by frog
You’d think from listening to Radio New Zealand news this morning that something was going on. First Al Gore collects his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, and says we face a ”planetary emergency“.
“Without realising it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. It is time to make peace with the planet”.
Gore says that those who needed to show the most simpatico and brotherhood to the planet were USA and China. He feels Bali might be a good place to start things off.
And start things off the US certainly did when it suggested that there should be no targets for rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions in any text on climate change talks that comes out of Bali. It would prefer voluntary goals.
Some of those US officials are probably happy enough to drag the debate out in tropical Bali, rather than go back home, where a ‘deadly ice storm is sweeping through the US Plains’ leaving 400,000 people without power in the middle of winter and killing twelve Americans.
And, talking of weather, Farmers in Hawkes Bay and other parts of New Zealand are starting to talk drought and hence selling stock early and underweight. The National Climate Centre at NIWA said farmers could be facing a drought as devastating as in 1988/89.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, says she feels let down by the Ministry for the Environment over its handling of employment issues. Yes, these days the Ministry for the Environment deals predominantly with employment issues and mediating disputes. Disputes between the big old parties that say their focus is ‘sustainability’.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Tue, December 11th, 2007
Tags: Al Gore, Bali, climate change, drought, hawkes bay, Ministry for the Environment, weather
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
“Without realising it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. It is time to make peace with the planet”
Is he waging a personal battle with the earth under Nashville, given that he reportedly chews through 221,000 kWh-more than 20 times the national US average?
Oh, that’s right – pay the carbon guilt tax, get outta jail free! Nice.
Also, will you be reporting each instance of it being especially cold in 2008?
These weather patterns, eh….
I suggest these examples are part of the reason most people don’t take AGW seriously.
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Yeah citing one ‘extreme event’ should not convince anyone. So the Hawkes Bay is dry, who knew? Using patterns or trends like ‘hurricane intensities are increasing’ has a lot more crediblity.
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Of course Gore *is* slightly hypocritical there, but I would wonder how much time he actually spends there during the year anyway. Doing a lot of important work never the less.
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BluePeter
> I suggest these examples are part of the reason most
> people don’t take AGW seriously.
I think you’ll find that most people do.
But perhaps perhaps “most people” means your circle of friends. If they are mainly of the right-of-sensible and fundamentalist varieties, I can see why you’d get the impression that people are unconcerned.
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“Slightly”?
For the guy to have any credibility in my eyes he must:
a) practice what he preaches
b) get his fingers (entire arm, actually) out of the carbon exchange pie
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>>I think you’ll find that most people do.
No they don’t. Many people are scared by it, in the same way they are scared of “terr-a-rusm”. And spiders. And cancer. And whatever monster du jour the media decides on this week. But what are they actually doing? Voting Republican, from what I can see.
>>your circle of friends
So your argument is that thosewho do not agree are big fat stupid heads.
I’m of the opinion man may well play a role in global warming. I don’t know for sure. I also don’t know how much of a role. Many scientists agree. That is my honest position – I do not know.
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>>I would wonder how much time he actually spends there during the year anyway
He’s burning through that much energy without even being at home?
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Lol well that wouldnt be too good. Maybe he rents it out?
I would be curious to know how the hell someone found out how much power his house goes through a year though! It’s possible he generates a significant amount on site through solar power etc…but I can’t say im that bothered by him offsetting anyway, better things to worry about.
I think ‘your circle of friends’ was a suggestion that you could be one of those who just sits around agreeing with other people who share the same views on most things, rather than getting out and about…But whatever. I think people would have more reasons to believe in AGW than not, if only because its been beaten into them through those ‘commies’ in the media, rather than their own rigourous analysis of peer reviewed literature etc..
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BluePeter
> I’m of the opinion man may well play a role in global warming.
> I don’t know for sure. I also don’t know how much of a role.
Let’s take the last IPCC report as a starting point.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In 2001, it said that it was “likely” that human activities lay behind the trends observed at various parts of the planet; “likely” in IPCC terminology means between 66% and 90% probability.
Now, the panel concluded that it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet’s surface.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The AGW skeptic Richard Lindzen (a lead author of one chapter of the IPCC report) admits that the IPCC work represents the consensus. In other words, he’s on the fringe and he knows it.
> Many scientists agree.
Many scientists — in fact, all of the reputable ones — will say that their work isn’t 100% certain. That >90% figure is the best available right now. Given what’s at stake, acting on a >90% probability seems pretty reasonable.
