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Is Scientific Consensus a Threat to Democracy?
chance_encounter writes "President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus has published an article in the Financial Times in which he seems to equate the current global warming debate with totalitarian thought control: 'The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced ... The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.' At the end of the article he proposes several suggestions to improve the global climate debate, including this point: 'Let us resist the politicization of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus," which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority.'"
Threat to democracy? No.
Threat to scientifically illiterate politicians? Maybe.
Consensus science isn't science, it's politics, and that's exactly what the Global Warming debate is about: politics
Well, it all comes down to opinion (which is open to having many sides) vs. fact (which only has one valid side). Is democracy more important than truth? Can truth be found without democratic and open inquiry?
In the end, isn't democracy little more than a means to the end of finding out what the best path to take is?
The threat of science to freedom is a classic theme of Feyerabend's, for example. I don't have anything to say better than what he does, so go read up. (For those of you too lazy to read actualy books, try this or this.)
Note that this does not mean "science is an evil that we must eradicate"; it means "science is not the panacea that its most ardent supporters would like us to believe."
Are you adequate?
Scientists listen to data, not what politicians/economists etc want.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
"They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence."
That is:
"You need to tell me if you have any political thoughts that I can turn into an ad hominem argument rather than discuss your data or your methods because I'm not a physicist and I can't follow the math."
Scientists say global warming is real and countries have to mandate reductions in CO2 emission because that's where the science points! If you have a better theory, submit it to a journal, but all other explanations have LOST in the market place of ideas, and only through willful ignorance do people continue to ignore the rigorous scientific methodology.
Oh, sorry, I was just channeling Chris Burke's bias-pandering populism for a second there.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Scientific Consensus is not a threat to democracy, selfishness and stupidity are. You can not ignore a problem [global warming] and vote that it "doesnt exist" and expect that it somehow has an effect on whether or not it exists. you can be democratic on the issue and claim we are not the cause but it is still going to do the damage regardless of your ideology.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I wonder if anyone ever demanded that Newton talk about his political leanings while publishing the laws of motion.
First off, we have to allow scientists to determine whether global warming is a problem, without political interference.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Of course science is under strict control. Of course it's undemocratic.
In a democratic society you are free to state that the world is flat. The people are free to elect someone who says the world is flat. In science you've actually got to prove that the world is flat. Does that mean you're "not free" in science to assert whatever you want as reality. Sure. Personally I like those restrictions. Without them we'd be back in the middle ages.
We don't elect reality. We discover it. Discovery requires that one thing is paramount: observation, and the unbiased interpretation of that observation. So, in essence you are restricted by reality because you want you perception (your model of reality) to conform with reality as much as possible. So you lose the freedom to say that reality is anything you damn well please.
I for one welcome our reality overlords.
No, it is about negative externalities. We don't want the rest of you fucking up a shared resource, projecting the cost of your actions onto us. Global warming is not about "consensus science," whatever the hell that is supposed to be. Is the theory of gravity "consensus science?" No. Will you be ridiculed for rejecting it? Probably, unless you come up with something better. The global warming deniers haven't come up with better science.
I'm sorry if all that hurts your feelings. Science doesn't care about your feelings. No matter how much you are personally inconvenienced by the truth, it is still true. The fact is, the rancor comes from the global warming deniers, in that type's typical projection of their own motivations onto others. The global warming believers are merely responding in kind.
No one gets anything out of believing in global warming. There are no huge grants. There would be scientific fame, and real world wealth beyond counting for anyone that could prove it wrong. Almost everyone would have to change their lifestyle, yet some of us still care more about justice and not making others pay for our actions.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Someone has a viewpoint you don't like and instead of debating him on the facts, you slander him.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I was very worried about AGW, but statements like, "neuremberg style trials for denialists" made me think something's not right. Add in character assasination, the way any "contrarian evidence" is assumed to be funded by oil companies, and debating tactics that throw the principle of falsifiability out of the window, made me distrust the whole damnded thing.
