Martin Cothran joins in the denialfest on the news that the level of snow melt is at a 30-year low.
Both from the terminology and from a small bit of research at a couple of sites, including NASA, the snow melt in any given year seems to be how much the difference in the snow cover over the previous years. Any snow melt is a sign of warmer temperatures. So, saying that this was a year of smaller gains in temperatures than we have seen for a while doesn't really change the message that the warming is going on.
Monday, October 12, 2009
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1 – 200 of 225 Newer› Newest»Eric, your resort to condescending, derisive terms such as "denialism," only goes to show that you view this issue from an ideological viewpoint, if ya ax me.
I have heard many reports of the political suppression, censorship, and ad hoc revision of scientific data and opinions on the global warming issue, beginning with early U.N. reprots. A recent (alleged) example:
EPA Suppresses Internal Global Warming Study
"The study the emails refer to, which ran counter to the administration’s views on carbon dioxide and climate change, was kept from circulating within the agency, was never disclosed to the public, and was not added to the body of materials relevant to EPA’s current “endangerment” proceeding. The emails further show that the study was treated in this manner not because of any problem with its quality, but for political reasons.
“This suppression of valid science for political reasons is beyond belief,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. “EPA’s conduct is even more outlandish because it flies in the face of the President’s widely-touted claim that ‘the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over.’”
http://www.globalwarming.org/2009/06/24/epa-suppresses-internal-global-warming-study/
As I recall, the head of the EPA (or some equivalent canadian agency) said a while back that even if there were no evidence for global warming, the alarm should still be sounded because the political agenda the concept generated would be good for the world.
"With an emphatic bang of the gavel, “Chief Justice" Amara Pongsapich of Thailand on Wednesday upheld the claims for damages caused by global warming on the people of Asia even as she handed down a guilty verdict on developed countries for “causing untold misery" after a one-day trial by the International Court of Earth Justice: The Global Climate Tribunal in this city, which is currently hosting climate change talks....The promulgation was met with singing and thunderous applause from the audience, which intently kept track of the proceedings even as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations continued to be mired by contentious issues like adaptation finance at the UNESCAP building nearby..."
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/174137/mock-tribunal-indicts-rich-countries-for-causing-global-warming
Heh, Commies, the "downtrodden," and anti-capitalists of all stripes seem to have a highly vested interest in this issue.
This guy is merely noting the lack of reporting about a recent finding. Where's the "denialism." Everybody and his brother seems to be an expert in climatology these here days, for some reason. Does anybody even get a PhD in any other field anymore, I wonder?
All though you seem to love the
For some damn reason, the experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administation, which is apparently a sub-divison of the National Climatic Data Center at the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, doesn't seem to think that scientific knowledge about global warming is to indubitable as to preclude all possibility of debate, eh?:
"Since our entire climate system is fundamentally driven by energy from the sun, it stands to reason that if the sun's energy output were to change, then so would the climate....However, our understanding of the indirect effects of changes in solar output and feedbacks in the climate system is minimal. There is much need to refine our understanding of key natural forcing mechanisms of the climate, including solar irradiance changes, in order to reduce uncertainty in our projections of future climate change."
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#q10
For some completely unknown reason, nobody ever seems to be quite so certain of his own assumptions and conclusions, and so utterly dismissive of legitimate debate, as a ideological partisan, ya know?
Eric, your resort to condescending, derisive terms such as "denialism," only goes to show that you view this issue from an ideological viewpoint, if ya ax me.
Which ideology would that be?
I have heard many reports of the political suppression, censorship, and ad hoc revision of scientific data and opinions on the global warming issue, beginning with early U.N. reprots. A recent (alleged) example:
EPA Suppresses Internal Global Warming Study
I went to the CEI's website and read both the emails and the introduction to the restrospective in question. It looks exactly like one man at the EPA trying to keep someone else at the EPA from a) embarrassing his department with a host of denialist nonesense that relies on cherry-picking of the data, b) circuventing the CCSP (the US governnment body on climate change), and c) failing to get his own assigned work done in the process. If the CEI were able to feel shame over engaging in denialist tactics, this would be a god place to start.
This guy is merely noting the lack of reporting about a recent finding.
If by "this guy" you mean Cothran, he is using a statistic for this year, ignoring the long-term trend, to say that global warming won't be a problem anymore. However, the degree of ice melt would never show a uniform rate of increase or decrease, and that one year showed less than prior years is not a sign of change in overall trend. To pretend otherwise is engaging in denialism.
...doesn't seem to think that scientific knowledge about global warming is to indubitable as to preclude all possibility of debate, eh?
There is no scientific field so well known that all possiblity of debate with regard to mechanisms is precluded.
One Brow said: "If by "this guy" you mean Cothran, he is using a statistic for this year, ignoring the long-term trend, to say that global warming won't be a problem anymore."
Long-term trend? What is that, exactly. I hear we are heading toward an ice age, ya know? Accordin to Wiki, for example:
"It is generally accepted that the Holocene started approximately 12,000 years BP (before present day), i.e., around 10,000 BC....ice melt caused world sea levels to rise about 35 m (110 ft) in the early part of the Holocene...Climate has been fairly stable over the Holocene. Ice core records show that before the Holocene there were global warming and cooling periods, but climate changes became more regional at the start of the Younger Dryas....The Holocene warming is an interglacial period and there is no reason to believe that it represents a permanent end to the current ice age. However, the current global warming may result in the Earth becoming warmer than the Eemian Stage, which peaked at roughly 125 000 years ago and was warmer than the Holocene."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene
I don't pretend to understand the complexities of this scientific field, and, ya know what? I don't even care to try to understand it all. I have a feeling that if I somehow knew and understood all the things there are to know, I would be even less certain that I knew, and could explain all the causes of climate change than I am now. I would therefore be even less certain that I could predict the future.
Then again, mebbe I just aint the kinda guy to get to feelin like I gotz all the answers, like more "normal" people seem to think sometimes.
One Brow asked: "Which ideology would that be?"
I dunno what it is exactly, or why this issue has become so highly policiticized. What "ideology" leads the asians to conclude that they are owed vast reparations for the "untold misery" inflicted upon them via global warming by developed countries?
Whatever the ideology behind it all, it seems that the global warming issue generates more emotional (rather than scientific) reactions than most. Kinda like an atheist/fundie "debate" about evolution, ya know?
One Brow said: "It looks exactly like one man at the EPA trying to keep someone else at the EPA from a) embarrassing his department with a host of denialist nonesense that relies on cherry-picking of the data..."
I take it that you read and independently analyzed this 80+ page report and did not just summarily conclude, based on preconceptions, that it was all just "a host of denialist nonsense," then, eh, Eric?:
http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf
"Denialist" is OK, I guess, but I always kinda preferred the pejorative "infidel," my own damn self.
"Cherry picking" seems to be engaged in by anyone who presents an argument on a topic that considers things which might not support my personal conclusion. I HATE cherry-pickers!
I haven't come across the e-mails in question, but kinda funny how they can be interpreted in ways completely antithetical to each other, eh, Eric? These guys, for example, say:
"One EPA office director actually demanded that the endangerment-challenging study be barred from circulation within the agency, never disclosed to the public, and not placed in the docket of the proceeding....the communications between that EPA National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE) Office Director, Al McGartland, made clear that it was the study’s conclusions rather than its merit that earned it its place on the trash heap....Carlin [one of the study's authors] pointed out that roughly two-thirds of his references were from peer-reviewed publications and that his comments “explain much of the observational data that have been collected which cannot be explained by the IPCC models.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/06/obamas_epa_makes_a_mockery_of.html
Hmmm, who to believe.....?
You'll notice that the draft of the study in question is missing parts 4 and 5, and that no "conclusions" were present. I guess this is because "The second [email from McGartland to Carlin] was a direct order arriving eight minutes later: “I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change.”
Long-term trend? What is that, exactly. I hear we are heading toward an ice age, ya know?
At best, your quote said we are in a current ice age, not heading toward one.
One Brow asked: "Which ideology would that be?"
I dunno what it is exactly, or why this issue has become so highly policiticized.
Many industrial interests see a short-term threat to a massive change to energy sourcing. Much like tobacco companies fund tobacco denialism, they are often potent funding sources for global warming denialism.
What "ideology" leads the asians to conclude that they are owed vast reparations for the "untold misery" inflicted upon them via global warming by developed countries?
Money.
I take it that you read and independently analyzed this 80+ page report and did not just summarily conclude, based on preconceptions, that it was all just "a host of denialist nonsense," then, eh, Eric?
Neither. The author was kind enough to summarize the basic points, and as I pointed out above, I read that introduction.
"Denialist" is OK, I guess, but I always kinda preferred the pejorative "infidel," my own damn self.
Many denialists have a profit motive rather than a belief motive.
I haven't come across the e-mails in question, but kinda funny how they can be interpreted in ways completely antithetical to each other, eh, Eric? These guys, for example, say:
...
Hmmm, who to believe.....?
The guy without a profit motive?
The emails are also on the CEI site.
http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/Endangerment%20Comments%206-23-09.pdf
You'll notice that the draft of the study in question is missing parts 4 and 5, and that no "conclusions" were present. I guess this is because "The second [email from McGartland to Carlin] was a direct order arriving eight minutes later: “I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change.”
Could be. It's really not their job.
The controversial report by Carlin claims that the EPA has uncritically accepted the conclusions of outside agencies, such as the IPPC, without paying attention to the underlying science.
What do the participants in IPPC "really" think? According to this scientist, Ann Henderson-Sellers, former Director ofthe World Climate Research Programme based in Geneva at the headquarters of the World Meteorological Organisation, they think, among other things, that:
1. The IPCC was designed 20 years ago when the problem was less well-understood and political acceptance more fragile. We now need to focus more on solutions. Future IPCC reports must be more focused, shorter and timely. We absolutely need a complete re-think.
2. The Fourth Assessment Report is rather weak at including the latest research and thereby is losing credibility in the science community.
3. Progress requires more attention to addressing basic model flaws. Without alleviating these, future IPCC assessments will look very similar each time. What a waste of resources...climate science will get what it deserves if it does not apply itself more to basics rather than what it is doing currently.
4. Until and unless major oscillations in the Earth System (El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) etc.) can be predicted to the extent that they are predictable, regional climate is not a well defined problem. It may never be. If that is the case then we should say so. It is not just the forecast but the confidence and uncertainty that are just as much a key.
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/opinion/35820
Ya know, Eric, I'm startin to git a strong suspicion that the IPPC itself is justa buncha denialist frauds, eh?
One Brow said: "Could be. It's really not their job."
It aint? Carlin says he was asked (on very short notice) to prepare the report. I guess it's his job until he says sumthin the Director don't wanna hear, then it aint his job no more.
I don't have to take a scientific side on this issue to detest the suppression of a good faith scientific report made by a presumably competent employee entrusted with the task. He may be right or wrong, but he should not be censored because his conclusions might be unpopular among those with a particular agenda.
One Brow said: "At best, your quote said we are in a current ice age, not heading toward one."
Exactly. We are always in an "ice age," I figure, the onliest question is what part of the cycle we are currently in. But your point is...what? And what is the "at best" qualifier supposed to indicate?
My point is that looking at a 20-30 year cycle hardly justifies making "long term" predictions. It's kinda like projecting that a guy who makes his first free throw of the season will shoot 100% for the year, ya know?
Perhaps Ms. Henderson-Sellers could use an extended stint at a re-education camp somehwere, eh?;
"I believe it is essential for the climate change research community to be transparent and honest about what it can and cannot deliver and how, if ever, current inadequacies can be resolved." The traitor!
The controversial report by Carlin claims that the EPA has uncritically accepted the conclusions of outside agencies, such as the IPPC, without paying attention to the underlying science.
Carlin also references the CCSP, a US governmental body specifically devoted to climate science. Any reason you skipped that one? Just how many government agencies do you think should be charged with doing primary data analysis on climate change?
What do the participants in IPPC "really" think? According to this scientist, Ann Henderson-Sellers, former Director ofthe World Climate Research Programme based in Geneva at the headquarters of the World Meteorological Organisation, they think, ...
That they need to keep improving the work they do and the quality of their findings, apparently. I've never heard a scientist claim no more research was needed.
Ya know, Eric, I'm startin to git a strong suspicion that the IPPC itself is justa buncha denialist frauds, eh?
Based on?
It aint? Carlin says he was asked (on very short notice) to prepare the report.
Not in the emails on the CEI website. He says is responding to one particular criticism of his report, not that he was assigned the report. There is not a single word in those emails that indicates he was working an official assignment, and clauses like "I have stressed in earlier emails ..." and "Let me know if you have even more time ..." indicate that Carlin was working on his initiative.
Exactly. We are always in an "ice age," I figure, the onliest question is what part of the cycle we are currently in. But your point is...what? And what is the "at best" qualifier supposed to indicate?
That the evidence is we are heading for warming, not cooling.
My point is that looking at a 20-30 year cycle hardly justifies making "long term" predictions.
Good thing climate change science doesn't rely on only hte past 20-39 years for their data, then.
Perhaps Ms. Henderson-Sellers could use an extended stint at a re-education camp somehwere, eh?
Sounds like any garden-variety scientist to me.
One Brow said: "Not in the emails on the CEI website. He says is responding to one particular criticism of his report, not that he was assigned the report."
Naw, it aint in the emails, I didn't say it was. In the report (draft) itself, he says they were only given 3 days in which to make their comments, and that he was doing his best within those virtually prohibitive guidelines. Course, he could just be makin it all up, I spoze, and just doin a job he wasn't asked to do.
One Brow said: "Sounds like any garden-variety scientist to me."
Yeah, exactly, that's the problem. Science should take a back-seat to advocacy here. Them scientists don't do nuthin but cause embarrassment to those with a political agenda to advance. Like these fools, for example:
"Warming fears are the worst scientific scandal in history...When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist
"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." - U.S. Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
It may take decades to clear out all of this riff-raff, ya know?:
"I am a skeptic ... . Global warming has become a new religion." Ivar Giaever - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics
"The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds ... . I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists." Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia - Punjab University, Board Member U.N.Supported International Year of the Planet
http://www.freshconservative.com/Fresh_Conservative/Fresh_Conservative/Entries/2009/6/14_Global_Warming_Skeptics._Who_Are_These_Madmen.html
Even the damn Limeys are in on this conspiracy of betrayal, it seems, eh?:
"Here in Britain, he [Al Gore] was on the front pages for another reason, too: a High Court ruling said that his film, An Inconvenient Truth, could only be shown in British schools with guidance notes explaining that parts of it contain ‘alarmism and exaggeration’
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/3966/
The backstabbin muthafukkaz, them! I tellya!
Whistle-blowers are just seekin attention, and are willin to make up anything to git it, I figure:
"Folks, I work at EPA and am unfortunate enough to actually know exactly what happened. Alan Carlin knows more about climate change science than most of the people on the EPA work group that wrote the endangerment proposal. The claim that he is simply an economist is a deep disservice to Alan and is patently false...Alan was muzzled. Others who tried to get the work group to evaluate his arguments ran into a brick wall. It is not that Alan’s comments were flawed. It is that the people who were in charge wanted him taken out of the process and his report “disappeared”. Notably, others at EPA agree with Alan’s analysis which EPA will make public (so they say). If they actually release the report Alan sent forward, and don’t take his extremely critical statements out, it will embarrass the Agency badly. That will be a shame, but it is what the Agency has earned for itself.
I would like to give my name, but I don’t wish to be punished in the same manner as Alan.
This is a deeply sad set of events for EPA and for the nation."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/25/source-inside-epa-confirms-claims-of-science-being-ignored-by-top-epa-management/
"Notably, others at EPA agree with Alan’s analysis which EPA"
Where's Joe McCarthy when ya really need him, eh? It is imperative that we cleanse our government agencies of subversives who support "a host of denialist nonsense," I tellya!
So, saying that this was a year of smaller gains in temperatures than we have seen for a while doesn't really change the message that the warming is going on.
The temp. data does seem to suggest warming. But the real question remains--is that warming caused solely by man-made C02? Quite a few high-powered scientists (say Freeman Dyson), not all right-wingers, have not agreed to the man-made Co2 hypothesis. (Crichton however said temp. data itself was not that reliable, nor did it overcome margins of error. Hansen actually errored in some of his temp. calculations, and had to correct per US Govt.).
AGW does appear to be somewhat regional, however. It's a problem in Copenhagen, perhaps--not so much in El Lay or Rome, etc. Does it require spending millions? Not sure.
I'm not down with the Foxnews type gung-ho deniers, but not siding with the Gorebots/IPCC either; it might be prudent to play Popperian and wait until all the facts/research/experimental results are in.
By the way, Eric, I found this "updated" (but never really edited, corrected, or revised) report of Carlin online:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/endangermentcommentsv7b1.pdf
If you actually took the time to read I would be curious...do you stand by your immediate reaction that this report merely constitutes "a host of denialist nonesense that relies on cherry-picking of the data?"
One Brow asked: "Which ideology would that be?"
Accordin to this here Limey, it's sumthin like this, eh, Eric?:
"Green writers and activists frequently pose as the guardians of scientific accuracy, when in truth their campaigning is driven by a deeply moralistic view of mankind as dangerous and destructive. And like all high priests of morality, they have a highly dysfunctional relationship with ‘the truth’....For all their claims that their campaign against climate change is driven by unquestionable scientific facts, they are more than willing to nod through a few errors here and there. Theirs is actually a political and moralistic campaign, based on misanthropic ideas about human activity and on demands for restraint, austerity and the rewiring of people’s expectations and desires...The Science is less about facts and evidence, much less open debate, than it is about scaring people into accepting the environmentalist agenda. The Science is used both to pressure people to accept the political premises of the green lobby, and also to silence anybody who criticises the green lobby by accusing them of being ‘anti-science’ or ‘deniers’...The received truth of environmentalism – that The Science has indicted mankind as a plague on the planet and we must atone for our sins by reducing our carbon emissions and reining in development – is indeed little more than a prejudice."
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/3966/
He could be right, I spoze.
Those that should oughta know seem to agree, eh?:
Recently I interviewed Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, on radio and asked why he quit the organisation. He said: "I left in the mid-'80s when the policy started to drift away from science and logic into these kind of zero-tolerance positions that I believe are based more on sensation and fund-raising around scare tactics. Look at the campaign against genetically modified crops and the whole 'Frankenstein food' … these are scare words that are attached to what is actually one of the most important advances to genetic science in history … for example, taking a gene from corn and creating the 'golden rice' which could eliminate blindness in half a million kids every year in Asia and Africa, and could eliminate chronic vitamin A deficiency in over 200 million people in the rice-eating countries."
