Interesting timing considering this story just came out: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked/
I don't have any problem with "dissenting voices" as long as they exhibit intellectual honesty. In the other thread, you refused to comment at all about the larger data set (BTW, the data set to which I refer contains your data in context as part of the overall warming trend) saying that you just didn't trust the scientists and their hard data. You said that you distrusted the scientists and their models based on ten years worth of data because the cooling cycle wasn't predicted. What B-Bob pointed out and you never answered is that if you look at the entire data set (the one out of which your data set is cherry picked), you see up and down cycles within the larger upward trend that was accelerated at the start of the industrial revolution. I don't want the discussion silenced, I want you to look at ALL the data, not just the cherry picked subset that supports your partisan viewpoint. The last time someone put their "information out there" for you to discuss, you ignored it and kept referencing a fictional picture of the Earth along with a ten year subset of the data the scientists are looking at with regards to AGW. Forgive me if your words "sunlight is the best disinfectant" ring hollow when you ignore data that doesn't support your biased view. You have given us a SMALLER picture and a narrower "body of facts" and want us to treat a short term trend as if the larger data set doesn't exist. On this topic, you have no credibility because you simply refuse to look at the entire set of "facts and truths" because you just want to believe otherwise and nothing as trivial as scientific, measurable data is going to change your mind.
Good post. And thanks for your affirmation of my contribution here. We definitely need to focus more on cleaning up after ourselves, limiting pollution and being more efficient in our usage of scare resources. On that we are in full agreement. I am not convinced that we need to necessarily live with less as much as we need to be much better stewards over our environment and the Earth's resources. I do not believe there is inherently a shortage of anything we need here, especially not energy. But fossil fuels are only a temporary answer for us, and we must get more committed to recycling. The sooner we can develop and implement viable alternatives to fossil fuels, the better. But the strategy of using AGW theory as a rational associated with the achievement of these ends is misleading, and in the end it could very easily end up doing more harm than good. Not just in terms of the economic costs, but also in terms of diminishing the credibility of the field of science as a result of over-aggressively promoting ideas in the name of science that are not mature or ready for prime time. This could eventually turn into an updated version of the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." And that would really be unfortunate indeed.
Here is a link to the coverage of this story over at the London Telegraph: Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?
So I suppose those conspiratorial scientists are also going around killing polar bears and emperor penguins to advance global warming.
Not only that, they are knocking ice off of Antarctica and Greenland into the oceans with sledge hammers, and pouring boiling water all over Arctic ocean to fake those shrinking ice sheets.
anthropogenic One entry found. Main Entry: an·thro·po·gen·ic Pronunciation: \-pə-ˈje-nik\ Function: adjective Date: 1923 : of, relating to, or resulting from the influence of human beings on nature <anthropogenic pollutants> — an·thro·po·gen·ic·al·ly \-ni-k(ə-)lē\ adverb
I found this bit of information about the London Telegraph off of wiki that reflects the newspapers stance on climate change. They misinterpreted scientists' results and then refuse to correct it. That shows their stance on climate change. On Thursday, 1 January 2009, The Daily Telegraph published an article with the title “Greenhouse gases could have caused an ice age, claim scientists”, which claimed “Scientists have warned” that “filling the atmosphere with Greenhouse gases associated with global warming could push the planet into a new ice age”. This was a misrepresentation of the work done by the scientists involved, notably Professor Ian Fairchild, however The Daily Telegraph refused to publish an apology, his letter to the paper complaining, and even deleted his comments on the online edition of the article. http://www.badscience.net/2009/01/t...-refuse-to-correct-it-when-he-writes-to-them/
Yeah, you can't get scientists to agree on what they're having for lunch, or what email program to use, etc, (they really only agree on data coming out of verified and well-designed experiments... you know, like the ice core data from the south pole), and you can't get one to keep a secret about an office mate's dating life, but they can put together a massive conspiracy to fool not only the global population, but also thousands of glaciers and the very air itself. Um, wow. And all because... ... they're bored? I've really got to check out of this thread when this level of tin-hattery erupts. The only "nail in the coffin" here is the nail into the complete FAIL that is science education of and communication to non-scientists in the US. Ugh. (Facepalm, tears.)
I don't think most sane people will claim to know more about science than scientists. If everything in that story turns out to be true, not saying they are, are you not concerned that scientists are purposefully manipulating or hiding certain information?
oh....nice cover, B-Bob!!!!! also...marty called...the pearl is in the river. he said you'd know what that means.