The science needs to be free to operate carefully and efficiently, regardless of whether it's finding evidence for or against AGW. The business of science is to discover the truth of the matter, regardless of whether that truth happens to agree with our beliefs and values.
I suspect that the notion of what "good science" is has changed subtly. Good science is science that finds the truth. But scientists who want to be good people, may come to believe that being a good person means creating science that "does good things", such as save the planet. If you want to save the planet because saving the planet is a good thing to do, then there may be a bias towards only studying subjects that offer an opportunity to become an important scientist who makes discoveries about dangers and remedies for the planet.
Good science is purely about the truth. What you do with that knowledge is a different affair altogether. Good science is simply being dispassionately interested in facts. It's not the scientist's job to be a good person. Just give us the facts. We, the people, will worry about the rest.
Politics and science are, so it seems, bumping considerably of late.
I'm speaking here as a scientist of several years experience (most of which I should state has been in the 'oh fuck I am never going to prove my hypothesis' catagory).
Scientists and politicians caan never see eye to eye. The simple reason for this, which I will explain over a couple of sentances, is that science requires evidence with is proveable by the current state of the art, in the full and contented knowledge that the state of the art can be disproved/advanced at any point. Politians do not live in the same world. Their opinions can and must change to reflect the mean (or is it modal?) view of that sector of the population which is most likely to votw for them.
This may sound as if I think they are not as good as scientists, but this is an erronious view. The role of the politician has evolved for over 2000 yeras, starting when the citizens of Athens firs decided that a singler point of faliure what a bit shit, and moving forward to the most mobile of all democracies, that of the United States. In all that time (in my opinion) the scientist has been following a different path to that of the scientist.
A scientist, with what may perhaps be superior knowledge in his domain may cry foul regarding some aspect of current policy. In response, the politician, who lacks the domain knowledge, but has superior knowledge of the political climate, and, one assumes in the general case, is subject to an external optimisation system (voting) that removes the candidates which differ by too much from the required state, either agrees or seeks to discredit the findings of the scientist.
This does, on the face of it, seem to be an insane system, but it has advantages.
Could scientists run the world? Fuck no, I know many, am one myself, and frankly I would run screaming from any mob that claimed this.
Fancy a ruler that would happily spend years persuing a single aspect of a problem? Cos I don't
The principle point is that the world can only work if the extremists, be they political, religious or scientific are not allowed to be in charge. I'm biased, I think that scientific extremism (which is more or less the default state, since specialisation is required), is not that bad, but my own logic requirs that I exclude myself from the set of people allowed to rule.
Actually, science currently points that the world is getting (slightly) warmer, and that CO2 levels have risen. These are not necessarily related. We have models and whatnot that show the world will continue to warm, but these are not evidence.
The point the writer of the article was trying to make is that environmentalists want us to spend billions of dollars doing things which may or may not have any impact on something which may or may not exist.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
The only reason anyone ever goes to the scientific consensus argument is because either (a) the person making the argument doesn't understand the science, or (b) the person being argued to doesn't understand the science. In the case of (a), that person typically is assuming that the scientific question is solved, and it's now time to address the complicated political questions. In the case of (b), how else do you try to convince someone incapable of (or unwilling to) understanding the science behind global warming? The strongest scientific critics you will find against global warming (Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen) argue that they're not sure if humans are the primary cause of global warming, but that they acknowledge that humans are a factor in global warming - and even these critics are a small minority of climate scientists.
There are lots of places that address the basic science behind global warming, but if you're unwilling to try to understand that basic science, then it makes more sense to accept the wisdom of the majority than the wisdom of the minority under the theory that sometimes the minority is right. (Sometimes they are, but that's the exception and not the rule.)
Heck, there's already been a shift in certain circles towards the next "stage" in avoiding responsibility for global warming. First, they denied the warming. Then, they denied that humans were responsible. Now, they've moved on to the coup de grâce: who's to say warmer won't be better?
(Oh, and this argument against scientific consensus could just as easily be made against evolution, general relativity, or even quantum mechanics. No, it's not a threat to democracy.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
That's the postmodernist claim anyway - science is just another narrative that is the result of it's context (male, western, capitalist, etc.) and it is no more valid than any other such narrative. Science is just an expression of the culture that spawned it.
