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The Limits To Skepticism
jamie found a long and painstaking piece up at The Economist asking and provisionally answering the question: "Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong?" The author, who is not named, spent several hours picking apart the arguments of one Willis Eschenbach, AGW denialist, who on Dec. 8 published what he called the "smoking gun" — it was supposed to prove that the adjustments climate scientists make to historical temperature records are arbitrary to the point of intentional manipulation. The conclusion: "[H]ere's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand. So for the time being, my response to any and all further 'smoking gun' claims begins with: show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here. Otherwise, you're a crank and this is not a story. And then I'll probably go ahead and try to investigate the claim and write a blog post about it, because that's my job. Oh, and by the way: October was the hottest month on record in Darwin, Australia."
I am very sceptical with regards to a "not named" author claims... ;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here
Of course, on of the issues revealed is that they were preventing dissenting opinions from being accepted in peer reviewed journals...
You can prove anything when you're allowed to select the peers reviewing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/sticky-for-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
For some reason I don't think going, "Lalalalalala, I can't hear you" instead of refuting the points they bring up is going to engender somebody to change their viewpoint, rather the opposite. If somebody is already believing there is a cover-up this is about the only thing you could do, besides admit it, that reinforces that idea.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
...to link to Willis Eschenbach's response in the summary. It appears that The Economist didn't even bother to contact Eschenbach before publishing this article by an apparently unnamed author. That isn't exactly what I would consider high-quality journalism.
I'm not popular enough to be different.
Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
I beg all of you to please see this TED Talk before modding me down again. Ive been labelled heretic for posting on related stories in the last couple of weeks, actually modded insightful until the thought police arrived and modded me troll.
The weather exhibits chaotic behavior and to find precisely one single cause for variation is futile, like CO2 emissions from human activities.
The hottest day on record! screams the summary. Er, well since 1941. Well and good, how do you know the hottest day last century in Australia didn't happen in 1940?
The Earth has been getting warmer since about 10,000 years ago. Truth. AGW doesn't explain that. But it does follow that the Earth was getting warmer while we humans still lived in caves and were probably numbered in the thousands, not in millions of people. No, we are told. AGW is about the speeding up of warming. Really? We know for sure what the speed of variation would be without humans around? Let us not confuse premises with facts.
The variables are many and not one of them is well understood: ocean currents, atmospheric currents, solar radiation (insolation), the effect of the strength of the Van Allen belt, volcanic eruptions, etc. No weather model can correctly predict past, known, climate; how can one believe that the future predictions are correct?
We need a more open discussion and a lot less cries of burn the heretics. We are talking about science, not religion.
BTW, if anyone knows of a climate model that correctly predicts past, known weather, please post a link.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
A little history. Darwin was bombed and mostly flattened in 1941 by the Japanese during WWII. And, most likely, the weather station with it.
Hence, it was probably re-built at a different site with different local effects.
Next?
we are in serious trouble if someone can't question manual manipulation of dataset's which are the basis of spending trillions of dollars of tax payers money on carbon trading. it's even more disturbing is the fact they get labels such as "denialist" - if you are incapable of leaving the emotional responses at the door, then you aren't fit to be argueing the science.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
They've been keeping records for what, 150-200 years? That's a lot by our puny standards, but not in geological times.
And when you say, "tree rings!", I ask, "How precise are they?" A cool but sunny summer, or hot but dusty/cloudy/smoky summer could produce anomalous results.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Because it's a waste of time, that's why. Offering evidence to a denialist ostrich
Not every climate skeptic is a denialist ostrich. Many of us can be converted with patience, lucidity and openness.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Yes, but you're not trying to convert them, as you said it wont happen. What you're doing is trying to convince the people on the fence. They see, somebody laying out refuting the points of the AGW crowd, which then responds with basically "U STUPID", that isn't going to gain any more fans.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
If the dissenters are morons who don't understand it, what does that make the believers? Blind-faith followers? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Denialist ostriches aren't disagreeing because they have a qualitative or quantitative argument to the contrary, because their objections are based on ideology, not science.
The hard part is differentiating between the ideologues and the merely vociferous. Refusing to consider anything that has not been peer-reviewed is an ideology all of its own. Ultimately it comes down to a judgment call for anyone who is less than a perfect expert in the field. Although I am a big fan of applying the little boy who cried wolf criteria - the more unsupported claims someone makes, the less weight their opinion should carry. Of course that requires investigating prior claims which is generally more work than most press-release reporters are willing to do.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
From where I sit, it's the people putting arbitrary "corrections" into the programs to make them come out the way they want and refusing to accept any articles that don't toe the party line into their "peer reviewed journals" who look like religious zealots, and the soi-disant "deniers" are the ones who are trying to do things in a proper scientific manner. Remember, boys and girls, if the facts don't support your theory, a scientist changes the theory, while an activist conceals the inconvenient facts.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
No, "they" are ridiculed because of the absence of anything approximating proof of the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming.
If there were proof there wouldn't be any need for ridicule but the absence of proof elevates the value of ridicule from mere fun to pivotal.
Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Most of the anti-AGW crowd is simply doing armchair, a-priori reasoning behind why AGW is false. "Humans are too puny to have an effect!" they say, or "The climate has changed drastically fast even without humanity being around!" Often there are political reasons for holding this position--certain arguments on how to deal with GW are certainly political in nature, and may come into conflict with one's own dogma, and thus psychologically one may be predisposed to oppose GW on that basis.
HOWEVER, that does not mean that some people that argue for AGW do not fit into the same shoes. Remember, just because you are "correct" does not mean your reasoning is. Naturally, someone that hates big business and "the man" may also psychologically have a reason to believe in AGW--another reason to rage on about the status quo.
If I was a betting man I'd bet for AGW, but really I know the science behind it is quite complicated and I know I'm nowhere near competent to make a good, solid argument on the matter, so I must approach the issue with a tempered agnosticism while leaning a bit towards the AGW side because that's the verdict by a vast majority of hard-working PhDs, and I highly doubt that climatologists consist of some dark, left-wing communist sect of economy-destroying conspirators. That is what true skepticism is, noncommitance (particularly emotionally) to a position particularly when you are not an expert on it. Many on both sides of the GW debate are not skeptics but reactionaries with their thought ruled by political underpinnings. Most of the people I know that rant about how AGW is a fraud no absolutely nothing about the mechanisms scientists go about acquiring the data on past climate conditions.
It really does weaken the position of those who support the AGW theory. Why? Because it is name calling and over simplification. Pretending that everyone who doesn't agree with you is simply in denial of what is happening and then making up a cute little label is not the sort of thing that speaks to a rational debate. It is the kind of thing a con man would do, and thus makes people wonder, why would you use those tactics?