Mostly the climate scientists are debating how bad AGW is going to get. Very few dispute that it’s happening: and they don’t seem to be submitting papers for peer review. This is an important point — if you don’t have expertise in a complex topic (be it climate science, quantum physics, whatever) then you won’t be able to spot the errors in a paper or article. Peer review catches errors. Writing for a newspaper doesn’t.
> That is my honest position – I do not know.
If you’re genuinely interested in finding out, check to see what’s being peer-reviewed (a good starting point would be a newstand magazine like New Scientist or Scientific American). Alternatively, the IPCC provides a good snapshot of the state of the science. And if someone claims that the scientists are wrong but they’re not using the peer-review process (e.g. they’re writing for a newspaper rather than submitting a paper to ‘Nature’), then they’re almost certainly talking rubbish. That goes for any science.
Oh, and don’t rely on politically-motivated people or news sources for an accurate view of science (sorry Frog!). Confirmation bias distorts science to suit ideology: if someone doesn’t like the implications of a finding, they can always find reasons to disbelieve it, and intelligence is no protection against this. You can see this in action frequently in postings — people criticise peer-reviewed findings citing less-than-credible sources as counter-evidence.
That’s enough time posting for one week
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“given that he reportedly chews through 221,000 kWh”
and for you to have any credibility you will have to provide references for your accusations.
I did find this one:
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=nation_world&id=5072659
which mentions …
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Yeah I really should have asked for a ref first…
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he practices what he preaches by participatin in carbon trading
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“most people don’t take AGW seriously”
absolute nonsense. Provide a reference for your statement.
“Many scientists agree”
absolute nonsense. Provide a reference for your statement. A tiny handful of scientists disagree with AGW or say that AGW is less important than other climate forcing mechanisms or of unknown importance in climate forcing.
You have clearly based your opinion on reading the echo chamber of the rightwingblogosphere and not on reading actual science. Try reading New Scientist.
What many scientists agree about is that climate change is much much worse than we previously thought and is changing much more rapidly than we previously thought.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7135836.stm
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Stuey,
When I’ve posted links in the past, my posts got withheld.
I’ll give it a go:
http://www.topix.com/us/2007/11/gore-s-home-uses-more-than-20-times-the-national-average
The point is he does own a large mansion. I’m sure he owns a number of properties. I’d imagine someone who was serious about being green would own the property they lived in, and it wouldn’t be large and energy hungry.
>>participatin in carbon trading
Follow the money.
>>Provide a reference for your statement.
I judge people by how they act. The rest is ….cough…hot air.
>>the echo chamber of the rightwingblogosphere
There is one group in New Zealand who prefer to be called meteorologists.
They are not alone. There is no consensus.
Perhaps you have based your opinion on reading the echo chamber of the leftwingblogosphere….
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no, I’ve gotten my knowledge of climate change from Real Climate, New Scientist, Scientific American, the BBC, IPCC reports, not to mention …
NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm
National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
http://books.nap.edu/collections/global_warming/index.html
State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
http://www.socc.ca/permafrost/permafrost_future_e.cfm
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
http://yosemite.epa.gov/OAR/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html
The Royal Society of the UK (RS)
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=3135
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/climatechangeresearch_2003.html
American Institute of Physics
http://www.aip.org/gov/policy12.html
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
http://eo.ucar.edu/basics/cc_1.html
American Meteorological Society (AMS)
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/jointacademies.html
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)
http://www.cmos.ca/climatechangepole.html
Every major scientific institute dealing with climate, ocean, and/or atmosphere agrees that the climate is warming rapidly and the primary cause is human CO2 emissions.
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I found BP’s link really scary, not ‘cos Gore is consuming a shedload of juice, but that my house uses (more or less, from memory) the same amount of power as the average American home, and I don’t have whole house air conditioning running all summer, nor a pool. So I dug deeper, and it turns out that the average number is an average of every electricity account, including condos and other stuff, and is from several years ago. So I think it’s a suspect number for use in comparisons.
Still, Mr Gore has a big home…
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>>Still, Mr Gore has a big home…
And personal aircraft: http://tinyurl.com/yvzt4q
He is being outdone in the personal aircraft stakes by that other greeny lecturer, John Travolta. http://tinyurl.com/27qeh2
I wonder if he cut down from six to five planes, thus significantly reducing his personal footprint?
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>>Every major scientific institute
Call to authority.
I call your bunch of eggheads, and raise you a further bunch of eggheads:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
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Ignoring the thread’s Ad Hominem for a moment.