Other belief systems (alternative medicine, for example) embrace this viewpoint. Science after all is based on inductive reasoning rather than rigorous proof of truth.
The concept of this article is that science must be relative to political necessity. This is in line with the view of science as just another narrative. The problem is that this has been a miserable failure whenever attempted - Lysenkoism, Creationism, etc. are sad examples of this, and it is fair to say that the correctness of a scientific theory can only be influenced by politics for a short period of time before the error is revealed.
Global warming seems to be a fact out to a ridiculous level of statistical certainty. Some effects are predictable to a high degree of certainty. The impact of human endeavors is less ceertain, BUT the potential consequences of ignoring that impact are astronomical. Any prudent person would act to avoid of those consequences.
When government leaders are resisting that action you know that these leaders are not serving their people, but rather other interests.
I think a huge problem with the climate change debate is people consistently conflate the existence and quantification of anthropogenic climate change with various non-scientific normative values. That is, for instance, the existence of AGW is automatically scientific proof that industrial society is evil and must be rolled back. Or the non-existence of AGW is automatically scientific proof that our activities are good and hence should be encouraged.
The existence of AGW says nothing to whether its good, bad, or indifferent. We attach certain values to facts (e.g. human interference with the climate is bad), but there is nothing scientific about these values questions. All science can tell us is what we're doing to the planet, and what the likely effects will be. It cannot tell us if this is "bad." It cannot tell us what we should do about it. At most, science can tell us whether certain interventions will do anything, and how much those interventions will cost. Deciding how much we're willing to pay, and what effects we're willing to accept is a matter of politics and ultimately a question of values. Unfortunately, because people insist on attaching the first kinds of questions (does AGW exist? what are the effects? what are the effects if we reduce CO2 by x%? etc) to the second set of questions (do we care? how much are we willing to spend to mitigate? how much change, such as displaced populations, degraded ecosystems, etc are we willing to accept? and so on), the debate is almost completely intractable. My biggest worry is that conservative and libertarian voices are ceding the battlefield by attacking the facts (and looking rather delusional in the process) instead of attacking the automatic attachment of certain values to those facts.
There are no climate scientists who take their cue from Al Gore. Just thought you should know. Al Gore is just reporting the science (and might occasionally get it wrong), he's not the one actually doing the science. It must be convenient to have an easy target now, though.
You know it's possible to accept the science behind global warming without having to like Al Gore. My father's done that, and I'm sure you can, too.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
> Why is it that we support people who try to disprove our most well established theories in physics?
Because whether or not a cherished theory in physics gets confirmed or flames out doesn't involve trillions of dollars, the rise and fall of political dynasties and the great political question of our times. Yes physics depts have politics too, but in the end they are all physics geeks. Global warming got caught up in so much larger political movements that it is no longer possible to say ANYTHING on the subject without it being perceived in mzany quarters as more of a political argument than a scientific one. Worse, politicians, journalists, authors and pundits now have careers riding on the question, not just scientists. Doubt many Senators have anything riding on the question of black holes being disproved or validated.
Democrat delenda est
Communism didn't work. Capitalism does. People are indeed motivated by selfishness. Any other view of the world ignores the true nature of humanity and it's ability to screw the other guy.
Yeah, there's climate change. No, i'm not going to do anything actively different about it. The earth will survive, and ultimately we'll find out that our activities had little or nothing to do with the current climate issues. Same as we had nothing to do with the cold snap that dominated the middle of the last century.
For all the frothing at the mouth about it, humanity is going to end up where it was going anyway. New energy sources were a foregone conclusion as early as 1950. It's taken this long to get things even close to economically competitive. The whinging and complaining about capitalism will come to nothing in the end, as it is the only system that is proven to work in real life.
