Exxon Offered $10k to Scientists to Debunk U.N. Global Warming Report

Actually Lindzen in the article that Hayes posted does dispute the idea that tropical storms increas in intensity in a GW environoment.

As I said in in one of my earlier posts this would seem to contradict the widely accepted view of what causes tropical storms.

To further muddy things though from what I gathered of Lindzen's explanation that he emailed to Hayes his own formula might not contradict the idea that storms will be more intense in a warmer environment since he's talking about relative humidity. The problem with that though is I don't see how that jibes with his statement posted above.

 

I agree with that, you have to look at them over time, even then it will be hard to directly attribute it to global warming, even if it is. However that's a loophole that GW deniers will seize and exploit to the point of being disingenuous and well beyond.

Like I said it was probably an accident. But anyway let's just say in article in 2005 about how a guy poo-pooing predictions of intense hurricanes, especially with your commentary "With all this warming there sure were some doozy hurricanes this past year. " (if you were writing that in 2005 you'd also be wrong, since 2004 was also rough) smacks of hubris and silliness given that it preceded the most active season in recorded history, which resulted in the virtual destruction of a major american city.

 

Wait..hold on. I've also read climatologists who said the idea that GW is responsible for Katrina is ridiculous. These same climatologists believe strongly in global warming and that man is responsible for a lot of it. I know that was Jeff's main contention with Gore's film.

 

Maybe Sam's problem is his math. There is a 100% certainty that 2+2 does not equal 5. There is not a 100 % certainty about any of the global warming debate.

 

I agree like I said previously in the post, it's hard or impossible to trace any specific hurricane or hurricanes to GW.

Anyway this specific scientist disagreed with a statement that due to global warming, "North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be a harbinger of the future."

obviously the 2004 season foreshadowed the 2005 season which was even more active. It may have been contributed to by GW or it may not have been, either way it would very difficult to tell.

 

This is the problem - the '04 season 'foreshadowed' the '05 season but the '06 season was completely unlike the '04 and '05 season. So you have a scientist quitting the IPCC because it's politicized and because people are extrapolating from the IPCC things that aren't supported by the data, much less things that are objectively true.

 

Really? What if I went down to the quantum mechanical level where normal laws of physics don't apply and linear math equations like 2+2 =4 don't hold up? In that case there isn't 100% certainty is there?

See I can play the consensus game too. it's freaking easy. And if I had trillions of dollars at stake I would pay people to put out papers about how 2+2 =5 and laugh all the way to the bank.

It's a lot more certain than GW deniers-who-you-say-you-disagree-with-that-you-cite-as-gospel-when-you want-to-argue claim.


from 2004:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/just-what-is-this-consensus-anyway/

from another article on consensus in 2004:

 

Everyone is getting hung up again about certainty. No theories in science are 100% and what they deal with are probabilities. Newton's Laws were overruled by Einstein's Theories.

Global Warming is a theory but its one that has a lot of evidence supporting it and a rational explanation behind it so it has a good probability that it is correct but there are many uncertainties and unknowns. The real issue is though is how that theory should dictate our actions. My point is that there is the possibility that global warming might be wrong or might not be caused by human activity but given the possibility that it is correct and that it could lead to disaster why take the risk.

Whether greenhouse gases are causing the World to warm up evidence supports that in the past century they have been added into the atmosphere faster than at almost any time in the past. We don't absolutely know what that will do but what almost all of the scientists who study such things think will happen isn't going to be good for us. They might be wrong but again that's a gamble with disaster when we can start doing things now.

 

Here's the challenge. We seem to have some consensus (whatever that means) that there is warming and man is behind it. I'm cool as Christmas with that.

But past that, everything is in degrees. What does it mean? Some would tell you that it means there's nothing we can do about it...we're going to destroy ourselves. Others will say it won't make a huge difference and that in some facets we might benefit from global warming.

So the question is...where do your assumptions lie? No one can do anything without some bias. So how do we make policy on all this that is effective and doesn't hurt people worse in the meantime.

For example, in other threads you've told me you welcome higher fuel costs for people, no matter their economic standing, to change behavior. I wouldn't be willing to do that. That means less money for rent or food for many people...I'm not willing to subject people to that because some think the sky MIGHT be falling.

The problem to me isn't the question...it's the application of the varying answers.

 

Since you're the one talking about 'objective fact' it doesn't do you much good to claim that 2+2 might equal five, lol. Consensus doesn't equal objective fact, which is the point. So as far as I can tell dissenting opinions shouldn't be discarded because some people, like you, confuse the two.

Strange that you picked these two pieces. I already posted a response earlier in the thread.

Leading scientific journals 'are censoring debate on global warming'
By Robert Matthews
Last Updated: 2:08am BST 01/05/2005



Two of the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming.

A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds.


Radcliffe on Sour power station with Dr Benny Peiser (inset). He disagrees with the pro-global warming line
A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue.

The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.

The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.

Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser.

advertisementHowever, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.

They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication - but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been "widely dispersed on the internet".

Dr Peiser insists that he has kept his findings strictly confidential. "It is simply not true that they have appeared elsewhere already," he said.

