Considering I work in the most intensely scrutinize= d industry in the world, I wouldn't want anything I said to be misinte= rpreted. I'm happy to have friendly, one-on-one conversations any tim= e. However, misinterpretation is guaranteed with a group this si= ze, especially with so many people's predisposition to hate = or distrust everything oil related. Even in one-on-one conv= ersations with people in this distribution list, I've experienced some= incredulous conclusions drawn from the mildest of statements.=0A

=0A

----- Original Message ----
= From: Daniel Reeves <dreeves Æ umich.edu>
To: improvetheworld Æ umich.= edu
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2006 10:48:39 PM
Subject: Re: Fwd: G= lobal Warming

=0A

I hate to put my brother-in-law on the spot bu= t he's a chemical engineer
working in the oil industry and quite well-i= nformed and he has expressed
doubt that the risk/benefit analysis indic= ates that any drastic
curtailment of industrial emissions is warranted.=

Cam, could you elaborate on that?
Improvetheworld settles for no= thing less than the truth!

Thanks!
Danny

--- \/  = ; FROM Daniel Reeves AT 06.10.24 13:18 (Oct 24)   \/ ---

&= gt; You rock, Erik.  For those with a more casual interest in cli= matology, the
> take-home point from Erik's analysis, in my opinion,= is: junkscience.com
> exists to create doubt in the consensus of th= e scientific community, namely
> that global warming is real and pot= entially catastrophic.
>
> That was really insightful, Erik.>
> And I think there's even more to this point.  Junks= cience.com is full of
> phrases like "the existence of X is uncertain", "they may add to warming .= ..
> or, equally likely, suppress it", and "it is not known that..."=
>
> I mean, sure, production of greenhouse gases *may* put New= York City
> underwater but maybe it *won't* and then we'd sure feel= silly for doing
> anything about it!
>
> Danny
><= BR>> --- \/   FROM Erik Talvitie AT 06.10.24 12:31 (Today)&nbs= p; \/ ---
>
>> Well I hope junkscience.com of all thin= gs isn't enough to shake your
>> faith in the scientific process. = While it is absolutely important to
>> stay skeptical and critical= , especially with regard to issues in which
>> so many people with= lots of money and lots of power have a large stake,
>> there's no= need to doubt everything you hear anywhere.
>>
>> First= off, the beauty of science is its redundancy. Yes, any individual
>&= gt; piece of work might be exaggerated or overblown or biased or in the
>> wor= st case entirely fabricated, but there are so *many* people reviewing
&g= t;> papers, repeating experiments, challenging assumptions, and so on th= at
>> overall, progress is made. So when there's a politically cha= rged debate
>> over a scientific issue, I think the first thing to= do is *go to the
>> actual science.* Scientific consensus is not = *always* right (surely
>> lock-in on ridiculous conclusions has ha= ppened before and will happen
>> again) but it's sort of the best = we've got and I think it's pretty good.
>> Sometimes there isn't a= consensus to fall back on, but in this case
>> we're lucky. I am = not a climatologist, but as I understand it, the
>> debate over th= e existence/danger of rapid, global climate change and its
>> caus= al link to human industrial activity stems largely from think tanks
>= > and lobbying organizations (junkscience.com included, due to Steven
>>= ; Milloy's affiliations) and less from within the climatological community<= BR>>> itself. Indeed, it seems like all of the science Milloy referen= ces he
>> brings up to refute. One is then obligated to ask, where= is the science
>> that *agrees* with him and how much of the lite= rature is he *not*
>> refuting?
>>
>> Secondly,= sometimes one can spot propaganda just from looking at it. In
>> = the case of junkscience.com, one will usually find the articles filled
&= gt;> to the brim with straw man arguments, and this one is no exception.= Here
>> are some of my favorite claims that nobody makes that Mil= loy
>> successfully refutes:
>>
>> - Greenhouse= gases have the same thermodynamical properties as sheets of
>> gl= ass
>> - Greenhouse gases do not allow heat to escape from the Earth's
>> atmosphere
>> - The greenhouse effect is cate= gorically and objectively bad
>> - CO2 is categorically and object= ively bad
>> - CO2 is the only greenhouse gas
>> - Averag= e global temperature is the best metric for climate change
>> - (t= his one is my favorite) Greenhouse gas molecules absorb and then
>>= ; re-emit the "same" energy, unchanged
>>
>> He also hij= acks the term "climate change" and defines it as change of
>> the = climate, something "the climate is always doing," and something that
>= ;> is "outside the realm of anthropogenic (manmade) effects," not
>= ;> acknowledging that "climate change" is used by the scientific communi= ty
>> as a term of art, a shortening for catastrophic or rapid cli= mate change.
>> Using straw-men like this allows Milloy to make mi= sleading statements
>> like "Greenhouse gases therefore do not tra= p heat" and undermines the
>> scientific discussion by muddying the meaning o= f terms. When I see this
>> much logical fallacy and obfuscation i= n an article, I'm significantly
>> less inclined to trust the more= technical conclusions to be well-founded
>> or well-researched.>>
>> So, in short, I think there *are* things you can tr= ust and conversely I
>> think it is possible to spot dubious claim= s that one should at least
>> corroborate with some auxiliary read= ing if not totally ignore.
>> Personally, I'm more inclined to tru= st articles that have a broad, deep,
>> and clearly presented list= of references that demonstrates support in
>> and connection to l= egitimate scientific literature and that contain
>> clear, well-pr= esented, and logically sound arguments. Even better is
>> when the= article appears in a publication that is either peer-reviewed
>> = or that is otherwise under intense scrutiny (like high circulation,
>> well-= reputed magazines/newspapers, etc.) I've never seen anything on
>>= junkscience.com that met any of those criteria for me. In fact, I'll
&g= t;> even go so far as to say that I believe junkscience.com and publicat= ions
>> like it exist expressly to *create* doubts like those you = expressed,
>> rather than to create understanding or spread knowle= dge. They *want* to
>> create the impression that all sources of i= nformation are equally
>> informative (or uninformative) and that'= s just not true. There is a
>> range of legitimacy and it's import= ant that we retain our ability (and
>> our trust in our ability) t= o perceive it.
>>
>> Well I wrote kind of a lot -- much = more than I intended. Hopefully I've
>> addressed your conundrum a= t least a little bit, though.
>>
>> Erik
>> >> On Tue, 2006-10-24 at 09:40 -0400, Dave Morris wrote:
>>> http://www.junk= science.com/Greenhouse/
>>>
>>> Some rather co= mpelling arguments that maybe we're focusing our efforts
>>> on= the wrong problems, or at the very least CO2 is a problem for
>>&= gt; reasons other than what everyone has been telling us it's a problem
= >>> for.
>>>
>>> Kind of makes you doubt = everything you hear anywhere, since it's
>>> (including this) a= lmost always presented by someone with such a strong
>>> agenda= that they're really inventing science to support their arguments
>&g= t;> rather than the other way around. What's even more scary- I think ab= out
>>> all the research I've done as a scientist and the Power= point
>>> presentations I've put together to try to make it loo= k good... it's so
>>> easy to do. But you can't ignore everything you didn't = do yourself and
>>> bury your head in the sand.  Quit= e the conundrum.
>>
>
>

--
http://ai.eecs.umich.e= du/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"
Time flies like an arrow
Fruit flies like a banana

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