12-Step Programs Don’t Always Work

I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train
By David Evans
5/28/2007

I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case. I am now skeptical.
In the late 1990s, this was the evidence suggesting that carbon emissions caused global warming:
1.Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, proved in a laboratory a century ago.
2.Global warming has been occurring for a century and concentrations of atmospheric carbon have been rising for a century. Correlation is not causation, but in a rough sense it looked like a fit.
3.Ice core data, starting with the first cores from Vostok in 1985, allowed us to measure temperature and atmospheric carbon going back hundreds of thousands of years, through several dramatic global warming and cooling events. To the temporal resolution then available (data points more than a thousand years apart), atmospheric carbon and temperature moved in lockstep: they rose and fell together. Talk about a smoking gun!
4.There were no other credible causes of global warming.
This evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we are absolutely certain when we apparently need to act now? So the idea that carbon emissions were causing global warming passed from the scientific community into the political realm. Research increased, bureaucracies were formed, international committees met, and eventually the Kyoto protocol was signed in 1997 to curb carbon emissions.
The political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too.
I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn’t believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!
But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence above fell away. Using the same point numbers as above:
2.Better data shows that from 1940 to 1975 the earth cooled while atmospheric carbon increased. That 35 year non-correlation might eventually be explained by global dimming, only discovered in about 2003.
3.The temporal resolution of the ice core data improved. By 2004 we knew that in past warming events, the temperature increases generally started about 800 years before the rises in atmospheric carbon. Causality does not run in the direction I had assumed in 1999 — it runs the opposite way!
It took several hundred years of warming for the oceans to give off more of their carbon. This proves that there is a cause of global warming other than atmospheric carbon. And while it is possible that rising atmospheric carbon in these past warmings then went on to cause more warming ("amplification" of the initial warming), the ice core data neither proves nor disproves this hypothesis.
4.There is now a credible alternative suspect. In October 2006 Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays cause cloud formation. Clouds have a net cooling effect, but for the last three decades there have been fewer clouds than normal because the sun’s magnetic field, which shields us from cosmic rays, has been stronger than usual. So the earth heated up. It’s too early to judge what fraction of global warming is caused by cosmic rays.

There is now no observational evidence that global warming is caused by carbon emissions. You would think that in over 20 years of intense investigation we would have found something. For example, greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions should warm the upper atmosphere faster than the lower atmosphere — but until 2006 the data showed the opposite, and thus that the greenhouse effect was not occurring! In 2006 better data allowed that the effect might be occurring, except in the tropics.
The only current "evidence" for blaming carbon emissions are scientific models (and the fact that there are few contradictory observations). Historically, science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations. Some theories held by science authorities have turned out to be spectacularly wrong: heavier-than-air flight is impossible, the sun orbits the earth, etc. For excellent reasons, we have much more confidence in observations by several independent parties than in models produced by a small set of related parties!
Let’s return to the interaction between science and politics. By 2000 the political system had responded to the strong scientific case that carbon emissions caused global warming by creating thousands of bureaucratic and science jobs aimed at more research and at curbing carbon emissions.
But after 2000 the case against carbon emissions gradually got weaker. Future evidence might strengthen or further weaken it. At what stage of the weakening should the science community alert the political system that carbon emissions might not be the main cause of global warming?
None of the new evidence actually says that carbon emissions are definitely not the cause of global warming, there are lots of good science jobs potentially at stake, and if the scientific message wavers then it might be difficult to later recapture the attention of the political system. What has happened is that most research efforts since 1990 have assumed that carbon emissions were the cause, and the alternatives get much less research or political attention.
Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. Climate change has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly blames carbon emissions, to the point of silencing critics.
The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effect of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming.
I recently bet $6,000 that the rate of global warming would slow in the next two decades. Carbon emissions might be the dominant cause of global warming, but I reckon that probability to be 20% rather than the 90% the IPCC estimates.
I worry that politics could seriously distort the science. Suppose that carbon taxes are widely enacted, but that the rate of global warming increase starts to decline by 2015. The political system might pressure scientists to provide justifications for the taxes.
Imagine the following scenario. Carbon emissions cause some warming, maybe 0.05C/decade. But the current warming rate of 0.20C/decade is mainly due to some natural cause, which in 15 years has run its course and reverses. So by 2025 global temperatures start dropping. In the meantime, on the basis of models from a small group of climate scientists but with no observational evidence (because the small warming due to carbon emissions is masked by the larger natural warming), the world has dutifully paid an enormous cost to curb carbon emissions.
Politicians, expressing the anger and apparent futility of all the unnecessary poverty and effort, lead the lynching of the high priests with their opaque models. Ironically, because carbon emissions are raising the temperature baseline around which natural variability occurs, carbon emissions might need curbing after all. Maybe. The current situation is characterized by a lack of observational evidence, so no one knows yet.
Some people take strong rhetorical positions on global warming. But the cause of global warming is not just another political issue, subject to endless debate and distortions. The cause of global warming is an issue that falls into the realm of science, because it is falsifiable. No amount of human posturing will affect what the cause is. It just physically is there, and after sufficient research and time we will know what it is.
________________________________________
David Evans, a mathematician, and a computer and electrical engineer, is head of Science Speak

Read the link. The questioner is not alone.