So as a start, you have to understand that there are some major differences in terms of what people believe who are skeptical of the AGW thing. These are just some examples:
1) There are people who believe the whole thing is a crock, there is no warming, it is all made up, etc, etc. These are the only people who could be called in denial, by any stretch of the imagination.
2) There are people who believe that there has been a warming trend recently, however the trend is entirely natural. It is right in line with the kind of trends seen historically, and thus there is no cause to believe this is anything but a natural occurrence. They are skeptical that humans are contributing in any significant fashion.
3) There are people who believe that there is warming, and indeed man is contributing to it, but that the result will not be problematic, and perhaps beneficial. They do not accept the conclusion that the warming will lead to catastrophe, even though they do accept that humans are at least partly causing it. They are skeptical that a warmer Earth will be bad for humans.
4) There are people who believe that people are causing the warming, and that it will lead to worse conditions, but that it would be even worse to attempt to stop it. They believe that the money spent on trying to stop such a thing could be better spent on other things to improve human life. The sort of thing that while warming might cause X additional deaths per year, spending money on that instead of other things would lead to 5X additional deaths per year. They are skeptical that the proposed solutions are the best.
5) There are people who believe that people are causing the arming and that it needs to be stopped, but that reducing output won't do that. We need a different solution like geoengineering or something. Reducing CO2 output wouldn't help, at least not enough to matter, so we've got to find another solution. They are skeptical that the proposed solutions would do anything.
6) There are people who believe that people are causing the warming, and that it will be bad, but there is fuck-all we can do about it. We are too far along, shit is going to happen anyhow, so we might as well apply our energies and money to surviving the change, not to trying to prevent it, since that it impossible. They are skeptical anything can be done at all, other than to try and survive the change.
So a big part of the problem with trying to frame everyone as a "denialist" is the simplification of the argument, to try and say "Oh they all just ignore everything that is said." No, in fact, many don't. They simply come to a different conclusion. Also they may well find enough evidence to sustain part of the argument, but not all of it. You find people who say "Sure, I'll buy the world is getting warmer. We've got pretty good instrumental data on that. However I'm not so sure about CO2 being the cause. The data on that is more shaky. Either way I'm really skeptical that a warmer Earth will be a bad thing, there's essentially no data to support that." They aren't just saying "La la la, I can't hear you!" They are just not convinced by all the arguments.
Well, when you simply dismiss them as a "denialist" and act as though they are a moron, that does nothing to convert them. In fact, it may do the opposite. They say "Hmmm, this is the kind of thing con men do. When someone questions them, they just attack and shout down their questioner. They are afraid of scrutiny. They want you to accept what they say, unquestioningly. Why are AGW proponents acting like this? Could they be con men?"
So seriously, knock it off with the label. You are doing nothing to help.
none, not one of these people has been able to reliably prove that humans have anything to do with climate change.
And why would that matter? If we believe the climate will change to reduce our living space thorough riding sea levels then we should do something about that, regardless of the root cause.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
No, we don't:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/ice-bubbles-reveal-biggest-rise-in-co2-for-800000-years-414711.html
Dilbert RSS feed
Oh, please, you liberal god-hating scumbag, Obama has yet to provide proof that his birth certificate is not a clever hologram. Until then, I'll just continue believing he was born in Indonesia/Kenya.
Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand.
Aye, there's the rub...
I think the author is overlooking two simple facts: not everyone with a website is an "average guy", and that there are more than a few people in the world who are capable of understanding advanced mathematics and statistical methods who don't have the related PhD that apparently enables one to do so.
Now, you can choose to rely on the opinions of scientists to form your opinions, and often that is enough, but if you really want to be sure of any particular topic, you should investigate it yourself. It might take a lot of work, but you will be rewarded with knowledge.
That said, global warming isn't all that inaccessible. If you have a basic background in math and physics, you can get close to the cutting edge just by reading the IPCC report since its such a great summary of the field. I guarantee you will quadruple your understanding of the topic just by reading that alone, and it will give you a good launching point to dig deeper, because everything it talks about is directly referenced to real peer reviewed papers.
Some interesting things I found reading the IPCC report:
Every self-respecting geek who is willing to opine on the subject of global warming should read that report. Otherwise they are leaving themselves uninformed.
Qxe4
So, what about NASA's climate data? What about NOAA's climate data?
Oh, but those weren't "debunked" so we're just going to conveniently ignore it. You cannot pick and choose what datasets you're going to side with. You have to either accept them all or debunk them all.
I'm waiting...
No, "they" are ridiculed because of the absence of anything approximating proof of the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming.
...the absence of proof elevates the value of ridicule from mere fun to pivotal.
Except the absence you assert exists, does not, in fact, exist. There is a total absence of the "absence of anything approximating proof of the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming".
Since you have proven nothing by your silly assertions it is pivotal that I call you a goofball.
All what original data?
You can't mean all data behind the climate models, because some huge faction of it is still available. You must be referring to the small subset of it that was deleted before Climate Change became recognized as the important issue it is.
Heck, a lot of the Original Data behind such famous theories as gravity and a round earth was deleted, too. That has no bearing on the fact that those theories were proven true. Exact same thing with human-caused climate change.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Sure, and all biologists should spend time repeating the same arguments proving that earth is over 6000 years old instead of doing science.
No matter what is said and done, denialists will deny, it's a genetic disorder, nothing can be done about it.
Why was this modded flamebait? The scientific community is still a human institution, and thus vulnerable to the various human weaknesses. My concern is not with the science behind climate change research, it is with the politicising and extremist ideological behaviour on _both_ sides. To me, this is the issue with these emails. I know the political bullshit goes on, but it worries me when bullshit looks as though it may be influencing the scientific process. A rationalistic approach is the only hope we have for determining the actual reality of climate change, and so I don't like to see "delete that data", or "hide that trend". I don't care if the scientists in question believe they need to do this for the "greater good". I want my science to be science.
The "birthers" would say the same of themselves. Most irrational people don't think of themselves as irrational, of course that's just another example of them being unable to face reality.
Some of them are different, but when I come across them... let's just say I'm skeptical.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I have. It's not very convincing. In fact, based on your dogmatic certainty, I suspect it is YOU who has not read the research carefully.
When you get done, you will realize: everyone knows that CO2 makes the earth warmer because of the greenhouse effect. Not everyone acknowledges that there will be catastrophic effects if we don't limit CO2 output. In fact, depending on how we limit CO2 output, it is not even certain that the effects of the limitation won't be worse than doing nothing at all. Certainly the opportunity cost is worth taking into consideration.
Qxe4
#1. Some of the data was deleted (obviously, it has been mentioned many times).
#2. Some of the data was contractually banned from being shared (the Met is working on getting this fixed, sent requests to 180 counties).
Secret and deleted data is NOT a good basis for anything, and the Met agrees, and wants to redo it transparently over the next three years.