Moore, who has an honours degree in forest biology and a PhD in ecology, says he left Greenpeace when "I was an international director, one of five. My fellow international directors had no science education. Most of them were political activists or entrepreneur environmentalists..." These days the green movement often seems driven by left-wing rather than environmental causes.
http://www.greenspirit.com/logbook.cfm?msid=117
Commies, eh?
Some atheists sincerely argue that environmentalism is a good secular religion. For example:
"Let's face it: sometimes it's pretty lonely being an atheist. Everyone else in town gets all gussied up and gets together in church while we sit at home or roam the empty streets in search of open businesses....What's an atheist to do?....A great alternative for atheists is to join non-religious activist groups. Activism is like religion in that it is based in groups of people that come together because of shared ideals...Environmentalism is particularly ideal for atheists...Too often we atheists mistake self-absorption for rigorous independence. The fact is that mature atheists can be just as, if not more, caring than religious folks.
http://irregulartimes.com/further10.html
Another example:
"When my cool agnostic mates teased me for not having read the Bible I claimed to support, I went home and actually read the thing. It turned out that my sympathetic pal upstairs was actually a merciless tyrant. The next day, I took off my cross.
It was about the same time that I started getting into environmentalism. I stopped preaching about Christianity, and started lecturing my sceptical friends about turning lights off, recycling and cutting down flights. I stopped appealing to a supreme being for answers; I wrote to my MP instead. Being good was no longer doing right by God, but doing right by the planet.
Like Christianity, environmentalism provides its members with a community of likeminded individuals, and gives them a higher moral cause to fight for. Atheism, after all, can be a lonely and confusing business.
Environmentalism provides the faithless with an alternative set of guidelines for living a good life. Greenies might not have 10 commandments, but rules about turning the TV off standby, composting and low energy light bulbs must be obeyed.
The negative parallels hold too. Like Christianity, environmentalism can drive people to self-flagellation and self-righteousness. Non-believers are often threatened with dangerous consequences. Failing to subscribe to eco-rules might not send us to hell, but it will bring about an equivalent apocalyptic vision of a world in climate chaos.
...even greenies like George Monbiot have talked about how certain members of the movement stick "religiously" to anti-nuclear protesting despite changes in technology, and questioning climate change has become something of a heresy....This post is not intended to be a dig at environmentalists. I'm proud of my green beliefs – they offer me a sense of community and higher purpose....I find it very hard to believe that any movement could sustain itself on facts alone, and I'm not sure it would be so great a movement if it did.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/25/environmentalism-religion
(see next post)
Now I see that a number of diverse, respectable thinkers, such as Freeman Dyson and Michael Chrichton, among many others, seriously and literally argue that environmentalism is, for all intents and purposes, a religion.
Dyson says: There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that...the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible....Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion....The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future.
Unfortunately, some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists....Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard."
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494
Chrichton, who argues that environmentalist religion is antithetical to science, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9OSxTy1aU
OK, mebbe that helps explain the zealotry of it all to some extent, too, eh?
Geologist Ian Plimer despises creationists and their "science" and throws environmentalists into the same category of psuedo-scientific religious doctrinaires:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idYdVQ6nwfA
Excerpts from another interesting commmentary, eh?:
"It is one of the great ironies of modern history that the nation that was the cradle of the scientific method came to lead the process of its abandonment. The great difference, then, is that religion demands belief, while science requires disbelief. There is a great variety of faiths. Atheism is just as much a faith as theism. There is no evidence either way....
The global warmers like to use the name of science, but they do not like its methods. They promote slogans such a “The science is settled” when real scientists know that science is never settled....[Science] accepts various theories, such as gravitation or evolution, as the least bad available and of the most practical use, but it does not believe. Religion is different.
It is in the nature of religion to be authoritarian and proscriptive. Essential to this is the concept of sin – a transgression in thought or deed of theological principles...The corrective to sin in religion is absolution, and the power of most religions comes from their claim to have the monopoly on absolution. So it is with the new godless religion.
Religions vary in their treatment of unbelievers, which ranges from disregard to slaughter. The new religion relies at present on verbal assault and character assassination, though there are those who would go further. They call the infidels “deniers” – a cheap and quite despicable verbal reference to the Holocaust. There is a sustained campaign to deny the deniers any sort of public platform for their views.
Freedom of speech and publication is at the very heart of science. Even the most foolish of hypotheses is allowed to be offered for examination. In much of religion the opposite is true; challenging the established dogma is heresy, for which the punishment has ranged from ostracism to horrific torture and death. One of the greatest ironies produced by the successful policy of entryism by the eco-theologians is that it is none other than the Royal Society that has been orchestrating the attempt to censor any deviation from establishment beliefs. Authoritarian politicians, such as Congressman Brad Miller, would give such suppression the force of law.
(continued in next post)
"One of the most exploited ways of angling the news is by “ratchet reporting”. News of unusual warm weather, for example, is given copious coverage, while cold weather is studiously ignored....If they were confident of the truth of their case there would be no need to fake the coverage. They have been frequently caught out faking their numbers and graphs, but only a few internet surfers know about it. If you think you have a good case, you can afford to present both sides, but they don’t. The great majority of the population have no idea that there is an alternative view. That is not science, it is religion.
People who have never heard of Wien or Planck confidently assert that it is “obvious” that man-made CO2 will cause runaway warming of the planet, when it is not at all obvious to many who are familiar with the works of those gentlemen. It is obvious in the sense that it is obvious that believers will have everlasting life or that a senseless act of self-immolation will earn the eternal attentions of 72 virgins in Paradise. The capacity to believe six impossible things before breakfast has been restored from fantasy to accepted normality."
People who have never heard of Wien or Planck confidently assert that it is “obvious” that man-made CO2 will cause runaway warming of the planet, when it is not at all obvious to many who are familiar with the works of those gentlemen. It is obvious in the sense that it is obvious that believers will have everlasting life or that a senseless act of self-immolation will earn the eternal attentions of 72 virgins in Paradise. The capacity to believe six impossible things before breakfast has been restored from fantasy to accepted normality."
Believe it or not, as much as I've spammed here, there's more. By my count this guy (John Brignell) has 14 categories where he contrasts religion with science, or other modes of thinking, and puts environmentalism in the religious category in all 14.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
Without quotes in " " marks, you're plagiarizin', Bubba Nuthin', goldangit.
Do you know what AGW really izz, Bub? Heck no.
Trust in One Brow, and Big Al Gore. Bubba goes Eco
Enviromentalism and Evolution are two disciplines where a substantial number of both the professional and non-professional adherents and devotees frequently display quasi-religious fervor and aggressive, contemptuous evangelism in their advocacy of the "truth." I frequently feel compelled to conclude that these dogmatic advocates care very little about the actual science (although they always make a strong pretense to being strictly scientific) and are committed to a cause which seems to somehow help fulfill their deepest emotional needs.
They seem to feel great frustration with irrational, faith-driven religious fundamentalism when discussing the issues. It is totally inconceivable to them that others can feel precisely the same frustration with them, for precisely the same reasons.
The ostracism, ridicule, and mob pressure they attempt to exert on the heretical is reminiscient of the Spanish Inquistion, in spirit, if not in precise methodology. Is is really surprising that: "animal rights and eco-extremists" are the FBI's No. 1 domestic terrorism priority.?"
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1680849&page=2
In the clip I cited above, Chrichton briefly outlines the anthopologist's defintion of "religion," which is less parochial than the common view. From this perspective, it is easy to conclude that many of those secularists who purportedly oppose the "establishment of religion" in government, public schools, etc., in fact strongly support (and demand) it, so long as it is their religion which is elevated to offically sanctioned status.
Michael Ruse, a strong supporter of evolution and opponent of creationism, has, to his credit and to his colleages' chargin, openly admitted that evolution is a religion for many of its proponents.
One thing I have always found distasteful is the hypocrisy of this type with respect to objectivity and "skepticism." They are all self-styled sceptics and "rationalists," to hear them tell it, and they revile those who do not display such virtues.
In truth, they seldom display any type of true skepticism, and are easily identified by their unshakable faith. At least the fundies, for the most part, don't make false claims about whether their views are based on faith, and their desire for emotional and spiritual contentment when selecting their preferred beliefs.
I would much rather deal with a self-acknowledged racist than the closet type who deny their racism, know what I'm sayin?
Course, he could just be makin it all up, I spoze, and just doin a job he wasn't asked to do.
Actually, it looks like five days. He seems to have been asked to prepare comments for a document on the implementation of a policy, and decided on his own to create comment on the science behind the policy. It also looks like he took discouraging remarks as in invitation to alter his work rather than put it aside.
Them scientists don't do nuthin but cause embarrassment to those with a political agenda to advance.
I missed the part where Ms. henderson-Sellers arguments could cause any sort fo embarrassment.
... Dr. Kiminori Itoh ...Stanley B. Goldenberg...Ivar Giaever ... Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia
Hooray for quote mines! Lovely, lovely, lovely quote mines!
"Here in Britain, he [Al Gore] was on the front pages for another reason, too: a High Court ruling said that his film, An Inconvenient Truth, could only be shown in British schools with guidance notes explaining that parts of it contain ‘alarmism and exaggeration’
Thank goodness they hand out sheets to correct the one error and eight exaggerations in the hour-and-a-half movie. No trace of denialism and overreaction there, nosiree.
I would like to give my name, but I don’t wish to be punished in the same manner as Alan.
False persecution claims are another sign of denialism.
The temp. data does seem to suggest warming. But the real question remains--is that warming caused solely by man-made C02?
In any given year, there will be numerable things that affect temperature, many of which will not be man-made.
AGW does appear to be somewhat regional, however. It's a problem in Copenhagen, perhaps--not so much in El Lay or Rome, etc.
I don't know about Rome, but hasn't Southern California gotten increasingly dry over the last 20 years?
; it might be prudent to play Popperian and wait until all the facts/research/experimental results are in.
They are never *all* in. There will always be more facts/research/experiments needed.
If you actually took the time to read I would be curious...do you stand by your immediate reaction that this report merely constitutes "a host of denialist nonesense that relies on cherry-picking of the data?"
I have enough reading material right now, and I'm not that interested in the topic, te read the whole page. Based on the summary which summarizes the biggest failiings:
1. Lack of observed upper tropospheric heating in the tropics -- A fraction of a fraction of the atmospere
2. Lack of observed constant humidity levels, a very important assumption of all the IPCC models, as CO2levels have risen (see Section 1.7). -- Means model needs improvement, does not mean global warming is not happening
3. The most reliable sets of global temperature data we have, using satellite microwave sounding units, show no appreciable temperature increases ... when the surface station data show a pronounced rise -- So it is more accurate to use microwave sounding than to measure the temperature directly?
4. The models used by the IPCC do not take into account or show the most important ocean oscillations which clearly do affect global temperatures -- these oscillations have cycles of 60 years or less, but we have measurements on rising temperature that date back much further.
5. The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility of indirect solar variability -- again, solar variability does not explain the long-term changes we see
6. The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility that there may be other significant natural effects on global temperatures that we do not yet understand -- Laser beams from Mars!
7. Surface global temperature data may have been hopelessly corrupted by the urban heat island effect -- we see the same warming in rural surface temperature installations
So, the summary reads like cherry-picking.
Accordin to this here Limey, it's sumthin like this, eh, Eric?:
...
He could be right, I spoze.
When limiting the conversation strictly to "green writers and activists", he may well be, I certainly think he'll be right about many of them.
Some atheists sincerely argue that environmentalism is a good secular religion.
Using activism to express your concern doesn't change whether the concern is well-founded or not.
Believe it or not, as much as I've spammed here, there's more. By my count this guy (John Brignell) has 14 categories where he contrasts religion with science, or other modes of thinking, and puts environmentalism in the religious category in all 14.
All 14? Hmmm...
Enviromentalism and Evolution are two disciplines where a substantial number of both the professional and non-professional adherents and devotees frequently display quasi-religious fervor and aggressive, contemptuous evangelism in their advocacy of the "truth." I frequently feel compelled to conclude that these dogmatic advocates care very little about the actual science (although they always make a strong pretense to being strictly scientific) and are committed to a cause which seems to somehow help fulfill their deepest emotional needs.
Climate science is not nearly as confirmed or establish as evolution. Equating the two is not realistic.
Michael Ruse, a strong supporter of evolution and opponent of creationism, has, to his credit and to his colleages' chargin, openly admitted that evolution is a religion for many of its proponents.
Anyone who takes evolution as a starting point as an irrefutable authority on reality would certainly be open to that charge. The degree this applies to any partiular individual causes much amusing dialogue, I'm sure.
One Brow said: "So, the summary reads like cherry-picking."
I really don't understand. Suppose you presented 10 claims to me, and my response was: "I totally agree with all of these propositions, except number 8, which I highly doubt."
Would that be cherry-pickin, seein as how I don't dispute or criticize all 10? Or is it more just the idea if I present any argument in support of my opposition to number 8, I am cherry-pickin because I am not conceding the conclusiveness of your arguments in support of it, but am instead bringing in (select) counter-arguments?
Would it make a difference if, in your mind, the acceptance of all 10 propositions as a package was essential to the ultimate conclusion you wanted to assert. Would me rejecting one of the 10 then just be "cherry-pickin," seein as how I don't dispute the other 9?
One Brow said: "False persecution claims are another sign of denialism."
I really can't believe that you think this comment is somehow meaningful and significant, eh, Eric? This whole "denialism" school of evaluation appears to be wholly immune from falsification, like Popper said Freudian analytical psychiatry is, ya know?
Are you claimin that the person is question is claiming to have been persecuted, falsely or otherwise? If so, how do you know that his claims are false.
I can just as easily say: "Unsubstaniated claims of false persecution claims are another sign of denialism." Would that prove that you are a denialist? This whole smear game is beneath you.
I remember when you told me I was a "denialist" because I questioned whether Gould believed that evolutionary theory was just as certain as what he characterized as "fact." In truth, he himself, in the very passage I quoted, had explicitly disavowed any such certainly was applicable to evolutionary theory. The very accusation of denialism can itself be denialsim. To use the term as though it is meaningful in any objective sense is presumptuous. It appears to merely an attempt to assert one's own conclusions as the equivalent of indisputable fact, while impugning the character of those who don't share them.
As one author I quoted above noted, this appears to be a despicable attempt to equate non-believers with nazi-sympathizers and holocaust deniers. Cheap, and thoroughly unpersuasive, as resorts to invective and slander always are. Why bother stating such unsubstantiated opinions? Rational people are much more responsive to principled, reasoned argument than conclusory adjectives, eh?
I really don't understand. Suppose you presented 10 claims to me, and my response was: "I totally agree with all of these propositions, except number 8, which I highly doubt."
Then hopefully we could agree to address the consequences fo the other 9, as needed, rather than refuse to act on them because of a question regarding #8.
Would it make a difference if, in your mind, the acceptance of all 10 propositions as a package was essential to the ultimate conclusion you wanted to assert.
If proposition 8 is essential to a conclusion, and you reject 8, then of course you reject the conclusion.
One Brow said: "If proposition 8 is essential to a conclusion, and you reject 8, then of course you reject the conclusion."
In which case, they might not be any particular need for doin this, eh?: "Then hopefully we could agree to address the consequences fo the other 9..."
You still didn't really explain why you characterize Carlin's comments as "cherry-pickin," or respond to my question about what constitutes cherry-pickin, though, ya know?
It seems to me that Carlin is, among other things, simply echoing the reported concerns of the leaders of the IPPC report, such as that the science is weak and lacking in credibility among scientists because it is not current, that the basic models are flawed, and that the lack of understanding of such things as the major oscillations in the earth system precludes any attempt to even set forth a clearly defined problem.
Why is this "denialist nonsense?" In what respect does it rely on "cherry-pickin the data?"
Even the IPCC/Mann types admit to "time lags". At times man-made CO2 has increased (like from 30s to 70s, due to increase in coal-fired plants, industial pollution, etc) w/o corresponding temp. increases; in fact there were record cool years during that time of CO2 increase. So when does the temp. increase occur? 5 years later? 50? 500? The same holds for the ice-core and tree-ring data. At times it looks like a rise in temps. followed an increase in co2 for whatever reason. The correlation has not been established (Crichton thought the AGW people couldnt even overcome margins of error with temp data).
However quacky, the solar factors should also be considered (as that one Harvard physicist claims as well--ignored by IPCC/Gorebots).
I'm not denying AGW, however. My study of the issue leads me to believe it's mostly regional, and the dangers are a bit exaggerated (possibly to bring in shekels for research).
Yes, California has a few drought years, but also rainy years, and record cool years as well. Im not sure how the data looks over decades.
References to "denialism" strike me as serving about the same purpose for left wingers as does the term "zog" for skinheads. It quickly announces and identifies one's ideological position and is sure to be immediately understood and approved of by those with similar sentiments. It's a "code word" used by insiders to demonstrate their knowledge of the true situation, unseen by the infidels, to their comrades.
That it may make them look foolish to "outsiders" does not really seem to occur to, or at least not concern, them in the least. The wise one's will certainly see and acknowledge their sophistication and insight, so who cares about anyone else, ya know?
Are you plagiarizin' again Bubba Nuttink? Looks like it, wit' some BubbaSpeak. . Use " " marks.
So you're accusin me of plagarism, there, eh, J? Heh, google it, fool. It will surely show up if that's the case, eh? People don't seem the least bit shy of makin wholly foundationless claims round this here joint, eh?
Hey Eric/OB: I think you should consider banning this psychotic. He not only plagiarizes, he knows nothing about the issue at hand (whatever issue it is). Just spewing BS that he does not understand.
(Nuthin' you're an embarrassment even to the usual Limabugh-lovin,' foxnews-worshipping pedazo de mierda)
You're losin it, J. Ya went and clean forgot to call me a zionist, eh?
Wrong again, okie-doke. You're simply spewing other peoples' writing--like this, which you tried to pass of as your own (one of many plagiarized sections in this thread):. It quickly announces and identifies one's ideological position and is sure to be immediately understood and approved of by those with similar sentiments. It's a "code word" used by insiders to demonstrate their knowledge of the true situation, unseen by the infidels, to their comrades.
You didn't write that. It may not be William Safire, but undergraduate-level prose. You, Nuthin', can barely manage juvey-hall level scribbling, pedazo.
J said: "You didn't write that."
Prove it, chump.