And yes, the current crap is all politics. Idealists are being taken for a ride. Literally.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Why does it matter what Gore says? He's not a climatologist. I don't go to Gore for my science, and neither should you. Don't use him to point out any perceived fallacies in global warming. He's not a climatologist. I enjoyed his movie, and I thought it brought some much needed attention to the subject. Yes, he's not perfect, but you know what? He's not a climatologist.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
There bias can easily be found out when other scientists evaluate it.
So I can make some bias statement, but when someone else looks at the data, i will be called on my bias.
The scientific community has know for 100s of years a person will have a bias, and that can intentionally or unintentionally influence there conclusions.
Hence peer review.
After peer review, the paper is published and anybody can point out flaws in the data or conclusions.
For your scenario to be true, every scientist within' a given specialty would have to be in some grand conspiracy.
The scientific method works very well.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
On one hand, you have scientists paid to do research by the government and other public organizations, with no instructions on what they can and cannot publish. These scientists are not paid more if they find that global warming is anthropogenic than if they find that it's not. If you think otherwise, you're drinking the Crichton kool-aid, and are subscribing to the biggest conspiracy theory of them all.
On the other hand, you have scientists paid to do research (sometimes out of their field) by fossil-fuel companies who are not allowed to publish their data without first passing it through those doing the funding. Interestingly enough, these scientists don't find evidence that global warming is non-anthropogenic. No, they only seem to be able to show that it's not necessarily primarily anthropogenic. Two key terms there: "not necessarily" and "primarily". That is, they know that humans contribute to global warming, there's no way to interpret the science otherwise, even when being funded by fossil fuel companies. They also know that it's possible that humans are the primary contributors to global warming. However, if they do their research just right they find that there's not enough evidence to say that humans are definitely primary responsible. Of course, it's not to hard to find a lack of evidence.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Humans are "hardwired" for both altruism and selfishness, for rape and for courtesy, for monogamy and for promiscuity. What expressions these drives and instincts take is based on history, society and culture. "Selfishness" means something completely different in a nomadic livestock-herding society than it does in a pre-modern agricultural one, and both mean something very different in a modern, technological society in which you work for money which you spend on housing and manufactured goods.
Appeals to "human nature" fail when closely analyzed. We are all capable of acts of remarkable sacrifice and remarkable selfishness, and through various semantic games, we can interpret each through the lens of the other.
Also, describing a call for a worldwide regulatory system in response to climate change as "communism" is incorrect. "Capitalism" in modernity has, and has always had, an extensive governmental system to support it: to control borders (which keeps markets, especially labor markets, in place), to protect property, to print currency and enforce monetary and trade policy, and so forth. It is not as if there is currently a "Wild West"-like free market that policies against climate change is going to shut down: intelligent and responsive regulation is firmly established as a requirement for successful capitalism. (Just think what would happen if we didn't regulate, for example, the printing of currency.)
Or maybe we'd see nothing else.
You know what this guy sounds like? "Science is a threat"?
Sounds like a religious crusader to me. It's the exact same thing: "the majority must be right, nevermind that the experts who have spent years studying the subject specifically say the majority is wrong!"
Care about privacy? Read this!
His expertise in economics does not help the fact that in his first paragraph he expresses the warming in per cent, something completely meaningless. He is out of his depth on this.s -selling-solar.html
--
Rent solar power and fix your electric rate for up to 25 years: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
The largest threat to democracy is the promulgation of lies and falsehoods.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Actually I'm a liberal, and I'm afraid that climate is always changing and always will. Efforts to try to modify the Earth's climate are as futile as King Canute's edict on tidal erosion.
I think the best strategy is not trying to stabilize the unstabilizable, but on adaptation and lifting people out of poverty that makes them less susceptible to climate change one way or the other. But climate change will happen because we live on a dynamic world.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
The majority of posters here have missed the point made by President Klaus of the Czech Republic. Even the title of the initial post is misleading, basically pitting the term "Scientific Consensus" against democracy. But this was only one point brought up by Klaus and was really just rephrasing the old line "the squeaky wheel gets the grease".