“handling of employment issues”. Say, that wouldn’t have been a climate change report that got sent back to be rewritten six times now would it? It’s just, when that happens in the USA, it’s called politicians hiding real science for political motives.
And, you know, people get hold of the originals through their official information act and show how backward the government is on the issue. Just wondering if someone was busy doing that that sort of thing here, ….
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>>Oh, and don’t rely on politically-motivated people or news sources for an accurate view of science
I don’t rely on them now, and have no plans to rely on them in future.
Let’s say that the IPCC are right.
“Now, science advisors to two governments with claims to leadership in global climate politics, Germany and the UK, have told BBC News it is unlikely that levels of greenhouse gases can be kept low enough to avoid a projected temperature rise of 2C (3.6F).”
Kyoto is useless, yes?
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BluePeter
> Call to authority.
Given that your “honest opinion” is that you don’t know, a couple of us are trying to give you the tools to understand who to believe on a complex subject. Knowing who to listen to is a very useful tool for the layman.
Check the credentials of the people in that Wikipedia page you linked to. Most of them either aren’t climate scientists, or are retired. Very few of them publish papers in peer-reviewed climate journals. Why not? If you still don’t understand the importance of peer review, then kindly look it up. I really can’t stress this enough.
Incidentally, that page missed out the skeptic Roger Pielke Sen who conducted a survey of climate scientists: 65% said the IPCC had got it right, 18% said the prognosis was better, and 17% said the prognosis was worse. The IPCC has captured a very good consensus of the state of climate science.
>>Oh, and don’t rely on politically-motivated people or news sources for an accurate view of science
> I don’t rely on them now, and have no plans to rely on them in future.
Out of interest, what source are you getting your understanding of science from?
> Kyoto is useless, yes?
Kyoto’s effectiveness isn’t what we’re talking about. You wanted to know whether AGW was happening (answer: yes with >90% certainty). Please focus
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XYY
Are you young? Your tone is condescending.
I am not a climate scientist. I cannot analyze the complexity of information required to arrive at definitive conclusions in this field.
And neither can you.
The difference between us is that you appear certain of your position. Why? You have chosen to believe one group of reputable scientists over another. It is disingenuous to dismiss the view of a list of reputable scientists on the basis they disagree with your position. They may be in a minority. They may also be right.
You may be right, but your position, without detailed technical knowledge and experience, is that of a gambler backing a horse. I suspect many people who have arrived at the conclusion that AGW is an imminent threat have done so on the basis of an appeal to authority.
I am a skeptic. I am not a denier. Nor am I a believer.
Quoting the IPCC will not convince me. I am deeply suspicious of this group, and the fact that there isn’t a scientific consensus on a wide range of climate issues.
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“I call your bunch of eggheads, and raise you a further bunch of eggheads:”
you can’t call a bet, let alone raise it, by offering a lesser bet!
kyoto isn’t useless, just not going far enough
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Kyoto, when it was originally brought forward, was timely and would have helped greatly. We are a decade further into trouble and the warming locked in by the lack of honesty in certain offices in the USA is such that we NOW must work much MUCH harder to bring ourselves under control. Kyoto was OK back when it got its first signatures. It isn’t half enough now that its been so widely and thoroughly ignored for so long.
Personally I am not optimistic. We’re going to get more the 2 degrees of warming, and I wouldn’t count out the prospects of more than doubling that number. Coupled with peak oil and energy we are in far deeper sh!t than the species has ever been in since we climbed down out of the trees. We have to work together to avert catastrophe and that’s something that humans are simply ill-equipped to do.
What actually has to be done now is going to not get done. Too many people are too scared to let go of their things.. too afraid someone else might get some advantage. Worried that they might do more than someone else and so lose out.
I’m writing a letter to my children’s children.
It’s an apology.
Because by not acting we are stealing THEIR lives. Ours will be fine thanks.
This idea that we can morally steal our children’s livelihoods is imported. It comes from the USA, the same place that has given us so many other bad examples. Consider the SS mess, the tax cuts for the wealthy, the bank bailouts, the S&L bailouts, the list is endless… but the common thread is “we don’t have to pay for it”
but as every good engineer knows..
TANSTAAFL
is a rule of a higher law than any legislature.
BP… if you have any particular questions or doubts… ask. There’s not a lot about climate change theory I can’t help with…. I worked at NASA before I came here. Engineering, not science, mapping the ice, mapping the winds and in close to the principle researchers on half a dozen projects. They are scared. I’ve seen the raw data. It is scary. IPCC is all about what they can prove will almost certainly happen no matter what. Conservative science.
