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Maybe you just don't care to notice the understatements. This graph shows sea level rise vs the IPCC predictions.

Wrong on all counts. You really do need to find arguments that haven't been refuted. 1998 was a warm outlier year due to El Nino, 2010 was warmer without a strong El Nino, and the trend in the 11 year moving average has stayed strongly positive. But you don't want to hear real facts that might get in the way of what you want to believe.

More bullshit claims about bias from one of the most biased posters here: Pino Grigio. Who can't even spell Pinot Grigio.

If the dropped stations had been kept, the temperature determinations would have been higher, not lower

You really have to start picking claims that aren't so trivially refuted.

CO2 is plant food argument, huh?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm

We already struggle to meet the agricultural need for water with irrigation. The boost in CO2 would be useless if there wasn't a commensurate boost in every other resource that plants use.

As far as your claim that roads cause more heating than CO2, excuse me for being skeptical about that until you provide some substantial evidence. In the mean time, I suggest comparing the albedo of asphalt (0.04 to 0.12) to your average conifer forest (0.08 to 0.15). In other words, heat trapped by roads is comparable to heat trapped by trees.

You could show that something else causes the formation of clouds. For example, you could look at the historical relationship between clouds and cosmic rays.

Man made Climate Change is the biggest scam in history.

If it's man made who the heck are we affecting every planet in our solar system also?????

I really love the way it is possible nowadays to instantly find the answer to that, which you must have known about but you didn't bother to list here. It's an excellent illustration of exactly what this case is about. Scientific truth requires you not just to not just mention your own evidence but also explain away the evidence on the other side. Probably you guys need to start reading things by Feynman. Here's one to start you. Have a look at how the article I referenced not only points out your statement is wrong (Mars and Jupiter are not warming) but then goes on to address in detail the evidence behind your claim (the warming on other planets is explainable by other means).

However the difference is, slashdot posters don't have science as part of their job title. That's why you don't need to resign and the guy who's running the journal should. When he decided to take on something outside his area he had an extra duty to be sure he had consulted the areas experts. Probably he did his best and he failed deeply. If he continues on as the journal's editor then people will have difficulty believing the other articles in the journal have been correctly verified.

I remember not to long ago when people were afraid of global cooling.

Most likely you "remembered" it after reading it on Watts or something.

I suggest you read up on skepticalscience.com, which is to global warming denialists what the talk.origins FAQ is to creationists. "Scientists predicted an ice age in the 70s" is number 11 of 169 on their list.

There's really no excuse for an educated person to deny climate science any longer.

I remember not to long ago when people were afraid of global cooling.

Most likely you "remembered" it after reading it on Watts or something.

I suggest you read up on skepticalscience.com, which is to global warming denialists what the talk.origins FAQ is to creationists. "Scientists predicted an ice age in the 70s" is number 11 of 169 on their list.

There's really no excuse for an educated person to deny climate science any longer.

Henrik Svensmark has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert significant influence over global temperatures (Svensmark 1998). The theory goes that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, which are capable of seeding cloud formation on Earth. So if the solar magnetic field were to increase, fewer GCRs would reach Earth, seeding fewer low-level clouds, which are strongly reflective. Thus an increased solar magnetic field can indirectly decrease the Earth's albedo (reflectivity), causing the planet to warm. Therefore, in order for this theory to be plausible, all four of the following requirements must be true.

1. Solar magnetic field must have a long-term positive trend.
2. Galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth must have a long-term negative trend.
3. Cosmic rays must successfully seed low-level clouds.
4. Low-level cloud cover must have a long-term negative trend.

Fortunately we have empirical observations against which we can test these requirements.

You like images more than words? http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/henrik-svensmark/image/image_view_fullscreen

Henrik Svensmark has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert significant influence over global temperatures (Svensmark 1998). The theory goes that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, which are capable of seeding cloud formation on Earth. So if the solar magnetic field were to increase, fewer GCRs would reach Earth, seeding fewer low-level clouds, which are strongly reflective. Thus an increased solar magnetic field can indirectly decrease the Earth's albedo (reflectivity), causing the planet to warm. Therefore, in order for this theory to be plausible, all four of the following requirements must be true.

1. Solar magnetic field must have a long-term positive trend.
2. Galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth must have a long-term negative trend.
3. Cosmic rays must successfully seed low-level clouds.
4. Low-level cloud cover must have a long-term negative trend.

Fortunately we have empirical observations against which we can test these requirements.

You like images more than words? http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/henrik-svensmark/image/image_view_fullscreen

There's nothing particularly "stunning" about the conclusion that modern average global temperatures are higher than temperatures measured or deduced in the last several hundred years.

What was stunning about it was that all the proxy variation and variation between the three sources was wiped out at the splice points, and a remarkably consistent picture of all three graphs rising in dramatic fashion was shown instead.