Ya been to college, there, eh, J? The reason I ax is because I hear-tell that education has differents effects on different peoplez, kinda dependin on how chumpy they are, ya know?:
“Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.” (Ambrose Bierce)
Wonder which pile you would be in, if ya dun gotz educated, eh?
chinga tu madre, pedazo de nada. Tu no estas Bierce
Kinda long on accusation and unfounded assertion, kinda short on any kinda facts or evidence, once again, eh, J? Of course your last witty and overwhelmingly convincing "response" kinda atones for that, I spoze.
Chump.
I consider Newsweek to be a fairly reliable source, so this excerpt seems attention-worthy, eh?:
"There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon....The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it....To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather...Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent...but they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century....Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects....Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."
The year? 1975
The threat? Global cooling on a precipitous scale, with the onslaught of a "little ice age" predicted by some.
As Count Floyd would say: Ooooh, scary, eh, kids!?
http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm
It's the unanimity, grim reality, and "destiny" of it all that is particularly alarmin, eh?
"[Meteorologists] are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century....
The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia
The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."
Geology Professor Don Easterbrook claims:
"...in 1998 I projected the temperature curve for the past century into the next century and came up with curve ‘A’ in Figure 5 as an approximation of what might be in store for the world if the pattern of past climate changes continued. Ironically, that prediction was made in the warmest year of the past three decades and at the acme of the 1977-1998 warm period. At that time, the projected curved indicated global cooling beginning about 2005 ± 3-5 years until about 2030, then renewed warming from about 2030 to about 2060 (unrelated to CO2—just continuation of the natural cycle), then another cool period from about 2060 to about 2090. This was admittedly an approximation, but it was radically different from the 1° F per decade warming called for by the IPCC. Because the prediction was so different from the IPCC prediction, time would obviously show which projection was ultimately correct.
Now a decade later, the global climate has not warmed 1° F as forecast by the IPCC but has cooled slightly until 2007-08 when global temperatures turned sharply downward. In 2008, NASA satellite imagery (Figure 6) confirmed that the Pacific Ocean had switched from the warm mode it had been in since 1977 to its cool mode, similar to that of the 1945-1977 global cooling period. The shift strongly suggests that the next several decades will be cooler, not warmer as predicted by the IPCC.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10783
He goes on to conclude: "Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years.
The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977."
Ya know, just because a guy successfully predicts future climate change that contradict the predictions of the IPPC, that doesn't prove that he aint, and aint always been, a kook, eh?
One Brow said: "The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility of indirect solar variability -- again, solar variability does not explain the long-term changes we see."
"NASA says sunspot activity is now at a 100 year low. "The sun is very cold right now and when there are no sunspots, the sun is cold, and that is one of the reasons we haven't seen warming for the past 12 years or so," said former Virginia state climatologist Patrick Michaels.
"We haven't seen any net change in temperature for about 12 years now," Michaels added. "We had a warming that began in 1977 and ended somewhere in late 1997, and it hasn't been seen since."
The scientific record shows that between the 1600s and 1700s, sun spot activity was very low, and the Earth was so cold that the period became known as the "little ice age."
"We know from the records that there were very few of these sunspots for very long periods, from about 1650 until about 1715," Pedersen said. "This particular period of low solar activity also correlates with a period where the climate at least in most of Europe and other places of the world was very cold."
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/healthscience/2009/April/Global-Cooling-Earths-Little-Known-Threat-/
Eric, I have little doubt that I could find scientists with much greater understanding of the relevant issues than you or I have who would take issue with your breezy and cavalier dismissal of every point raised by Carlin.
Very early in this thread I quoted the Oceanic and Atmospheric Admininstration's acknowledgment that solar activity should be expected to have a major effect on earth's climate (and changes thereto), while simultaneously acknowledging our minimal knowledge of this subject and the need to refine our understanding of it in order to reduce uncertainty in our predictions of climate change.
Your pretense to knowing what explains what in this complex field is somewhat reminiscient of 13 year olds over at Jazzfanz pontificating on how inadequate Sloan is as an NBA coach.
Once a crowd claiming special knowledge and insight acustoms itself to habitually ridiculing all those who disagree with their received knowledge, there can generally be no turnin back without losing face and earning the utter contempt of your erstwhile partisan compatriots. One part of the "environmentalist as religion" essay which I didn't quote included this observation:
"Apostates are universally even more reviled than infidels. They have turned their backs on the true faith, whichever that might happen to be. Partial apostates, or heretics, are even more loathed and through the ages have been subjected to the most appalling punishments and deaths."
He goes on to mention the abuse heaped upon Bjorn Lomborg and Patrick Moore by the enviromentalist crowd in this regard. With respect to Moore in particular, he claims: "He has, consequently, been subjected to a prolonged campaign of vilification, described as an eco-Judas, turncoat and traitor. Every minor commentator or blogger who manifests disbelief can expect to be the target of abuse from self-appointed protectors of the creed."
Chris Hitchens now aka as "Hitch, the Snitch" in left-wing circles, suffered the same fate when he failed to take the terrorist side of middle east conflict. David Horowitz is universally depised, but not as objectionable, since the formerly prominent left-wing radical is now right-wing on virtually every conceivable issue (and hence no longer a "partial apostate"). Honorable scientific men like Spitzer receive the same treatment from the gay activists, and so it goes.
For this reason along, I wouldn't expect the dyed in the whole believers in global warming to ever recant, whatever the evidence. Ever read a book called "When Prophecy Fails?" Rather interesting, I thought.
Maybe Jefferson had the right idea when he said:
“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”
aintnuthin,
In which case, they might not be any particular need for doin this, eh?:
Since this is science, and not a formal proof, evidence tends to be of an additive nature as opposed to an essential nature.
You still didn't really explain why you characterize Carlin's comments as "cherry-pickin," or respond to my question about what constitutes cherry-pickin, though, ya know?
So, when I pointed out that Carlin was freferring to a fraction of a fraction, or using the inadequacy of a model to doubt the facts underlying the model, or making a claim about the superiority of one sort of measurement over another in order to use that measurement, or referring to events of a limited time frame to explain long-term phenomena, or talking about a local issue for some surface measurements that does not apply to others (even though all the surface measurements agree), you don't think any of that was cherrypicking (careful selection of facts to support a particular point of view)? What do you think cherry-picking would look like?
...the lack of understanding of such things as the major oscillations in the earth system precludes any attempt to even set forth a clearly defined problem.
You have conflated "problem" and "model" here.
References to "denialism" strike me as serving about the same purpose for left wingers as does the term "zog" for skinheads.
I see the term used by secular conservatives and libertarians as well as liberals, and applied to the same sources. How it strikes you doesn't matter much to me.
I consider Newsweek to be a fairly reliable source,
Most of the scientists I read would disagree. They even complain about headlines/articles in Popular Science, much less Newsweek.
The year? 1975
The threat? Global cooling
It just wouldn't be a denialfest without mentioning global cooling.
Geology Professor Don Easterbrook claims:
The last "cooling period" from 1945-1977resulted in a drop of about 1° F overall for teh three decades. We are about 5° F warmer now than 1977, and there is no reason to think the next three deaces will bring about a 5° F drop. If it rises 5° F in theiry years and then drops 1° F in the nest thirty, what's teh long-term trend?
He goes on to conclude: "Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years.
Yet we have record high levels of CO2 right now, as far as we can tell. In fact, when the present volume is in the neighborhood of 0.036%, an increase by 0.008% is actually increasing it by better than one-fifth.
Ya know, just because a guy successfully predicts future climate change that contradict the predictions of the IPPC, that doesn't prove that he aint, and aint always been, a kook, eh?
Where did he predict the amount of cooling? How about that 2005 was actually a record year, as opposed to 1998? His predictions didn't turn out much better than the IPCC.
... and that is one of the reasons we haven't seen warming for the past 12 years or so," said former Virginia state climatologist Patrick Michaels.
He must have missed the 2005 throuh 2007 were all warmer than 1998, despite the big spike in 1998. We were getting warmer despite this low sunspot activity.
Eric, I have little doubt that I could find scientists with much greater understanding of the relevant issues than you or I have who would take issue with your breezy and cavalier dismissal of every point raised by Carlin.
There's always somebody. You can just as easily find scientitsts more knowledgeable than us who say the earth is flat, and was created in six days.
Your pretense to knowing what explains what in this complex field is somewhat reminiscient of 13 year olds over at Jazzfanz pontificating on how inadequate Sloan is as an NBA coach.
As usual, you put in pretense to knowledge where none exists. It's not like I claimed any of Carlin's points were wrong (except about one type of measurement being superior to another, that was wrong). I looked at the methodology he used to present his points, and it is the methodology of denialism.
J,
The correlation has not been established (Crichton thought the AGW people couldnt even overcome margins of error with temp data).
I would say the correlaiton has been established, but not the temoral progression.
However quacky, the solar factors should also be considered (as that one Harvard physicist claims as well--ignored by IPCC/Gorebots).
Including solar activity is important for year-to-year accuracy, much less so for looking at long-term changes.
Yes, California has a few drought years, but also rainy years, and record cool years as well. Im not sure how the data looks over decades.
The news media seems to be talking about record years for wildfires (anotehr sign of dry conditions), but considering the source, I'm not sure how much it means.
(Nuthin' you're an embarrassment even to the usual Limabugh-lovin,' foxnews-worshipping pedazo de mierda)
aintnuthin is anything but Limbough-lovin'. Sloan-loving, maybe, but anyone with a basketball IQ over 40 is that. :)
One Brow said:
" or using the inadequacy of a model to doubt the facts underlying the model"
I don't even know what you're getting at. The model is used to predict the future, and it is the predictions which are being advanced as justification for "corrective measures." Why would doubting the model have anything to do with doubting the facts?
One Brow said: "making a claim about the superiority of one sort of measurement over another in order to use that measurement."
Again, I have no idea what you're trying to suggest. Without in any way conceding that Carlin was doing that, why would that be "cherry-pickin?" It's quite possible that one sort of measurement is, in fact, superior to another aint it? If it is, and you say so, are you "cherry-pickin?"
One Brow said: "What do you think cherry-picking would look like?"
As my posts might have suggested, Eric, it's not the kind of term I generally use. Any terminology which is designed to summarily dismiss a point without argument, but rather via mere subjective characterization, is suspect to me. That's why I'm asking you what you mean.
From the sense I'm not gettin, I guess if anyone said: Looky here, forget about solar activity, forget about ocean currents, we don't know much about those, so we're gunna ignore them. We want to look at one, and only one, factor as it might apply to climate change, to wit, CO2 levels, and we want to project the future based on those alone, then ya might call that cherry-pickin.
In short, anyone who tries to support any position generally marshalls facts which they think supports that position. Their arguments are always finite, so I guess you could call them all the result of "cherry-pickin," if ya want. Of course, anyone who counters those arguments would be cherry-pickin too. It's all cherry-pickin, if all you mean is dealing with a finite set of arguments. Anything not included in the argument was not a "cherry" that was "picked."
One Brow said: "It just wouldn't be a denialfest without mentioning global cooling."
Heh, Eric, you're absolutely incorrigible with respect to this style of "argument," eh? Why is the "mention" of global cooling a "denialfest?" Does it just come down to this (I suspect it does)?: Anything ever said which might in any way cast any kinda doubt on anything I claim to be absolutely true is, ipso facto, "denialism."
I don't even know what you're getting at. The model is used to predict the future, and it is the predictions which are being advanced as justification for "corrective measures." Why would doubting the model have anything to do with doubting the facts?
A bad model in ther short term can still be accurate long-term. A model can have great precision but poor accuracy. So far, I don't know of any models that predict we are going to lose the 5 degrees or so we picked up the past 30 years, or any other reason to think the trend will reverse. The model the IPCC has probably has a multitude of chortcomings neither of us even knows about, but saying that does not change the fact that temperatures continue to rise on five-year average.
Again, I have no idea what you're trying to suggest. Without in any way conceding that Carlin was doing that, why would that be "cherry-pickin?" It's quite possible that one sort of measurement is, in fact, superior to another aint it? If it is, and you say so, are you "cherry-pickin?"
What is the baseline for determining a superior measurement on temperatures, that allows you to say satelite temperature readings are superior to those taken on the surface?
As my posts might have suggested, Eric, it's not the kind of term I generally use. Any terminology which is designed to summarily dismiss a point without argument, but rather via mere subjective characterization, is suspect to me.
If the argument uses an invalid method to make a point, the argument is not to be trusted. Deductive arguments have better-known valid and invalid forms, but there are also valid and invalid forms of inductive arguments.
From the sense I'm not gettin, I guess if anyone said: Looky here, forget about solar activity, forget about ocean currents, we don't know much about those, so we're gunna ignore them. We want to look at one, and only one, factor as it might apply to climate change, to wit, CO2 levels, and we want to project the future based on those alone, then ya might call that cherry-pickin.
That sort of argument does have similarities to what I call cherry-picking, such as the reliance on a preferred type of data, and I would agree it's another invalid argument if you know something about ocean current data but pretend not to.
The primary difference would be that cherry-picking involves the use of highly disconnected anomalies rather than attempts to form a coherent whole, and relies on the perception that any model that has flaws is not to be trusted at all.
In short, anyone who tries to support any position generally marshalls facts which they think supports that position.
Since we are talking about science, the purpose of marshalling facts is to formulate a hyposthesis, or at least a speculation. I didn't see any of that in Carlin's summary.
aintnuthin,
Feel free to list all the aritcles by the actual climate scientists in the 1970s that had models predicting global cooling, the lists of scientific organizations that signed documents supporting global cooling, etc. Don't pretend a mass media article represents the scientific concensus or the opinion of the climate scientists generally.
One Brow said: "As usual, you put in pretense to knowledge where none exists. It's not like I claimed any of Carlin's points were wrong"
I was referring to your conclusion about just what solar activity "explains" (or does not explain). Unless I'm misreading it, your unqualified claim was:
"again, solar variability does not explain the long-term changes we see."
Many scientists seem to believe, for example, that lack of sunspot activity caused the "little ice age" which occurred between 1650 and 1715, as well as other dramatic climate changes observed in the past. Is 65 years "long term" in your view? It seems to be much longer than the 1977-1998 "warming period" that the alarmists are so concerned about, eh?
It seems to be much longer than the 1977-1998 "warming period" that the alarmists are so concerned about, eh?
Who said the "alarmists" were only worried about the warming that has occured since 1977? That's when the IPCC models start becuase that's when many of the readings they use started to become available.
Did unusually high (or low) sunspot activity start in 1977, or is it just som ediconnected data point?
What is Carlin's point in his paper? Does he have an alternative model to present, or is it just grabbing anomalous data to cast doubt? Wait, let me guess: his motives are inscrutable to you, completely unlike those of, for example, Al Gore.
One Brow said: "So far, I don't know of any models that predict we are going to lose the 5 degrees or so we picked up the past 30 years, or any other reason to think the trend will reverse."
I have cited (and seen many other) scientists who claim that the warming period ended 12 years ago. I assume they are right on that score, if only because I have seen that fact stated or presumed in several places. I would call that a "reversal" of a "warming trend," my own damn self, even without other claims that the ocean currents have entered a cool cycle, and a warm cycle has ended, lack of sunspots, and other factors which seemingly have major effects on climate change. Some seem to be back to the 1975 fears of a possible new "little ice age." To me, these are "other reason[s] to think the trend will reverse."
To you, I guess not.
One Brow said: "What is Carlin's point in his paper? Does he have an alternative model to present, or is it just grabbing anomalous data to cast doubt? Wait, let me guess: his motives are inscrutable to you, completely unlike those of, for example, Al Gore."
Motives? What are Ms Henderson-sellers "motives?" What are the "motives" of the lead scientists at IPPC who expressed many of the same reservations and concerns that Carlin does? I don't really care about motives, even bad ones, so long as one's motives don't distort the "facts."
Carlin doesn't pretend to have answers, and seems to merely be recommending a thorough evaluation of the scientific claims before tryin to "regulate," at great public expense, a presumed "problem" based on a half-baked analysis. Does that require a special "motive?" It seems that everyday commonsense is enough motiviation if the concerns he is expressing are valid.
Back in 1975, two years before the latest warming trend started, and when Newsweek was informing the world about the "nearly unanimous" opinion of scientists about the drastic consequences of global cooling and reporting that scientists were concerned with politicians failing to take corrective measure before "grim reality" was upon us, it was proposed that we artificially melt the polar ice-caps by blanketing them with coal.
Had the politician rushed to implement that expensive proposition, I'm sure there would be much finger-pointing now.
What raises more questions about "motives" is the curious situation where the EPA, which is charged with duty of publicly presented the evidence (both pro and con) considered when implementing its recommendtatons, in fact deliberately suppresses scientific arguments made in good faith by a competent, long time (35 years) employee charged with presenting comments.
One Brow said: "Don't pretend a mass media article represents the scientific concensus or the opinion of the climate scientists generally."
I'm not pretending anything. Newsweek reported what the "near-unanimous" view of scientists was, whether they are right or wrong. Wouldn't, of course, be the first time that journalsist got manipulated by scientists with an agenda into making exaggerated reports, if that's what happened.
Stephen Schneider, of Stanford University, was an early and active promulgator of the global cooling scare. Mebbe he talked Newsweek into reporting what it did, I dunno. Schneider does seem to have some unique insights on what it takes to manipulate the press, eh? He said:
"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."
"Scary scenarios," eh? Make little mention of doubts in favor of "simple, dramatic statements," eh? It merely a personal decision about the "right balance" between "being honest" and "being effective" is, eh? Sounds like a zealous (religious) environmentalist, sho nuff.
It did take Schnieder long to switch to promoting global warming at the real crisis, even though reportedly "Schneider was still promoting the coming “ice age” in 1978." Ultimately I guess it comes down to whatever works best for a "scary scenario" for him though, because: "The rate of [global warming] change is so fast that I don't hesitate to call it potentially catastrophic for ecosystems,” Schneider said on UK TV in 1990."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2356129/posts
Then again, mebbe the editorial staff at Newsweek just sat down one day and decided to create a "scary story" Count Floyd, style, who knows, eh?
How could I be so negligent as to omit a link to Count Floyd, eh!? Here ya go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9iIf4tFoyE
Spam spam bacon n spam
served up by Bubba McNada, 24/7
I have cited (and seen many other) scientists who claim that the warming period ended 12 years ago. I assume they are right on that score, if only because I have seen that fact stated or presumed in several places.
Often-stated means correct? 2005 was the warmest year ever, and 2006 and 2007 were warmer than 1998.
I would call that a "reversal" of a "warming trend," my own damn self, even without other claims that the ocean currents have entered a cool cycle, and a warm cycle has ended, lack of sunspots, and other factors which seemingly have major effects on climate change.