What is startling is how defensive anthropogenic global warming believers (many of whom apparently frequent slashdot) get when anything is said or written which might provide logical evidence contrary to their belief system. It truly does have the look and feel of religion when you begin to rely more on faith than facts, and actually attempt to stifle free speech and debate on the subject. How many times have you heard something like "the debate is over, let's do something about it"? Who has the right to say that the debate is over? Does the UN IPCC have this right? And if so, who gave the UN the right?
This talk and behavior leads to a totalitarian mindset which does threaten freedom and democracy. And that was the main point of Klaus' article.
If reality were relative, truth would be false.
Global Warming Increases Wind Shear, Reduces Hurricanes, Climate Model Shows
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
There's a very simple way to weed out bias in this debate - ask: "Do we need to take extensive action against anthropogenic climate change?" and "Do we need to take extensive action against natural climate change?" If there is a difference between the two answers the person has an agenda beyond the climate. We should not expend trillions of dollars in averting anthropogenic climate effects only to see that investment wiped out by natural events - as is very likely within the multi-hundred year time frame needed for climate control measures to pay for themselves. Fighting only human-caused effects is simply misanthropic self-flagellation.
All evidence?? No other theories?? Really...
I have recently read a report that the energy output of the sun has risen recently and is the highest it has ever been. The source of that report is at least as credible to me as any that have put forth arguments for global warming. I have also ferreted out as many facts, numbers and theories denying global warming as I have seen thrust upon me by the media as are in favor of. Should I now just ignore the possibility that any delta in Earth's temperature is quite possibly the Sun's faults and not mankind's (If such a delta exists)? Yes, I guess that would be convenient for you. Maybe all the evidence *that you are aware of* points to a single conclusion. I on the other hand, like the original poster implies, would like to keep an open-mind about it and resist exactly the sort of political dominance of a unproven theory that you have succumb to.
This is certainly not a scientifically proven theory yet. The results are varied, the cause is not yet known, it cannot be repeated in the lab and predictive models do not appear accurate enough to base decisions about action on. But it sounds great: "Feed the babies", "Save the whales", "Protect the planet" that it has become the mantra of many politicians and political organizations because it is so easy to apply it like a club. What you don't want to feed babies? you MUST be evil and therefore I'm good and right. And their followers grow because nobody wants to be singled out.
What I hate the most about it is the extremism that cultures are taking on this. They are acting and spending vast resources without any proof that it will achieve the desired results. We've got a whole bag of known problems that could achieve a greater benefit at a far cheaper cost. But they're actual science or work so they're boring. Cure diabetes... (we're actually quite close, but because we have an effective treatment nobody listens or cares and so my friend gets to wear a mechanical insuline pump for the rest of his life). Why not address the civil rights atrocities occurring in many places? How about just literacy... 14% of US Americans aren't literate. Think about that, that's 1 out of every 7 people. Alzheimer's disease? Corporate corruption? How about fixing the medicare or social security system?
See all of that is hard, and boring. Impossible to rally people together to support you. But politicians can use "Global Warming" like an idiot beacon so that you'll ignore the other failures and actually believe that good things are being accomplished; when in fact we're just wasting resources.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
b) Tuvalu's problems are entirely caused not by rising sea-levels (because there isn't any) but by overpopulation and overextraction of water making the wells become brackish. The Tuvalu embassador never said the sea levels had risen. Instead he noted that the ocean was warmer, and this, he believed, was part of the reason their coral was dying (probably a factor though it may not be the primary one). More importantly he noted that warmer ocean temperatures mean more severe weather (most climatologists seem to agree with this) and severe weather can be very destructive to an island that's only 4m above sea level. Here's what the scientists say:
"The historical record from 1978 through 1999 indicated a sea level rise of 0.07 mm per year." and
"The historical record (from Tuvalu) shows no visual evidence of any acceleration in sea level trends."
So the sea-level rise is just barely measureable and shows no acceleration due to global warming, man-made or otherwise. Your link was broke but the points you mentioned miss the mark on two points. First I couldn't see anywhere where the Tuvlu embassador was talking about significant rises in the sea level, most of his worry was about the severe weather from warmer oceans.
