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• M&M used the wrong version of Mann et al. (1998). (that should be enough right there.)
• M&M eliminated 70% of Mann's data due to some methodological misunderstanding. (I will not summerize, you must read. It's on page 13-14.)
• Mann et al.s reconstruction is reproducible, and within close approximation (2 standard deviations) of other methods. M&M's is not.
• Interestingly, the hockey stick does appear in a reconstruction using M&M's method and subset of data. This fact is left out of their report.

Good enough? If not, I don't care - honestly. There's a whole page on McIntyre and McKitrick myths. I think James Annan said it best on google-groups: Steve McIntyre has found a molehill and is doing his best to make a mountain out of it.


"I want to know what the observed experimental data is, from a ~10 meter tube, or the observed atmosphere, or such, not computer models" - the absorption spectrum of CO2 is measured by a spectrometer over ~1cm, I think it's important to have done the (simple) experiment that would verify we know how CO2 behaves over longer distances, if it's a fundamental part of our models.

Here is a derivation. Here is an article on observations of CO2 absorption. Also, the linked diagram was observational data.

I did some googling, and I think I found the argument your putting forward - that CO2 absorption saturates after 10m. See here

My specific claim about standard deviation is that no one has taken the observed temperature readings, and calculated the standard deviation from that, for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 1 year. If you've read a paper which has this value, please provide a quote, and link.

Is this some oblique way to assert that prediction models don't have standard deviations built into them? Here is a model from 2002, that includes variance of estimates

Anyway, you wanted to know what's wrong with the equation you specified, *I don't care about the rest*. Please upload a well-formated copy somewhere, with the numbers and working for Earth and Venus. I'll figure it out and get back to you.

It's rather disingenuous to expect me to provide a simpler derivation

If you say so, however, I'm not after a simpler derivation. I'd like to see your working with your numbers, and formatted so I can read it without having to write is out from scratch. I don't want to do the leg work only to have you tell me I didn't do it right. I want to see you do it, and be happy with the equation, and then I'll do the leg work.

Maybe i was too young to remember clearly at the time, but i don't remember the environmentalists getting up in arms about the global cooling stuff. It made the covers of newspapers because it was sensationalist, but there was no crusade behind it like there was with DDT or the ozone layer or such. I'm not sure why you're blaming the environmentalists on that one.

As for DDT, maybe you're not the one making stuff up, but you're swallowing what other people made up, hook line and sinker.

In many cases DDT use wasn't discontinued because of pressure from environmentalist groups, but phased out because either the number of cases was so low that it wasn't believed necessary anymore or because insects were actually developing a resistance to it.

There has never been a worldwide ban on the use of DDT for vector control, and many of the people most involved in controlling malaria are glad that its use as an agricultural pesticide has been banned because it slows the rate at which insects are developing a resistance to it. Currently 4000-5000 tons of it are used every year for vector control. Although in many places they've switched to alternative chemicals, again because of fears of (or the actuality of) resistance.

I'm not going to claim that the environmentalists response didn't have any negative impact, but the anti-environmentalists habitually either misrepresent the facts or outright lie in their criticisms of them and exaggerate the consequences for shock value. I used to be a staunch supporter of the hardcore environmentalists, but then i learned a little of the truth and got disillusioned. Then i learned even more of the truth and got disillusioned with the anti-environmentalists and their own version of scaremongering. Each side has some combination of philosophical fanaticism and economic agenda to push, and are willing to bend or even shatter the truth to accomplish it.

If you're actually concerned with the truth, stop spreading the anti-environmentalists lies and starting looking for the truth in between. If you're an active anti-environmentalist, well clearly nothing i say is going to convince you otherwise, but spreading such obvious lies (once you actually think to look into them) is only going to hurt your cause in the end. If you want to _really_ criticize the environmentalists, criticize them for things that are actually 100% true, like their opposition to nuclear power (although when you do that remember that at least some environmental groups have wised up and changed their tune recently.)