The estimates from the IPCC are already history. Too low. In only a couple of years they are clearly too low.
It warn’t raining when Noah built hisself an Ark
respectfully
BJ
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BluePeter,
Science is not as black and white as you would like to believe, with one side being totally wrong wrong, and the other totally right. Rather, it is an incremental process, with new work building on previous work. In the process, some previous work is validated, and other work is shown to be incorrect. However, as progress is made, certain earlier findings become “cemented in”, because new experiments repeatedly validate the results of the earlier work.
For at least the last two decades, the general picture that climate researchers have been building is one of a changing climate, with the main cause of the change being anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Of course there are many details which are still uncertain, and many scientists will have their predictions proven wrong … but the main predictions of average global temperature increases are now almost unanimously agreed to by climate scientists.
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BJ has hit the nail on the head. The political response to climate change has been the same as driver ignoring an advisory speed sign for an S bend because it’s pefectly safe driving at 100 kmh, everybody knows that, those signs are always alarmist and conservative and you can see the bend isn’t tight. Except of course the sign refers to the tighest part of the S bend, which you can’t see because it’s over the brow of the hill. But at least as your cars slides across the centre line you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that the campervan coming the other way isn’t real, it’s the creation of a communist conspiracy to take over the world (or a global free trade conspiracy if your that way inclined).
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“The debate is over” ensure IPCC’s Bali bouncers
Debate at the IPCC’s Bali High global warming talk-fest is being kept down by having dissenters kept out (a process all too familiar to observers of the Electoral Finance Bill).
http://pc.blogspot.com/
………………………………………………..
You Too Can Become a Distinguished Climate Scientist
In the olden days to become a distinguished climate scientist you had to work hard, do lots of research and publish it in good journals. Now there’s a quicker method. Put out a press release.
The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) has been denied the opportunity to present at panel discussions, side events, and exhibits; its members were denied press credentials. The group consists of distinguished scientists from Africa, Australia, India, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/12/you_too_can_be_a_distinguished.php
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BluePeter
> I am not a climate scientist. I cannot analyze the complexity of information
> required to arrive at definitive conclusions in this field. And neither can you.
Correct.
> You have chosen to believe one group of reputable scientists over another.
Incorrect. I rely on peer review to filter out what’s bogus — because like you, I’m not an expert. And the group of scientists you believe in aren’t submitting papers for peer review. Why do you suppose that is?
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JH: You write:
“In the olden days to become a distinguished climate scientist you had to work hard, do lots of research and publish it in good journals.”
I am happy to inform you that this is still the case. I work with a number of climate scientists. They all have PhDs in subjects such as meteorology, physics or maths, and all publish in reputable journals (such as the American Meteorological Society and Royal Meteorological Society journals).
You also write: “Now there’s a quicker method. Put out a press release.” This is simply not true. It may be the view that you get as a lay person, but within the scientific community, what counts are things like journal publications.
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Actually I cut and pasted. I was pointing out the latest shot being fired and the reply.
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XYZ
Peer review is not without problems. It can be a measure of acceptability, not validity. Peer reviewed pieces are often wrong. The fact that the IPCC openly blocks dissenters doesn’t convince me they are an organisation open to ideas.
I have a question. Would the planet be better off with a lot less people?
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Well if it’s acceptable, then that would mean the methodology was fine, and therefore the results should reflect that, and therefore be valid. All the IPCC does is review the peer reviewed literature out there, and if these guys aren’t published, why engage in never ending arguments with them when it would appear there are more pressing matters to attend to?
Obviously the people question depends on a lot of things. Is that a genuine I-don’t-have-a-clue question or are you going to make a point out of the expected answer?
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yes of course the planet, & the people, would be a lot better off if there were a lot less people.
bluepeter says: “follow the money”
-already had that debate with gerrit here: http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/10/13/gore-and-the-judge/
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BluePeter
> XYZ
Beg pardon?
> Peer review is not without problems. It can be a measure of acceptability, not validity.
It’s a measure of whether there are errors in a paper. If the experts don’t find any errors, the paper will be published. Again, why aren’t the skeptics even trying to submit papers?
> The fact that the IPCC openly blocks dissenters
So JH is your source of science news?
He’s being disingenuous by misquoting a post on Scienceblogs: the second paragraph is the start of a press release that Tim Lambert is quoting, and he then proceeds to show it to be bogus. The ICSC are a lobby group, not a science group. I suggest you follow the link to Scienceblogs and read the whole article.