I hope the Met gets permission to do that, I would love some really transparent / open process work around this.
I was shocked when I found out that stuff based on "secret" or unpublishable data, or deleted data was allowed to be written up in a peer reviewed journal. How the hell do you review something you can't see the data to?
While this is a 'pressing' issue in the west, and they there is a strong bias for action, screwing it up and having bad science will have a huge impact on how it is viewed by India and China in the future... it is worth doing it all in a hyper-transparent and straightforward way.
Particularly when we can't promise that the nations that compete with us on the global stage (*cough* China *cough*) will do the same.
I work for a global mining giant, so I really can't be considered a tree hugger, but China is starting to kick our ass on green technology. Maybe it is inevitable, but I really believe that if we implement some of the policies sooner rather than later - and we know they're coming - that we will be at least as competitive if not the leader in these things. I really love this country (the US). Damn, the better it does the better me and my children do.!
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
The author is a skeptic only as long as their skepticism and logic leads to conclusions that match the authors personal beliefs. As soon as it doesn't, well lets put a damper on critical thinking. Mmkay?
>
I would love to see the US become a leader in green technology. I'm not convinced that the best way to accomplish that is to impose new taxes that dramatically raise the cost of living for American citizens while increasing the size and scope of government. I don't see how you build a green economy by gutting the current one and diverting much needed capital into Uncle Sam's coffers.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
...the burning of gasoline produces carbon dioxide....
Indeed it does, but where was all this carbon dioxide, before it became fossil fuel? Was not the carbon from every bit of fossil fuel and coal that has already been burned and that is still underground in the atmosphere once upon a time? The earth was a lot warmer then, but that seems to be good, because living things not only survived, but thrived. Aside from the unproven theory that the ocean levels would be significantly higher, why would a warmer Earth be bad?
Why don't you stick to science, rather than bringing religion or politics into the discussion? The pilfered e-mails show that these supposedly neutral scientists have a political agenda. That is why they labeled it a "travesty" that the data doesn't support their socialistic political agenda.
All theory is gray
But you do realize there clearly ISN'T proof of the hypothesis? Do you realize that there clearly was malfeasance? Several times in fact. IPCC released it's spreadsheet of the data only to be hosed by the fact that it deliberately tossed out the Medieval Warm period?
Even so, simple historical knowledge should convince you AGW can't be true. Greenland used to be GREEN with vegetation. It is presently covered in ice. What does that tell you? England, during the Roman Empire, was a major exporter of WINE.
Even so, KNOWN data from other fields, like ice cores, shows conclusively that CO2 is rising AFTER the temps.
If like me, you did satellite stuff, you KNOW that CO2 represents a miniscule IR component. It's water vapor (and thus clouds) that are much more important.
And last but not least, just a microscopic percentage change in the output of the sun will warm the Earth, as will precession and nutation of the Earth/Earth orbit will.
So you judge information based on who told you rather than what they told you?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
That was once the rallying cry of the AGW "consensus" -- that skeptics didn't publish in peer reviewed journals. The skeptics, however, managed to do so. The response of the "consensus"? As seen in the leaked emails, they attempted to prevent the studies from being published and to boycott the journals which published them. So enough about the "peer review" stuff. Number one, it's been done. And number two, it's quite disingenuous to demand peer reviewed articles while working behind the scenes to prevent them from being published.
1. I'm from Darwin. It's a lovely town to live in -- relaxed, beautiful and friendly (though on the downside there's a housing crisis now). It's always great to see the homestead up in lights. I miss living there.
2. Adjustment is a fine thing but of course subjective. I'd be interested in seeing the average adjustment across all data points. If the law of averages holds -- ie if there really is correction for effectively randomised local conditions -- then the worldwide average correction should be close to zero. I don't think that's too much to ask, is it?
3. A worldwide emissions trading scheme will create an estimated $3 trillion market. That's hammer-of-god money. It scares me, personally. Carbon taxes have the same effect in economic terms, with fewer places for fiddles to hide. It's also easier to offset carbon taxes with income tax cuts.
Until recently I've been pretty much convinced of human global warming. Now I'm beginning to wonder. I'm not a skeptic / denialist / seal-murderer per se, but the current round of stuff is ... unsettling.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
Except, the burden of proof is not on the skeptics. It is on those who wish to prove the exception to the rule is, indeed, the rule. If you want people to believe in global warming's existence, you've got to prove it, irrefutably.
Considering the history of climate prediction (lies, 180 degree inaccuracy, etc.), anyone trying to do that has a hard job ahead of them. We've been hearing "we're 10 years from total annihilation due to our abuse of the planet" since my parents were in grade school, and I've got kids of grade school age now, myself. Climatic temperatures were supposed to be 20 degrees hotter now than they are and agriculture will shortly become unsustainable for the population's feeding, according to what I remember being 'taught' when I was in grade school.
That's a lot to fight against. Generations of people are tired of the propagandized rhetoric and general bullshit.
If you want people to believe you - intelligent, discerning, capable people - the first thing you have to do is not treat them like idiots. That's something the climate change community (if there is one) needs to get right. The second thing they should concentrate on is not appealing to emotion (alarmist dramatization and unqualified exaggeration) but to intellect. (Look how far it's gotten the theory of evolution.)
Another big issue which is getting in the way of people "believing" in climate change/global warming/global cooling/global atmospheric sequestering/whatever is that they're concerned about the political and economic implications of anything pushed down from governments, on account of the climate change fear mongering. Anyone who (here in the US) has had to deal extensively with the EPA knows what I'm talking about. The government doesn't tend to fix the problem at hand, they just make business-as-usual more expensive. Trade embargoes on Chinese tires? Great, tires just got more expensive. Tax fuel so people drive less? Great, you just made maintaining one's lifestyle more expensive. (And, in many, many cases, just ruined the livelihood of many others - never mind lifestyle.)
What I am personally concerned about is the reactionary uh anacrophytes - people who seem terrified of old things. They're trying to push new, (scientifically) untried, short-term, ecologically destructive, and largely infeasible technologies such as ethanol, battery-powered automobiles, wind turbines, et cetera. Yes, there is value in expanding these technologies, increasing their efficiency, and so on. But these anachrophytes are vicious in their pursuits, and want regulations, new laws, and the like which will drastically and destructively change the economic landscape. These are the kinds of people who blather on about the "smog" that diesel engines put out, how they maintain our energy dependence - why they aren't a viable alternative to gas - yet they push things like lithium based batteries as "green". Which planet are they on?
And now we've got this environmental summit which, optimistically, will push forth changes that will cut down on emissions/etc. Realistically, it will be another splint on the otherwise healthy leg of the US and Western countries, allowing for China and the rest of Greater India, and the third world to push closer to us - economically and militarily.