Here is how Dixy Lee Ray (with Lou Guzzo) described events (Trashing the Planet, page 69) [note: Ray has the timing wrong, the spraying was stopped in 1964, not the late 60s]:

Public health statistics from Sri Lanka testify to the effectiveness of the spraying program. In 1948, before the use of DDT, there were 2.8 million cases of malaria. By 1963, there were only 17. Low levels of infection continued until the late 1960s, when the attacks on DDT in the U.S. convinced officials to suspend spraying. In 1968, there were one million cases of malaria. In 1969, the number reached 2.5 million, back to the pre-DDT levels. Moreover, by 1972, the largely unsubstantiated charges against DDT in the United States had a worldwide effect. In 1970, of two billion people living in malaria regions, 79 percent were protected and the expectation was that malaria would be eradicated. Six years after the United States banned DDT, there were 800 million cases of malaria and 8.2 million deaths per year. Even worse, because eradication programs were halted at a critical time, resistant malaria is now widespread and travelers could take it home.

Congratulations! Your phrase for today is: false dichotomy.

DDT is not banned in most of the developing world; it can be obtained, and rather cheaply. Nobody has cut off supplies. What has actually happened is that--- due to massive overuse for agricultural spraying--- many species of Malaria-carrying mosquito have developed immunity. Simultaneously, other more effective pesticides have dropped in price to the point where DDT is just one of many tools in the arsenal (and an ineffective one in most cases). To counter the notion that DDT has been banned everywhere, it's informative to note that a number of countries still use some quantity of DDT in their anti-malaria programs, but these efforts have only limited success and only in certain regions where DDT immunity has not been fully established.

The argument "for" DDT is mostly political, and carried along by people who aren't familiar with the facts. Some people are tempted by the notion that DDT is some kind of panacea for Malaria, but that evil environmentalist hippies are using their awesome power to prevent it. Of course, there's usually very little evidence supporting the latter notion, but it's tempting to believe because it sounds like a "free lunch" solution to a hard problem (one that happens to reinforce some folks' pre-conceived political notions). Unfortunately, the idea founders on, well, just about every basic fact of the story--- including the very important one that many of the nations that would ostensibly be "saved" by DDT use have chosen not to use it because it doesn't work anymore.

http://info-pollution.com/ddtban.htm
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/05/who_put_out_the_contract_on_ra.php#more

The site is owned by Steve Milloy:
Steven J. Milloy is a columnist for Fox News
also a paid advocate for Phillip Morris
Steven Milloy has made a career of lobbying for polluting industries
http://info-pollution.com/milloy.htm (laste update Jan of last year, I believe)

Things to take into account when determining wether or not this site is biased..

I would also like to point out the many prediction are coming true at an increased rate.

WHen a very [powerfull country like china signs off on the IPCC report(after they made the report make it seem Less severe) you can pretty much believe it.
If there was a problem with it, China would have made a big stink out of it.

I was curious about that claim, so I read the speech that's from. He doesn't back that figure up (imagine that!), but presumably he's referring to the 1972 ban on DDT and subsequent deaths from malaria in developing nations. This ignores the fact that DDT was only banned in the US and that it's efficacy had been diminishing since the 50's as mosquitoes became more resistant. Some good info here:
http://info-pollution.com/ddtban.htm

>They are the ones who completely banned DDT.
DDT was banned in America in 1972 largely due to "large public outcry". However, "DDT continued to be the insecticide of choice in the battle against malaria as recently as 1994". DDT is not "completely" banned; it continues to be used where it is the most effective and wise choice.

>it's not part of their philosophy to *help* other human beings in any realistic sense
>Environmentalists don't have much room to complain about starving children dying of malaria
Regarding DDT, is is largely not debatable that DDT is fat-soluble, so as long as you are a vertebrate animal with greater than 0% body fat, being exposed to DDT either by inhalation or ingestion means it will be digested and settle in your body fat and is not flushed out by most any natural body cleansing process (studies in the US taken 10 years after the ban on DDT was enacted showed that there were still traces of DDT detectable in human subjects). Whether or not this has long term ill effects is still debatable, but wouldn't you rather know to be cautious about a compound that is very hard to get out of your system?

