A State-Hating Climate Change Sceptic

[Injin]

that would require a significantly more intrusive state than we currently have.

Hmm not really.

FRB is a common law fraud still, it's just that hardly anyone complains.

[Traktion]

that would require a significantly more intrusive state than we currently have.

If we have laws on counterfeiting, how hard can it be?

Besides, we currently have a banking charter, which you need to operate as a bank. We don't have shady underground banks now (or at least not big enough to threaten systemic failure) and I doubt we would have them with LPB either.

[Traktion]

FRB is civilisation. What you all call FRB is simply the current best-fit means of harnessing the huge latent energy of collective human ingenuity. In times past it has been called olympia, pax romana, christianity, protestantism, credit and capitalism.

However whenever there is huge potenial realised, parasites emerge to feed off it.

It seems from history it is impossible to express the best of human capability without simultaneously promoting its worst aspects. By advocating unlimited liability and LPB and transferral of collective risk onto the individual by implication you seek to sigificantly reduce human potential and reduce trade in return for diminishing the negative/parasitic aspects of ourselves. Which is fine, as long as you don't think you can have it both ways.

The only difference between FRB and LPB is that you decide how much of your money to risk, from week to week. Should people naturally only hold 10% of their money in current accounts and can afford to wait a while while any shares in mutual funds are sold/mature in good time, what is the difference? Borrowers are still connected with lenders (the fund managers and the market do this), but people know the risks and agree to them before hand.

Essentially, you allow people to be safe or to gamble, but one individual's actions does not effect another; we aren't all burned by poor investments of a few bankers.

While I would agree that banking has helped our civilisation become successful, I don't buy that fractional reserve banking 'is civilisation'.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Traktion

[scepticus]

The only difference between FRB and LPB is that you decide how much of your money to risk, from week to week.

which means there would be no lending except by the extremely rich.

which is exactly how FRB got started in the first place, with the fuggers et al.

[Traktion]

which means there would be no lending except by the extremely rich.

which is exactly how FRB got started in the first place, with the fuggers et al.

Again, I don't buy that. Are you claiming that poor people have any appreciable ability to lend to anyone? Interest on instant access money is pretty tiny and I suspect that many poor people are in debt and therefore not net lenders of anything at all.

Secondly, what is a pension, if it isn't putting a portion of your savings up for lending for a return? Are you claiming that only the extremely rich have pensions?

Buying a small number of shares in a number of mutual funds would be no different to setting up a time locked savings account, except that they would be easier to trade on an open market. Again, I fail to see how this would be the preserve of the extremely rich.

Claiming that FRB has some how liberated the poor to earn interest worth bothering with, over the period of time between pay days, seems to be stretching your point to say the least.

[Injin]

which means there would be no lending except by the extremely rich.

which is exactly how FRB got started in the first place, with the fuggers et al.

Penny stocks say "hello Scepticus, you are wrong again."

FRb got started when those entrusted with looking after the warehouse loaned out the things that the warehouse contained which were not theirs. Rich people had very little to do with it.

Then when the recievers of the stolen goods wanted to put their (really someone elss) newly acquired valuables somewhere safe, they went back to the warehouse. Comedy gold.

[Tiger Woods?]

So, that would be pretty much every single geologist, physicist, and atmospheric and oceanic scientist who has ever seriously looked at the problem for the last century is an 'AGW catastrophist'.?

(Ok, sensitivity for CO2 doubling is almost certainly in the range 2.5-3K, making your statement utterly bizarre in excluding pretty much everyone.. but there you go. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that 4-6K means by 2100)

Fluffy, your continual misrepresentation of the current scientific evidence, history of climatological science, and the existence of "consensus" is boring, and it means I don't take you seriously. And yes, I was talking about the 2100 estimates that get bandied about, by the IPCC amongst others. e.g. Mark Lynas' "Six Degrees"

Your assertion that CO2 doubling is almost certainly in the range of 2.5 to 3 degrees is remarkably precise. Have you thought about publishing your evidence for this? The IPCC AR4 figure for climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is 2 to 4.5 degrees. Of course, there are many other views on what the actual numbers may be, some as low as 0.4 to 0.8 degrees. (And some as high as 10!) Many of them have 99% confidence intervals. Many of these barely overlap.

As someone who was a successful professional scientist for 17 years at one of the top universities in the world, I find your approach and credulity depressing, especially if you are a scientist yourself.

By the way, although I have worked (albeit briefly) for the oil industry in the past, my major sources of income at present, and probably for quite a few years to come if I wish, are government and quango contracts that exist because of AGW concerns and EU emissions targets etc. I have a great big vested interest in keeping the AGW gravy train rolling. Jeezuz, they even let me work from home on the other side of the planet...

...and, with respect to snouts in the trough, I am a teeny, weeny little runt.