The aren't "blended." They are identified and separately labeled, as you can see from the actual graph in question (p. 3)

You're looking at the wrong graph. The graph that Phil Jones was talking about was this one, supplied for a WMO report.

While there was some talk about erasing mail, there is no evidence that any mail was actually erased. (Hardly surprising...if they'd actually erased the email, surely they would have also erased the email suggesting that they erase emails) So apparently, cooler heads prevailed.

The leaked email was taken from a backup server. Phil Jones also said he deleted email: "About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little - if anything at all."

  We also know that Jones explicitly told his colleagues to erase email:

"Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment - minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't
have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise."

Are you going to keep on making up excuses for this? The fact that he sent that email is bad enough.

Which data are you talking about?

It's in the review I cited earlier:

"For some years prior to the coming into force of the general right of access to information under FoIA, CRU had received requests for data, including station identifiers. An example of the attitude to these requests is given in the following e-mail extract:

Jones to Mann on 2nd February 2005 (1107454306.txt):
"And don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who'll say we must adhere to it !""

What they wanted was all the data so they could verify how they came up with their results. This includes raw data as well as any meta-data and derived data, along with any code.

Well, we know plants frigging *LOVE* the stuff... so if we don't we can probably anticipate higher crop yields.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. For example, increased temperatures will stress food crops. More information is here.

They said the oceans would rise by 2009.

And, the oceans have been consistently rising.

But so far, the models created based on the presumption of the association keep breaking down and their predictions don't play out as expected.

Again, this assertion doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Models successfully reproduce global temperatures.

Well, we know plants frigging *LOVE* the stuff... so if we don't we can probably anticipate higher crop yields.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. For example, increased temperatures will stress food crops. More information is here.

They said the oceans would rise by 2009.

And, the oceans have been consistently rising.

But so far, the models created based on the presumption of the association keep breaking down and their predictions don't play out as expected.

Again, this assertion doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Models successfully reproduce global temperatures.

Well, we know plants frigging *LOVE* the stuff... so if we don't we can probably anticipate higher crop yields.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. For example, increased temperatures will stress food crops. More information is here.

They said the oceans would rise by 2009.

And, the oceans have been consistently rising.

But so far, the models created based on the presumption of the association keep breaking down and their predictions don't play out as expected.

Again, this assertion doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Models successfully reproduce global temperatures.

Here is a peer reviewed paper that says if the Sun's activity level returned to a new grand minimum like the Maunder minimum it would reduce the projected temperature rise in 2100 by no more than 0.3C. I think that's a reasonable basis for the assertion.

Since the paper is paywalled you can see a summary of it here.

In recent years (10-15) the warming is far below any noise level.

In any 10 to 15 year period the warming is below the noise level, because we're talking about a global average of about 0.15C per decade, and changes in heat transfer from ocean to atmosphere from year to year cause variations that are larger than that. But, even with the annual variations over the last decade, the warming trend is still apparent. http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008.htm

But even though the global trend is 0.15C per decade that doesn't mean that changes in specific places haven't been much larger.

Not saying you did this, but I love that people jump on the Mars is warming propaganda to try and show that climate science in general is bullshit. It's the same intellectually dishonest tactic that creationists use and frankly anyone who falls for it cannot possibly qualify as a skeptical thinker on the subject.

The "Mars is warming" myth is argument #27 on this excellent list of arguments from "climate skeptics", you may want to check on some other things you've "heard". Of course there's also a WP page describing the main lines of evidence that puts AGW firmly in the "scientific fact" category.

If I had to pick a side in the debate, I would tend to side with Henrik_Svensmark. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Svensmark His theory about cosmic rays modulating cloud formation has, at least, the advantage of being falsifiable.

Except Svensmark's work has the distinct disadvantage of having already been falsified.

See this Skeptical Science article for an easy-to-read summary.

Why would we need any carbon tax if global warming is beneficial to the biosphere and humanity as a whole (see: Medieval Warm Period).

In skimming the wiki article on the medival warm period I came across a graph that made it look like the Earth had already warmed more than the medieval warm period. And another source pointed that out though I'm not sure how serious to take that website.

At any rate, you seem to be saying that "The weather being warm was good for Vikings hundreds of years ago" and taking that to imply that temperatures going up is always "beneficial to the biosphere and humanity as a whole" which doesn't seem like a sound conclusion. It sounds like mild warming was better for a small subset of people who had to deal with ice more often than tropical diseases, flooding, or droughts.

how would you feel if I demanded that all governments around the world provide massive carbon *subsidies* because I believe that a warm world is a good world, and that CO2 helps warm the planet?

There's nothing really hypothetical about your scenario. That's the situation we have NOW. We're already producing a ton of carbon and doing little about it besides talking about reducing it. We're already getting artificially cheap gas thanks to government subsidies, so I don't see anything really changing.