The problem is that water vapor is a green house gas itself. It has strong absorption in the infrared wavelength, similar to carbon dioxide. So although there will be more cloud formation that reflects away the sunlight, in current models water vapor itself actually amplifies the effect of warming by about 0.5 - 1 times. We still need to figure out a lot of things about cloud formation, but now the general consensus is that water vapor is a strong positive feedback to the greenhouse effect. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219152132.htm
On a broad scale of climate scientists, knowing all the people I know, and how honest they are about data: no, not concerned. * This one university in Australia or whatever having a couple of fishy exchanges? (shrug) Anything could happen in a small case. * Or a larger exchange of scientists with one or two voices, in frustration, trying to figure out how to talk to non-scientists and typing something inflammatory? I could believe that. One of the climate scientists I know said we (scientists) are basically doomed in this. As I've typed a million times, this is all about probability, but people generally aren't very comfortable with that. (e.g. Katrina has a 40% chance of a direct hit on new orleans, e.g. 2 elevated cholesterol increases your risk of heart disease, etc.) So, you deal with politics and a politically-obsessed media that are demanding certainty, and if you're honest you can't deliver that to them. You cannot with absolute certainty delineate the extent to which we are influencing the climate (just as you cannot with absolute certainty say a morbidly obese guy is going to get heart disease.) You can just say (and I'm quoting one of my favorite climate scientists): "We're loading the dice" as we continue pumping extra CO2 into the atmosphere. I know for a fact that some scientists get very frustrated that they cannot talk in this probabilistic way (a scientific way) with politicians or media types or those who are determined to skew the story against the data.
Um, thank you. Tell marty the swingset swings highest today at dusk. And also, purple artichoke carbon. As you were.
It will be especially interesting to watch the MSM, especially MSNBC and CNN, to see if they report this story, or alternatively, to see if they try to avoid reporting it.
I don't understand the logic behind right wingers that are so against global warming... Do you honestly believe we can do w.e the hell we want to the earth...and nothing will happen? I guess it was the same way about rain forests right? 200 years ago, nobody feared there being a shortage of them but thats because of technology and the end results are exponentially larger than at the time of observation.
Your points are good, but the avenue of delivering them (global warming crisis) is what is debated. Many conservatives, and others, view the global warming as a scare tactic or religion of sorts, aimed to justify taxation, carbon credits, and over-regulation. While scientists may debate, many politicians see the opportunity to politicize the subject, even if they may not believe it. Smells of lie and deceit in that case.
TECH, Great answer to Beaner's post. Also, Beaner, I posted the following in post #48 above, which I believe also speaks to your point: These views are typical of many on the right. People on the right are not anti-environment any more than they are anti-healthcare. I am sorry if this offends your pre-conceived notions about conservatives, but the highly partisan ranting that occurs here on this board and on other leftish websites like the Daily Kos just do not provide a fair or accurate view of what conservatives actually believe about these kinds of topics. The environment is a priority, and it needs to be managed a lot better than it has been. However, the radical solutions typically offered by the left frequently appear to be more oriented towards facilitating an overreaching agenda of government intrusiveness and control than they are towards actually repairing any legitimate and particular environmental problems. The proposals offered in relation to currently popular anthropogenic (man made) global warming (AGW) theories propounded by many on the left are a really good example of that.
True Beaner, we should run an experiment. Let us start saying, over and over, that there is no problem with deforestation in rain forests. We will say, in fact, that we have found a very healthy, thriving rain forest in country X, and that we have discovered a massive conspiracy on the part of those world-wide liberals who would like to over-regulate logging and trick everyone into seeing a crisis where there is none. Implicit in this vast conspiracy are thousands of ecologists and botanists and GIS experts who have lied about their lives' work to join the political conspiracy. I would bet you that, with enough effort, websites, etc, we could eventually get "our story" onto the Limbaugh show, Hannity, Beck, FOX, the Daily Telegraph, or something similar. At least Inhofe would pick it up. (Sorry, MadMax.) What do you say? I can make it look pretty legit, in terms of the pseudo-science talk. I can probably even find a person working in the realm of forestry who will give us a quote about "everyone else is wrong. The last month in fact set a record for blah blah canopy growth in the blah blah part of the northern hemisphere."
