the early 1990s would not, use data from say 10, 20 or 30 years earlier and run their models forward to the present time to see how accurate their models were. They would run them forward for short time periods to promote the usefulness of their models like the Mount Pinatubo event the article mentions. But if climate models aren’t accurate over a 10, 20, or 30 year simulation what can you say about their predictions of Earth’s climate in 2100? Questionable at best.

But things have been getting better. Browning left NCAR and worked at NOAA where the director of FSL takes mathematics seriously. Not sure where Gerry is today.

So as Forest Gump says, “that’s all I have to say about that.”

[Ernie Elkins]

I appreciate your thorough response, Steve. PJ and I discussed modeling earlier in this thread (as you probably noticed), and, based on your experience, some of the very concerns that he expressed about climate modeling in general would appear to be true. With that said, I'll latch on to your statement that "things have been getting better" and ask you to take a look at a few graphs that accompanied the IPCC's Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. They would seem to indicate the modeling has gotten better, since the scientists here appear to be testing their models against over 100 yrs of climate data. I'll stress "appear" because the report itself is dense reading for a non-scientist.

[Ernie Elkins]

Doing something now, even if it is painful and not the ideal course of action, is better than just sitting around waiting until it is too late.

This point is one to which we keep returning in this thread, and I think Steve sums it up well. After all, while there is no certainty with regard to climate change, there is an abundance of data that indicates that the earth is warming and that human activities play a significant role. The costs of dismissing this data as "inconclusive," and hence delaying action until we have a more accurate grasp of what's happening, are potentially catastrophic. On the other hand, we have a lot to gain if we get serious about energy use, emissions, etc. After all, the same activities that appear to be driving global warming are also polluting our air and water (see Craig's post at the bottom of page 4 in this thread).

[Joshua Mitchell]

On the other hand, we have a lot to gain if we get serious about energy use, emissions, etc. After all, the same activities that appear to be driving global warming are also polluting our air and water (see Craig's post at the bottom of page 4 in this thread).

:D Okay, so the title of my post is a little… eh, I can't remember the word… anyhow…

Point is, this is the exact reason I believe every human needs to take responsibility for "reducing their carbon footprint"*… we as a human race are apparently masochists on a grand scale… creating chemicals and pollutants that give ourselves cancer and other illnesses… polluting our living environments (aka cities) to where breathing the air can be painful… forget about killing the earth, I just want to stop killing other people and would appreciate it if other people tried to stop inadvertently killing me.

I realize others have likely already posted this same thought in this thread (heck, I may have for all I know… I know I have in other threads**). Ernie is right, "we have a lot to gain if we get serious about energy use, emissions, etc."

*I may have misappropriated that buzz word, but I believe it encompasses all of the actions that we have the ability to take.
**Life has been real busy, so I don't have a lot of time to wade through this thread

[Brian James]

>>>Global warming is pretty much the same thing. Doing something now, even if it is painful and not the ideal course of action, is better than just sitting around waiting until it is too late.<<<

I guess I wasn't clear in my post; my apologies.

I don't mean that we shouldn't be buying hybrid cars and carbon credits. I mean that we should be suspicious of anyone who tells us that that's going to be enough. We cannot become complacent once we have "reduced our personal carbon footprint to zero." This is the popular thing to say right now; it's all the rage. And that's why it's so dangerous: what scientist would publish data that showed that that was not enough, or the wrong thing to do? And such data was published, what media outlet would report it?

I understand that climate modeling is too complex for our computers and that we don't have the math or the theories right now to do it accurately. But where is the acceptance of that fact? Where is the massively parallel computing project to figure out why the planet is changing? Surely that's more important than SETI@home and Folding@home put together?

I feel that we need to create a climate of open-mindedness about environmental science. Right now, everyone who says "carbon neutral" gets a gold star and more funding. And anyone who said, for instance, "we have to reduce our electricity usage by 75%, and we have to stop eating meat" would get annoyed looks and no funding for next year. No one wants to believe that, no one wants to do those things. That's why no one ever reported that banning DDT would kill 30 million people: it was unpopular.

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