So I feel that you're wrong and irresponsible. Wear a sweater if you feel the earth isn't warm enough.

Frankly, the libertarian position of "leave me alone" works either way - the government intervention position has to be *completely correct* in order for it to be beneficial

And naturally you just happen to think that government non-intervention is the completely correct position to take. My opinion on environmental matters is "Better safe than sorry."

You act like it's a complex issue, when it's actually rather simple.
______________

"Is it the sun?"
Sometimes but definently not for the past 40 years or so.
http://i.imgur.com/TSxqy.png

"Are we certain that less and less infrared radiation is exiting out into space, almost entirely in the wavelength we'd expect CO2 and CH4 to block?"
Yes
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm

Is the rate of warming significant?
Yeah, I'd say 100x faster than you'd expect from changes in earth's orbit alone is significant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bftcWQiZPPg
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-to-explain-Milankovitch-cycles-to-a-hostile-Congressman-in-30-seconds.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5hs4KVeiAU#t=5s

"Do we know that the CO2 is from fossil fuels. i.e. "Manmade CO2"
Yes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dj2yv1T53o

DONE. That's all you need to know.

With absolute certainty, we can say that "manmade CO2" is the main cause the recent increase in heat on earth.

___

Any other questions that aren't on this list of common strawman arguments?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

You act like it's a complex issue, when it's actually rather simple.
______________

"Is it the sun?"
Sometimes but definently not for the past 40 years or so.
http://i.imgur.com/TSxqy.png

"Are we certain that less and less infrared radiation is exiting out into space, almost entirely in the wavelength we'd expect CO2 and CH4 to block?"
Yes
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm

Is the rate of warming significant?
Yeah, I'd say 100x faster than you'd expect from changes in earth's orbit alone is significant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bftcWQiZPPg
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-to-explain-Milankovitch-cycles-to-a-hostile-Congressman-in-30-seconds.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5hs4KVeiAU#t=5s

"Do we know that the CO2 is from fossil fuels. i.e. "Manmade CO2"
Yes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dj2yv1T53o

DONE. That's all you need to know.

With absolute certainty, we can say that "manmade CO2" is the main cause the recent increase in heat on earth.

___

Any other questions that aren't on this list of common strawman arguments?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

You act like it's a complex issue, when it's actually rather simple.
______________

"Is it the sun?"
Sometimes but definently not for the past 40 years or so.
http://i.imgur.com/TSxqy.png

"Are we certain that less and less infrared radiation is exiting out into space, almost entirely in the wavelength we'd expect CO2 and CH4 to block?"
Yes
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm

Is the rate of warming significant?
Yeah, I'd say 100x faster than you'd expect from changes in earth's orbit alone is significant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bftcWQiZPPg
http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-to-explain-Milankovitch-cycles-to-a-hostile-Congressman-in-30-seconds.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5hs4KVeiAU#t=5s

"Do we know that the CO2 is from fossil fuels. i.e. "Manmade CO2"
Yes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dj2yv1T53o

DONE. That's all you need to know.

With absolute certainty, we can say that "manmade CO2" is the main cause the recent increase in heat on earth.

___

Any other questions that aren't on this list of common strawman arguments?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Troll comments and +5 funny rating aside, many scientists would agree (either publicly or anonymously due to fear) that human caused global warming IS a hoax.
 

but only for very small values of many
97-out-of-100-climate-experts-think-humans-causing-global-warming [skepticalscience.com]

Your first link is to a general Slashdot posting about the fact that the e-mails were leaked; that's not a specific e-mail referencing "an ends justifies the means philosophy", as the original poster promised. I hope we can all agree that the leak happened, and that this fact is not in doubt.

Your second link is another Slashdot posting about the fact that the e-mails were leaked, referencing a blog post at Watt's Up With That. The referenced blog post pulls out a few e-mails:

1. Someone mentioning that in a class of journals it is customary to release data and (presumably source) code, but then saying that their legal department believes (I'm guessing from IPR) intellectual property rights associated with such things do not allow such a release. Which, interestingly enough, is topical! The reason why there's a "virtually all" in the title of this Slashdot article is because some countries refuse to let their data be released - they claim ownership of the data and do not want it in the public domain, for whatever reason.

2. The infamous "Mike's Nature trick" e-mail, which has been discussed ad nauseum and does not reference any foul play (if it had, wouldn't Nature have retracted the paper originally referenced by "Nature trick"? They haven't - as your third link mentions later)

3. An e-mail from a scientist who is uncomfortable getting directly involved in politics by signing a letter to the Senate; he recommends letting the AGU (the American Geophysical Union) do it, since they are a political body. His primary concern is that this is not something scientists should be doing as individuals, and cautions other scientists to not jump in without the support of their co-authors.