Yet, with all of these factos supposedly allowing us to cool, the ten warmest years of the past thousand were in the last decade.
Some seem to be back to the 1975 fears of a possible new "little ice age."
Tens of thousands, including every major scietific institution, disagree. But, feel free to stick with "some".
To me, these are "other reason[s] to think the trend will reverse."
So, your reasons are 'lots of people say so', 'the temperatures only went up a little', and 'some people disagree', and that's a good reason to doubt the long-term trend? But it's not denialism, nosiree.
Motives? What are Ms Henderson-sellers "motives?"
Her stated motive was to get a better model, and so far you have quoted nothing that says she thinks global warming is not going to continue. You have a reason to disagree with either clause?
What are the "motives" of the lead scientists at IPPC who expressed many of the same reservations and concerns that Carlin does?
To get a better climate model.
Carlin doesn't pretend to have answers, and seems to merely be recommending a thorough evaluation of the scientific claims before tryin to "regulate," at great public expense, a presumed "problem" based on a half-baked analysis.
The inaccuracy of the model does not detract from the problem. Trying to cast doubt on the problem based on the inaccuracy of a precise model is, at best, misguided, and given how it has been presented, more likely denialist.
Back in 1975, two years before the latest warming trend started, and when Newsweek was informing the world about the "nearly unanimous" opinion of scientists ...
You realize this "nearly unanimous" opinion never existed, right? I agree implementing policy based on a news article is often a bad idea.
What raises more questions about "motives" is the curious situation where the EPA, ... deliberately suppresses scientific arguments ...
I was not aware the EPA had a duty to present misleading comments to the public.
I'm not pretending anything. Newsweek reported what the "near-unanimous" view of scientists was, whether they are right or wrong.
Newsweek was wrong. It's not an open question.
Wouldn't, of course, be the first time that journalsist got manipulated by scientists ...
Nor would it be the first time journalists and editors tried to create big headlines from small issues for sales purposes.
Stephen Schneider, of Stanford University, was an early and active promulgator of the global cooling scare. Mebbe he talked Newsweek into reporting what it did, I dunno. Schneider does seem to have some unique insights on what it takes to manipulate the press, eh? ...
His insights seem to be pretty ordinary, its his ethics that are more questionable.
Then again, mebbe the editorial staff at Newsweek just sat down one day and decided to create a "scary story" Count Floyd, style, who knows, eh?
Scary stories sell more magazines.
One Brow said: "Tens of thousands, including every major scietific institution, disagree."
Really? Is every major scientific institution with their current opinion listed somewhere? Are the opinions of thens of thousands listed somewhere? Even if they are, they are still only "some."
Now you seem to be able to read the current minds of tens of thousands of people, eh, Eric?
You totally ignore the admonitions of the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and anyone else I mention, Eric, so I won't bother bringing them up anymore. You got your story, and you're obviously stickin with it. Just go right on ahead witcho bad self, ya know?
It has never been the majority of everyday, working scientists who pioneered any major scientific break-through or change in orthodox scientific thinking anwyay. I myself don't put great stock into science by polling, to begin with.
One Brow said: "You realize this "nearly unanimous" opinion never existed, right?"
I don't "realize" that (I didn't take a poll or extant opinion at the time), but I will accept it. I presume you would correspondingly accept the proposition that what is widely reported as the overwhelming consensus doesn't necessarily reflect the true opinion, eh?
One Brow said: "Yet, with all of these factos supposedly allowing us to cool, the ten warmest years of the past thousand were in the last decade."
I have seen it claimed that the sunspot activity in the 90's was the highest in 11,000 (not a typo) years. What a coincidence, eh?
One Brow said: "I was not aware the EPA had a duty to present misleading comments to the public."
Of course you didn't. Censorship advocates never seem to realize that there may be legal, moral, and even legal constraints on their impulses. In any event, your claim that his statements are "misleading" is simply your personal, non-professional opinion. I don't see anything in his report that appears to be "misleading." Mistaken, perhaps, I dunno, but not misleading, in any premeditated sense. Suppose his statements ARE misleading, and further suppose that his claims were submitted to the EPA for consideration. If so, they are bound to include that in the record, not to implement internal censorship, and hide them from the public. Not a concept that I would expect you to find very compelling, though, Eric, law or no law.
We had a problem here at Shady Acres Trailer Park with too many damn stray dogs. No one denied it, it was a stonecold fact.
I told the trailer park council my theory that it was because my perv neighbor, Charley, was impregnating dogs 24/7, ya know? Then I produced my model to prove it. If he would only fuck one dog an hour, and each dog had 10 puppies, then, within a mere matter of weeks.....
Proof positive, I tellya! Butcha know what them dumbasses said: They said I made some mathematical errors in my model. I looked em straight in the eye, and I sez:
"The inaccuracy of the model does not detract from the problem. Trying to cast doubt on the problem based on the inaccuracy of a precise model is, at best, misguided, and given how it has been presented, more likely denialist."
The next day we lynched Charley.
Really? Is every major scientific institution with their current opinion listed somewhere?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
"With the release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 2007, no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change."
There are some that see less influence from human activities than others, naturally. They all acknowledge there is some.
Are the opinions of thens of thousands listed somewhere? Even if they are, they are still only "some."
No, that's not being denialist, not at all.
Now you seem to be able to read the current minds of tens of thousands of people, eh, Eric?
If the tens of thousands of people didn't agre with the conclusions, teh bodies that represent them would be putting out more reserved statements.
You totally ignore ...
Nothing. I know the difference between a call for more accuracy in the model versus a doubting to he situation. Whether you can tell the difference, I'm no longer sure.
It has never been the majority of everyday, working scientists who pioneered any major scientific break-through or change in orthodox scientific thinking anwyay.
In order to be Galileo, it's not enough to be disbelieved. You also have to be right.
I presume you would correspondingly accept the proposition that what is widely reported as the overwhelming consensus doesn't necessarily reflect the true opinion, eh?
I agree. Being widely reprted does not mean that it is the scientific consensus. Being stated in the releases of every major scientific organization means it is the consensus.
I have seen it claimed that the sunspot activity in the 90's was the highest in 11,000 (not a typo) years. What a coincidence, eh?
Did that contribute to the level of warming, in particular the spike of 1998? Quite possibly? so, why did the temperatures keep climbing through 2005, after the sunspots died down, if teh principal cause of the warming was sunspots? Why did it climb in the 1980s, before the sunspots?
Censorship advocates never seem to realize that there may be legal, moral, and even legal constraints on their impulses.
No one stpped Mr. Carlin from speaking as a private citizen. There was no censorship.
In any event, your claim that his statements are "misleading" is simply your personal, non-professional opinion. I don't see anything in his report that appears to be "misleading."
We can agree to disagree, then.
Mistaken, perhaps, I dunno, but not misleading, in any premeditated sense.
Of course, Mr. Carlin's motive are inscrutable.
If so, they are bound to include that in the record, not to implement internal censorship, and hide them from the public.
Why? What is th enature of producing comments on a government document that requires the inclusion of every comment produced? Do you think this is standard practice in a comment cycle? It has not been at the last two jobs I had for government contractors.
"I told the trailer park council my theory that it was because my perv neighbor, Charley, was impregnating dogs 24/7, ya know? "
Except that here, we have Charley's DNA inside the cells of the dogs.
One Brow said: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
"With the release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 2007, no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change."
There are some that see less influence from human activities than others, naturally. They all acknowledge there is some."
Humans can influence climate? Like whooda thunk, eh? So do cows.
That article, while reciting a great number of statements, some rather dated, which conform to orthodox views. They include, among those who "do not reject" human influence, such agengies as the American Association of State Climatologists whose official statement spends a lot more space expressing skepticism about predictions and applealing for open-mindedness than anything else, for example: "Climate prediction is difficult because it involves complex, nonlinear interactions among all components of the earth’s environmental system...The difficulty of prediction and the impossibility of verification of predictions decades into the future are important factors that allow for competing views of the long-term climate future."
I guess if 51% of the membership approve of a particular statement, then that becomes the "official" view of that "group," I dunno exactly.
I guess that helps with the illusion of "consensus."
However, a very significant number of high-powered individual scientists seemingly remain skeptical, as evidenced by a recent U.S. Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Work report. From the introduction:
"Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore....Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears "bite the dust." In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has "co-opted" the green movement....Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution."
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport
The heretics, them!
Well, truth be told, the dog situation didn't improve much after we lynched Charley. Since then, a number of chumps have said "Mebbe ya wuz wrong, aint." They aint knowin nuthin.
Truth is, after we done away with Charley, I got to thinkin bout what he had been doin to them poor dogs. The more I thought about it....well, the more I started to develop a hankerin for some dog, ya know? So I picked up where Charley done left off, and we still gotz us a shitload of dogs. But, either way, I was right about Charley, see?
One Brow said: 2005 was the warmest year ever, and 2006 and 2007 were warmer than 1998."
Ya think?
According to H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), NASA scientist and famous man-made global warming proponent James Hansen's well-known claims that 1998 was measured as the warmest year on record in the U.S. were the result of a serious mathematical error. NASA has now corrected that error, and 1934 is now known as the warmest year on record, with 1921 the third warmest year instead of 2006 as was also previously claimed. Moreover, NASA now also has to admit that three of the five warmest years on record occurred before 1940-it has up until now held that all five of them occurred after 1980....it is now admitted that six of the 10 hottest years on record occurred when only 10% of the amount of greenhouse gases that have been emitted in the last century were in the atmosphere.
NASA has been forced to correct calculations for temperatures of the last 120 years taken from ground-based measuring facilities."
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/347541/nasa_admits_that_1934_not_1998_was.html?cat=58
You might be referring to non-USA records, Eric, I dunno, but either way there's some points worth noting here.
1. It might be good to check the "science" (math in this case) supposedly backing the claims of others before accepting them whole-cloth.
2. You brought up the question of the "baseline" for determining whether one form of measurment is superior to another. I don't want to get into technical arguments about this, but it seems NASA was forced to re-evaluate, and alter, the long-standard measurment it had previously relied upon. NASA was apparently convinced of the merit of this claim: "Critics of the man-made global warming theory have long been vocal that these measurements are distorted because the ground, and even more the urban ground where most of these measurements took place, is warmed considerably by human activities and cannot accurately represent atmospheric conditions."
It seems that a volunteer team was invited to to assess problems with US temperature data used for climate modeling:
"One of these people is Steve McIntyre, who operates the site climateaudit.org. While inspecting historical temperature graphs, he noticed a strange discontinuity, or "jump" in many locations, all occurring around the time of January, 2000.
These graphs were created by NASA’s Reto Ruedy and James Hansen (who shot to fame when he accused the administration of trying to censor his views on climate change). Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it....McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh."
http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2007/08/09/nasa-corrects-climate-figures-warmest-year-on-record-is-1934/
More on the issue of what explains what (with particular reference to sunlight), eh, Eric?:
"A confusing array of new and recent studies reveals that scientists know very little about how much sunlight is absorbed by Earth versus how much the planet reflects, how all this alters temperatures, and why any of it changes from one decade to the next.
Determining Earth's reflectance is crucial to understanding climate change, scientists agree. The bottom line, according to a group of experts not involved in any of these studies: Scientists don't know much about how sunlight interacts with our planet, and until they understand it, they can't accurately predict any possible effects of human activity on climate change."
Details here: http://www.livescience.com/environment/050505_earth_bright.html
Humans can influence climate? Like whooda thunk, eh? So do cows.
Was there a point to that?
That article, while reciting a great number of statements, some rather dated, which conform to orthodox views. They include, among those who "do not reject" human influence, such agengies as the American Association of State Climatologists whose official statement spends a lot more space expressing skepticism about predictions and applealing for open-mindedness than anything else, ...
Lots of people are expressing skepticism about the predictions and encouraging peolpe to keep an open mind. It's what scientitists do, and as you have already quoted, teh current predictions we have are not accurate.
I guess if 51% of the membership approve of a particular statement, then that becomes the "official" view of that "group," I dunno exactly.
I guess that helps with the illusion of "consensus."
You think all those groups are around 51% approval of their statements? Do you have any reason for tossing that out?
However, a very significant number of high-powered individual scientists seemingly remain skeptical, as evidenced by a recent U.S. Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Work report. From the introduction:
"Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently ...
Its 700, now. Almost the size of the "Dissent from Darwin" list, and still smaller than Project Steve. It's not a significant number, it's a tiny minority.
Well, truth be told, the dog situation didn't improve much after we lynched Charley. Since then, a number of chumps have said "Mebbe ya wuz wrong, aint." They aint knowin nuthin.
You should have waited for the DNA results.
Ya think? ...
You might be referring to non-USA records,
Ya think? I don't recall this ever being a discussion of USA warming.
1. It might be good to check the "science" (math in this case) supposedly backing the claims of others before accepting them whole-cloth.
Ya think?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Compare the world graph to the USA graph, and then tell me how checking the numbers and an error of .15 degrees made such a huge difference in the world graph.
More on the issue of what explains what (with particular reference to sunlight), eh, Eric?:
So, you're saying the model needs to be improved? Wow, revolutionary.
One Brow said: "Yet, with all of these factos supposedly allowing us to cool, the ten warmest years of the past thousand were in the last decade."
Is there no end to the exaggeration? Is there no highly disputed speculation that will not be unqualifiedly presented as known fact?
"A team of statisticians led by Edward Wegman, chair of the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, was assembled at the request of U.S. Rep. Joe Barton and U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, The report primarily focused on the statistical analysis used in the MBH paper, and also considered the personal and professional relationships between Mann et al. and other members of the paleoclimate community. Findings presented in this report (commonly known as the "Wegman Report" at a hearing of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, chaired by Whitfield, included the following:
MBH98 and MBH99 were found to be "somewhat obscure and incomplete" and the criticisms by McIntyre and McKitrick were found to be "valid and compelling".
Overall, the committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.
===
"In May 2007, Hans von Storch reviewed the changes in thought caused by the hockey stick controversy writing:
"In October 2004 we were lucky to publish in Science our critique of the ‘hockey-stick’ reconstruction of the temperature of the last 1000 years. Now, two and half years later, it may be worth reviewing what has happened since then.
At the EGU General Assembly a few weeks ago there were no less than three papers from groups in Copenhagen and Bern assessing critically the merits of methods used to reconstruct historical climate variable from proxies; Bürger’s papers in 2005; Moberg’s paper in Nature in 2005; various papers on borehole temperature; The National Academy of Science Report from 2006 – all of which have helped to clarify that the hockey-stick methodologies lead indeed to questionable historical reconstructions. The 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC now presents a whole range of historical reconstructions instead of favoring prematurely just one hypothesis as reliable.
==
"Mann and his colleagues said that it was "hard to imagine how much more explicit" they [themselves] could have been about the uncertainties surrounding their work and blaming "poor communication by others" for the "subsequent confusion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
There is a ton of controversy about any claims purporting to go back 1000 years, Eric. I think I can anticipate your response, but maybe I'm wrong. I suspect you to say sumthin like: There is no geninue controversy; there are only two actual sides: 1. The indisputably correct position taken by Mann, and 2. The bogus, utterly false objections made by denialists.
I will answer a few questions you haven't asked:
1. Is there sufficient evidence to support the claim that human activity has an effect on the earth's climate? Yes
2. Would adding to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, by, inter alia, burning fossils fuels, and thereby creating something of a "greenhouse effect" be one of those ways? Yes.
3. Does the "greenhouse effect" serve to increase, rather than decrease, surface temperatures? Yes.
4. With respect to non-anthropomorphic factors, what percent of the resulting surface temperatures in due to made-man CO2? I have no clue, but it must neccessarily be relatively small.
5. What should we to do minimize the temperature-increasing effects of CO2 levels, whatever its relative effect? I don't know. Maybe we should try to increase CO2 levels if other factors, left unopposed, would turn the planet dangerously cold.
6. So you're actually sayin you don't know, for a fact, that we MUST reduce CO2 levels if we expect humanity to survive, long term? Yeah, that's actually what I'm sayin.
Do I qualify as a "denialist," Eric?
One Brow said: "You think all those groups are around 51% approval of their statements? Do you have any reason for tossing that out?"
No, I don't think that. I didn't say that. I don't know why you even ask. I am assuming, without knowing, that most of these statements are approved or rejected by way of majority vote. If that's true, 51% would be sufficient. Of course the actual vote coulda been 110% in favor (vote early and often) and 0% against.
I've never understood why if someone asks me if it's dark outside and my answer is "I don't know," their next "question" (statement) is: So, you're claiming the sun is still up?"
One Brow said: "So, you're saying the model needs to be improved? Wow, revolutionary."
Eric, your responses are quite predictable and seldom responsive. It sometimes appears that:
If wrote a book about about the achievments of Martin Luther King, while noting one or more of his flaws, your favored response would be: "nobody's perfect."
If I complained that my neighbor was too nosy, you would say "nobody's perfect"
If I wrote a five-volume summary of Hitler's atrocities, you would say "nobody's perfect."
Any and all criticisms are treated equally, and identical in the sense that they all merely chronicle a deviation from absolute perfection. Other than that, there is simply no way to distinguish one flaw from another or otherwise evaluate the significance of a flaw. The implication is that they are all equally (in)significant and absolutely unavoidable. There's just no more to be said, eh?
One of my ex-wives, who was found mysteriously drowned at the local stone quarry on a day when I was out of town many years back, was also quite fond of this technique. No matter what behavior of her's I complained about, I always got the same response: "I never claimed I was perfect." In her mind you are either (1) a perfect or (2) licensed to be as utterly imperfect as suits your personal desires.
One Brow said: "Yet, with all of these factos supposedly allowing us to cool, the ten warmest years of the past thousand were in the last decade."
Is there no end to the exaggeration?
You're right, I should have said "twelve years" instead of "decade".
Is there no highly disputed speculation that will not be unqualifiedly presented as known fact?
Being disputed does not stop it from being a fact. Not all disputes are from legitimate complaints.
"A team of statisticians led by Edward Wegman, ...
Just throwing out more random irrelevancies?
There is a ton of controversy about any claims purporting to go back 1000 years, Eric. I think I can anticipate your response, but maybe I'm wrong. I suspect you to say sumthin like: There is no geninue controversy; there are only two actual sides: 1. The indisputably correct position taken by Mann, and 2. The bogus, utterly false objections made by denialists.
I was unaware that Mann's work was the be-all and end-all of the reconstructions of historical temperatures.
4. With respect to non-anthropomorphic factors, what percent of the resulting surface temperatures in due to made-man CO2? I have no clue, but it must neccessarily be relatively small.