In the best of times, such "optimistic" regulations are mildly disruptive and inconvenient to a society - at best. But these aren't the best of times; these are pretty tough times for everyone, globally. So even in a best-case scenario, we're looking at what might be generally termed, a bad idea. Struggling economies aren't terribly good at ecological preservation: they'll burn waste oil for heat, dump shit in streams, and so on. Damaging an economy for the pursuit of reducing CO2 output is ass-backwards if one has any perspective on how economies work.
So yeah, prove me wrong. The ball is in your court, but you're a long way behind in the game due to decades of slacking/misbehavior.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
At this point, the East Anglia issues that have any actual evidence are twofold. Out of hundreds of thousands of e-mails, a very few seem to show signs of a couple of scientists wanting to make some data that has odd properties fit the rest of their data. The second issue is actually the bigger one - how can it be science if data is privileged and so not necessarily available to anyone else wishing to double check the original experiments. The problem of unverifiable sources is actually the bigger issue, IMHO.
But the data problem itself is not unusual for science - people doing real science in perfectly legitimate ways sometimes have to make judgement calls about how much weight to give different data, and peer review and other methods sometimes involve meta-judgements about those.
A legitimate example would be where there were, say, four studies that all included at least 100 cases or more in their sample size, and a fifth study that had a much smaller size, say 13 cases. There is more than one means of statistically weighting that fifth study so it can be included but not given as much significance as the others, and the question of which methods to use is not always clear. I'd argue that since the first e-mail to draw attention was about some tree ring data that gave pretty good predictions up to the early 1960's, but that didn't predict the actual observed numbers very well post 1960, and they had other tree ring data from multiple areas that kept on giving good predictions up to the latest samples (about 1999), they had a similar problem. High altitude or latitude tree samples are certainly a smaller database than those for more common regions, as well. So, the data that didn't match well with everything else and didn't predict now established observations very well either seemed to also come from a special case database in other ways.
Yes, it shows that scientific integrity isn't always happening at every possible level. I don't think the researchers in question looked hard enough at how to treat the data fairly - they probably saw it as flawed enough that it simply couldn't be relied on, and wanted to have no part of it. Since the data had some useful predictive value for pre-1960 records, it was really more like a minority opinion than true bunkum, and the researchers should have considered what were the ethical limits of manipulating that data - but it does seem to be data where some types of manipulation (by which I mean mathematical normalisation, not a big red eraser approach) are justified.
But I think we have always had that problem. People do get caught cooking data and publishing deliberate frauds. Anyone who follows science knows not every practitioner is infalliably honest, constantly committed to absolute integrity, or adheres to all the formal principles of science. If that's the standard for science to earn respect, there are enough doctors that don't fully follow the oath that we should have no respect what-so-ever for medicine, and I shudder to think what would be a proportionate response to politicians. Here, somebody literally stole those e-mails, and it seems safe to construe that theft as a politically motivated act. If anyone wants to argue that the theft was motivated by the noble persuit of the TRUTH, I'd listen, but right now, I don't believe it.
Who is John Cabal?
I can't believe that your comment got modded insightful.
NONE of the data has been erased. Here's a quote:
The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends, Jones said.
"When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends," Jones said, "so we've taken them out." Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks, he added. "We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world."
Refuting CEI's claims of data-destruction, Jones said, "We haven't destroyed anything. The data is still there -- you can still get these stations from the [NOAA] National Climatic Data Center."
In other words, the guys at CRU deleted the junk which they didn't think was worth keeping. But since their data came from external sources, all of the original data is STILL AVAILABLE. Of course, you won't hear about that at the usual denier blogs, since it's just so much easier to keep your flock bleeting in ignorance when you can say "OMFG, DEY DELETED DA DAT0RZ!!!!".
Because it's a waste of time, that's why. Offering evidence to a denialist ostrich
Not every climate skeptic is a denialist ostrich. Many of us can be converted with patience, lucidity and openness.
Frankly, not that I've noticed.
Here's a question: have you actually ever read the IPCC report on the physical basis for climate change? I don't mean, have you read the critiques of it written by other people who are telling you not to bother reading it. I don't even mean, have you read the summary for policy makers. I mean, have you actually read the report?
Assessment report: The physical science basis, for what it's worth.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Ah yes, it doesn't take long for someone to post a link to the fully qualified blogger Anthony Watts whenever the word skeptic appers in conjunction with climate, but if you call yourself a skeptic then consider the following...
Well before Watt's stared his website scientists had already explained how adjustments are made to compensate for the urban heat island effect but that didn't stop our pluckly little weatherman from building a website to show those ivory tower dwellers where they were sorely mistaken. As Watts fame (and income) grew, NOAA thought it might be a good idea to try and add some clarity so they took 70 weather stations that Watt's himself had rated as the best. They re-ran their analysis with just those stations and compared the result to the original analyisis using all 1200+ stations. Lo and behold the two curves were virtually identical as can be seen on the first graph in NOAA's response to Watts. Why? - Because the trend does not rely on the abolute temprature, it relies on the changes in temprature. Such systematic errors in measurement have long been known and handled by mathematicians and scientists alike.
Observant readers may note that a fully qualified political scientist by the name of McIntyre did manage to get a paper on the subject published in an obscure journal which was subsequently hyped so much that the US senate held an inqusition (err, inquiry) into Mann's 1997 hockey stick paper.
The inquisition called on the US National Acedemies of Science to proffer an opinion on McIntyre's claims. Their testimony came down heavily in favour of Mann's conclusions but also made some minor crticisims of his confidence levels. Mann being the leading scientists he is took those critcisims seriously and subsequently published an extended study in the journal Science, yes that's right, the world renowned journal published by the very same organisation who critcised his confidence levels.
McIntyre's paper failed to stand the test of time but rather than having another crack at science he went off to become yet another fully qualified blogger and created the popular front site "climate Audit", I say front site because both Watt's are McIntyre are stongly associated with the anti-science lobbyists at the CEI and the Heartland Institute (now there's a couple of targets for an email hack if I ever saw one).
McIntyre used his site to continue pushing the claim that Mann had hidden his data (where have we heard that before?). To put it politely, I am highly skeptical of that claim. If it was true then how did NAS come to it's conclusions in their testimony, and how is it that many others have also replicated Mann's work? Why is it that both Watts and McIntrye take selective quotes from the testimony to loudly declare that they "discredited Mann's hockey stick"? - You would think that if the testimony actually came to that conclusion then they would want you to read it. Yet nowhere on either site will you find an link to the testimony because...well...skeptical people might actually go and read it.
Considering the above farcical chain of events I don't blame Mann for expressing his desire to keep McIntyre's discredited paper out of the IPCC reports, I would have said the same thing. However this does not change the fact that the paper was subsequently included and discussed.