None of these are indicative of any sort of foul play or even concerns about global warming. There are a thousand comments after that, so hopefully you didn't mean there was evidence somewhere in there? Presumably the editor of the blog would have pulled better e-mails up into the main body of the post if such things were noted in the comments.

Your third link, much like the first, mentions no specific e-mails, but funnily enough references another Slashdot article that you left out of your list; perhaps it is because the article is about the journal Nature reviewing the e-mails, and stating that they do not form a "substantive reason for concern." As a sibling poster said, the rest of the article is about the way the leaked e-mails were used to trump up a baseless witchhunt.

So, I have to wonder - if these emails suggesting questionable motives and practices exist, why can't you link directly to them? If you're having trouble finding the archive online, there's a copy right here.

If I don't see those e-mails despite looking for them, perhaps it is because they just don't seem to exist?

I really hope you're right, though; I would very much prefer to live in a world where everything looks fine and there is a global conspiracy of scientists to make us think it isn't, than in a world where things are looking scary and scientists are trying to warn us about it, but we're mostly ignoring them.

Between 24 July and 28 July, CRU received no less than 60 FoI requests, and 10 more between 31 July and 14 August. The requesters demanded access to both raw temperature station data and any related confidentiality agreements. The Review found evidence that this was an organized campaign (one request asked for information “involving the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested]”)

- Skeptical Science

Sadly all you need to do is go back and look at the journals and articles of the 70's. And you will find exactly the same hysteria, and use of 'consensus' including the top scientists of the time agreeing that it was the greatest catastrophe that mankind will ever face.

Horseshit. And here's a pretty pie chart to back that up. And a more detailed graph as well.

The summary on the second link is also interesting (emphasis added):

So global cooling predictions in the 70s amounted to media and a handful of peer reviewed studies. The small number of papers predicting cooling were outweighed by a much greater number of papers predicting global warming due to the warming effect of rising CO2. Today, an avalanche of peer reviewed studies and overwhelming scientific consensus endorse man-made global warming. To compare cooling predictions in the 70s to the current situation is both inappropriate and misleading. Additionally, we reduced the SO2 emissions which were causing global cooling. The question remains whether we will reduce the CO2 emissions causing global warming.

Sadly all you need to do is go back and look at the journals and articles of the 70's. And you will find exactly the same hysteria, and use of 'consensus' including the top scientists of the time agreeing that it was the greatest catastrophe that mankind will ever face.

Horseshit. And here's a pretty pie chart to back that up. And a more detailed graph as well.

The summary on the second link is also interesting (emphasis added):

So global cooling predictions in the 70s amounted to media and a handful of peer reviewed studies. The small number of papers predicting cooling were outweighed by a much greater number of papers predicting global warming due to the warming effect of rising CO2. Today, an avalanche of peer reviewed studies and overwhelming scientific consensus endorse man-made global warming. To compare cooling predictions in the 70s to the current situation is both inappropriate and misleading. Additionally, we reduced the SO2 emissions which were causing global cooling. The question remains whether we will reduce the CO2 emissions causing global warming.

But it *is* denial, of the pathological kind.

I know it is polite and all to be nice to people, but we are dealing with psychosis here, and a lot is at stake.

You don't see the contradiction in your own statement?

No, I don't, because there is none. You see a contradiction because you misunderstood a text written in language unfamiliar to you. Let me explain:

We're talking about the climate history of a planet, stretching over _eons_ of time. And somehow you believe 15 years or even 100 years is a "significant" enough period of time to not "find any temperature trend you want".

The term "statistical significance" means something completely different than you think. Look up my other posts in this discussion for thorough explanation. Statistical significance of some conclusion has nothing to do with importance of that conclusion. It means it's very unlikely that the conclusion is wrong, whether or not its implications are important.

I'll illustrate it even better on temperature trends. If you take temperature data from 2000 to 2010, you can find pretty much any trend you want (positive or negative) just by cutting a few months from the start or end of the period. That's because there's too much noise in the data to draw any conclusions. But if you take temperature data from 1910 to 2010, you'll get pretty much the same trend even if you cut up to 25 years from both ends. That's what "statistically significant" means. If you wanted to find a different trend, you'd have to look for it in data from another century. You can't get it just by slightly adjusting edges of your time interval.

If you look at the long term charts (even on pro-AGW websites like skepticalscience.com), 100 years is statistical noise: http://www.skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm. The ~10k year temperature spikes are occurring like clockwork and we haven't spiked outside of this pattern. So how is it valid to use short-term observations (~100 years) to make statistically significant claims about Earth's climate.

I don't care about what's going to happen 10k years in the future. I care about climate prediction for the next few centuries where I and my kids are going to live.

If you take sufficiently short period of time, you can find any temperature trend you want in climate data. If you want statistically significant temperature trend, you need at least 15 years worth of data, maybe more.