Small as a percetage of degrees Kelvin? What is "small" supposed to mean here?
5. What should we to do minimize the temperature-increasing effects of CO2 levels, whatever its relative effect? I don't know. Maybe we should try to increase CO2 levels if other factors, left unopposed, would turn the planet dangerously cold.
What are these factors that indicate the planet is turning cold, since, in fact, the temprature measurements don't indicate that?
6. So you're actually sayin you don't know, for a fact, that we MUST reduce CO2 levels if we expect humanity to survive, long term? Yeah, that's actually what I'm sayin.
I think humanity is opportunistic enough and generalistic enough that we'd likely survive another meteor like the one that killed off the dinosaurs, and we will survive global warming. That doesn't mean we'd survive it without a lot of famine and suffering.
Do I qualify as a "denialist," Eric?
Do you feel your answers to those questions would be determinative of that? There are green denialists as well anti-green denialists, because denialism is an argumentation method, not an ideaology.
I've never understood why if someone asks me if it's dark outside and my answer is "I don't know," their next "question" (statement) is: So, you're claiming the sun is still up?"
I guess it the whole "I'm going to pull a number and an assumption about a process out of my ass and pretend the comment has relevance" thing.
If wrote a book about about the achievments of Martin Luther King, while noting one or more of his flaws, your favored response would be: "nobody's perfect."
Only if you pretended that the flaws meant his accomplishments were tarnished somehow. Otherwise, that comment would have no relevance.
Any and all criticisms are treated equally, ...
The statement that the model for climate change requires significant improvement in accuracy is not revolutionary, not persuasive of any particular point, and not particularly relevant along, as long as the precision holds, for the long-term warming effects.
One Brow said: "Being disputed does not stop it from being a fact. Not all disputes are from legitimate complaints."
Yeah, exactly what I thought you would say.
But, to clarify, IS it a fact, or just not "prevented from being" one?
One Brow said: "Small as a percetage of degrees Kelvin? What is "small" supposed to mean here?"
Small as compared to other factors which contribute to warmth on this planet. If, for example, the sun burnt out tomorrow, whether we put C02 into the atmosphere would be irrelevant.
One Brow said: "The statement that the model for climate change requires significant improvement in accuracy is not revolutionary, not persuasive of any particular point, and not particularly relevant along, as long as the precision holds, for the long-term warming effects."
Precision? I have no idea what your even tryin to say here Eric. Can you elaborate? From what I understand, we have no idea why, for example, sunspot activity virtually disappeared for 65 years, beginning in 1750. We just know it happens, and presumably can happen anytime, for all we know.
What is your point? If I'm a child, and can precisely indentify the number 7 (but no other) when I see it, how does that make my arithmatical calculations accurate. Spoze no matter what you ask me, for example, what is 3 + 2? I say "7." Well, that will be fine when, and only when you ask me what is 5 + 2, 3 + 4, etc. but how about all the other times you ask me for a sum?
They just "don't count" or "aint fair" because my knowledge is limited to the number 7, and my knowledge of that number is very "precise," that the idea?
One Brow said: "Do you feel your answers to those questions would be determinative of that?"
I have no clue. You are the one who seems to know exactly what "denialism" is. I get the idea that, by your standards, anyone who didn't insist on melting the polar icecaps back in 1975 would be a denialist, if it so happened that's what you personally thought should be done.
Back in 1975, no one questioned that there had been, in recent decades, a cooling "trend." So what?
If I want to demonstrate how "precise" my 7-knowwing kid is, I just parade him out and ask him a bunch of questions like: Johnny, what is 93 - 86? I can go all day, and prove he is right every time.
A few years back, dogs at our trailer park were bein slaughtered daily, whether by shotgun blast, poison, land mines, or whatever.
The PETA folks were raising hell with Deputy Fife, and insisting that something be done. So Fife arrested my neighbor, Charlie. A few week later he arrested me. Then he arrested Knuckles, who lives a few trailers over. Then....well, purty soon about 50 guys was in jail, all based on insufficient evidence. And ya know what? Them PETA peoples STILL weren't happy. Go figure, eh?
One reason they wasn't happy was because a couple of them pitched a tent in the middle of the trailer park, intending to watch all night and see who was smokin alla them dogs. They didn't last long, on account of all the stray dogs attacking them. They left, pronto, sayin that anyone who would live in a hellhole that was that overrun by dogs shouldn't just be in jail, they should exterminated.
For years I've been a trendy kinda guy, ya know? I always run out and buy neckties that are wide, narrow, or whatever, depending on the lastest fad. Same with baggy jeans, bell-bottom jeans, etc., and everything else.
Now, after all these years, my life seems kinda meaningless. Whatever the latest trend is, I already have it. I don't get to run breathlessly down to the department store to be the first one to buy sumthin no more. Mebbe I shoulda skipped a trend or two along the line, eh?
I can remember a incident from a few years ago where it was reported that some palestian suicide bombers rode donkeys toward a school bus loaded with Isreali children and blew them all up.
PETA went nuts! They strongly denounced terrorists who would use innocent donkeys to blow up innocent children, except that they didn't bother mention the children, actually.
Yeah, here ya go:
"Earlier this month, Ingrid Newkirk, president of the American animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) wrote to Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat: "Your Excellency, We have received many calls and letters from people shocked at the bombing. If you have the opportunity, will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of the conflict?"
She was then asked by the Washington Post whether she would also criticize the attempt by the Palestinian perpetrators to kill Israeli civilians but she said it was not her business to do so."
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000239.html
Well, I guess we all have our priorities, and our bidnizz to attend to, eh?
I quoted a rag as sayin: "James Hansen's well-known claims that 1998 was measured as the warmest year on record in the U.S. were the result of a serious mathematical error. NASA has now corrected that error, and 1934 is now known as the warmest year on record, with 1921 the third warmest year instead of 2006 as was also previously claimed. Moreover, NASA now also has to admit that three of the five warmest years on record occurred before 1940-it has up until now held that all five of them occurred after 1980....it is now admitted that six of the 10 hottest years on record occurred when only 10% of the amount of greenhouse gases that have been emitted in the last century were in the atmosphere."
One Brow responded: ".....tell me how checking the numbers and an error of .15 degrees made such a huge difference in the world graph."
Good point! I take it you are pointing out that there never was that much difference between years like 1934, 1923, and years in this century to begin with, eh? One wonders why this wasn't stressed by Hansen. Awww, well, even without the distortions created by mathematical "oversights," I'm sure there are other cherry to pick, somewheres, that can be unduly overemphasized.
Mann claims his environmental views were suppressed and censored by the Bush administration. Similar claims are made against the Obama adminstration on behalf of Carlin.
The global-warming community has a very good explanation for this. Carlin was properly censored, because he is wrong. Mann was improperly censored, because he is right.
Repressive tolerance, anybody? Long live Marcuse!
But, to clarify, IS it a fact, or just not "prevented from being" one?
That depends on the particular "highly disputed speculation" to which you refer.
Small as compared to other factors which contribute to warmth on this planet. If, for example, the sun burnt out tomorrow, whether we put C02 into the atmosphere would be irrelevant.
We can't influence the sun burning out or continuing to burn. We can influence our non-biological CO2 emissions.
Precision? I have no idea what your even tryin to say here Eric. Can you elaborate?
Precision and accuracy are related, distinct concepts that refer to the trustworthyness of a model. A precise, inaccurate model will miss the target by varying amounts which are sometimes quite large, but when you average together the variances, yet get no overall deviation. A precise model has no bias. By contrast, an accurate, imprecise model will miss the target in almost the exact same way each time, sowhen you average the deviations together, the average is not close to the mean. An accurate model has consistency.
An inaccurate, precise model is analogous to giving 50 shots on a true-shooing gun to a bad marksman, then looking at the bullet holes. They will be scattered all around the center of the target. An accurate, imprecise model is analogous to giving 50 shots on a wrped rifle to a sharpshooter. The bullet holes will be grouped close together, but they won't be near the target center. Naturally, the preference is to be both accurate and precise. From what I can tell, our current climate models are inaccurate, but they are precise.
I have no clue. You are the one who seems to know exactly what "denialism" is. I get the idea that, by your standards, anyone who didn't insist on melting the polar icecaps back in 1975 would be a denialist, if it so happened that's what you personally thought should be done.
This is a good place to start.
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/deck.php
Back in 1975, no one questioned that there had been, in recent decades, a cooling "trend." So what?
Yet, the cooling trend of mid-century was so much weaker than the previous warming trend, that global warming was still considered more likely than global cooling.
The PETA folks ...
Are not a better choice for pocily decisons that people who kill animals for fun.
Now, after all these years, my life seems kinda meaningless. Whatever the latest trend is, I already have it. I don't get to run breathlessly down to the department store to be the first one to buy sumthin no more. Mebbe I shoulda skipped a trend or two along the line, eh?
Two of spades.
PETA went nuts! They strongly denounced terrorists who would use innocent donkeys to blow up innocent children, ...
Nine of hearts.
Good point! I take it you are pointing out that there never was that much difference between years like 1934, 1923, and years in this century to begin with, eh?
Eight of clubs.
In the USA, those were exceptionally hot years. Not globally.
The global-warming community has a very good explanation for this. Carlin was properly censored, because he is wrong. Mann was improperly censored, because he is right.
Ace of clubs, Ten of diamonds.
I don't recall either of them being censored. Not including comments is not censorship.
One Brow said: "But, to clarify, IS it a fact, or just not "prevented from being" one?
That depends on the particular "highly disputed speculation" to which you refer."
I thought that was obvious. For me to say that the year 1027 A.D was, or was not, one of the 10 hottest in the last 1000 years, I would have to know the exact temperature for that year, and every other year in the last 1000. If I say that 1027 was the 77th warmest year, it presupposes knowledge of all those things. Is a claim to knowledge of this "fact," or aint it?
One Brow said: "http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/deck.php"
Just about what I thought, eh, Eric? The gist of this "elucidation" seems to come down to this.
I won't to regulate others on issue X.
Some, including the targets I am trying to regulate, don't want me to do that.
Any resistance they have, whether based on alternate values, a different set of factual assumptions, common sense, or whatever, is denialism.
Any and all criticism, questioning, and opposition to my attempts to dictate to others is illegimate "denialism."
Ya know, some ancient societies had a good policy, I think. Anyone and every one was free to propose the implementation of a new law, and submit it for vote, but there was a catch:
If your proposed law was voted down, a 50 ball would be changed to each of your legs for the rest of your life, as punishment for improperly trying to limit the freedom of others.
To the extent some logician was to summarize all of the commonly acknowledged informal logical fallacies, I'm fine with that. To suggest such errors are made and indulged in only by those in groups that oppose the group you belong to, and never by anyone in your group, is the most indisputable declaration of irrational partisan zealotry that I can think of.
The final degradation of a free and moral agent, as Jefferson might say.
If I was a prosecuting attorney, I would make a list of the most implausible claims and arguments I had seen made by people who pleaded "not guilty" to my accusations (let's just call them "denialists," for short). I would then take that list to the state legislature to show that the tactics of denialists simply waste a lot of state time proving guilt. Then I would argue that jury trials, and all other trials should be abolished. If I indict someone, my office should then be authorized to immediately impose sentence, also. It would make my job a lot easier, save a lot of time, insure that guilty people didn't use the court system to deceive jurors or judges, and there would be a whole host of other incidental benefits. There's just no downside to my proposal, caincha see? Just look at the list of denialist tactics I have compiled, and you can see how senseless resistance to my accusations and judgments are.
Look at the guys who claimed to have an alibi, for example, and it turns out their friends were just covering for them...alibi claims should be abolished.
It all starts with the bogus resistance that I have called the "two of clubs:" I say there's a problem with these people (i.e, they are guilty) and they claim there is no problem and plead not guilty (the typical denialist tactic). The lack of justification in the ridiculous positions they take in obvious from jump street.
"Meanwhile at the University of the West of England in Bristol this weekend, a conference of "eco-psychologists", led by a professor, are solemnly exploring the notion that "climate change denial" should be classified as a form of "mental disorder".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4953981/Climate-denial-is-know-a-mental-disorder.html
Mental Illness, eh? Well, there ya have it then, sho nuff!
One Brow said: "Yet, the cooling trend of mid-century was so much weaker than the previous warming trend, that global warming was still considered more likely than global cooling."
The warming trend before mid-century? Was this early century trend seen as a consequence of CO2 levels, I wonder?
Speakin of trends, and all, it seems like we're back to where we were 100 years ago, if this guy is right:
"US climate sceptics such as those on the Watts Up With That website, for whom the predictions of the UK Met Office have become a regular source of amusement, recalled its forecast that 2007 would be "the warmest year on record globally", just before global temperatures dived by nearly a full degree Celsius, cancelling out the entire net warming of the past 100 years." (same cite as last post).
So is the 100-year "trend" now no net warming, I wonder?
One Brow said: "Its 700, now. Almost the size of the "Dissent from Darwin" list, and still smaller than Project Steve. It's not a significant number, it's a tiny minority."
How many prestigious scientists does it take to be "significant," eh, Eric? Einstein and Newton were both a minority of one, ya know?
Are these 700 all kooks, with no scientific basis for their skeptical positions, ya figure? Mentally ill denialists, that the idea?
argumentum ad populum, it ROCKS, eh!?
After doin a little browsin, here, I see that George Will's quotation of publications from the 70's aroused a great deal of reaction that he is a "liar," eh?
Will wrote: "In the 1970s, "a major cooling of the planet" was "widely considered inevitable" because it was "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950" (The New York Times, May 21, 1975). Although some disputed that the "cooling trend" could result in "a return to another ice age" (the Times, Sept. 14, 1975), others anticipated "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" involving "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation" (Science News, March 1, 1975, and Science magazine, Dec. 10, 1976, respectively). The "continued rapid cooling of the Earth" (Global Ecology, 1971) meant that "a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery" (International Wildlife, July 1975). "The world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age" (Science Digest, February 1973). Because of "ominous signs" that "the Earth's climate seems to be cooling down," meteorologists were "almost unanimous" that "the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century," perhaps triggering catastrophic famines (Newsweek cover story, "The Cooling World," April 28, 1975)."
As far as I know, nobody has challenged the accuracy of his quotes, but they are outraged that "he" would suggest something about what the scientists generally believed that, they claim, isn't true. Why don't they complain that the NY Times, et al., are "liars" instead of Will, I wonder? Will even took the time to quote the NY Times acknowledgment that "some" (mentally ill denialist kooks, mebbe?) "disputed" the claims, ya know?
If, and I do mean "if," because I aint tryin to make no predictions one way or another, sunspot activity remains minimal and temperatures continue on a cooling trend, just hide and watch a lot of scientists claim they "never fully supported" and always reserved doubts about, global warming as the inevitable trend to begin with, eh? Before long, any one who quotes their statements will probably be called a "liar."
"Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation. If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate.
As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers....Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans.
Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html
====
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2674E64F-802A-23AD-490B-BD9FAF4DCDB7
"NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fears soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled."
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote.
[Note: NASA scientist James Hansen who runs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warnings, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration...]"
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=1a5e6e32-802a-23ad-40ed-ecd53cd3d320
(Caveat): This is all from a website published under the aupices of a U.S. Senator who is widely known as a "denialist" and who is therefore probably mentally ill.
I know a guy (who I hate) who owns a 25 story building near St. Louis. The whole place is an unsafe death-trap, too. I know, because I busted into it several times last winter to get out of the cold. I tripped over crap that was just left in the middle of hallways, with the lights off, for example.
I am now circulating a petition to have his building condemned and torn down by city order. A lot of times, before sigining my petition, people ask what his side of the story is. I say: He denies it. What do you expect? He will lose money when my petition is presented and acted upon. They always sign right up, after that, eh?
Eric, do you conclude that the information and conclusions contained in the following presentation is based on "science," or is this just the irrational, mentally disordered, ravings of a "bribed" psuedo-scientist?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFk0zTW-ik
This kook, who apparently pretends to be something of a solar "expert, actually argues that it may well be desirable to increase atmospheric C02 levels (which increase food growth) in order to offset anticipated temperature decreases due to solar variation, eh? Should be in Bellevue, ya figure?
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDX2ExKYyqw
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP4mYcrd_18&NR=1
I thought that was obvious. For me to say that the year 1027 A.D was, or was not, one of the 10 hottest in the last 1000 years, I would have to know the exact temperature for that year, and every other year in the last 1000. If I say that 1027 was the 77th warmest year, it presupposes knowledge of all those things. Is a claim to knowledge of this "fact," or aint it?
Since you can never know an exact temperature, by your statement you can't even say June 3, 2009 was wormer than Jan 3, 2009 in Belleville, Illinois.
Any resistance they have, whether based on alternate values, a different set of factual assumptions, common sense, or whatever, is denialism.
If you can't recognize the difference between legitimate sources of disagreement and evidence-free tactics used against evidenced postions, that's your problem.
The warming trend before mid-century? Was this early century trend seen as a consequence of CO2 levels, I wonder?
At that time? I don't think the concept of greenhouse gases existed.
... dived by nearly a full degree Celsius...
The actual drop was more like 0.1 degrees, which is not unusual for a year-to-year variance.
How many prestigious scientists does it take to be "significant," eh, Eric? Einstein and Newton were both a minority of one, ya know?
It takes enough scientists that major scientific organizations start saying global warming is not happening, or not caused by human activities. Einstein's work won a lot of initial acceptance, but the real proof came in the laboratory and the field. To claim to be Einstein, the global-warming-skeptics need to prove they are right. They have failed to do so.
argumentum ad populum, it ROCKS, eh!?
So does argument from authority. Neither applies here.
... George Will's quotation of publications from the 70's ...
Why don't they complain that the NY Times, et al., are "liars" instead of Will, I wonder?
If you don't think scientists have been complaining about how the mass media treats their work for decades, then you really don't know anything on the subject.
... watch a lot of scientists claim they "never fully supported" and always reserved doubts about, global warming ...
I've read lots of scientists admit they were wrong about things.
Eric, do you conclude that the information and conclusions contained in the following presentation is based on "science," or is this just the irrational, mentally disordered, ravings of a "bribed" psuedo-scientist?
I think that even Dr. Spencer doesn't really know, and has admitted as much, if his study on cloud cover in the tropics has general applicability.
James Hansen has demanded that energy companies who dispute the calamitous effects of anthropomorphic global warnings should be tried for "high crimes against humanity."
A least one meterologist has suggested that any meterologist who disagrees with her position on AGW should be de-certified.
Eco-psychologists apparently consider global warming "denialism" to be a mental disorder.