More importantly those historical stats sidestep the fact that the sea level rise that people worry about comes from land based ice caps (like the one on Greenland) sliding into the ocean. Something that hasn't really happened yet so there wouldn't be any reason for the sea levels to have already risen.
Your argument there is a bit like standing on the deck of the Titanic just before it hit the iceburg and arguing that everyone is safe as the hull is still completely intact.
I stole this Sig
There is the spot-on proper response to this load of crap. I have nothing against the folks who want to offer opposition on the climate issue from the front that it may not be mankind's fault (the Michael Chrichton -- please don't hit me for mentioning him). But, to simply declare the scientific consensus automatically to be a loud minority is fallacy at best and lunacy at worst.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. Ones standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to." -- Theodore Dalrymple
Political correctness is evil. It is the enemy of good, the enemy of truth, the enemy of intellecutal freedom and therefore the enemy of political freedom. That which is politically free can not be politically correct. Those who espose and promote it are the servants of evil and should be treated accordingly.
My mind is a PC-free zone.
I refuse to accept lies.
My conscience is a PC-free zone.
I refuse to live with lies.
My sphere of influence is a PC-free zone.
I refuse to permit lies in my presence.
My life is a PC-free zone.
I keep the light of intellectual honesty burning.
I hold off the darkness of ignorance and deceit.
Our world is a better place because I do this.
Can you say the same?
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
From Papal Indulgences to Carbon Credits
Is Global Warming a Sin?
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
In a couple of hundred years, historians will be comparing the frenzies over our supposed human contribution to global warming to the tumults at the latter end of the tenth century as the Christian millennium approached. Then, as now, the doomsters identified human sinfulness as the propulsive factor in the planet's rapid downward slide.
Then as now, a buoyant market throve on fear. The Roman Catholic Church was a bank whose capital was secured by the infinite mercy of Christ, Mary and the Saints, and so the Pope could sell indulgences, like checks. The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and could go on sinning. Today a world market in "carbon credits" is in formation. Those whose "carbon footprint" is small can sell their surplus carbon credits to others, less virtuous than themselves.
The modern trade is as fantastical as the medieval one. There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend. The greenhouse fearmongers rely entirely on unverified, crudely oversimplified computer models to finger mankind's sinful contribution. Devoid of any sustaining scientific basis, carbon trafficking is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism and greed, just like the old indulgences, though at least the latter produced beautiful monuments. By the sixteenth century, long after the world had sailed safely through the end of the first millennium, Pope Leo X financed the reconstruction of St. Peter's Basilica by offering a "plenary" indulgence, guaranteed to release a soul from purgatory.
Now imagine two lines on a piece of graph paper. The first rises to a crest, then slopes sharply down, then levels off and rises slowly once more. The other has no undulations. It rises in a smooth, slowly increasing arc. The first, wavy line is the worldwide CO2 tonnage produced by humans burning coal, oil and natural gas. On this graph it starts in 1928, at 1.1 gigatons (i.e. 1.1 billion metric tons). It peaks in 1929 at 1.17 gigatons. The world, led by its mightiest power, the USA, plummets into the Great Depression, and by 1932 human CO2 production has fallen to 0.88 gigatons a year, a 30 per cent drop. Hard times drove a tougher bargain than all the counsels of Al Gore or the jeremiads of the IPCC (Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change). Then, in 1933 it began to climb slowly again, up to 0.9 gigatons.
And the other line, the one ascending so evenly? That's the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, parts per million (ppm) by volume, moving in 1928 from just under 306, hitting 306 in 1929, to 307 in 1932 and on up. Boom and bust, the line heads up steadily. These days it's at 380.There are, to be sure, seasonal variations in CO2, as measured since 1958 by the instruments on Mauna Loa, Hawai'i. (Pre-1958 measurements are of air bubbles trapped in glacial ice.) Summer and winter vary steadily by about 5 ppm, reflecting photosynthesis cycles. The two lines on that graph proclaim that a whopping 30 per cent cut in man-made CO2 emissions didn't even cause a 1 ppm drop in the atmosphere's CO2. Thus it is impossible to assert that the increase in atmospheric CO2 stems from human burning of fossil fuels.