You don't see the contradiction in your own statement? We're talking about the climate history of a planet, stretching over _eons_ of time. And somehow you believe 15 years or even 100 years is a "significant" enough period of time to not "find any temperature trend you want". If you look at the long term charts (even on pro-AGW websites like skepticalscience.com), 100 years is statistical noise: http://www.skepticalscience.com/heading-into-new-little-ice-age.htm. The ~10k year temperature spikes are occurring like clockwork and we haven't spiked outside of this pattern. So how is it valid to use short-term observations (~100 years) to make statistically significant claims about Earth's climate.

Who the hell is Joe Herring and why should I trust anything he writes? Did Slashdot review his scholarship here and give it a stamp of approval, or was it just put up on the website, leaving it to the readers to decide whether it's B.S. or not?

No qualifications or expertise are claimed for Joe Herring on the website. In fact no information on his background is given except that he is "from Omaha, NE." This is highly unusual for a publication that hopes to be taken seriously. We don't even know if that is his real name.

We are left to judge the value of this Joe Herring essay by his previous contributions and by the reliability and reputation of the website that publishes his work.

Joe Herring is, in short, a right-wing nut.

He claims all leftists -- all! -- want to overthrow the Constitution: "The continuum on the left that ranges from the 'wouldn't it be nice if we all just smiled' types to the hardcore authoritarian communists may disagree about methods, but sadly, all agree on one thing: if their utopia is to come about, the Constitution -- and the form of government derived from it -- must be replaced with...something."

He says the Nazis were left-wingers: "The Left will not willingly lay claim to the true legacy of socialism, so we will have to hang it around their necks."

He believes that the true goal of health care reform, renewable-energy subsidies, and regulations on Wall Street is for "the left" to seize power and exterminate half of the human race. Really: "As the federal government asserts control over health care, energy production, and the financial markets, the trinity of power is within the left's grasp. Unless driven back from their goals -- and quickly -- the likelihood grows daily that more than four billion of our 'species' will be joining the table scraps and yard clippings on the compost pile."

He thinks the problem with Politifact's 2009 Lie of the Year, "death panels," is that the right wasn't lying hard enough: "To describe this board as a 'death panel,' as Rush Limbaugh has, is to underestimate its power and misconstrue its purpose."

And five minutes with Google reveals that American Thinker is a source that, shall we say, lends no additional credibility to Joe Herring's contributions. Take global warming as a typical example. They printed essays claiming to have found a "smoking gun" that disproves global warming (wrong). Then they found another single argument that by itself disproves global warming (still wrong). They argue that global warming is a Nazi lie.

This "intentional flooding" piece looks like yet another right-wing hit job on leftism. I would be happy to entertain the idea that misguided environmentalism is partially to blame for one disaster or another, but I would like to hear a reasoned argument from someone who's not a nut.

Who the hell is Joe Herring and why should I trust anything he writes? Did Slashdot review his scholarship here and give it a stamp of approval, or was it just put up on the website, leaving it to the readers to decide whether it's B.S. or not?

No qualifications or expertise are claimed for Joe Herring on the website. In fact no information on his background is given except that he is "from Omaha, NE." This is highly unusual for a publication that hopes to be taken seriously. We don't even know if that is his real name.

We are left to judge the value of this Joe Herring essay by his previous contributions and by the reliability and reputation of the website that publishes his work.

Joe Herring is, in short, a right-wing nut.

He claims all leftists -- all! -- want to overthrow the Constitution: "The continuum on the left that ranges from the 'wouldn't it be nice if we all just smiled' types to the hardcore authoritarian communists may disagree about methods, but sadly, all agree on one thing: if their utopia is to come about, the Constitution -- and the form of government derived from it -- must be replaced with...something."

He says the Nazis were left-wingers: "The Left will not willingly lay claim to the true legacy of socialism, so we will have to hang it around their necks."

He believes that the true goal of health care reform, renewable-energy subsidies, and regulations on Wall Street is for "the left" to seize power and exterminate half of the human race. Really: "As the federal government asserts control over health care, energy production, and the financial markets, the trinity of power is within the left's grasp. Unless driven back from their goals -- and quickly -- the likelihood grows daily that more than four billion of our 'species' will be joining the table scraps and yard clippings on the compost pile."

He thinks the problem with Politifact's 2009 Lie of the Year, "death panels," is that the right wasn't lying hard enough: "To describe this board as a 'death panel,' as Rush Limbaugh has, is to underestimate its power and misconstrue its purpose."

And five minutes with Google reveals that American Thinker is a source that, shall we say, lends no additional credibility to Joe Herring's contributions. Take global warming as a typical example. They printed essays claiming to have found a "smoking gun" that disproves global warming (wrong). Then they found another single argument that by itself disproves global warming (still wrong). They argue that global warming is a Nazi lie.