> Would the planet be better off with a lot less people?
Again, this isn’t the topic. Please focus
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Will the effects of global warming, as outlined by the latest IPCC report, result in a lot less people?
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> The fact that the IPCC openly blocks dissenters
Who says they do? What’s your reference for that?
A BBC journalist recently attempted to find evidence of skeptics being shut out from mainstream science/the IPCC.
He could find no evidence of this at all.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7092614.stm
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BluePeter, eh??
XYY do you mean errors in results or errors of methodology? To measure errors in results would require the reviewers to do their own experiments, which im fairly sure does not happen.
My point with methodology is, for example, if a scientist used the ‘random number’ function on a calculator to measure temperature, but it came up with an acceptable number (i.e. not an error), then the reviewers would still have to decline the study based on the fact the scientist used a calculator and not a thermometer, satellite or other valid instruments.
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Actually I was sloppy I should have formatted the post better. I wasn’t trying to misrepresent Tim Lambert. I was trying to show the latest allegations by skeptics and where there was a credible response.
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> “call to authority”.
Yes, so what? Better than your repeated ad homs and strawmen.
> “I call your bunch of eggheads, and raise you a further bunch of eggheads”
are you incapable of noticing that my list was (a) composed of scientific institutions and organisations and yours was composed of a handful of individuals and (b) my list was primary sources and yours was published on wikipedia which cannot be trusted.
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You have a very nice list. But it isn’t a consensus.
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BluePeter: You write: “Will the effects of global warming, as outlined by the latest IPCC report, result in a lot less people?”
This is one conclusion you could draw, and it wouldn’t be an unreasonable one.
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>>Who says they do?
ICSC reportedly blocked: http://tinyurl.com/2k4pz8
This is interesting: http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm
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>>This is one conclusion you could draw
Gaia would benefit from a lot less people. One wonders if Gaia is making that so….
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“You have a very nice list. But it isn’t a consensus.”
I never claimed it was. I said it was evidence that I got my knowledge of the validity of AGW from scientific sources as a response to you saying that only the leftwing blogosphere supports AGW.
I still contend that there is no scientific evidence of the non-validity of AGW – the only source of the non-validity of AGW is MSM comment/editorial pieces and copious rightwing blog posts.
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Well heat waves might have some sort of effect (like in France a few years ago).
The tinurl ‘peer reviewed’ journal was ‘energy and environment’, which is not listed in the ISI’s Journal Citation Reports indexing service for academic journals. I see the same journal is cited in the second link, which also cites newspaper newspaper articles and online ‘zines’.
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well thanks for yet another right-wing blog post that has as its reference another right-wing blog post.
Is there any chance of some independent verification of the ICSC’s claim of being excluded?
Anyone who likes balance in their reporting would also be looking for the conference organisers to be given the chance to respond to the ICSC’s claims.
I note their PR (Dec 4th) has contact details for editors. I expect if there is truth of their claim there will be stories in the MSM about it won’t there?
However a Google search for ICSC Bali finds nothing but rightwing blog posts linking to the original PR.
Hmm, must be a conspiracy. Clearly the entire MSM is biased.
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BluePeter
>> don’t rely on politically-motivated people or news sources for an
>> accurate view of science
> I don’t rely on them now, and have no plans to rely on them in future.
Let’s take a look at one of your links, shall we?
> ICSC reportedly blocked: http://tinyurl.com/2k4pz8
That leads to a site called “American Thinker”. Sourcewatch.org describes it as a conservative daily internet publication that’s part of the right-wing echo chamber.
Looks pretty political to me. Is this where you get your science news from? That and crank sites like mclean.ch?
You’re dismissing an enormous body of peer-reviewed science, the IPCC, and the world’s best scientific national academies on the say-so of politically-motivated blogs and a handful of individuals who for some strange reason don’t want their work refereed by experts.
You really don’t know how to weigh up evidence, do you?
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BluePeter:
You write: “Gaia would benefit from a lot less people. One wonders if Gaia is making that so….”
You may believe that. I am a scientist, and don’t believe in that sort of quasi-religious stuff. I simply see that what humans are doing to the environment is unsustainable in the long term (and even the medium term).
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Well its useful a sort of grand metaphor for the science-idea ‘ecology’, if nothing else
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XYY
You’re still playing shoot-the-messenger. There is a right-wing echo chamber. There is a left-wing echo chamber. So what?
nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/d-evans2007.pdf
I’m skeptical of the IPCC and their peer review standards. And I’m not the only one:
“Dr Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers Panel since its inception, has written to Professor David Henderson, to support the latter’s call for a review of the IPCC and its procedures”.
nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=1
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From that article:
“I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical principles.
Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure. Penetrating questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated indefinitely.
Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only “reform” I could envisage, would be its abolition.”
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Mouldwarp posted in another thread:
“If the theory were correct then a certain pattern of warming must inevitably occur. If this distinctive pattern – this “fingerprint? – is missing then recent warming is *not* due to CO2 and the theory is false.
A peer-reviewed study of this phenomenon in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society this month finds that, yet again, the hard facts contradict the AGW theory:-
science-sepp.blogspot.com/2007/12/press-release-dec-10-2007.htm l
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BluePeter, I posted on similar topic on the sameother thread as Mouldwarp, here.
I’ll issue the same chalelnge to you. I accept that science is not static, and that scientific theory is frequently modified – jast as Einstein showed that mass and time were relative, rather than absolute, concepts.
But tell me how quantum mechanics, which shows that molecules with dipole moments such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide do not emit heat that warms the surrounding (mainly oxygen and nitrogen) when bombarded by infrared radiation, and I’ll believe you.
You know, BluePeter, if you can do this, you might even win a Nobel Prize for physics. You’re up for the big one here.
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I’m not a scientist.
I see divided opinion from reputable scientists. I wonder why. I see dictatorial politicians heavily involved in this issue. I wonder why.
I like Michael Crichton’s quote from State of Fear: “I am certain there is too much certainty in the world”.
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BluePeter
> There is a right-wing echo chamber. There is a left-wing echo chamber.
> So what?
It’s relevent because you claimed that you weren’t using political sources for your views on science: you said that you “don’t rely on them now, and have no plans to rely on them in future.” Your subsequent postings showed that to be untrue: you were citing denialists who in turn cite other denialists. Hardly a quality source of science news.
> I’m skeptical of the IPCC and their peer review standards.
> And I’m not the only one:
[...]
> nzclimatescience.net [...]
Okay, another denialist site. Not exactly Nature, is it? And you’re using the web site of the CSC lobby group to back up the statements of a member of, well, the CSC lobby group. Hardly guaranteed to be neutral.
(as an aside, the IPCC didn’t ask Gray to be a referee: “expert reviewer” in this case means that he asked to see the draft report. And having seen some of his 1800+ comments, I can see why those guys won a Nobel prize.)
Can you point to actual science sites — or any credible sources at all — that support Gray’s conspiracy theory?
No?
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I can put words in my own mouth, I don’t need you to do it for me.
Politics permeates everything. Some groups are more politically motivated than others.
I do not pretend to be a climate scientist. I cannot follow the complex science.
Your use of the word “denialist” is not convincing me of your objectivity.
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Yeah but you seem pretty…eager to prove that it’s all a sham. Politely though so kudos for that. Like toad said about winning a Nobel, im not sure I would give a toss about politics if I won the Nobel prize and a few million for comprehensively disproving AGW. Nobody ever won a Nobel for confirming what the scientific majority is going along with.
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BluePeter,
If you don’t trust the IPCC, just look at the published scientific papers on the subject of climate change. If you don’t trust the scientists and their publications, I ask you the question: who or what do you trust?
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What the… I came here for Join The Dots pictures and I do not see even one.
I am very disappointed. See how this coming election treats you when the public, trivialised by the lack of significance you’ve placed on dot-to-dot pictures, come to vote.
I have half a mind to call John Boscowen and organise another extremely relevant and totally serious protest.
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BP
JH provided this link which explains more about Bali and the CSC… he did it in a confusing way, but I forgive him as it is a good link.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/12/you_too_can_be_a_distinguished.php
Led by Monckton no less…
Best bet? Ignore anything he sponsors. He is not what he appears to be. If you want to know more, you’ll have to google him… I won’t spend time describing anything further than that he is no conservative… (chuckle) … I reckon he is more weird than any member of GPANZ… including me.
respectfully
BJ
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This is the work of the “team” of scientists actually subjected to scrutiny… just the link in the previous link… I got curious about “the worst climate paper anywhere”
http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd.html
Wow…
I am seldom impressed by incompetence… but this approaches perfection… sort of like the way Dubya manages to be wrong EVERY time. Flipping coins he’d be right once in a while but perfection is impressive in its own right. Even if it is perfectly bad.
respectfully
BJ
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>>just look at the published scientific papers on the subject of climate change
OK
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jeez thats not asking for much
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