A spokesman for Science said Dr Peiser's research had been rejected "for a variety of reasons", adding: "The information in the letter was not perceived to be novel."

Dr Peiser rejected this: "As the results from my analysis refuted the original claims, I believe Science has a duty to publish them."

Dr Peiser is not the only academic to have had work turned down which criticises the findings of Dr Oreskes's study. Prof Dennis Bray, of the GKSS National Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany, submitted results from an international study showing that fewer than one in 10 climate scientists believed that climate change is principally caused by human activity.

As with Dr Peiser's study, Science refused to publish his rebuttal. Prof Bray told The Telegraph: "They said it didn't fit with what they were intending to publish."

Prof Roy Spencer, at the University of Alabama, a leading authority on satellite measurements of global temperatures, told The Telegraph: "It's pretty clear that the editorial board of Science is more interested in promoting papers that are pro-global warming. It's the news value that is most important."

He said that after his own team produced research casting doubt on man-made global warming, they were no longer sent papers by Nature and Science for review - despite being acknowledged as world leaders in the field.

As a result, says Prof Spencer, flawed research is finding its way into the leading journals, while attempts to get rebuttals published fail. "Other scientists have had the same experience", he said. "The journals have a small set of reviewers who are pro-global warming."

Concern about bias within climate research has spread to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose findings are widely cited by those calling for drastic action on global warming.

In January, Dr Chris Landsea, an expert on hurricanes with the United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, resigned from the IPCC, claiming that it was "motivated by pre-conceived agendas" and was "scientifically unsound".

A spokesman for Science denied any bias against sceptics of man-made global warming. "You will find in our letters that there is a wide range of opinion," she said. "We certainly seek to cover dissenting views."

Dr Philip Campbell, the editor-in-chief of Nature, said that the journal was always happy to publish papers that go against perceived wisdom, as long as they are of acceptable scientific quality.

"The idea that we would conspire to suppress science that undermines the idea of anthropogenic climate change is both false and utterly naive about what makes journals thrive," he said.

Dr Peiser said the stifling of dissent and preoccupation with doomsday scenarios is bringing climate research into disrepute. "There is a fear that any doubt will be used by politicians to avoid action," he said. "But if political considerations dictate what gets published, it's all over for science."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai.../01/wglob01.xml

 

No but the consensus (which you believe and agree with - tell us why?) is about what objective facts are. You're obscuring this just to argue for the typical hayestreet, against-the-tide independent thinker routine. It's cute but pretty much meaningless

Actually it's not strange at all . This type of "censoring" junk (which always appears in the usual suspects in the right wing press) is no different from Holocaust deniers blabbing that the Zionist controlled media exaggerates the holocaust.

When facts go against you, blame the facts for having a liberal bias. Lame.

 

A lot of the articles you have posted deny that this is even the case, which is why I think they're objectively of little value other than as a distraction.

 

Good questions. My own feeling is that the theory of man made global warming is correct and to be on the safe side we should be actively working on limiting greenhouse gas emmissions. This has many side benefit like preserving other limited resources like fossil fuels. The possibility that things might not be bad if we continue on our present course seems less likely than that things will be bad and that risks outweighs the potential short term rewards of the status quo.

I don't deny at all that making major changes won't cause a lot of pain and I don't want to minimize that. The problem I see is weighing the long term consequences where the pain will likely be worse. For instance if we don't start conserving or transitioning from fossil fuels now the costs of fossil fuels will be much higher in the future. The problem is that our society has a very hard time focussing on longterm solutions or enacting change and it is really only a certain amount of pain that will cause people to change. My feeling is it is better to suffer some economic pain now if it helps to prevent future disaster.

 

The default assumption that using less fossil fuels in general is going to make people economically worse off just doesn't work, in my opinion.

A lot of times the economically efficient outcome is also the environmentally sound one (as well it should be, limiting waste is what economics is about), it's just that the incentives are structured in a bad way which prevent it from happening.

 

^ Good point Sam!

With any major change there are economic opportunities so changes made to address global warming might cause economic pain in some sectors but create opportunities in other ones.

 

There is an article from a few weeks ago in the New Yorker about Amory Lovins , awell known guy who is a leading "green" consultant who comes up with all sorts of ways to save money and become more energy efficieint.

Anyway, he gave a great real-life example (which I can't recall the exact details of now unfortunately) of an office-tower in Chicago and explained exactly why and how much money the tenants and landlords would save (and how everybody would be better off) if they installed more efficient glass on the outside, but alos about how the incentives basically prevented anybody from doing so. Anyway it illustrated the point beautifully.

 

No, I'm talking about something very specific. Sishir and I were talking of high fuel costs a while ago. I said I know people who are greatly affected by them. Guys who travel quite a bit around town mowing lawns, for example...feeding their families off that money. Sishir's position was that it was a good thing they were high so that demand could be reduced. That's the context for my statement.

 

But come on, you can make that argument for everything so I don't see how it's especially valid. I mean there are people who sell crack or guns or whatever to feed their families so there are individuals who are hurt regarding every decision. The thing is if on a net basis we can get to a superior outcome we should probably do it. You can't mow too many lawns if GW causes a rise in the sea level that covers them up, can you?