This "intentional flooding" piece looks like yet another right-wing hit job on leftism. I would be happy to entertain the idea that misguided environmentalism is partially to blame for one disaster or another, but I would like to hear a reasoned argument from someone who's not a nut.

And I'd challenge you to provide links to any of the 'peer reviewed scientific papers' SPECIFICALLY supporting Gore's eschatological "global warming" FUD - that global warming is imminent, real, and human-caused, dated before Gore's Earth in the Balance (1992) or even before his presidential campaign in 2000.

James Hansen's testimony before Congress in 1988 pretty much implied this. While not peer reviewed in itself it was based on his and his colleagues peer reviewed work. There are plenty of references to peer reviewed papers on Hansen's Wikipedia page.

On volcanoes, it would take a supervolcano to emit as much CO2 as humans do in a year. In a typical year volcanoes emit 65-319 million tonnes of CO2 while humans currently emit around 29 billion tonnes.

One more thing, the heat generated by human activities is minuscule compared to the heat captured by greenhouse gases, it amounts to a rounding error.

And I'd challenge you to provide links to any of the 'peer reviewed scientific papers' SPECIFICALLY supporting Gore's eschatological "global warming" FUD - that global warming is imminent, real, and human-caused, dated before Gore's Earth in the Balance (1992) or even before his presidential campaign in 2000.

James Hansen's testimony before Congress in 1988 pretty much implied this. While not peer reviewed in itself it was based on his and his colleagues peer reviewed work. There are plenty of references to peer reviewed papers on Hansen's Wikipedia page.

On volcanoes, it would take a supervolcano to emit as much CO2 as humans do in a year. In a typical year volcanoes emit 65-319 million tonnes of CO2 while humans currently emit around 29 billion tonnes.

One more thing, the heat generated by human activities is minuscule compared to the heat captured by greenhouse gases, it amounts to a rounding error.

but of course, the simple fact that there are 2 sides means there's no consensus

Your problem, here, is that this and the paragraph preceding it, can also be be said about creationism vs evolution. Substitute "educational establishment" for "IPCC" and "Richard Dawkins" for "Jouzel" (etc) and you've practically got a Ben Stein classic.

I thought I was quite clear that the consensus I was talking about was among climatologists, whose specialty it is to study these things. If there are 2 sides to this among actual climatologists (and I mean in appreciable numbers - not the kind of numbers that creationists also muster) then you have a point here. I'll wait for you to show this is the case. In the meantime, here is data (pdf) that suggests otherwise.

For safety, I'll reiterate that climatologists could all, certainly, be wrong. It's just that your burden of proof is quite high if you claim this is the case. It is often imagined that conjecturing a conspiracy to suppress dissent gets one off the burden-of-proof hook, but it doesn't.

Is there a link to the debate you mention, or is this something you experienced in person?

There's no clear consensus about the quantification

Please explain this (scroll down to "Climate Sensitivity" to see equations).

I lifted the above answer from the Skeptical Science website which gives a very detailed answer. You say that no quantification exists, but yet this is obviously quantification of the relationship between CO2 and temperature based on evidence. If you were aware of this, then you are obliged to explain why it doesn't count. If you are unaware of it, then I was right in assuming ignorance.

You get mad at me if I accuse you of either ignorance or deception. Please offer me another explanation for the pattern. I say "pattern" because from that same website there are thorougly researched answers to all the arguments you've raised including: it's the sun, there is no consensus, CO2 lags temp, hockey stick is broken, climate sensitivity is low, CO2 effect is weak, water vapor is more powerful, CO2 limits will harm the economy, no correlation between CO2 and temp, scientists can't even predict weather, and possibly some others I've missed. You raise each of these canards without the slightest indication of what was wrong with the scientific response to them. Either you were ignorant of the scientific responses, or you pretended they didn't exist. Hanlon's Razor compels me to assume the former.

but of course, the simple fact that there are 2 sides means there's no consensus

Your problem, here, is that this and the paragraph preceding it, can also be be said about creationism vs evolution. Substitute "educational establishment" for "IPCC" and "Richard Dawkins" for "Jouzel" (etc) and you've practically got a Ben Stein classic.

I thought I was quite clear that the consensus I was talking about was among climatologists, whose specialty it is to study these things. If there are 2 sides to this among actual climatologists (and I mean in appreciable numbers - not the kind of numbers that creationists also muster) then you have a point here. I'll wait for you to show this is the case. In the meantime, here is data (pdf) that suggests otherwise.

For safety, I'll reiterate that climatologists could all, certainly, be wrong. It's just that your burden of proof is quite high if you claim this is the case. It is often imagined that conjecturing a conspiracy to suppress dissent gets one off the burden-of-proof hook, but it doesn't.

