Your views on climate change

[Sociobiology]

It holds scientific consensus, if these people had any valid points it wouldn't and they would have pulled in all sorts of awards.
argument from authority doesn't worrk all that well.

If you cared to read the credentials of the scientists in question you would find out they were highly respected by their colleagues. I will repost some of their credentials again for your elucidation. Re. "awards", it is uncommon for awards to be given to those who are not in line with the current scientific paradigm, as those holding the paradigm are also those who tend to hand out the awards.

Also, <snip> is hardly a useful quote, and "arguement from authority" is probably used more by the proponents of MMGL theory than those who question it.

Also see http://www.petitionproject.org/ and http://www.petitionproject.org/review_article.php, and realize that the scientific establishment can make serious mistakes, as nicely covered in this article: http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html.

you do know they used the names of people who did not sign and even dead people, right?
here is a great refutation, list all the many faults of the petition
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/the-30000-global-warming_b_243092.html

[Xsyne]

Prof. Freeman Dyson--one of the world's most eminent physicists.

In what field of physics?

Quantum mechanics.

Oh, and here's him on the subject.

My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.

[Sociobiology]

(Image)
actually the average would be 7.16
you could actually learn something about statistics or just mathematics.
each point on the graph is an average for that year, the line is a plot of the regression of all the data points, not just the averages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_regression

Which was my point, I was complaining about this graph:

Somehow the "average" of the averages is lower than the individual averages. It makes no damn sense.

try actually back tracking the source, the graph is a complete fabrication. It does not relate to actual data.
I thought you were talking about soviets graphs, you know since you were quoting him.

[Wikkiwallana]

In what field of physics?

Quantum mechanics.

Oh, and here's him on the subject.

My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.

Oh FFS...

[Wikkiwallana]

Which was my point, I was complaining about this graph:
(Image)
Somehow the "average" of the averages is lower than the individual averages. It makes no damn sense.

try actually back tracking the source, the graph is a complete fabrication. Id does not relate to actual data

That explains a lot. I was guessing deliberate misinterpretation, but falsification makes just as much sense. Lord knows it's the only way they are going to find the numbers they want.
Edit to respond to your edit: no, I was talking about the person I quoted when he quoted me.

[Sociobiology]

try actually back tracking the source, the graph is a complete fabrication. Id does not relate to actual data

That explains a lot. I was guessing deliberate misinterpretation, but falsification makes just as much sense. Lord knows it's the only way they are going to find the numbers they want.

I should specify it back tracks to a site that has no graph and only contains temperature data for the continental US, and does not provide any sort of trend prediction.
so no trend line, no global data, and no graph.

[Thalam]

In what field of physics?

Quantum mechanics.

Oh, and here's him on the subject.

My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.

So... his objection isn't based on evidence, but simply a matter of tone? Sweet Jeebus.

[Sociobiology]

In what field of physics?

Quantum mechanics.

Oh, and here's him on the subject.

My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.

and we should care why?
since he has no expertise in climatology in any form.

[Xsyne]

Quantum mechanics.

Oh, and here's him on the subject.

and we should care why?
since he has no expertise in climatology in any form.

We shouldn't care. That's my entire point.

[Denmarktwo]

I don't believe in global warming and see no reason too. I would if Greenland actually becomes green.

Actually, Saiwania, Greenland is turning green. About a year ago National Geographic magazine featured an article about the topic.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/ ... olger-text
I believe you have just been lawyered.

[Sociobiology]

the best layout of the current science on climate change for the layman I have ever seen.
1-5 are about the general arguments
1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo&feature=channel_video_title
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoSVoxwYrKI&feature=relmfu
3.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU_AtHkB4Ms&feature=relmfu
4.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2B34sO7HPM&feature=relmfu
5.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg&feature=relmfu

this is where it becomes more focused on individual errors
6.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5hs4KVeiAU&feature=relmfu
7.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXesBhYwdRo&feature=relmfu
8.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvMmPtEt8dc&feature=relmfu
9.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWDFzWt-Ag&feature=relmfu
10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZzwRwFDXw0&feature=relmfu
11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmECHrOcFlc&feature=relmfu
12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pa8duiMiS0&feature=relmfu
13.http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54

[Avenio]

So... his objection isn't based on evidence, but simply a matter of tone? Sweet Jeebus.

And that's the interesting thing. According to this review, (Supplemented by my own anecdotal remembrance of a CBC radio interview with the author), most of the scientists (And even the author, occasionally) would be better described as 'the Quibblers' rather than 'the Deniers';

"Despite the uncertainties, there is general agreement that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past 20 years."

Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions

-- National Academy of Sciences, 2001

- - -

You won't find that quote in within the pages of Lawrence Solomon's new book, The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud (and those who are too fearful to do so).