Why haven't these 700 scientists been de-certified and committed to prison in the ward reversed for the criminally insane, I wonder? They are obviously a very serious threat to mankind.
David Archibald is a crank in the employ of a free-market think tank.
One Brow said: "David Archibald is a crank in the employ of a free-market think tank."
Figures, sho nuff---a criminally insane denialist, no doubt. Any comment on the pseudo-science he was spoutin?
I asked: "Any comment on the pseudo-science he was spoutin?"
I see now that this was probably a stupid question. I expect that you had the good sense to refuse to listen to anything that crank said. Who knows, that insanity thing could possibly even be contagious, ya know?
There's plenty of information on the web already about Archibald, his credentials, mathematical errors, etc.
Of course, my evaluation of Archibald must, according to you, be based on his position only, right?
Well, Eric, the problems I have with what's said on the web in attempt to assassinate another's character are: (1) I'm not near as interested in who is sayin something as I am in what they are sayin, and the basis for it, and (2) The assassins never seem to reveal their own biases.
I have even seen criminally insane denialists question the scientific credentials of Al Gore, of all people! Can you BELIEVE that shit! The gall, I tellya!
And they don't stop there! They try to use the old "guilt by association" tactics to smear entire government agencies like NASA. They stoop so low as to insinuate that controlling $10 billion of funding money gives an advocate some kinda power over what is said by scientists. I mean, is there depth to which a criminally insane denialist will not sink?
"There have always been plenty of environmental religionists in academia, but Al Gore is the one who gave them billions of dollars to play with, while excluding all “contrarians” from his largesse. As vice president over the eight years when global warming hysteria first made climate science a funding priority, Al Gore allocated every dime. This was his portfolio as President Clinton's climate science czar. With over ten billion dollars to spend (a huge amount for academia), Al Gore created the current climate science industry almost from scratch, transforming what had been a small backwater discipline into a juggernaut of his own framing.
The funding amounts have since multiplied several times, all of it channeled through the religious ideologues that Al Gore originally empowered, men like NASA scientists James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt, two of the most self-conscious frauds in the history of science, all for what they truly believe to be the best of all possible reasons: saving the environment from human economic activity."
http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2008/02/bad-science-physorgcom-caught-serving.html
I guess that if I had any kinda sense, once I was told by Al Gore that the science is settled, I should stop listening. Especially after it is explained to me that all dissent is illegimate and that there is real debate, only the illusory appearance of debate created by criminally insane denialists. But, for some reason, I always slow down to gawk at badly maimed people involved in a car wreck, too. I just can't seem to help myself, somehow, ya know?
One Brow said: "If you can't recognize the difference between legitimate sources of disagreement and evidence-free tactics used against evidenced postions, that's your problem."
Yeah, that's my problem. And that's why I asked for your help in straightening me out in my very first post in this thread. I now know that what Cothran said in his short blog entry is not even just a passing example of denialism, but a full-blown "denialfest," no less. I just don't know why.
"Rhodes Fairbridge of Columbia University, [is] a giant in science over much of the last century whose accomplishments are perhaps unsurpassed for their breadth, depth, and volume. This one man authored or co-authored 100 scientific books and more than 1,000 scientific papers, he edited the Benchmarks in Geology series (more than 90 volumes in print) and was general editor of the Encyclopaedias of the Earth Sciences. He edited eight major encyclopedias of specialized scientific papers in the atmospheric sciences and astrogeology; geomorphology; geochemistry and the earth sciences; geology, sedimentology, paleontology, oceanography and, not least, climatology.
...Temperatures on Earth are but one consequence of these periodic and predictable celestial movements. Others, Dr. Fairbridge has shown, are seen everywhere on Earth: in the various and differing periodicities in rocks, glaciers, sand dunes and the circulation of the ocean; geomagnetic records; the records of the isotopes of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen in tree rings, ice cores, air and water. They are the periodicities of climate change.
Dr. Fairbridge's best-known periodicity, which he developed in the 1950s, hypothesized that sea levels had been rising for the last 16,000 years, during which there were periodic oscillations of rise and fall. The Fairbridge curve describing this period -- so named in derision because it offended the conventional wisdom - is now widely accepted. It demonstrates that, even within the past 1,000 years, sea levels have several times changed by up to two metres, and suddenly -- each of these large changes occurred in fewer than 40 years."
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=bfeddc8e-90d7-4f54-9ca7-1f56fadc7c2b
How is it even possible, I wonder, that a scientific hypothesis which is derided because it offends conventional widsom is now "widely accepted?" Zup wit dat?
One Brow said: "I think that even Dr. Spencer doesn't really know, and has admitted as much, if his study on cloud cover in the tropics has general applicability."
He seems pretty confident of certain things, eh? For example: That the observed amount of infrared long waves, does not increase like the amount of shortwave (sunlight) and that, as a consequence, and contrary to all climate models, ice and liquid cloud covers decline (due to sirrus cloud dissipation, apparently. The numbers show a very strong negative feedback (again, contrary to climate models). His conclusion is that if there is one organizing principle of tempature control on earth, it is the precipiation system--something he would not have said a year prior. He seems equally sure that this phenomenon should not be ignored by climate models. He could be wrong, of course. Then, again, so could the climate modelers, ya know?
Different video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xos49g1sdzo&feature=related
Just curious--since your only comment is that he doesn't know something about general applicability, is that also your criterion for judging the claims of the climate modellers?
Surely your comments could not be indicative of (gasp) criminally insane denialism, eh?
"At one level, Robinson, a PhD scientist himself, recoils at his petition. Science shouldn't be done by poll, he explains. "The numbers shouldn't matter. But if they want warm bodies, we have them. I hope the general public will become aware that there is no consensus on global warming," he says, "and I hope that scientists who have been reluctant to speak up will now do so, knowing that they aren't alone."
Looks like Big Al Gore mighta overplayed his hand, just a bit, eh?
"E-mails started coming in every day," he explained. "And they kept coming. "The writers were outraged at the way Al Gore and company were abusing the science to their own ends. We decided to do the survey again."
The response rate was extraordinary, "much, much higher than anyone expected, much higher than you’d ordinarily expect," he explained. He's processed more than 31,000 at this point...
"These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity and that government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth."
http://www.energy.probeinternational.org/climate-change/the-deniers/32-000-deniers
Well, Eric, the problems I have with what's said on the web in attempt to assassinate another's character are:
I don't see how referring to his credentials, mathematical errors, etc. is character assasination. In fact, I see that as addressing the basis of what he is saying. If you think Archibald has a relevant point to make we haven't already discussed, adopt the position as your own and bring it in.
... smear entire government agencies like NASA. They stoop so low as to insinuate that controlling $10 billion of funding money gives an advocate some kinda power over what is said by scientists. I mean, is there depth to which a criminally insane denialist will not sink?
You mean, like equivocating all of NASA to "an advocate"? You don't think NASA would have better uses for the money if global warming was not a real event?
http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2008/02/bad-science-physorgcom-caught-serving.html
You mean, the blog post by a guy who cut off the quote of Dr. Baliunas and then said he didn't understand what it referenced, and whose research is so shallow that he missed this:
http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/foundations/articles/solar-evidence-points-human-causes-climate-change?view=print
Not to mention that Congress allocates funding to NASA, not Al Gore.
I guess that if I had any kinda sense, once I was told by Al Gore that the science is settled, I should stop listening.
I recall your a priori objection to any theory ever being settled, not that I am claiming AGW is as confirmed as, say, natural selection.
And that's why I asked for your help in straightening me out in my very first post in this thread.
Yet, your only comment on the deck cards link is that they are discussing ways to smear your opponents rather than identifying tactics used by denialists. Did you want to discuss one or two cards in particular that you feel carry that message (not that the cards are the be-all and end-all, of course)?
How is it even possible, I wonder, that a scientific hypothesis which is derided because it offends conventional widsom is now "widely accepted?" Zup wit dat?
It happens over time, with a successful publishing record.
He could be wrong, of course. Then, again, so could the climate modelers, ya know?
Sounds like a good rationale for getting more proposals together and doing more testing.
Just curious--since your only comment is that he doesn't know something about general applicability, is that also your criterion for judging the claims of the climate modellers?
My understanding of the current climate models is that they have a variety of faults, but narrow application to a particular percentage of the earth's curface (the tropics only) is not one of them. If you have information otherwise, present it.
"At one level, Robinson, a PhD scientist himself, recoils at his petition. Science shouldn't be done by poll, he explains.
If there really is large support, than the positions that extablish the consensus of various organizations can be modified.
One Brow said: "Yet, your only comment on the deck cards link is that they are discussing ways to smear your opponents rather than identifying tactics used by denialists. Did you want to discuss one or two cards in particular that you feel carry that message (not that the cards are the be-all and end-all, of course)?
Eric, the whole topic was of virtually no interest to me, although I see that the "tactics" begin with "denying there is a problem." That "tactic" is used to initate every legitmate debate, so what?
I could compile a list of fallacies and lies, give example where democrats were guilty of them, and entitle the whole thing "How Democrats Lie and Deceived." It would get lots of hits from anti-democrats, and of course the insinuation is that all, and only, democrats engage in such tactics, which is the main attraction, the main "point" and the main purpose of it. Otherwise, it would just be another mundane exercise in identifying fallacies.
I could then do the same and call it "How Republicans [insert any category or "enemy" you want] and do the same. It too would gets lots of hits and citations from anti-republicans [anti-X], at least if well written, accurate, and entertaining.
So what? Is there something "special" about what some "denialists" do that no one else, especially global warming advocates, do? Why do people think that commonly known and obvious forms of improper advocacy suddenly take on independent signficance when seen in their "enemies?"
One Brow said: "Not to mention that Congress allocates funding to NASA, not Al Gore."
Gore directly oversaw the distribution of funds to academia, not NASA, the blurb alleged. Of course NASA (or at least the extreme elements therein, are "guilty by association" with Al Gore, environmental czar.
One Brow said: "My understanding of the current climate models is that they have a variety of faults, but narrow application to a particular percentage of the earth's curface (the tropics only) is not one of them. If you have information otherwise, present it."
Do you have any information that it does not? Is that your claim? If so, how does the phenomenon created in the percentage affected affect climate models?
I said: "Do you have any information that it does not?" What I meant to ask here is whether you have some particular evidence that the phenomenon in question has only "narrow application" to a (presumably) miniscule portion of the surface, and/or that, because it is not omnipresent, it is insignficant?
"In fact, I see that as addressing the basis of what he is saying. If you think Archibald has a relevant point to make we haven't already discussed, adopt the position as your own and bring it in."
As I said at the outset, I don't want to get into a "dialogue of the deaf" here where one amateur argues with another about complicated scientific matters. I merely note the claim, and do not pretend to be qualified to prove or disprove it.
The real issue in this thread, to me in the criminally insanse denialists, ya know?
That said, Archibald, whoever he is, seemed to be relying on the scientific work of others, apparently as presented in peer-reviewed journals, etc. If you want to risk endangering your mental health by listening to the presentation, and if you think you see obvious errors, feel free.
One Brow said: "In fact, I see that as addressing the basis of what he is saying. If you think Archibald has a relevant point to make we haven't already discussed, adopt the position as your own and bring it in."
What is he saying? How would his credentials "address" that content? How would an alleged mathematical error in something he said "address" it? It's a simple non-responsive smear. Most all of the prominient global warming advocates have been accused of, and proven to have made, some errors, mathematical and otherwise.
The very fact that you see an ad hominenem attack as "addressing" the issues is one problem here, as I see it. The accusation that he is a "kook," settles all of the legitmate knowledge and debate about solar cycles, etc., that the idea?
Sorry, "crank" was the term you used to dispense with him and, presumably, everything he might have said. That was your only response to my inquiry about whether the underlying science had an validity.
One Brow said: "You mean, the blog post by a guy who cut off the quote of Dr. Baliunas and then said he didn't understand what it referenced, and whose research is so shallow that he missed this:
http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/foundations/articles/solar-evidence-points-human-causes-climate-change?view=print
Miss what exactly? This statement from Baliunas, reported in you citation:
“Did the sun cause what we see on the ground?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem so. But there is some fuzziness in the data, which suggests it could go either way. The answer isn’t known at this time. ”Unfortunately," she added, “there is no model to explain [solar surface activity] on the century-to-millennium time scale,” and long-term changes in solar output need further study.
It is rather obvious to me, Eric, that there are qualified scientists on both sides of this issue. Baliunis herself acknowledges a lack of "finality" on this score. How would that prove someone "overlooked" the conclusory comentary of a journalist (as presented in your site)?
One Brow said: "You mean, the blog post by a guy who cut off the quote of Dr. Baliunas and then said he didn't understand what it referenced, and whose research is so shallow that he missed this:"
I have no idea what incident you are referring to, and I don't particularly care. I will simply note, that, as usual, you address no part of the content of a claim, but merely try to smear the speaker on the basis of some unspecified, unforgivable, past sin.
Is ad hom the entire game with the warming alarmists, now, that it? There are other indications that this could be the case.
Such as:
Claim and challenge from a pro-warming advocate: "perhaps some scientists are coming out against the idea that humankind has warmed the planet and continues to spew increasing pollutants into our atmosphere. If so, they are awful quiet about their challenge. Perhaps they should post their arguments here and let NRDC's real climate experts take them on."
Select responses from scientists:
"Quoting RealClimate.org as a reliable source of information on climate science is like quoting Disneyland.com for reliable information on mouse behavior. Please don't refer me to realclimate.org for "proof" that AGW is real. I've already been to Disneyland, thanks..."
Perhaps the best summary of "Real Climate" was given by a Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, who said,
"This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that, however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers."
Perhaps the best summary of "Real Climate" was given by a Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, who said,
"This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that, however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers."
Perhaps the best summary of "Real Climate" was given by a Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, who said,
"This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that, however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers."
Perhaps the best summary of "Real Climate" was given by a Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, who said,
"This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that, however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers."
Perhaps the best summary of "Real Climate" was given by a Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, who said,
"This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that, however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers."
Perhaps the best summary of "Real Climate" was given by a Harvard trained atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen, who said,
"This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that, however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers."
"This website appears to constitute a support center for global warming believers, wherein any criticism of global warming is given an answer that, however implausible, is then repeated by the reassured believers." (atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Richard Lindzen)
"RealClimate jumped the shark when the resorted to directing folks to known far left smear sites as an answer any time a name of a critic of the AGW theory was mentioned. How can anyone take realclimate serious if it associates with known venomously partisan sites?"
Smear sites, eh?
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/pgutis/public_enemies.html#comment1178
Oops, lotta duplication in that last post, eh? Sorry.
There were, by the way, some substantive replies made by scientists there, too, for example:
The present empirical evidence strongly indicates that the AGW-hypothesis is wrong; i.e.
1. There is no correlation between the anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and global temperature.
2. Change to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is observed to follow change to global temperature at all time scales.
3. Recent rise in global temperature has not been induced by rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
The global temperature fell from 1940 to 1970, rose from 1970 to 1998, and fell from 1998 to the present (i.e. mid-2008). This is 40 years of cooling and 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940. But atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased at a near-constant rate and by more than 30% since 1940
4. Rise in global temperature has not been induced by increase to anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide.
More than 80% of the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide has been since 1940, and the increase to the emissions has been at a compound rate of ~0.4% p.a. throughout that time. But that time has exhibited 40 years of cooling with only 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940.
5. The pattern of atmospheric warming predicted by the AGW hypothesis is absent.
The AGW hypothesis predicts most warming of the atmosphere at altitude distant from polar regions. Radiosonde measurements from weather balloons show slight cooling at altitude distant from polar regions.
"
It seems that, the blogger's challenge notwithstanding, the substance was not "taken on" by "real scientists," however.
Eric, the whole topic was of virtually no interest to me,
Then I will drop it after this response.
although I see that the "tactics" begin with "denying there is a problem." That "tactic" is used to initate every legitmate debate, so what?
Agreed.
So what? Is there something "special" about what some "denialists" do that no one else, especially global warming advocates, do?
I would say there is something about denialism that pretty that you see in any form advocacy from certain members of the group, and have said that before in this thread. Asking me a question based on the assumption that calling out denialism is about advocating a particular position is pointless when I don't agree that is what denialism is about.
Why do people think that commonly known and obvious forms of improper advocacy suddenly take on independent signficance when seen in their "enemies?"
Almost everyone is easier on perceives allies thn perceived opponents.
Gore directly oversaw the distribution of funds to academia, not NASA, the blurb alleged.
Considering the lack of research and basic reading ability exhibited in that post, I find this comment, which proposes a funding method in contradiction with those I read from scientists who actually have to get government grants, not credible.
"My understanding of the current climate models is that they have a variety of faults, but narrow application to a particular percentage of the earth's curface (the tropics only) is not one of them. If you have information otherwise, present it."
Do you have any information that it does not?
The descriptions of the model I have seen refer to termperatures taken in a variety of latitudes, ice cores samples (only available in polar regions), tree rings samples (only available in temperate/tropical regions), etc.
What I meant to ask here is whether you have some particular evidence that the phenomenon in question has only "narrow application" to a (presumably) miniscule portion of the surface, and/or that, because it is not omnipresent, it is insignficant?
No, which is why in my last comment I agreed there should be further study on this phenomenon.
I don't want to get into a "dialogue of the deaf" here where one amateur argues with another about complicated scientific matters.
Archibald is also an amatuer. You want to watch a dialogue of the deaf rather than participate?
Most all of the prominient global warming advocates have been accused of, and proven to have made, some errors, mathematical and otherwise.
I don't recall suggesting you rely on advocates for an accurate assessment of global warming.
That was your only response to my inquiry about whether the underlying science had an validity.
Even if the science has validity, that doesn't mean it's being used in a valid way.
"Real Climate" is a staged and contracted production, which wasn't created by "scientists", it was actually created by Environmental Media Services, a company which specializes in spreading environmental junk science on behalf of numerous clients who stand to financially benefit from scare tactics through environmental fear mongering. There you will find the word "model" used a million times, for the entire basis of the Global Warming Hoax is based on computer modeling ( not climate science ) which has thus far failed to predict anything accurately since day one."
As I said, anyone can easily play the smear game, and many do, on both sides. That kinda stuff doesn't really interest me. I would rather hear the argument, and any attempt at rebuttal, than the sleazy practice of foregoint debate in favor of ad hom attacks.
It is rather obvious to me, Eric, that there are qualified scientists on both sides of this issue. Baliunis herself acknowledges a lack of "finality" on this score. How would that prove someone "overlooked" the conclusory comentary of a journalist (as presented in your site)?