Is there a link to the debate you mention, or is this something you experienced in person?

There's no clear consensus about the quantification

Please explain this (scroll down to "Climate Sensitivity" to see equations).

I lifted the above answer from the Skeptical Science website which gives a very detailed answer. You say that no quantification exists, but yet this is obviously quantification of the relationship between CO2 and temperature based on evidence. If you were aware of this, then you are obliged to explain why it doesn't count. If you are unaware of it, then I was right in assuming ignorance.

You get mad at me if I accuse you of either ignorance or deception. Please offer me another explanation for the pattern. I say "pattern" because from that same website there are thorougly researched answers to all the arguments you've raised including: it's the sun, there is no consensus, CO2 lags temp, hockey stick is broken, climate sensitivity is low, CO2 effect is weak, water vapor is more powerful, CO2 limits will harm the economy, no correlation between CO2 and temp, scientists can't even predict weather, and possibly some others I've missed. You raise each of these canards without the slightest indication of what was wrong with the scientific response to them. Either you were ignorant of the scientific responses, or you pretended they didn't exist. Hanlon's Razor compels me to assume the former.

So, they realize that the sun output is very important, but then they still think that it's not important... Very cleaver indeed!

At no time did anything I said even resemble anything in your above paraphrase. Let me try to explain it one more time. The way terrestrial temperature responds to solar output is well known because of past data. Given the sun and some other variables in the past, you could calculate what terrestrial temperature "should" be and then measure the temperature and that is exactly what it would be. This was true until significant human emissions began, after which the temperature was higher than what the old model said it "should" be. However, if you add "human emissions" as one of the variables, then the models fit perfectly again.

Therefore: humans are causing global warming over and above solar output fluctuations. If the sun gives us a temporary break, it won't change the fact that we're still causing global climate change.

Your heroic efforts to misunderstand any attempt to educate you is evidence that your conclusions are ideological rather than based on reason. I suspect you're just trolling, but if you really are interested in reasoning your way to the truth, just a small amount of googling and an honest attempt to understand the reasoning of others will go a long way.

Climate change denialists' use of the tired old "weather" meme, after it has been debunked ad nauseum, is why denialists have no credibility with educated people and no one of any reputation takes them seriously. The meme has been thoroughly dismantled numerous times but that doesn't stop the uneducated from resurrecting it at every opportunity.

Economies and climates share about nothing in common. If you've based your rejection of climatologist's predictions on the inability of economists to predict, then you're possibly stupider than I imagined. This is why, "frankly", nobody really gives a shit what you "buy" or not - your uninformed opinion isn't worth fuck.

Sorry, but I trust my sources. Like Dr. Roy Spencer and others.

Ah, I see. In other words, you'd rather take the opinion of one single climatologist who believes in Intelligent Design, and is convinced that Global Warming can't be man-made because God wouldn't design a world that we're capable of destroying, over every single other climatologist, no matter what the data says. You've chosen your team, and you're gonna stick to it.

And you criticize other people's critical thinking skills. Try branching out a little. Try looking at data from other than just one source. If you really want to prove your own ability to think critically, start with a critical analysis of Spencer's data that appears to show he's wrong.

Actually, it's not the heat island effect. Both urban and rural areas show the same warming trend.

Problem being if YOU actually do pay attention to the sun, it's blindingly obvious that there has to be something else going on, in addition to the sun.

Reason being is that since the 1970's or so, solar output has been averaging flat-to-decreasing.
http://i.imgur.com/E2ijh.png
http://i.imgur.com/XbgJM.png

Meanwhile, if you look at the incoming sunlight, the outgoing heat, and the returning heat. It's pretty damned obvious to see that nearly all the increase in returning heat is in the wavelengths you'd expect CO2 and CH4 to block.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-advanced.htm

How much more obvious does it need to be?

__

(And incase your sunspot headlines are still stuck in the year 2009, here's what it's currently doing)
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/sunspot.gif

Clouds reflect sunlight, shading the land and sea, consequently decreasing temperature

If it were only that simple. Clouds can not only reflect sunlight back off the Earth but they can reflect or absorb the Outgoing Longwave Radiation that arises from the surface of the planet. At night that is the dominant effect of clouds. Also near the terminator between the light and dark sides of the planet they can reflect sunlight toward the surface. The net effects of clouds on global warming is currently thought to be slightly positive.

Your "model in words" is beyond simplistic

Of course it's simplified. I'm not writing a graduate level text on theory of climate change. I'm responding to a message on slashdot. So I just mentioned the dominant feedback. I didn't mention the positive feedback of ice loss or of methane release due to melting clathrates. And I didn't mention the negative feedback of cloud formation. I didn't, because those are minor effects.

In the end, these things are really complex

and therefore we don't know anything. The mating cry of the denialist.