For those who don't like to read scientific papers and abhore pdf's there is an excellent summary on the youtube channel Climate crock of the week, unsurprisingly Watt's abused the DCMA in an attempt to have the video removed.
The skill of genuine skepticisim starts by learning to be skeptical of ones own ideas and beliefs. It's siad that a great scientist starts every day by
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I am thoroughly convinced that no amount of evidence at this point can convince the skeptics.
Calling them skeptics is a bastardization of what skepticism is actually about. It's like calling holocaust deniers "holocaust skeptics". It's correct in a purely technical sense, but it's a slap in the face to Skeptical organizations around the world. True skepticism is supposed to be grounded in science and reason, not personal bias and misinformation.
Uh no it didn't. Greenland was named greenland to attract settlers. If you can't even factcheck the most simple of arguments how can I know that the rest of what you write isn't just made up shit?
Hmmmm.
1. There have been a couple FOIA actions that still, after 2+ years, have not been filled by the NOAA/GISS.
That doesn't help convince me of AGW.
2. It's pretty damn freezing. Tell me when I can wear shorts and a muscle T in December and I'll believe in AGW.
3. Why does the tree-ring data end specifically in 1960 when the plotted temps dive downward?
4. Why are only some of the trees in Yamal selected rather than all of the trees?
5. Why, at the end of the tree ring series, are there only a few trees selected at all rather than the entire set?
6. Why universally the raw data adjusted in precisely the same way. Earlier temperatures are adjusted downward, later temperatures are adjusted upwards.
7. Why is the Medieval Warming Period completely eliminated by AGW "proofs"? Are you suggesting that documented colonization of Greenland by the vikings during the MWP followed by the gradual destruction of the colony during the Little Ice Age ... didn't happen?
8. Curiously in most areas of science it is the proponents of a theory that are responsible for proving it. Only in AGW is the onus on the detractors.
Not impressive by any standard.
9. I'm freezing my ass off and could do with some global bloody warming right now. So where the hell is it?
After wading through the article, I'm skeptical about the conclusion: There is no evidence that "peer review" significantly increases the validity of a scientist's conclusion; only that it will test the methods that led to that conclusion.
There are many historical instances of "peer review" either bolstering false conclusions because the reviewers were inclined in the same direction, or denying the conclusion because it didn't fit in with the orthodox view.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Once you start falling for the "science is a rival religeon to drag fools away from baby Jesus and condemn all it's worshippers to hell" crap then you are getting beyond the realms of rational debate.
Science has nothing at all to do with religeon.
Manipulative arseholes are just setting it up as a strawman to win arguments along the line of "they sacifice babies to Moloch - well Science is just like that". You have just been conned by such manipulative arseholes that see educated clergy and scientists as a threat to their political power and you are picking up their argument second hand.
One bad dataset does not invalidate all other datasets.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Oh, and by the way: October was the hottest month on record in Darwin, Australia.
I am thoroughly convinced that no amount of evidence at this point can convince the skeptics. They are traveling on faith. This is why they are ridiculed. They don't like it, but hey, neither do people who believe that they've been abducted by UFOs.
I see your Darwin and raise you one Houston. Houston Texas had the earliest snow this year in recorded history. You would think that someone with a PHD, claiming to be qualified to write articles on climate change would know the difference between climate and weather.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I don't have a problem with people who thing humans are causing "global warming". I have a problem with their intention to force everyone to do what they want in order to fix it. I was going to elaborate on this a bit, but I decided to just quote Orson Scott Card's commentary on the situation:
The correct solution to the oil problem, according to the ["global warming" religion], is to have fewer humans. Now, I haven't noticed them volunteering to lessen the population starting with themselves; nor have I seen their heroes bicycling everywhere (environmental ayatollah Al Gore's plane being a legendary instance).
But they do systematically resist every solution that doesn't involve wrecking the American economy and destroying the American way of life.
No insecticides! But also no genetically altered crops with enhanced resistance to insects and disease!
No coal-fired power plants! But also no clean nuclear plants! (Even though France has proven that standardized nuclear power is safe and relatively cheap.)
Yes, you can build windmill farms -- but you can't put them anywhere.
Solar collectors? Excellent -- but don't put them anywhere, either, because they interfere with the natural ecology -- even in the barest desert. (God forbid that lizards should have more shade.)
Collect solar power in space and beam it to Earth? Fine -- except that you are forbidden to actually receive the power anywhere because it's too dangerous.
Hydroelectric power? Great idea -- except that you can't build a dam anywhere because it transforms a surface environment to an underwater one, which, naturally, annoys the squirrels. Squirrels, being natural nonsinners, take precedence over evil, sinful humans, the only animal that is forbidden to act according to its nature.
Electric cars and public transportation? Great idea -- but not until after we've converted all power plants to non-carbon-emitting fuels. (Never mind that it can only ever happen the other way, converting to electric cars immediately, so they're already in place when the oil runs out or, as I hope, we stop buying it because we've met the need in other ways.)
The conference in Copenhagen is intended to find a way to "stop and reverse climate change". That's a direct quote from Obama's press secretary. Too bad the people in charge of this stuff won't let us actually do any of the things that could make progress toward their goal.
I agree with you, AlexLibman - the "global warming" believers need to show us some concrete evidence that A) we're changing the earth's climate, B) it's a bad thing, and C) we can undo the damage we've done.
So far all they've shown with any degree of certainty is that the climate is changing - they haven't shown that we're causing it. (I know, I know, science disproves, it doesn't prove, but at least they could explain how they know the temperature change isn't merely the earth's natural cycle - and we do know the earth has a natural temperature change cycle, and that we are in the "temperature slowly rising" portion of that cycle. I guess the "global warming" believers think we're speeding it up?)
So they've shown us half of part A, they've given us unsupported "educated" guesses about B, and they're holding conferences on the assumption that C is true. I don't know whether we're causing "global warming" - but honestly, I don't care. We have bigger, more immediate problems to worry about.
Why don't we focus on smaller, provably achievable goals first, like reducing pollution (which is an excellent goal quite apart from this "global warming" shenanigans) by switching to nuclear power? If we switch, and there's a measurable effect on the planet's temperature, then we'll have some evidence pointing at their larger claims, and then we can decide what to do about it.
Not every climate skeptic is a denialist ostrich. Many of us can be converted with patience, lucidity and openness.
That's a fair enough argument. The question then becomes, what's the cost/benefit trade-off?
Take another example - 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Yes, some of them can be deprogrammed and brought back into mainstream society. I've done it a few times myself. But how much time and effort should we really be putting into this? Do we REALLY need multi-million-dollar studies which 90% of them will ignore anyway? How do we approach the problem? Even if we put all our time and energy into it, how do we know when we've reduced the movement down to just those who are unable to listen to reason? Do we continue the effort for the next thousand years, or is there a point at which we can say "enough is enough"?