The full paragraph: "I’m looking for the millennial scale of solar variability,” said astronomer Sallie Baliunas, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. She added that “the records do show variability,” such as changes in radioactive carbon-14 abundance and a beryllium isotope in sediment that suggest changes in solar output. “Did the sun cause what we see on the ground?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem so. But there is some fuzziness in the data, which suggests it could go either way. The answer isn’t known at this time.”
The complaint on Al-fin: The quote appears incomplete, and is not consistent with Baliunas' overall work, up to the present time
Yes, when you delete the first two sentences, the quote appears incomplete. As for not being consistent, I was unaware that scientists were not allowed to change their minds regarding such things.
I have no idea what incident you are referring to, and I don't particularly care. I will simply note, that, as usual, you address no part of the content of a claim, but merely try to smear the speaker on the basis of some unspecified, unforgivable, past sin.
I ws referring to the contents of the blog post, nothing more. If the post is smeared by its own contents, I don't see that as my problem.
Wow, that was funny. I really liked this one:
I cite CRU data from
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
In that CRU data set the 1940 monthly values of temperature anomalies from the 30 year mean are presented in degrees Celsius.
They range between -0.191 and +0.057 with an annual mean of +0.018.
1940 -0.191 -0.054 -0.099 0.046 0.034 0.013 0.134 0.057 0.150 0.012 -0.064 0.178 0.018
1940 55 54 53 52 56 56 57 60 54 54 55 54
2008 0.030 0.194 0.481 0.278 0.280 0.307 0.415 0.391 0.369 0.452 0.389 0.320 0.326
2008 82 83 84 83 82 82 83 84 83 83 82 82
In that same data set the monthly 2008 anomalies to date are +0.053, +0.192, +0.430, +0.254 and +0.278. This is a mean value for the months in 2008 to date of +0.241.
The ranges of the monthly values for these years overlap; i.e. the highest monthly value in 1940 (+0.057) was higher than the lowest monthly value in 2008 (+0.053).
I think it very reasonable to say they are “similar” when their ranges overlap.
However, my use of the word “similar” could be considered to an understatement because the mean values differ by only 0.223 degrees Celsius and the data has inherent error of +/- 0.2 degrees Celsius.
So, within their inherent errors the mean values are not similar because THEY ARE THE SAME.
So, because 1940 has about the same anomalies based on the thirty years prior to 1940 as 2008 has based on the thirty years prior to 2008, they are the same temperature? No mention at all of the differences n the mean temperatures? *chortle*.
1. There is no correlation between the anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and global temperature.
A flat-out lie. The correlation is a simple observation.
2. Change to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is observed to follow change to global temperature at all time scales.
Any change in carbon dioxide level wuold have to be preceded by some sort of temperature change, I agree. That's not a very meaningful statement.
3. Recent rise in global temperature has not been induced by rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
The global temperature fell from 1940 to 1970, rose from 1970 to 1998, and fell from 1998 to the present (i.e. mid-2008). This is 40 years of cooling and 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940. But atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased at a near-constant rate and by more than 30% since 1940.
We can do better than that! The temperature fell from 1940 to 1970, and rose from 1970 to 1971. This is 30 years of cooling and only 1 year of warming! *chortle*.
More than 80% of the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide has been since 1940, and the increase to the emissions has been at a compound rate of ~0.4% p.a. throughout that time. But that time has exhibited 40 years of cooling with only 28 years of warming, and global temperature is now similar to that of 1940.
Combining two amusing arguments into a good laugh.
5. The pattern of atmospheric warming predicted by the AGW hypothesis is absent.
The AGW hypothesis predicts most warming of the atmosphere at altitude distant from polar regions.
Not in the models current as of 2004, to my understanding.
It seems that, the blogger's challenge notwithstanding, the substance was not "taken on" by "real scientists," however.
Maybe they were laughing too hard?
One Brow said: "Asking me a question based on the assumption that calling out denialism is about advocating a particular position is pointless..."
Well, you asked for a comment on the website you referred me to, which you indcated was a "good place to start" if I didn't understand what denialism was. Admittedly, I didn't read it carefully, but I skimmed it, and it seemed that the whole "project" was directed to one, and only one, side a debate, which side was identified as engaging in "denialism." The side being categorized was, best I could tell, those opposing proposed regulation of one type or another.
The side being categorized was, best I could tell, those opposing proposed regulation of one type or another.
The author of the deck is a lawyer concerned with limiting the ability of corporations to interfere with personal privacy, so that is how what many of his examples center around, definitely.
One Brow said: "Maybe they were laughing too hard?"
Mebbe. Or mebbe their hands were occupied high-fiving you, and each other, and smugly telling each other how unworthy of a response any criticism of global warming was, eh?
When I was a kid, another kid challenged me to a fight in his backyard, with only his friends and relatives present. I went. I was told he was gone. I waited for an hour, then finally left. I was later told that as soon as I left, he emerged and declared himself the victor in the fight because he had deceived and inconvenienced me. This apparently precipitated loud applause and universal approval from his homies. Always nice when you can referee your own fights, eh?
I have heard it claimed that ice ages have ensued when the C02 level was 10 times as high as it is now. Also when 5 times as high. Of course, that particular C02 was not "man-made" so it probably doesn't even count.
I have seen 1000 (or so) year temperature graphs which so an overall temperature deviation of 4 degrees C. This includes both the medieval warming period and the "little ice age," when temperature changes were 3-4 as steep, and 3-4 times as rapid as in the 20th century. It seems that, right now, we are just slightly above the 1000-year mean, quite a way from both the highs of the medieval warm period and the little ice age (when, needless to say, there was no significant man-made CO2 in the atmosphere.
I sure the mere mention of such things always causes loud, hysterical howling in alarmists circles, too, eh?
You might not be aware of such graphs if your acquaintance with the topic is limited to the discredited hockey stick model created by Mann. That graph managed to eliminate the appearance to the extreme warm and cold periods, somehow.
Edit: I said: "That graph managed to eliminate the appearance to the extreme warm and cold periods, somehow." I meant to say the exact opposite, i.e., limit the appearance OF, not "to."
One Brow said: "Any change in carbon dioxide level wuold have to be preceded by some sort of temperature change, I agree. That's not a very meaningful statement."
Not meaningful, eh? Round these here parts, the cause is generally presumed to precede the effect, not the other way around. Course, I have already learned that you have your own *special* definition of what a "cause" is, so......
From what little I have read, I seem to recall about an 800 year lag in the "correlation" between tempatures and CO2 levels, with the CO2 lagging, not leading. Are we back to the presumption that correlation = cause? If so, then the cause of increased C02 levels is (prior, by about 800 years) changes in temperature, not CO2 levels "causing" increased temperatures.
Is it this same "correlation" that you have in mind when calling the poster who said: "There is no correlation between the anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and global temperature" a liar? Mebbe he just meant no correlation which indicates causation, eh?
I think it's worth noting that the 32,000+ scientists who signed the "oregon petition" did not merely express doubt, or reserve judgment with respect to, the proposed regulatory schemes of the global warmining alarmists and the science behind it. They expressly adopted the position that the proposed limits on greenhouse gasses would:
1. harm the environment,
2. hinder the advance of science and technology, and
3. damage the health and welfare of mankind.
If there are 32,000 outright "deniers," ya gotta wonder how many more fence-sitters there are, eh? Could Al Gore possibly be wrong about the science being "settled," ya figure?
Mebbe. Or mebbe their hands were occupied high-fiving you, and each other, and smugly telling each other how unworthy of a response any criticism of global warming was, eh?
Maybe. It was pretty awful. I notice you didn't bother to try to defend it.
You might not be aware of such graphs if your acquaintance with the topic is limited to the discredited hockey stick model created by Mann. That graph managed to eliminate the appearance of the extreme warm and cold periods, somehow.
You mean, different people used the same measurements in different ways to produce different graphs? Wow! Not too mention with the size of the error bars in Mann's grpahs, it's hard to claim anything was eliminated. How were the error bars on the graphs you saw?
Not meaningful, eh? Round these here parts, the cause is generally presumed to precede the effect, not the other way around. Course, I have already learned that you have your own *special* definition of what a "cause" is, so......
When the claim is that a rise in temperature can causes a rise in carbon dioxide 800 years later, long after the temperature has cooled, I don't think it is *my* definition of cause that should concern you.
Is it this same "correlation" that you have in mind when calling the poster who said: "There is no correlation between the anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and global temperature" a liar? Mebbe he just meant no correlation which indicates causation, eh?
So, he was lying by omission?
If there are 32,000 outright "deniers," ya gotta wonder how many more fence-sitters there are, eh?
Aparently not enough to change the collective opinions of teh various groups of scientitsts in the world.
One Brow said: "Aparently not enough to change the collective opinions of teh various groups of scientitsts in the world."
And this is "apparent" how, exactly? Has a poll been done this week, or sumthin?
"Collective opinions" of various groups, eh? How many scientists in that "collective," I wonder? What percent of those individually endorse the proposed regulations and the science (or lack thereof, as the case may be) upon which they are premised?
Again, I see no point in trying to adjudicate scientific truth by reference to consensus to begin with. For one thing, there is a question of whether it is even "science" in many cases. I have quoted one atmospheric physicist who claims that computer models are not science (he apparently favors empirical observation, for some damn reason). See, for example, the 3:30ff mark of this presentation by Fred Singer (the whole clip, as well as part 2, is worth viewing). This is where is compares a graph based on (what he calls proper) IPPC models with actual observations, which vary drastically.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS347&q=fred%20singer%20global%20warming&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS347&q=fred+singer+global+warming&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv&start=10
He also claims there is a fundamental split between those who believe in models, and those who believe in actually atmospheric observations, as others have.
As I said, my concern here is more with whether the claim that the science is "settled" and that non-supporters of AGW claims are criminally insane "denialists" is accurate, or whether that charge is just another politically/ideologically/religiously motivated smear tactic designed to suppress all dissent of the type used by both sides in ideological disputes.
It's really not surprising that AGW advocates seem to be oblivious to dissenting views. How could they possibly be aware, in an informed way, of such dissent when all they ever read is the views, comments, claims, and justifications of their like-minded homeboys?
I get the feeling that the primary response to any dissent by these types is to (1) laugh in unison, and then (2) scour a left-wing website for (what they percieve as) some ad hominum "dirt" which justifies (to them) the summary dismissal of any criticisms, without further analysis.
In short, they simply label each critic as a "denialist" (criminally insane, by definition) and then move on to the next critic (also an obvious "denialist"). Once they make short work of those minor items, their agenda is free to move on to it's primary stage, i.e., congratulating each other on their brilliant insight and their uncanny ability to quickly see through, and identify, "denialists."
One Brow said: "When the claim is that a rise in temperature can causes a rise in carbon dioxide 800 years later, long after the temperature has cooled, I don't think it is *my* definition of cause that should concern you."
Apparently you completely misread what I said. I said I had seen reported correlations (without comment on cause). Later I said that IF (a big "if" which I reject, but about which you and I have had extended debates in the past) we were going to revert to the presumption that correlation = cause, THEN, you would have to conclude that temperature change was the cause and CO2 levels the effect, based on the temporal order alone.
And this is "apparent" how, exactly? Has a poll been done this week, or sumthin?
Hey, why allow for that long a time frame? Why not insist on a poll done in the last five minutes? Forget all those silly press releases and position papers.
"Collective opinions" of various groups, eh? How many scientists in that "collective," I wonder? What percent of those individually endorse the proposed regulations and the science (or lack thereof, as the case may be) upon which they are premised?
If you are really interested in those questions, I'm sure you can get some answer from the individual organizations about hyow that organizaiton writes its position papers. Or, if you are just trying to muddy the waters by introducing evidence-free doubt, than that would be a bad move.
I have quoted one atmospheric physicist who claims that computer models are not science (he apparently favors empirical observation, for some damn reason).
I don't think you can have science without both.
He also claims there is a fundamental split between those who believe in models, and those who believe in actually atmospheric observations, as others have.
Do you mean those who believe the models or those who believe the atmospheric conditions? Seems like lots of peole believe both while acknowledging the models require improvment.
As I said, my concern here is more with whether the claim that the science is "settled" and that non-supporters of AGW claims are criminally insane "denialists" is accurate,
I don't recall endorsing either positon.
It's really not surprising that AGW advocates seem to be oblivious to dissenting views. How could they possibly be aware, in an informed way, of such dissent when all they ever read is the views, comments, claims, and justifications of their like-minded homeboys?
Considering how little support they get from the various scientific organizations, if anything the AGW dissenters are over-represented in the media. If they want to get more acknowledgement, how about doing the work and getting more publications?
One Brow said: "When the claim is that a rise in temperature can causes a rise in carbon dioxide 800 years later, long after the temperature has cooled, I don't think it is *my* definition of cause that should concern you."
Apparently you completely misread what I said.
Or, you didn't sufficiently read the page you linked to.
I said I had seen reported correlations (without comment on cause). Later I said that IF (a big "if" which I reject, but about which you and I have had extended debates in the past) we were going to revert to the presumption that correlation = cause, THEN, you would have to conclude that temperature change was the cause and CO2 levels the effect, based on the temporal order alone.
Thgere is alwasy a CO2 increase that precedes a temperatue increase, and always one that follows a temperature increase. Think about it.
One Brow said: "If you are really interested in those questions, I'm sure you can get some answer from the individual organizations about hyow that organizaiton writes its position papers. Or, if you are just trying to muddy the waters by introducing evidence-free doubt, than that would be a bad move."
A question amounts to "introducing evidence-free doubt?" Like, who knew, eh? I just watched a video where Charles Keller, a staunch global warming supporter, refers to 1,000 scientists who apparently agree with him. I don't know who they are, but I do know that he didn't say "2,000" or "3,000." Just wonderin, ya know?
So, you're sayin I can't read, that it? Read it yourself, and you tell me (this is but one of many website which make the same claim).
"The only trouble is that a closer examination shows that the tightest correlation is between the temperature increases and the CO2 increases 800 years later. This suggests that the temperature increases is causing the CO2 increase, and not the other way around. The global warming scientists acknowledge this."
http://schlafly.blogspot.com/2007/05/temperature-co2-correlation.html
One Brow said: "Thgere is alwasy a CO2 increase that precedes a temperatue increase, and always one that follows a temperature increase. Think about it."
What is there to think about? What are you trying to suggest. The evidence I have seen shows that FIRST temperature increases, and LATER (about 800 years--or maybe 200-400, but much later), the CO2 increases by the same margin or so. Then temperature falls and, 800 years later, CO2 levels fall. Are you still trying to suggest that the issue of which comes first and which follows is irrelevant, that it?
Spoze that it could be shown that people who carry concealed weapons have never been sucessfully robbed (not the case, I know, but this is just hypothetical).
Now say I want to argue that carrying a concealed weapons make a person more likely to be successfully robbed. Hmm, what am I gunna say? How bout this?:
"There is a strong correlation between successful roberies and victims of such attempts who carried concealed weapons. How's bout them apples, eh!?"
Technically speakin, I wouldn't be "lyin" would I? This is in fact a strong correlation, ya know?
Of course, if anyone had the audacity to ask me exactly what the correlation was, I would simply tell them to stop attempting to induce evidence-free doubt and go look it up for their own damn self. To help persuade my audience I would than add that "only criminally insane denialists ask questions."
I reluctantly accepted your implied invitation to look at the "denialism" website and discuss a particular card. Let's go to the top, and look at the "ace of clubs" aka "our rights!"
"Allow me to jump ahead in the Denialists' Deck of Cards, in light of Verizon's claim that giving customer records to the National Security Agency is protected by the First Amendment: Communicating facts to the government is protected petitioning activity," says the response, even when the communication of those facts would normally be illegal or would violate a company's owner promises to its customers....This is a great example of "Our Rights!" The denalist can almost always argue that any restriction on business activity is unconstitutional. After all, businesses were afforded many civil rights before women achieved suffrage."
OK, so what do we have here, exactly? Anyone who can, and does, make an argument that a restriction would be "unconstitutional" is simply resorting to a denialist tactic, that the idea? Unless you're some kinda denialist, you will just waive any and all constitutional rights you may have, and submit to restrictions, that the idea?
There is always a tension between, and legitimate arguments to be made about, the relative importance of individual rights vs. some claimed benefit to society in restricting individual rights, at least in this country. Such arguments are illegitimate and are made only by criminally insane denialist types, that the idea?
This is the most presumptuous bullshit I've heard in a while, but not actually that uncommon when coming from those with a collectivist mentality. For them, the individual is insignificant, and only the presumed benefits to the whole are to be valued.
This is, of course, a political/philsophical issue about which a person is free to take either side. To suggest that only one side (the collectivist side) is to be considered and that all debate is illegitimate is simply trying to load the deck and suppress opposing opinions and values. Not really that surprising, coming from a commie type, but I am still somehow unpersuaded that those who take a different view are criminally insane denialists, ya know?
From what I can tell, this presumption (that my values and judgments are right and anyone who questions them should shut up) underlies virtually every "card" this guy condemns. Hence my post about a prosecutor wanting to eliminate all trials.
With respect to this particular issue, I think the traditional view is that reports to enforcement agencies is privileged if made in good faith. The same is generally true if one complies with a government subpoena (a citizen is not required to independently decide if the subpoena was properly issued, is constitutional, etc.). If a criminal, confronted with a search warrant, refuses to comply, the cops will simply kick his door in and start searchin. Should the law be changed to say that if the subject of a search warrant refuses to comply, the cops must leave? I guess that could be debated.
All in all, I found the website to be entirely devoid of useful discussion of generally applicable principles and/or ways of distinguishing "legitimate" debate from "denialism."
I happen to agree that I would not be inclined to accept Verizon's argument in this case, although I really don't know the facts involved so it's hard to judge. And it would be fair to point out that, it this particular case, Verizon's position would tend to be more supportive of a "collectivist" stance, and more in opposition to "individual rights" (other than their own "individual rights").
But the general complaint is that someone is trying to argue that he has rights which should be considered. To implicitly issue a blanket condemnation of arguing for one's constitutional rights is simply totalitarian in it's general implications.
Every time a controversial (and politicized) constitutional issue is decided, one way or another, by the Supreme Court there will always be an outraged response from those supporting the losing side. The losing side will invariably claim that it had the better argument, that proper understanding of sound public policy would dictate a contrary decision, etc. It is not, of course, uncommon to suggest that Supreme Court Justices are "stupid," prejudiced, and even "criminal."