There hasn't been a global temperature plateau. The thermal energy stored in the oceans keeps rising. The sea level keeps rising almost faster than predicted. The models have done a very good job of matching *the*degree*of*change*.

And, yes, changes in the sun are the number one factor in the climate of our planet.

See, things like this show that you are deliberately lying, and that you probably don't really believe any of what you are saying. Anyone who can use Google can find out that this is false. The sun is responsible for less than 10% of the temperature change since 1700.

Your "model in words" is beyond simplistic

Of course it's simplified. I'm not writing a graduate level text on theory of climate change. I'm responding to a message on slashdot. So I just mentioned the dominant feedback. I didn't mention the positive feedback of ice loss or of methane release due to melting clathrates. And I didn't mention the negative feedback of cloud formation. I didn't, because those are minor effects.

In the end, these things are really complex

and therefore we don't know anything. The mating cry of the denialist.

There hasn't been a global temperature plateau. The thermal energy stored in the oceans keeps rising. The sea level keeps rising almost faster than predicted. The models have done a very good job of matching *the*degree*of*change*.

And, yes, changes in the sun are the number one factor in the climate of our planet.

See, things like this show that you are deliberately lying, and that you probably don't really believe any of what you are saying. Anyone who can use Google can find out that this is false. The sun is responsible for less than 10% of the temperature change since 1700.

Your "model in words" is beyond simplistic

Of course it's simplified. I'm not writing a graduate level text on theory of climate change. I'm responding to a message on slashdot. So I just mentioned the dominant feedback. I didn't mention the positive feedback of ice loss or of methane release due to melting clathrates. And I didn't mention the negative feedback of cloud formation. I didn't, because those are minor effects.

In the end, these things are really complex

and therefore we don't know anything. The mating cry of the denialist.

There hasn't been a global temperature plateau. The thermal energy stored in the oceans keeps rising. The sea level keeps rising almost faster than predicted. The models have done a very good job of matching *the*degree*of*change*.

And, yes, changes in the sun are the number one factor in the climate of our planet.

See, things like this show that you are deliberately lying, and that you probably don't really believe any of what you are saying. Anyone who can use Google can find out that this is false. The sun is responsible for less than 10% of the temperature change since 1700.

No. It makes no sense at all. You've cherry-picked two values to generate the line you want. It's either stupidity or dishonesty, pick one.

To get accurate information you need to look at multi-year moving averages, otherwise the data can be easily drowned out by the noise. When you look at the moving averages, temperatures are clearly increasing.

since the effects of a half century long solar minimum would almost certainly be at least as devastating to civilization as global warming ...

But devastation of civilisation would lower the rate of fossil fuel consumption, or?

Actually I agree that it would be be a tragedy if we squandered any respite which gives us an opportunity massively to scale up hydro, nuclear, solar, wind &c, capacity, and we were dropped quickly into a much hotter climate. However that the likely effects of solar hibernation have been modelled and indications are that it is unlikely to produce a 50 year long little ice age. For which see the discussion of Feuler and Rahmsdorf at skeptical science.

You mean, aside from the fact that the last forty or fifty years we were in a grand maximum of solar activity, the highest seen on earth since the very beginning of the Holocene? And that, given the unknowns and the egregious speculation that has occurred in lieu of actual research concerning the feedback, this is a confounding factor that has been more or less completely ignored by the AGW zealots?

Completely ignored? So responses like the three explanations listed here, as well as all of the discussion in the comment section, is "completely ignoring" the issue? Or how about this article, featuring Stanford University "completely ignoring" the impact of solar activity. New Scientist also "completely ignored" solar activity in this article as well.

For something that the "AGW zealots" have "completely ignored", Google seems to find a hell of a lot of sources discussing how solar activity has some effect on global warming, but is not the primary cause.

I don't know if they considered this effect and that effect and this possibility, so I'll assume they didn't and all the science is crap and that what I want to be true is true, rather than checking it out and possibly finding out that what I want to be true isn't.

Trust me. Climate scientists are smarter than you give them credit for, and have considered all of those effects, and those possibilities, and have corrected for them, or have convinced themselves and the rest of the scientific community that they weren't causing current temperature changes. You aren't thinking of anything they haven't already considered.

I know that with all the denialist propoganda out there it's hard to find reliable information. http://skepticalscience.com/ is a good place to start. The wikipedia page on global warming is more reliable than most pages on global warming. And on either, feel free to follow back to the original source.

Hmmmm. You mean historical data like this? CO2 was 280 ppm 1000 years ago and is about 390 ppm now, I guess it's only 30% lower. If you go back 8000 years, it's 260 ppm, it's 35% lower. So you're right, I misspoke. I should have said "Humanity has increased CO2 levels by 40%" rather than "CO2 levels were 40% lower".

Current sea level measurements indicate that the worst case might be the best we can hope for.