Additionally, with the recent publicity about the global climate issues, a large portion of environmentalists are not solely looking out for animal rights and well treatment. Instead they are concerned for those poverty-stricken and victims of epidemics such as malaria, and realize that finding a cure for malaria will doubtless please many people who are afflicted with it currently, but it will be of no use if those same people die of a water-borne illness from polluted rivers or from toxins obtained by eating the meat and fat of an animal exposed to a fat-soluble carcinogen (not saying DDT is this, but it or others could be) before the malaria cure is found.

>God forbid we should lose our precious polar bears! God almighty what will become of Churchill Manitoba?!
Yes, Churchill Manitoba, the "Polar Bear capital of the world" will lose its tourist trade. Additionally, without Polar Bears, they won't be around to predate upon the ringed seals (one of their more popular food choices), nor scavenge upon the carrion of beached whales and other carcasses. Meaning, the elderly, sick and diseased of the seal population will not be weeded out and lead to an increased population for the seals, leading to likely overcrowding and a greater chance of spreading disease around the population of seals, which will have a direct impact on the Inuits who hunt those seals as well. So, by assisting the Polar Bears, environmentalists are also preventing causing more 'starving children' in another portion of the world. Yes, preventative thinking (rather than reactionary) requires more speculation and time to come to fruition, but just because someone's paying attention to polar bears rather than the people starving right now doesn't mean they're not concerned about human starvation issues, nor are they simply not thinking.

As was mentioned by Ash Vince, the above posts by Dravik and Asrynachs were not based on serious facts (and indeed don't cite any references for their claims), and (hopefully) were intending to be more humorous than serious (Mod them Humorous rather than Insightful, please...). For those reading these threads who are still forming an opinion on the matter, hopefully the links I've pulled together here will help you make a more informed decision on the issues.

The "junk science" fad is actually in the attribution of the label "junk science" to topics that threaten various SIGs within the United States. Fearing a decreasing interest in adoption of tobacco products from studies implying negative health effects from "second hand smoke," Philip Morris originated a marketing campaign to discredit the general public's confidence in the scientific community. The idea evolved into a cross-industry conspiracy to undermine the work of the EPA and FDA and to discredit broad-ranging issues in scientific research that conflicted with the interests of the conspirators. This conspiracy operated under the name "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition." The conduit of the misinformation was Steven Milloy, the owner and operator of junkscience.com who frequently posts stories calling into question the legitimacy of various scientific studies and ad hominem against specific researchers whose work conflicts with his sponsors.

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q3/junkman.ht ml
http://timlambert.org/category/science/milloy/
http://info-pollution.com/milloy.htm

CO2 in the atmosphere is mainly volcanic in origin, accounting for 97% of the CO2 found in the atmosphere, most of which travels to the oceans. Estimates at CO2's effectiveness as a greenhouse gas vary, but are generally around 10-100 times lower than water weight for weight, leaving a "net" greenhouse effect of man-made CO2 emmissions at less than 1%

The precise figure is around a 0.27% contribution from mankind.

It's usually considered good form to cite the quote, so we can see who said it and what evidence they had for the claim. As it is, the power of google comes to the rescue and I find the original source for your above quote is Wikipedia::Global_warming_controversy which in turn links to Monte Hieb's personal website.

Well, that's OK, a personal website isn't necessarily a bad source of information. We shouldn't be concerned that Mr Hieb has no education in climatology, isn't a scientist nor a doctor, doesn't have any peer reviewed papers, doesn't do research nor experiments, and isn't cited by anybody except the enthusiastic gunslingers of the "global warming is a myth" brigade. All of those details are irrelevant if Mr Hieb gets his facts right. Unfortunately he hasn't got his facts right either. If you google his name the first hit is somebody ripping apart Mr Hieb's claims. You immediately find out that Mr Hieb redefines existing scientific terminology. Tut tut, that's not a good sign.

Here the authors redefine "global warming". While the term usually refers to human caused warming, they use the term to include natural changes as well. A similar redefinition has been used with other environmental problems such as ozone depletion and acid rain. ("Global warming" has been increasingly replaced by the more accurate and inclusive "climate change"). -- http://info-pollution.com/chill.htm

That page goes on further to refute the "facts" asserted by Monte Hieb. Somebody once tried to get Mr Hieb's claims into other pages on Wikipedia but those attempts were ... uhhh... rejected. Here's a comment that accompanied one such rejection.