Honestly, I was never 100% convinced that AGW is a problem that we should to be worrying about right now. Probably not even 80% convinced. What I do know that this "climategate" manufactroversy is complete fucking nonsense. If anything, it's put me further into the mainstream camp simply because it's exposed the sheer lunacy and ignorance of the other side. If you're at all swayed by the release of the CRU e-mails, you seriously need to re-examine how you discriminate between good and bad data.
Here's an idea: if you believe the GP and the majority of people who believe as he does are irrational, haul out your global climate data sets and indicate why they're irrational. It couldn't be worse and would probably be a lot better than the wretchedly stupid argument you just "formulated."
The only arguments I've heard from the (usually conservative) anti-global-warming crowd are absurd. They fall into two main points as far as I can tell -- one is "It's anti-capitalist" and the other is "Government has no business telling private companies what to do."
In fact this is perfectly illustrated by the above post, who says
How is that "natural"? How does that even remotely follow?
"It's anti-capitalist" is just ridiculous. As an example, say we want to reduce emissions and stop using coal, so let's use nuclear. Where do they think the nuclear plants are going to come from? Someone is going to have to build, staff, and maintain those, and sell the resulting energy at profit. There are thousands of potential jobs just from the construction alone.
Someone has to design, manufacture, install, and maintain the smokestack scrubbers. Someone has to design, manufacture, and upkeep new and more efficient engines. Or solar panels, or hydroelectric power stations, or whatever. All creating jobs, all being done at profit.
There's a whole green industry waiting in the wings to do these things. How on earth is it anti-capitalist, anti-business, or anti-"The Man" to see a need for better and more efficient service, and provide that need at profit?!
"Government has no business telling private companies what to do." I don't get this one either. Private industry would never regulate itself in consideration of anything but its bottom line. There's a reason we're not all still working 14 hour days and dealing with child labor -- and it's not because corporations voluntarily relaxed those standards. Why does anyone think it's a good idea for companies to crap all over everything, dump any pollutants they want anywhere they like? But the second someone suggests that maybe that's not good, out comes Fox News and their ilk to blame government for ruining everyone's fun.
Finally, I don't see how anyone can argue that we can continue to take billions of tons of carbon-based fuel, set it on fire, release whatever combustion byproducts into the atmosphere.. and absolutely nothing bad will happen. So, again, even if it's not having any actual effect on the global temperature, wouldn't we all be better off not breathing that crap?
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
THIS.
Having something published in a journal is not the be-all, end-all, it does not mean that a theory is now correct one and for all time. It means it is time to start wider discussion and testing. The way science works is by trying to prove things wrong. You see phenomena in nature, and you come up with what you think is an explanation for them. You refine said explanation to the point that it makes testable predictions, the sort of thing like "If X occurs, Y will also occur," or whatever. You then set out to try and prove your theory wrong. You test those predictions. You say "Ok, well then let's try making X and see what happens, if we don't get Y, we know that we are wrong." Each time you fail to falsify your theory, you are more sure it is true.
Others join in, they re-try your experiments, make sure you didn't fuck up. They find alternate explanations and test those (well maybe Z could also cause Y, not just X). The more times that everyone tries and fails to falsify your theory, the more sure you are it is the right one. Only by repeated testing by yourself and others, only by actively trying to figure out what is wrong with your theory can you reach one that you are certain (or at least as certain as we can be) is right.
So publishing an article is NOT the last step in that, it is the first. You do some work, your write it up, you publish it. Some reviewers look at it to make sure there is nothing obviously wrong, and it then goes out to the larger community. That's when things start.
Regardless of good science, or lack thereof, Climate Science has a credibility problem.
For those of you not familiar with that particular publication, one of its distinguishing traits is that it does not publish bylines. Ever. Editorials in The Economist are backed by the reputation of the editorial staff of The Economist, not of any individual writer.
This is a convenient way to pass off work done by someone recently out of business school as the result of years of experience in writing about a particular subject area (not to be confused with years of research and/or work in a subject area or industry).
Obama & Alan Keyes: Keyes points out that Obama was born in Kenya to which Obama replies, "So what? I'm running for Senate, not President."
Right now a lot of the reason that we are so energy-inefficient is not because we aren't being taxed enough, but because things like building codes are heavily biased against energy efficient homebuilding. So most of the homes that are build are insanely inefficient. Office buildings tend to be more efficient, but still not at the level of efficiency that would be possible if the codes were biased in favor of efficiency, rather than against it. E.g., I'm building a house in Vermont. The guy at the local lumber company was *aghast* when I told him I wanted 14" thick walls and R40 insulation. Nobody does that! In *Vermont*! That's just lame - there's no excuse for building an energy-inefficient house. They're more comfortable, hugely cheaper to heat and cool, and don't cost much extra to build--yes, you spend more on insulation, but you can buy a cheaper heater or chiller.
Another problem is the tragedy of the commons: nobody's willing to conserve first. So everybody buys an SUV, because everybody else is buying an SUV, and so we all need SUVs to avoid being crushed by other SUVs, or whatever. To solve this sort of mexican standoff, government regulation is actually a really effective solution. CAFE standards work. Unfortunately the anti-regulation climate of the past 30 years has prevented them from doing much good as technology has advanced--ironically, CAFE standards could have prevented the extraordinarily painful market correction that came to a head in 2008 in the auto industry, but since the auto industry lobbied so hard against it for so long, they had to be bailed out.
So sure, maybe carbon taxes aren't the right idea. Maybe there are other things we should do first. But for some reason nobody seems to be doing them.
The theory with carbon taxes is to offset them against other taxes, so that they are revenue-neutral for people who are being reasonably conservative, revenue-positive for people who are being very conservative, and revenue-negative for people who are being outright wasteful. So if you modify your behavior, carbon taxes *should* save you money. But sure, for people who aren't willing to do that, they'll suck. And consequently, they'll probably never be enacted, because nobody likes to tighten their belts. And so later on we'll all get to tighten our belts a lot, suddenly, instead of a little, steadily.
You've made some good points and one bad one. Note how correcting you on the bad one (Greenland) seems to be a substitute for a genuine rebuttal.
The author raises good points about the dangers of over-reliance on the peer review system. It's a good system but it is not doesn't always work - crap gets through and good articles aren't published.
And neither of you understand the peer review system. It's actually a very complex system, and one full of competition on many levels.
First, there are many scientists trying to get their work published. Second, there are many journals. Third, each journal has a journal impact factor. Fourth, papers mention other papers. Fifth, journals and papers are not the only means for how scientists communicate their work or collaborate. There are conferences, groups invite speakers, etc.
A journal impact factor is a simple calculation. On average, a paper published in Nature gets X number of mentions in other journal's papers. A paper published just about anywhere else gets much less. So people want to get published in Nature, obviously. But people are also realistic, and their PIs help them with finding the right places to get published. And if you don't, you can try again. Sound research is likely to be resubmitted, often times elsewhere.