Does that mean that whoever is complaining (i.e., the plaintiff) should win without further judgment because those opposing the validity of his complaint are simply "denialists?" Again, best I can tell, a "denialists" is just someone who disagrees with you. For some, the best explanation for this absurd disagreement is that the person disagreeing is "crazy," bribed, pig-headed, etc. What else is new?
In this video (starting at about the 4:00 mark), both Fred Singer and his debate opponent, Charles Keller, are asked for their observations about the qualifications of Al Gore and their comments on his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Keller, while admitting that he was surprised to hear it, sees it as a "profound" thing to do, because, he says, global warming could ultimately lead to huge unrest and a lot of strife worldwide, so, therefore, anyone who advocates restrictions on CO2 emissions are "to some extent" in favor of peace. Hmmmm.
Singer offers a less speculative, and more pragmatic, explanation: Singer says Gore's film technique is very good and says his film was "very impressive," while also claiming that Gore's scientific qualifications are "negligible." He then notes that the Nobel prize is not awarded by a scientific academy, but rather by Norwegian Parliment, and is therefore more of a "political" statement than a scientific one. He notes that Yassar Afafat is a former recipient, and claims that if the conservative wing were in power, they would probably give it to Pat Buchanan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um16X3WLHE0
Well, I say it can be both, eh? It can be "profoundly political," doncha think?
After looking into the matter, I guess the charge of "denialism" is basically that:
1. The sole goal of "denialists" is to create doubt where there is none, and, as corollary, that
2. Since there is no doubt, the "denialists" themselves have no doubt (about the absolute truth of the proposition they pretend to be doubting), and are therefore obvious liars and frauds.
Do such people actually exist? Well, it's possible, I suppose. So, now what?
Well, I would start with the first premise, and worry about the corollary (if indeed it is something to "worry" about--I don't "worry" about people who disingenuously argue that the holocaust never occurred, my own damn self) afterwards.
What, exactly, is it that's being claimed to be universally indubitable (even by those who falsely deny it)? Is it that any "cap and trade" proposal made by congress should be implemented, or what?
Do you know what this indubitable something, which denialists dispute, all while not doubting it's truth themselves, is, Eric?
A question amounts to "introducing evidence-free doubt?"
If the purpose of your question was not to cast doubt on how well the position papers reflected the concensus of gthe members, I apologize. Why do you think the method of arrival at the positions might be relevant, outside of that?
So, you're sayin I can't read, that it? Read it yourself, and you tell me (this is but one of many website which make the same claim).
"The only trouble is that a closer examination shows that the tightest correlation is between the temperature increases and the CO2 increases 800 years later. This suggests that the temperature increases is causing the CO2 increase, and not the other way around. The global warming scientists acknowledge this."
http://schlafly.blogspot.com/2007/05/temperature-co2-correlation.html
The website Roger Schlafly links to in support of his claim does not make the 800 year claim, and in fact makes quite a few claims that would tend to weigh against it. I have no doubt that any correlation between CO2 and temperature will be a loose one because there are so many other factors.
Then temperature falls and, 800 years later, CO2 levels fall. Are you still trying to suggest that the issue of which comes first and which follows is irrelevant, that it?
I am saying that when you allow for time scales of hundreds (why not thousands or tens of thousands?) of years with no connective mechanism, you can just as easily connect a rise in temprature to a prior rise in CO2 as a following rise in CO2 (or drops in CO2, for that matter). If you are goind to say our current CO2 rise is the result of the Medieval Warm Period, what is the connection and the reason for the delay? What sort of cycle requires 800 years between these steps?
I happen to agree that I would not be inclined to accept Verizon's argument in this case, although I really don't know the facts involved so it's hard to judge. And it would be fair to point out that, it this particular case, Verizon's position would tend to be more supportive of a "collectivist" stance, and more in opposition to "individual rights" (other than their own "individual rights").
Exactly so.
But the general complaint is that someone is trying to argue that he has rights which should be considered.
That card does not refer to individuals who assert their rights. Again, given Chris' specific interests, he chose to use that card for Verizon's right to break a contract, for tobacco companies right to grow tobacco without consequence, etc.
To implicitly issue a blanket condemnation of arguing for one's constitutional rights is simply totalitarian in it's general implications.
I agree, and so would Chris. If you read any three consecutive posts of his, I'm sure you will see this.
He then notes that the Nobel prize is not awarded by a scientific academy, but rather by Norwegian Parliment, and is therefore more of a "political" statement than a scientific one. He notes that Yassar Afafat is a former recipient, and claims that if the conservative wing were in power, they would probably give it to Pat Buchanan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um16X3WLHE0
Well, I say it can be both, eh? It can be "profoundly political," doncha think?
The Nobel Peace prize has always had political overtones. Buchanan would be a stretch regardless, but you might argue George H. W. Bush as a conservative recipient.
1. The sole goal of "denialists" is to create doubt where there is none, and, as corollary, that
I would clarify that as "create doubt where there is no scientific envidence that can be reasonbly interpreted to support the doubt".
2. Since there is no doubt, the "denialists" themselves have no doubt (about the absolute truth of the proposition they pretend to be doubting), and are therefore obvious liars and frauds.
I think there are many denialists like this, but also many who are self-deluded or simply trusting and repeating what they hear from others.
(if indeed it is something to "worry" about--I don't "worry" about people who disingenuously argue that the holocaust never occurred, my own damn self) afterwards.
There are other types of denialism that can affect your life more directly, like vaccine denialism trying to make vaccines more expansive and harder to acquire.
What, exactly, is it that's being claimed to be universally indubitable (even by those who falsely deny it)? Is it that any "cap and trade" proposal made by congress should be implemented, or what?
With regard to this particular issue, it's that human industrial output is having a long-term effect on global temperatures.
I knew a guy once who argued, and he was sincere, that driver's licenses should be abolished, and that nobody should be allowed to drive. Why? Because drunk driving was a serious concern and problem which causes vast injury to innocent victims and that it should be eliminated.
He argued that anyone who was permitted to drive "could" therefore drive drunk, and hence that the risk should be eliminated. I asked him why not just outlaw alcohol, instead of driving, if that's your only concern. His response, and I had to admit he had a point, was that, legal or illegal, people would still drink.
I pointed out that not all people drive drunk, and in fact that very few do, and that it might be unfair to "punish" the innocent. His response was that all victims of drunk driving were innocent and were being "punished," so that if I really cared with about not punishing the innocent, I would agree with him.
And so it went, until he finally saw the truth. I was a DENIALIST, and therefore not worth talking to because I was, ipso facto, a lying fraud (not to even mention criminally insane, ya know?).
One Brow said: "With regard to this particular issue, it's that human industrial output is having a long-term effect on global temperatures."
That's all? Can you name a "denialist" who denies any effect? Most I have seen freely concede such things as 1. C02 has a greenhouse effect, 2. The burning of fossil fuels increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and 3. That the "greenhouse" effect is a factor in climate change.
What is it that they are denying?
One Brow said: "The website Roger Schlafly links to in support of his claim does not make the 800 year claim, and in fact makes quite a few claims that would tend to weigh against it."
Are you suggesting that it makes a different claim (notice that the original website only referred to the "tightest correlation," not one invariable, year-to-year, correlation), which would somehow suggest that temperature follows CO2 levels? Or just quibbling about minor details that may appears in arguments that substanially refute any such claim?
Among other things, this paper says:
"The website of UNEP...tell[s] us about the close correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and temperature increase, clearly implying that manmade CO2 emissions are responsible for the observed warming, urging the ratificaction of the Kyoto Protocol.
Many paleoclimatic studies, especially those related with very "modern" times, as the last 1500 years, show that temperatures rose before carbon dioxide levels did and, generally, the rise in temperature anticipated by 200-400 years the rise of carbon dioxide levels - a period of time that would pass unperceived in the graph by the UNEP because 200 and 400 years years correspond to 1/3 of a pixel and 1/6 of a pixel, respectively, something no monitor can show. Could this suggest that the rise in temperature provoked the rise in carbon dioxide levels? Maybe. There are much more possibilities of this being true, and not the contrary as claimed by the IPCC."
Actually, this article concludes, after examining several points on the IPPC graph, that: "But, above all, from the analysis of the UNEP and IPCC data, what came out clear is - leaving aside the imprecision and lack of adequate scaling - that correlation between CO2 and temperatures is quite poor and mostly contradictory."
So he's claimin there is no real correlation overall, eh, while noting a 200-400 year lag in the last 1500 years.
And this paper supports the IPPC contention being disputed how, Eric?
P.S.: among other anomalies noted is this one: "Temperatures began to go down, and CO2 levels kept going for about 1800 years more! Then, while CO2 levels remained stable (in clear and wide plateau during about 8,000 years), the temperature went down, kept quite stable, went down again, up, and down once more before CO2 levels started to decrease. But, as in the case B, changes in temperature occurred BEFORE carbon dioxide levels followed the “correlation”."
Your response here strikes me as the about the equivalent of a person saying only that "on page 63, the word "animal" is misspelled," in response to a request for a book review.
That's all? Can you name a "denialist" who denies any effect?
YOu just linked to Roger Schafly, who thinks that the rising temperature causes the CO2 increase, no the other way around. I believe I can get a few more just out of the sites you have quoted in this thread. You didn't notice?
And this paper supports the IPPC contention being disputed how, Eric?
I didn't say it supported the IPCC claim. I said it tended to refute the 800-year-after claim. You can't tell the difference?
By the way, I won't be commenting in this post when it goes past 200, nor starting another. So if you have some real point buried somewhere that I actually disagree with, now is a good time to bring it out.
One Brow said: "The Nobel Peace prize has always had political overtones. Buchanan would be a stretch regardless, but you might argue George H. W. Bush as a conservative recipient."
Singer's rationale was the the conservative party in Norway was staunchly "anti-immigrationist," which, I guess (don't know) Buchanan is also. Of course, he was just making a point, not making a literal prediction.
I said: "Your response here strikes me as the about the equivalent of a person saying only that "on page 63, the word "animal" is misspelled," in response to a request for a book review."
When I said this, I was overlooking the fact that you also said: "I have no doubt that any correlation between CO2 and temperature will be a loose one because there are so many other factors."
I guess I was slow to process this claim, in light of your earlier claim that the poster saying there was no correlation between the two was just telling a "flat-out lie."
You went on to say "The correlation is a simple observation." I still sense that you are being very evasive with respect to the claim that, as rule, CO2 levels rise only after temperatures rise, and fall only after temperatures fall. Your suggestion that it "would be possible" to construct graphs (a concept I don't really understand, from what you are saying) which create misleading impressions does not really do much to refute this claim.
One Brow said: "YOu just linked to Roger Schafly, who thinks that the rising temperature causes the CO2 increase, no the other way around. I believe I can get a few more just out of the sites you have quoted in this thread. You didn't notice?"
This is totally incoherent to me, Eric. Even assuming that Roger Schafly made a strict claim about causation, (I don't think he did), and even assuming there is some proof that the opposite is true, and that rising C02 levels CAUSE all temperature increases (I have never seen any such proof), how is he denying that CO2 levels are one factor which affect climate change (or climate stability, for that matter)?
In what way is he a DENIALIST in the sense I set forth?
One Brow said: "I didn't say it supported the IPCC claim. I said it tended to refute the 800-year-after claim. You can't tell the difference?"
OK, that's what I thought, I just thought that you might also think there was some implicit substantive relevance to your comment that you were not making explicit. I'll try not to make that mistake again, eh?
One Brow said: One Brow said: "I didn't say it supported the IPCC claim. I said it tended to refute the 800-year-after claim.
And on that basis you have categorized him as a denialist, it seems. Don't seem to take much to be one, eh? Are you really sure that "denialist" doesn't just mean "disagrees with me?"
I guess I was slow to process this claim, in light of your earlier claim that the poster saying there was no correlation between the two was just telling a "flat-out lie."
I believe that referred specifically to the correlation since 1850 as being non-existent, when it is obvious on any graph of reasonable scale.
... how is he denying that CO2 levels are one factor which affect climate change (or climate stability, for that matter)?
I didn't read where he acknowledged CO2 had any sort of effect, even as feedback. Do you assume every person acknowledges CO2 affects climate unless they specificially claim otherwise?
... I just thought that you might also think there was some implicit substantive relevance to your comment that you were not making explicit.
My only point was that the 800-year-claim was not supported.
And on that basis you have categorized him as a denialist, it seems.
You ignored my direct response to your request, and replaced it with a later paragraph responding to a different point. Your sentence is based on a false presumption.
9 to go. Any central point you think I would disagree with?
One Brow said: "I didn't read where he acknowledged CO2 had any sort of effect, even as feedback. Do you assume every person acknowledges CO2 affects climate unless they specificially claim otherwise?"
I don't assume anything one way or another. What do you assume? Purty obvious, I spoze. That they are a DENIALIST, right?
One Brow said: "My only point was that the 800-year-claim was not supported."
I don't believe that was your point. Your point was that the author of article in which the graphs he linked to didn't make that claim (one way or the other, as far as the "tighest correlation" goes).
If you actually read Roger's blog entry, I think you would have to admit that both:
1. He does not strictly make a claim for causation one way or the other: "A common global warming argument is to show a graph showing a correlation between increases in temperature and CO2 over millions of years. A correlation does not necessarily imply causation, but in the presence of a strong theory that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the graph is pretty convincing." and
2. He does not deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas: "The global warming scientists acknowledge this. They say that in typical past warming periods, the Earth warmed for 800 years before causing an increase in CO2. The CO2 then exacerbated the warming for rest of the typical 5000 year cycle, before some unknown force started a cooling trend. They say that the CO2 still causes warming, it just hasn't started the warming cycle as it has in the last century. All that may be true, but what does the graph prove of relevance to us today?"
Again, it really doesn't take much (right or wrong) for you to label someone a DENIALIST, does it?
If you selectively chop up the post, you can ignore anything. Of course, it really depends on what you mean by "strictly". The follwoing statements are sertainly highly suggestive that 1) CO2 is an effect and not a cause, and 2) CO2 has no effect on the warming cycle.
"This suggests that the temperature increases is causing the CO2 increase, and not the other way around."
"It doesn't give any evidence at all that the recent warming was caused by CO2 or humans. It doesn't tell us whether CO2 has anything to do with the duration or intensity of a warming cycle. It doesn't give us any reason to cut back on CO2 emissions."
One Brow said: "The follwoing statements are sertainly highly suggestive that 1) CO2 is an effect and not a cause, and 2) CO2 has no effect on the warming cycle."
You would have to show me how your conclusions are "highly suggestive," because, reading the entire post in context I don't see it at all. Nor do I see your conclusions suggested in even the out of context portions you quote above.
You also told me that I was arguing that temperature was causing CO2 increases (which could be the case, I spoze) when I wasn't.
Have you changed your definition of what the indubitably true proposition which denialists deny is? Is his statement that a particular graph does
not provide evidence that "the recent warming was caused by CO2 or humans."
In other words are you really saying: "It is beyond all doubt that the recent warming trend was CAUSED by an increase in C02, and anyone who denies this is a liar, a fraud, and criminally insane. Same if they don't even deny it...it is sufficient that they don't unequivocally assert it to be known fact. Same if they raise questions about any one piece of "evidence" which I claim proves the known fact."
You would have to show me how your conclusions are "highly suggestive," because, reading the entire post in context I don't see it at all. Nor do I see your conclusions suggested in even the out of context portions you quote above.
We've had that difference before, and I am sure we will have it again. To me, it seems like you are determined to read as much as possible in what one side says and as little as possible in the other side, you probably see me the same way. So, while this seems to be the most important acspect of the discussion, I guess we'll just have to attribute it to normal human biases. I have no other explanation for your failure to think those two items are even suggested by the text.
You also told me that I was arguing that temperature was causing CO2 increases (which could be the case, I spoze) when I wasn't.
Must have been a typo, then. I don't recall you putting forth that hypothesis on yor own.
Have you changed your definition of what the indubitably true proposition which denialists deny is?
No.
In other words are you really saying: "It is beyond all doubt that the recent warming trend was CAUSED by an increase in C02, and anyone who denies this is a liar, a fraud, and criminally insane.
When have you ever read me use a phrase like "beyond all doubt" to describe any scientific fact or theory? In this entire discussion, have I referred to anyone as insane, criminally or otherwise? Did you miss the comment where I explicitly stated the science was not as well confirmed as theories like natural selection? Are you trying to convince me of anything is particular, or just ranting?
I'm really just trying to figure out what a denialist is, by your standards, eh, Eric, and how it is that you determine that someone else is one. I took it that you implicitly agreed that is someone who, despite believing otherwise, denys the "undeniable."
The "denialist" label is now definitely associated with holocaust deniers, and many people seem to agree with Hansen that they should prosecuted (if influential), de-certified, etc. In other words, it appears to be on a par with other pejorative terms such as "racist," "homophobe", etc., which I also seen thrown around with (to me) alarming nonchalance and no evidence.
There seem to be some definite political, ideological, philsophical, and/or quasi-religious matters at stake for many of the advocates on both sides. The more I read about the issue, the more it appears to me that even the "scientists" (IPPC, for example) aren't that cocksure that their conclusions are past the point of legitimate debate. This isn't about science, best I can tell.
In short, I see the assignment of the "denialist" label as basically just a smear tactic, and of course you don't. You "see" true denialism, that's all. It is how you discern this that I am curious about. Again, I have trouble seein where it takes much more than questioning of (short of disagreement, even) your conclusions to generate it.
To me, it is very clear that this Roger blogger, for example, denies nothing in particular and limits his questions, doubts, and criticisms to one, and only one, narrow topic, i.e., the arguments made on the basis of a particular graph and the conclusions warranted by those arguments.
If that sort of "doubt" and questioning cannot be tolerated without classifying one as a denialist, and if the denialist label is supposedly based on "science" then all notions of science have gone completely to hell.
This is my last comment in this thread.
I'm really just trying to figure out what a denialist is, by your standards, eh, Eric, and how it is that you determine that someone else is one. I took it that you implicitly agreed that is someone who, despite believing otherwise, denys the "undeniable."
Just about anyting is deniable. The denialist is one who, lacking evidence for their position, relies on tactics, misinterpretations of evidence, selective quoting, taking small anaomalies out of proportion, and any other method to achieve the desired conclusion.
That denialist is used of one group does not mean any other person th eterm is applied to is of equivalent background, character, or even level of denial.
It is possible to be sure of a large trend even with an inaccurate model, as long as the model is precise.
In that one post, Schlafly was talking about that one graph. He has many other posts as well, and AFAICT always reaches the same conclusion that the evidence is not good enough. Considering every major scientific body says otherwise, I find it enough to so label him. YMMV.
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