But to turn to the GHG page, which is what this is really about. C says: objects and deletes all sources and documentation that state anything he disagrees with. This in turn is a ref to him trying to insert a dubious value of 95% for the greenhouse effect of water vapour, based upon this source: http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenho use_data.html. That page isn't a source: its just some bods pet page. The numbers on it are wrong. All this has been, is being, discussed on the talk page of greenhouse gas. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_fo r_comment/William_M._Connolley

That 95% figure (which is intrinsically linked to your 0.27% figure) isn't supported by the data. The best guess figures are between 60% and 70%. If you continue to google Mr Hieb's name you'll find that pattern repeated over and over; Mr Hieb uses incorrect values, redefines terminology and eventually arrives at incorrect conclusions. But who is Monte Hieb?

Assessment: This example is the crux of the matter, IMO, because it reveals the source of Cortonin's information. The website referenced is the personal website of Monte Hieb. A quick review of Hieb's credentials reveals that he has worked as chief engineer for the West Virginia Office of Miner's Safety. He has done some geological survey work on fossils. There are extensive links from Free Republic's website to Hieb's. WMC refers to him as "just some bod," but cle

The widespread use of DDT had all but wiped out malaria some three decades ago. Then someone named Rachel Carson wrote a fictional book called "Silent Spring" about how DDT was harming birds. The book was fictional, literally. But the irrational so-called "envoronmentalists" of the world took it as a call to action and successfully pressured the government to ban DDT. Now millions die needlessly in Africa as a result of their irrationality.

Wow.

Just, wow man. This is the most ignorant, uninformed post I think I've ever read on Slashdot. Well done!

Here's a Debunking for you - you could have found it yourself with a quick Google.

A simple bit of research would show that something much more interesing happened - a low level contingent of the mosquito population is resistant to DDT and DDT sprayings kill off the rest. The resistant portion reproduce and you're back to a full population again, except this time they're all resistant, rendering the DDT useless.

"What Arctic Warming?
Thursday, October 13, 2005
By Steven Milloy"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steve_M illoy
http://info-pollution.com/milloy.htm

$90,000 from ExxonMobil would do the trick...

Since Chrichton isn't a scientist I don't think we should mix his opinion piece with the work of scientists...
Here's a little light reading for perspective:
http://info-pollution.com/mc.htm
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050121/n ews_lz1e21benford.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ch ronicle/archive/2005/02/16/EDG49BAVBT1.DTL
etc..

Milloy is an industry shill.

Check out the following books for a great introduction to exactly how public relations companies are used by industries, companies, and even politicians to cover up the dirty secrets they don't want you to know about.

Toxic Sludge Is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry

Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future

>Straw man.

You can't use that when the argument is based on a known fact that affects millions of people. Your argument must be strong enough to at least support the general case. If it can't even do that, then it's dead.

To quote:

In a straw man fallacy the opponents argument is distorted, misrepresented or simply made up. This makes the argument easier to defeat, and can also be used to make opponents look like ignorant extremists.

I didn't distort your argument. You believe all pirates are theives. Canadians are pirates, by law. Does it not therefore follow that Canadians, by your definition are theives? Think this through. Are you willing to start making exceptions where your rule doesn't fit? If so, then where do you draw the line?

Anyways, since you aren't willing to read the dictionary and are willing to falsely state facts, I give up. I won't reply anymore. It's a pointless debate if you insit on using English improperly.

Milloy (the "Junkman") is is PR stooge who speaks for industry. His tactic is to mix up reasonable critiques of genuine "junk science" with diatribes on favourite industry issues such as global warming and regulation in general.

This is not to say he is necessarily wrong, but that you should treat everything he says with extreme caution.

In the case of DDT, Malloy and friends claim that it has been "demagogued out of use", but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that bans have followed on from real concerns carefully considered.

There would appear to be significant commercial interests in removing bans on DDT. The list of sponsors on a prominent pro-DDT site should cause you to approach the evidence there with some scepticism.