When a paper is submitted, you don't just get a "we're publishing it!" or a "DENIED!". You get questions from the reviewers, sometimes requests for more data. If it's rejected, often times it's rejected with some helpful, useful suggestions on how the reviewers feel the paper could be improved, and sometimes it's said between the lines that if you resubmit after taking some of those suggestions, you'll get the thumbs up from that reviewer.
Yes, Nature and the like are the holy grail. But many, many people don't look only in Nature. They read the journals dedicated to their little niche, because they know that sometimes good, fresh thinking doesn't make it into Nature just because so many people submit. And guess what? So are all their true colleagues. So while you don't get your name in the newspaper or a mention on the nightly news, your research still sees the light of day, and often times, with more 'useful' eyeballs. And if it's good, you impress people, they collaborate with you, present your paper at their group's internal meetings, or hell, just toss the paper across the lunchtable and say to their colleages, "you should give this a glance." It's extremely common for labs/groups to have two weekly presentations- one presentation is the work of someone inside the group, and often someone in the same group presents research OUTSIDE the group. And often, it's presented regardless of how sound it is; it's meaningful to say "here is what so-and-so found" and then show why they were wrong, or what they did badly.
Now, I'm on the outside of all of this as an IT person, but I've made many scientist-friends and their lives revolve around this stuff. "Willis" clearly doesn't understand it. The peer-reviewed journal system is complex, but also remarkably free of collusion. After all, if someone presents solid research that something widely believed to be true is not, it helps the journal because controversy sells copies, generates debate and discussion, generates mentions in other papers in other journals (hellooooo impact factor!), etc. The primary concern of a journal is not looking stupid by publishing something that isn't sound and well supported, not suppressing controversial research.
Show me a scientist who bitches and moans publicly about his anti-global-warming research not being published, and I'll show you someone whose science wasn't sound enough to cut the mustard. Every day thousands of papers are submitted to journals and rejected partially or fully, and it's not a conspiracy. It's people doing research that isn't supported enough. There is certainly a dark side, namely, reviewers who don't recuse themselves or aren't qualified to evaluate a particular paper, but that's one reason multiple reviewers are involved, and you can always submit your work to another journal.
Please help metamoderate.
There, FTFY in light of the CRU emails, their stacking of the deck for editorial bias in what is allowed to be published in journals, their refusal to produce the data and algorithms and share them with critics in their field as well as those outside the field and their politicization of what is obviously a very important issue into a vehicle for massive forced political collectivism the likes of which the world hasn't seen since Mao.
Nice blurb, but completely unsupported by evidence.
There is plenty of room to disagree that any significant climate change is caused by humans, or can be remedied by humans.
Sure. So what? That doesn't excuse the idiotic behavior of the denialiasts. If you're going to object, do so in a rational manner, otherwise I'll have even less respect for you than for those with whom I disagree.
the Human-caused GW side is making extraordinary claims...
What's extraordinary about the claim that increased greenhouse gases cause an increase in temperature?
and demanding extraordinary actions that threaten individual liberty, social justice and the quality of life on a global scale
That's pure hyperbole. Even if your prior point were valid (which it's not) this follow-up "point" would have completely discredited your argument. Try to stick to the facts, and we can have a discussion. Produce FUD and I'll just ignore you. Your call.
No they don't. SUVs came about as a direct result of CAFE loopholes. (They're "light trucks", yeah right). Increasing the gas tax would be far superior; not only would it encourage fuel efficiency in a way that can't be gamed, it would encourage other ways of saving gas like reducing commute distances.
I completely agree that revenue-neutral carbon taxes would be a good policy; even if AGW is completely false it would be no more economically harmful than our current income and payroll taxes.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Isn't this precisely the risk of overreliance on the peer review system? Unpopular opinions get silenced.
That's a common myth. You see, there are many journals. All want to grow their subscribership, increase their impact factor (the scientific journal measurement of notoriety.) They do that by publishing the most interesting research they can.
Doing research that mirrors what's already been done isn't very popular; grad students and postdocs, for example, have to clear what they're doing with their PIs. That's not likely to happen unless they've got some angle. This isn't apparent to the layman- or even someone who has "PhD" in their title, but even a minor difference in premise can be a big deal.
Identical research also doesn't get published. New, fresh, interesting research is what journals want. So while Willis thinks there's a massive groupthink, there's actually little of the kind. It may LOOK like groupthink, because on the surface, yes, there's the gross layer of widely-accepted-fact. The devil is in the details, and that's where research is taking place.
It's a special kind of arrogance to think that you can just stroll in and understand, much less analyze, a field where people dedicate years, if not decades, to their research.
Please help metamoderate.
Actually, the blogger replied to the response and addressed each point. He admitted to 2 minor mistakes that didn't affect his main point. Here's a link to his reply here. It's worth a read-through. He's a bit more than just a random blogger. He studies and focuses specifically on climate change. It's only unfortunate that so many folks seem to pick their side instead of reading both sides of the discussion. Depending on others to do your thinking for you is dangerous.
If you were a scientist with a relevant education in the field, you could answer all of those questions.
Why did the dentist use a UV light on your teeth? Why did the doctor's hammer have a rubber coating on it when he hit your knee? What are your brake pads made out of? Why?
There are lots of questions. But if you're not going to try to answer them the right way, by finding out on your own, you're just another Troll (aka Glenn Beck).
The argument that you need a PH.D to understand the climate models you folks have created means you've simply created a magic language like the religions of past - Latin for example being the official language of the Church which conveniently was not understandable by the common man. By creating a complicated language and set of mysterious rituals (like the 'Trick' of the one guy everyone on the Sky is Falling Brigade uses to pump up their numbers) you don't manage to be convincing. People aren't at the point any more when some guy in a robe speaking in a indecipherable tongue is enough to be convincing. So pronouncing that you'll cease to answer critics if they don't rise to your level is counterproductive. But if you want to climb on your high horse, feel free. That's sure to convince reasonable people that you and your fellows aren't full of it.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
The issue you run into is that there is little incentive for the highly centralized players in fossil fuels to change their ways. It's an oligopoly and they all play by the same rules to ensure they are properly compensated for their massive capital investments. Shell and Exxon would ride our economy to the brink of failure in order to extract more profit. Good for them, not so good for us.
Of course, the government can't just sit on the taxes. They have to use those taxes to invest in new technology to compensate for the damage to the economy for overtaxing the old technology. There's no use risking the entire future of our economy by being afraid of being "too early" to come up with alternatives for something as vital as energy production.
This planet, and the life upon it, survived it before... it will do so again... even if we somehow actually were the cause of it (which as I said, I doubt).