Nope, as the world's longest book title suggests, Solomon is not the least interested in considering a climate consensus -- and if that means that he has to cherry-pick quotes, misrepresent data and cut off graphs before their curves become inconvenient, well, Solomon -- and Mark Milke, who reviewed the book on these pages last week -- seem not to mind.

Solomon at least admits that the whole exercise is a parlour game, a work of sophistry.

He reports on page 6 that his interest in climate change denial began because he was trying to impress some visiting Chinese environmentalists with the vigour of the North American environmental debate.

With the Chinese looking on, Solomon challenged a friend to "name three climate-change areas that he felt were settled. ... I told him if he identified the areas of expertise, I would find a credible dissenting scientist in each."

The problem is that Solomon's "deniers" don't actually deny climate change. They quibble about the details.

They criticize Michael Mann's now entirely dated hockey stick graph. They argue about solar flares and snow temperatures in Antarctica.

But they all still allow -- what's the phrase? -- that observed warming is real and particularly strong in the past 20 years.

Solomon even says so. He says that while reflecting on his own research, "I ... noticed something striking about my growing cast of deniers. None of them were deniers." (My emphasis.)

It's hard to imagine how someone could make that concession on page 45 and then string a book out to page 213 (not counting footnotes.) It's harder still to think that he could then continue to pursue his desperate argument that a legitimate debate still exists about the central question of anthropogenic global warming.

Because no one is saying there is no debate in science. There are many debates. There are innumerable aspects of climate and natural history over which top scientists argue -- strenuously -- every day.

But try as he might, Solomon fails to find a single reputable character who will contest the major hypothesis: The human burning of fossil fuels is affecting the world's climate in an unprecedented and dangerous way.

Instead, Solomon has rounded up the usual suspects and revelled in the usual arguments. He quotes Dr. Edward Wegman's criticism of the famous hockey stick graph without admitting that Wegman testified before a U.S. Senate committee that he believes the globe is warming and that humans are to blame.

And then Solomon subs in an alternative non-hockey-stick graph that ends (it appears) around 1980, just at the point the blade of the hockey stick started to really spike up.

Again, in (half-hearted) defence, Solomon doesn't make excuses for creating a phony balance between his handful of quibblers and the overwhelming scientific concern about climate change. He says: "Our job is not to settle which side is right but simply to demonstrate that there is a debate, a vigorous and serious one."

So, even as Solomon quotes the Australian denier Dr. Bob Carter soft-pedalling the truth by saying: "There is almost universal agreement [my emphasis, again] that significant carbon dioxide increases -- human caused or otherwise -- will cause gentle planetary warming," our intrepid author concludes: "Our mission is accomplished. Knowing what we know now it is not possible to believe that the science is settled or that there is a scientific 'consensus' for the doomsayer view of global warming."

Solomon says there are quibblers. He's right.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there's only a 90-plus-per-cent likelihood that global warming endangers the world as we know it.

Richard Littlemore is the senior writer at the climate change website http://www.deSmogBlog.com.

[Salandriagado]

You see, while I do not claim your theories are incorrect, I do claim that they are just theories and not scientific fact. However much you want them to be fact they are not, and we do not have enough evidence to claim them as such. I offer plausible theories in opposition. I do not know that my theory is correct or not, just a scientific guess....just like the theory you propose. Say what you want, but you cannot have a legitimate scientific study when you know the outcome will support your theory regardless of data that does not fit your theory, or some evidence which may support an opposite theory. And that is the position the MMGL has taken. They take the facts they want, ignore the ones they don't, and claim a scientific conclusion, just like your opposition who claim the facts prove man does not impact the climate. There is insufficient evidence to make any call on mans effect climate at this time with any degree of certainty. I am sorry if you disagree, but you do not have the evidence to claim otherwise. You just have majority consensus, which as you know does not, and has never, made a theory factual.

Before giving lectures on theories, please go and educate yourself as to a) what a theory is (it is nothing like what you think it is) and b) how science works (it doesn't involve "making theories factual").


In case you're too lazy to bother: A theory is the highest accolade science can give to an idea. The theory of evolution, the big bang theory, atomic theory, the theory of plate tectonics and the theory of relativity, for example, are all theories. Science does not deal in absolute facts. For that, you want mathematics.

[Free Soviets]

not to mention the source the for the cooling trend is only a report on US climate trends not global trends. the US does not represent the entire planet.

haha, i didn't even look at the source. i mean, i knew it would be bullshit - there's nothing else for it to be - but that's just retarded.

[Keronians]

The earth is warming.
Whether that has anything to do with humans however, is sketchy at best.

[Free Soviets]

My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.

Oh FFS...

yup. sad isn't it?

and this is the weird thing. there is no serious scientific opposition. like, even the few denialist scientists either don't know shit about it or are proven hacks. its actually amazing. you would expect there to be some serious scientific disagreement still in a field this young. but it turns out that while the details are ridiculously complex, the basic structure is incredibly solid and easily built. the data are too overwhelming.