I met Dr. Martin Hertzberg, the man who drew that graph and those conclusions, on a Nation cruise back in 2001. He remarked that while he shared many of the Nation's editorial positions, he approved of my reservations on the issue of supposed human contributions to global warming, as outlined in columns I wrote at that time. Hertzberg was a meteorologist for three years in the U.S. Navy, an occupation which gave him a lifelong mistrust of climate modeling. Trained in chemistry and physics, a combustion research scientist for most of his career, he's retired now in Copper Mountain, Colorado, still consulting from time to time.
Not so long ago, Hertzberg sent me some of his recent papers on
An excelent article, if you bother to go to where you find what the man actually said.
When active ridicule and suppression are used as the tools of 'concensus' you don't have real science. that is a good summary of global warming today. And that is the Authors problem with the Global Warming movement. It isn't science, it is a political power grab. A propoganda machine that has produced lots of really scary predictions, none of which have proven true. Like any propoganda machine, the failure of these predictions means only that more and scarier predictions are made. Never any admission of error.
The Author is not a scientist, he is a politician with a lot of experience dealing with totalitarian dictatorships and wanna be's. This is an area on which he is a real expert. He is talking here about the politics, not the Science. The things he says make sense. That means that he will be reviled by the liberal college kids who usually post on Slashdot.
Does anyone here remember the Dutch statistician who analysed the data selection for global warming 5 or 6 years ago, intending to prove that it was rigorous and accurate, and ended up proving it was mostly hoax. He published a book around 700 pages detailing what he found, and how he got the results he did. The climate groups loved to hate him for about 2 years, then ignored it. He was actually a global warming believer. All he really wanted to do was get them to fix the data problem. They never did. Their problem was he documented everything and used the same algorithms used to identify hoaxes in other areas of Science.
The poster above who said that in 25 years this whole Global Warming thing will be pointed to as THE classic example of 'junk science' may be right. It beats out pyrimid power, crystal power, magnetic medicine, maybe even UFO's ESP and Creation Science.
Lots of emotion, evidence that requires a lot of adjustment to get favorable results, pushed by
'scientists' whose jobs and incomes depend on reaching the predetermined conclusion, sharply devisive, never a real prediction that can be tested, no wonder Al Gore loves it.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
... don't exist today. The reality of this is rather obvious, because if they did exist, the change required to stunt the progression of global warming would have already happened. The scientists are still trying to convince everyone, and they're just being ignored. I didn't know telling people THE TRUTH or at least - perceived truth - is totalitarian. It's our politicians, who are backed by giant industries that create this pollution, and consistently stop any project that would help individuals alleviate this problem (the electric car), that are the totalitarians. The scientific community has been telling them this over and over and over again, and yet nothing is fucking done about it. They just sit on their hands, and keep making excuses because there are some problems in the current hypothesis, yet the marked increase in global temperature is quite evident from the beginning of the industrial revolution.
When an business dumps toxic chemicals into a river, where people get their water supply, but also work at this same business, and are making lots of money, no one cares until someone gets awfully sick or dies. They just don't see the problem until it personally effects them. By that point it's too late, the damage has been done, the community is poisoned, cancer rates increase, etc etc
Do we really want to let the same thing happen to the whole planet? People need to take a fucking chance that the people who specialize in this field are correct, and let them do their job, instead of wanting to nail them to a fucking cross. These scientists have been sticking their necks out for a long time trying to get their point across. Maybe these scientists should be looking into the weapons industry for future employment, people with guns and bombs are not ignored. Then the totalitarian labels would be fair at least.
I love how Michael Crichton holds all sorts of credibility, just cause he wrote a FICTIONAL novel that challenges global warming. If he wanted to be held as a bastion of truth and justice, he would have wrote a book about global warming. Too bad most people don't have the patience to learn years of climatology and physics, just so they can understand a book. They might as well just flip to the last chapter, and read the conclusion - because they'll be all proud anyway they read a book that told them what to think. The same goes for Al Gore's movie.