• The putty wasn't new; the Challenger blew up on the 25th shuttle flight. The new putty came into use on the 8th flight.
• Both old and new puttys contained asbestos. While the manufacturer of the "old" putty did discontinue it due to concerns about asbestos, the "new" putty also contained asbestos.
• Joint problems were first noticed on the 2nd flight (i.e., when the old putty was in use).

The big "putty" problem seems to be that beginning with shuttle flight 10, pre-flight tests of the joints were conducted at higher pressures than before, leading to the formation of bubbles and "blowholes" in the putty. The hot gases followed these paths of weakness to the O-ring. In 1984, a NASA engineer derided the use of putty at all as "lucky putty", suggesting that the putty introduced an extra point of failure and was probably unnecessary. His suggestions for study on this issue were not followed up. I got my information here. This page quotes extensively from the Challenger report, Richard Feynman, and from authors making the "environmentalists did it" claims.

For someone complaining about fearmongering, it's curious that James Hogan is telling us how dangerous evironmentalists are with their "junk science", yet he is using incorrect information that it took me 5 minutes with Google to refute. It's funny how people always claim that their side is objective and everyone else is "politicizing" science. This is most definitely not limited to any one viewpoint on the political spectrum.

> Come on, you can't have it both ways.
> You're either pro government control or against it,

Why not?

Things are rarely polar opposites. You can't just say, "Well kid, are you a communist or for a lassiez-fair market." There's tons of middle ground.
The formal name for this is the False Dichotomy. More
Extremes only really exist as abstract concepts.

Advocating regulation or laws to protect against abuse is hardly pro-DMCA.

>You can be arrested for a crime, but you can't be arrested for a violation.

BULLSHIT.

Which American president was ARRESTED for speeding?

I'll hint you one: Ulysses S. Grant.

Don't talk about things like this unless you have a clue.

>Same thing with parking tickets, disturbing the peace, driving without a license or without insurance, that kind of thing.

Huh? Protestors are jailed for disturbing the peace all the time. You are really talking out of your ass. Joe the Turk, for instance, was arrested 57 times for disturbing the peace.

I'm not even going to bother with your other points, since none of them are serious enough to warrant arrest anyways. A police officer would have to be honestly insane to book someone for parking their car, considering we have tow trucks and cops are allowed to use them.

>If you seriously think "just about everyone I know" constitutes a useful sample of society, then you're even dumber than I thought.

Okay, apart from yourself, tell me someone who HASN'T violated copyright law?

I'm waiting...

>So what you're saying is that because the laws fail to deter EVERYONE, we should get rid of the laws. Right?

No, he's saying, like me, that laws that don't work require reform. He didn't say anything like what you're saying. In fact, I'd go as far as to say you're now libelling that poor slashdotter.

>Yup. Even dumber than I thought.

Yup, you are.

>Hell, I'll bet you wouldn't even know how to break the DMCA if you wanted to. Seriously. Do you know what the DMCA prohibits? Do you know how to break it?

Let's see, it prohibits me from using my DVD player on my expensive projection TV. To break it, I would load the hack CD into my Apex DVD player to turn off macrovision.

>Most people drive safely most of the time

My point exactly (and I said it a LONG time ago). The fact that the speed limits are too low are an indication of a broken the law.

>Since we have records that clearly illustrate that highway fatalities are linked to speed limits

We do? Show me them.

Oh, that's right, they'll illustrate that high speed driving is linked with highway fatalities, not speed limits. Can you not see the difference between a reccomended/lawful limit and a person's free will? You sound like a dictator.

Next thing you'll say is that computers cause heart attacks. It isn't the computer, it's the lazy ass operating it.

You continue to commit the fallacy of correlation. Read about it and please stop doing it, because it's annoying the hell out of us. Plus you're looking childish when you do it.

>So now you're saying that we need stricter laws (or stricter enforcement of existing laws) to deal with the IP theft problem. Man, you're just all over the map here.

I think he's saying we need reformed laws. That doesn't mean stricter, it means better. How difficult is that to understand.

And stop saying that someone is saying something when they haven't said it in their quote. It's libel, and more importantly, it really makes you look like an idiot.