Edited June 2, 2010 by D'oh

[fluffy666]

Fluffy, your continual misrepresentation of the current scientific evidence, history of climatological science, and the existence of "consensus" is boring, and it means I don't take you seriously.

I'm sorry? You are the one doing all of the above - or simply refusing to educate yourself. Repeatedly. 'Textbooks are all biased, so go read this laughable blog post/pop-sci-fi essay instead'. Give me a break.

And yes, I was talking about the 2100 estimates that get bandied about, by the IPCC amongst others. e.g. Mark Lynas' "Six Degrees"

Well, why did you not bother to specify? You didn't even give units! 'professional scientist' indeed. Of course, it is a standard tactic of anyone taking an anti-science position - to make other people do the work for them in exactly this manner.

Your assertion that CO2 doubling is almost certainly in the range of 2.5 to 3 degrees is remarkably precise. Have you thought about publishing your evidence for this? The IPCC AR4 figure for climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling is 2 to 4.5K degrees.

With a center of 3K. Which is what the AR4 says.

Of course, there are many other views on what the actual numbers may be, some as low as 0.4 to 0.8 degrees. (And some as high as 10!) Many of them have 99% confidence intervals. Many of these barely overlap.

And the references are..? Neither of those numbers are compatible with direct observations, never mind models. Let me guess: You want to be able to make assertion after assertion and it's up to me to track down the source of the assertion?

Must have been an interesting time getting papers published. References: none. If the reader dares to question my omniscience he/she can go off the library and do the work themselves, the lazy ingrate. Would certainly increase academic productivity, I'll grant that.

As someone who was a successful professional scientist for 17 years at one of the top universities in the world, I find your approach and credulity depressing, especially if you are a scientist yourself.

You keep claiming that. You are not exactly making a good case for it being the precise truth. All you seem to do is accuse anyone who disagrees with you of 'groupthink' or 'credulity' without the slightest bit of supporting evidence; you haven't made even the slightest attempt to make a case for a low climate sensitivity - which is how a real scientist would argue.

[Tiger Woods?]

And the references are..? Neither of those numbers are compatible with direct observations, never mind models. Let me guess: You want to be able to make assertion after assertion and it's up to me to track down the source of the assertion?

For a range (90% confidence interval) of 1K to 9.3K see:

Andronova, N., Schlesinger, M. E. (2001). Objective Estimation of the Probability Distribution for Climate Sensitivity. J. Geophys. Res. 106 (D19): 22605-22612.

Abstract:

The size and impacts of anthropogenically induced climate change (AICC) strongly depend on the climate sensitivity, ΔT2x . If ΔT2x is less than the lower bound given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 1.5°C, then AICC may not be a serious problem for humanity. If ΔT2x is greater than the upper bound given by the IPCC, 4.5°C, then AICC may be one of the most severe problems of the 21st century. Here we use a simple climate/ocean model, the observed near-surface temperature record, and a bootstrap technique to objectively estimate the probability density function for ΔT2x . We find that as a result of natural variability and uncertainty in the climatic radiative forcing, the 90% confidence interval for ΔT2x is 1.0°C to 9.3°C. Consequently, there is a 54% likelihood that ΔT2x lies outside the IPCC range.

Enough said.

It would be churlish of me to point out that what you said was:

almost certainly in the range 2.5-3K

which seemed to me and, I would suggest, anyone else who read it, that you are suggesting the confidence interval has been narrowed quite tightly. It hasn't been.

I would also point out that Celcius and Kelvin are the same relative scale, and no one uses Farenheit in science these days.

Must have been an interesting time getting papers published. References: none. If the reader dares to question my omniscience he/she can go off the library and do the work themselves, the lazy ingrate. Would certainly increase academic productivity, I'll grant that.

This is a forum, not a journal. Besides, you are the expert, not me.

You might find the following useful, I have:

http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/logicalfallacies.html

Edited June 2, 2010 by D'oh

[scepticus]

FRb got started when those entrusted with looking after the warehouse loaned out the things that the warehouse contained which were not theirs. Rich people had very little to do with it.

a public (or indeed private) granary in an ancient city performed essentially the same FRB function.

Its all about demand smoothing, and deferred consumption, whether of grain, energy, widgets or whatever.

The existence of a granary means that claims on future grain supplies exist.

[scepticus]

Yes, I see your point and I think we've had this discussion before! When I say "stop FRB", what I mean is make it illegal and then act swiftly and accordingly to those who break the law.

that is an unwarranted intrusion into private affairs.

By all means desist in state support for it, but you can't ban it.

[Injin]

that is an unwarranted intrusion into private affairs.

By all means desist in state support for it, but you can't ban it.

Well it is unlawful already, just hardly anyone puts a complaint in.

[Tiger Woods?]

Isn't it amazing how some people just disappear into the aether...