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live a healthy productive life with no left over garbage from the disease
I’m sorry, I don’t think I wrote my question well enough to get my point across…by the "effects of the disease" I meant the loved ones who have an alcoholic in their lives

of course you can if you choose to—you are the ultimate controller in what goes on in your life.

edit to your edit–my advice still stands…both myself and my husband have alcoholics in our family but we don’t allow the devastation to rule in our family. It’s hard but you have to put it aside, not let it rule in your life as a reminder and concentrate on yourself day by day.

I need to know more about alcohol rehabs and treatment programs because my sister is an alcohol dependent. I really want to get her treated as soon as possible. My parents, who are away, already know about this. They said that I should try to find an alcohol rehab that I think will really be able to take care of my sister.

I think it would be good if you can take your sister to a doctor first. The doctor will then be able to tell what kind of treatment program would be right for your sister as well as the alcohol rehabs that have this kind of program. A lot of programs, though, are stemmed from A.A.’s 12-step program. The links below will give you lists of alcohol rehabs in the area you have specified. Just call them and inquire. Good luck! I really hope your sister gets well soon.

Try to consult this one..

My girlfriend recently did a model show as part of a fundraiser for an organization she works for that helps poor people. She was wearing outfits for this fashion company that donates profit to the poor.

Anyway, she’s not a professional model or anything, I don’t think she’s done it before and I’m going by what she said. She was telling me about her experience and mentioned what the changing room was like. She said that she and the other girls just got changed in this room behind stage together, and I made her tell me more.

She said that yeah, there were guys there who basically took their clothes on and off for them and that sometimes she was left in just her underwear for a few minutes at a time. A couple times she even had no bra on in front of all these people and once even was totally nude!

How am I supposed to feel about all these people seeing my girlfriend in these states? Is this what usually happens during a fashion show? Did the guys look at her?

This is pretty normal, and it’s not something you need to worry about. The dressers are trained professionals, and they are just doing their job. Think of it the same way you would think about her going to see the doctor.

Please guys if you have any idea do share..I need to know how good is Muktangan de-addiction centre in Pune. What percentage(roughly) of people who get admitted there are able to get rid of their alcohol addiction.I need to know this for the treatment of my uncle who is an alcoholic.Would reallly appreciate your help!!
Thank you so much in advance.

"De-addiction" might a word one might apply to drugs. But alcohol is not a drug and alcoholism is not an addiction. (Even though there are hundreds of PAID "Addictions" professionals who want us to believe so)

Alcoholism is a mental obsession – a form of insanity, combined with a physical allergy which causes uncontrollable craving Nothing more – nothing less.

If it were simply an addiction – the problem would be solved once a good seventy-two hour withdrawal from the alcohol had passed.

There is no known cure for the physical allergy that causes craving once alcohol enter the body, but full recovery from the mental obsession is possible – thereby breaking the terrible cycle and solving the problem – through spiritual awakening as the result of the Twelve Steps or some other such spiritual solution.

It is only through spiritual methods that the obsession has ever been removed . In other words, divine intervention.

You don’t have to go to Pune, Minnesota or NYC and let people take your money for that. There is no solve through any known human aid. Only folks selling "services" who want you to think so. Sorry.

The good news is that recovered alcoholics – people like me – help other alcoholics recover and expect NOTHING in return. And our method works where all others have failed.

Peace,

Danny S

http://recoveredalcoholic.blogspot.com/

What is the effect of alcholsm in teen ager?

There are actually some much more disturbing and uncontrollable results from alchoholism.
There are certiain neurological disorders associatted with alchoholism.

Dimentia

Nerve damage

Brain Damage

These may sound like common sense but patients have come in with severe dimentia (hallucinations) and certain parts of their bodies no longer have feelings (nerve damage) and are bound to wheelcahirs or walkers…
Some of these people are only in their 40’s and havent had a drink in several years.

I am searching for an inpatient drug/alcohol treatment center/program that requires the client with no-insurance or other assistance to work a job within the treatment program itself to pay for the treatment they need. If you choose to answer please leave a website address or information on the program. Thank You!

What you are looking for are halfways or three quater houses. From what I know personally about these – I dont know if I would recommend them. Here in Detroit, and in nearby Pontiac there are all sorts of them – and they are difficult to stay clean in because many of the residents are getting high there – that part about working only gives them a chance to a) leave the premises with b) the money that they have access to…

In either case, look in your phone book under "community mental health" – they will be able to point you in the right direction.
Good Luck

http://www.transformationstreatment.com Christian Drug Treatment Center in Florida Transformations Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center is a top choice among addicts and alcoholics looking to overcome the disease of addiction and alcoholism. Christian Drug Treatment is key in the recovery process for thousands each year.

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