The Real Climate gang rarely disappoint. But the latest post from Gavin Schmidt is not just useful, but downright brilliant:
Imagine a group of 100 fisherman faced with declining stocks and worried about the sustainability of their resource and their livelihoods. One of them works out that the total sustainable catch is about 20% of what everyone is catching now (with some uncertainty of course) but that if current trends of increasing catches (about 2% a year) continue the resource would be depleted in short order. Faced with that prospect, the fishermen gather to decide what to do.
Read the rest. It's not long.
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Interesting comparison. But then it shows what were up against as no one has managed to manage fish stocks anywhere at all.
I was under the impression that Iceland managed its fish stocks quite well. A quick search found this:
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sids/2008_roundtable/presentation/session…
Which does indeed seem to show that they have managed their stocks upwards into sustainability.
I guess they were spending too much time managing fish stock rather than that other kinda stock!
I am currently engaged in a (sort of) debate with a global warming skeptic online. His most recent argument is:
âThe current cooling is occurring despite the absence of any cause included in the current modelling. There have been no large eruptions, (such as Pinatubo, for example) to account for the cooling, nor even for the stability after 2001.
The estimates for the GHG effect, upon which the AGW concerns are based, are so much higher than the reality that the temperatures are now 0.2 degrees cooler than projected, and that represents half the warming that has occurred since 1940.â
I am aware that cooling since 2001 is not indicative of the overall trend of increasing temperature, but how would one reply to this specific argument?
Güzel bir paylaÅım
@Mike: you can start by asking him to refer to the literature that claims current temperatures should be 0.2 degrees warmer. He won't be able to refer to such literature. Watch the squirming, part 1.
You can then ask him to refer you to the specific model outputs that have short-term variability expressly build into the model, and which claim to model global temperatures accurately. Once again he will be unable to refer you to such models, mostly because he wouldn't even know the difference between the various models. Watch the squirming, part 2.
I've learned to ask questions rather than being on the defense by referring them to literature. Others will note that there is an unwillingness to provide proof, which is better than the likely attempt to change the discussion by attacking anything you say/refer to.