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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (14779)	12/7/2009 6:04:59 PM
From: RetiredNow	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86355

The global climate is just too damned complicated to model and we don't know enough about how everything interrelates. The whole modeling effort is an exercise in futility. Brumar, don't be silly. Of course, it is complex. However, we have modeled complex processes before. Think about the complexity of sending a man to the moon and back. Think about the complexity of modeling scenarios to ensure our Mars Rovers worked properly. Think about the modeling of the human body and it's incredibly complex interactions of millions of variables. Modeling doesn't have to account for every single variable to be useful. The fact is that in complex systems, we can sometimes model less than 1% of the variables and that will be enough to tell us very useful things about where that process is headed. It's kind of like a telescope. You only need the human eye to be able to track the moon's orbit around the earth. However, you may need a much better telescope, if you want to track it's movements in more detail and get to a much greater degree of precision. Same goes for GW. The models we have today are telling us what we need to know. They will get better and better, the more knowledgeable scientists become. But we are already at the point where the models are telling us some very useful information. Would you ignore your doctor because he doesn't know with certainty all the variables that impact heart health, when he tells you to cut down on cholesterol? Of course, you wouldn't, because he has enough info on cholesterol to know with a high degree of probability that it can lead to heart disease. Same thing goes for GW. We don't know everything, but we know enough to know it will have really bad impacts on humans and the earth we live on.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (14779)	12/13/2009 5:18:08 PM
From: RetiredNow	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 86355

The whole modeling effort is an exercise in futility. This comment really isn't worthy of you. If you believe this, then you must think science in general is an exercise in futility. Climate models are complex, it is true. But so are the mathematical models scientists build in many other disciplines, including astrophysics, astronautics, genetics, neurology, robotics, etc. Can you imagine all the variables they had to take into account in their simulations of the multiple flights to the moon and the satellites we've sent out to explore the universe? Those models probably have thousands of variables and millions of lines of code to enable those computers to react predictably to changes in those variables. It's all about modeling. Our entire modern society is based on the science of modeling real life and building code to handle life predictably. All of science is based on mathematical models designed to explain available empirical data and make predictions of future behavior based on those models. To say it is an exercise in futility is nothing more than a repudiation of the scientific method. At least we all know where you are coming from now. It explains a lot of your views.