Umm, no one is arguing that. There is not one single AGW proponent out there that would claim that global warming is going to destroy all live as we know it.
What it *will* do is alter the earth's climate such that it deviates from that which humanity is adapted to. Rising ocean levels due to polar melting and simple heat expansion of ocean water will result in coastline destruction, displacing millions, if not billions, of people. Meanwhile, changing weather will mean movements in fertile regions, destroying valuable cropland. I could go on, but I'm hoping you're starting to see the point.
And if not, let me spell it out for you: Humanity is adapted to the climate as it exists today. Change that climate and, regardless of the nature of that change, the result will almost certainly be negative. So, will AGW destroy all life on the planet? No, of course not. That's absurd. But it could seriously fuck us up.
NONE of the data has been erased. Here's a quote: The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data
I hate to be a sourpuss, but it looks pretty bad when you begin your refutation of data manipulation by saying "less than 5 percent" is "NONE".
I hate to be a sourpuss, but it looks pretty bad when you begin your refutation of data manipulation by saying "less than 5 percent" is "NONE".
What I did by quoting that first bit is called "honesty". It's usually done by people who actually care about things like "honour", "truth", and "morality". Of course, the downside is that idiots who only care about sound-bites will focus exclusively on that single phrase, while ignoring the rest of the statement. That's the price we pay for maintaining our integrity.
Whether you agree or disagree with AGW, there seems to be little debate, just name-calling. From my own (probably biased) view, I'd say the pro-AGW crowd have done a rotten job at explaining their side of the argument. At least the anti-AGW crowd seem to be prepared for a bit of transparency. The pro-AGW might well turn out to be right, but when issues are raised they tend to take offence rather than defending their position.
Problem one is that we are talking about data gathered in various ways from various sources. There must, of course, be some numerical filtering to try to compare data from different sources. However much of the filtering appears (from the outside) to be poorly explained. We are estimating temperature from tree-rings, ice cores and antique thermometers and making decisions on variations of a couple of degrees or sometimes much less. In a day when it might be 50 degrees Celsius in outback Australia 20C in Tasmania and -120C in Canada, we try to produce an average.
Now this data may be accurate enough to support the analysis, but it doesn't look that way to the uninitiated. Somebody needs to convince us.
Second, much of the (mass-media) published information derives from Drs Jones and Mann and their colleagues. The recent revelations have raised *serious* doubts about their data integrity. Never mind the emails, the widely discussed "harry-readme" file chronicles the efforts of a researcher to identify correct data and understand the filtering source code. It tells a tale of confusion and some suspected sharp practises. Perhaps "Harry" is out of his depth and Dr Jones et. al. have immaculate data and source code. However Dr Jones' refusal to honour Freedom of Information requests leave us all with great suspicions. If we cannot trust Dr Jones and Dr Mann, can we trust any of the IPCC and related material? Maybe, but it has not been well explained.
Third and perhaps worst is the number of morons who trumpet AGW concerns without any understanding what they mean. Mr Gore, for example, consistently makes impossible claims. It is too easy to look at these stumbling fools and think that their silly words represent the "scientific" view. When they are shown to lack credibility, by association the science seems to lose credibility. Why have serious scientists never told the buffoons to "sit down and be quiet"? Or have they? The media have seldom reported such.
I don't know if AGW is real. I do know that most of what I hear about is gobbledegook. I'd like to be treated like a "grown up" and have the science explained in clear terms, without the black magic and the "oh, you couldn't understand this". I'd particularly like this before we destroy the world economy implementing schemes that probably won't even fix the problem, if AGW is real.
OK, flame away.
Michael J Smith
I have actually. I realized one thing about IPCC reports. They're political not scientific, see here's the problem with groups like the IPCC. They're supposed to put on a diplomatic face on the science, presenting unbiased information to the public and government. In this case they're not even doing that, rather they've taken the road that: It's done, settled, and if you don't believe what we're telling you; You're the idiot.
Remember when a government body that's supposed to exist for the open discussion of information rejects opposing theories you should be questioning that body. Even when that opposing theory(s) have valid peer reviewed research.
Om, nomnomnom...
You don't have to provide an alternate explanation to falsify a theory, you simply have to show that it doesn't do a good job of explaining what is going on. The "You can't explain it!" crap is precisely what the religious nuts try to pull. They say "Science can't explain everything about this, thus you have to accept our explanation." No, sorry, not how it works. Just because there isn't a scientific explanation at this point doesn't mean you are right.
Well same deal here. You don't have to provide a perfect climate model to falsify an existing one, you only need to show how the existing one is wrong.
Science isn't about being fair, it isn't a case of "Well YOU explain it better than me, or accept I'm right." It is a processes for learning about the natural world, and for separating what works from what doesn't. Showing something doesn't work is an important part of science. Ideally you'd be able to present a theory that doesn't but that's not always the case.
Cold fusion was a good example. Group claimed to do cold fusion, other labs falsified their research, since their experiments were not repeatable. None of those labs provided a theory for working cold fusion, none had to. All they did was show that this particular theory was wrong.
Or, it is a convenient way to allow published material to stand or fall by its own merit and not be interpreted through the prism of its author. I believe it also has the practical advantage that there is no article "ownership" at the Economist, and hence there is no ego about getting contributions or suggestions for changes from other staff members. Lastly, it passes the experience test: I've been reading it for ~6 years now and the quality of writing and journalism is far in excess of any other mainstream publication. Oh, and their staff list is online. You can check out their credentials if you really feel the need.
[FUCK BETA]
It is a greenhouse gas. No blah blah bullshit, it really is. Physics says so, observation says so. Observation also tells us that levels of CO2 are skyrocketing.
Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. However, its effects decrease logarithmically - the change from 0 to 20ppm make a huge difference. From 20 to 80ppm a lot happens as well. From 280 to 380 ... not so much.
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/co2greenhouse-X2.png
Regarding "sky rocketing" levels of CO2, quite the opposite. We're in a very CO2-starved environment compared to the majority of the time plants and animals have existed on the earth. We've had more than a magnitued higher CO2-levels in our atmosphere without oceans going acidic, the planet becomign like Venus etc.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
This is undisputed (really) science. The big question is, why's everyone pretending as if it wasn't?
it's in my head
The lynchings are most likely to be done by the global warming nuts, not to them. Manmade global warming has become a religion, in all but name. Millions upon millions of people who otherwise resent governement interference are squawking for their governments to "do something, before it's to late!" and to "Think of the children!"
That glaringly obvious fake hockey stick that the messiah showed the world made all those converts, while at the same time, forcing honest men and women to ask, "What the fuck?!"
You should read up on some of the past geological ages. Ice ages have come and gone. Global warming is a well established tradition - as is global cooling.
Yes. Facts, those pesky things standing in the way of your agenda! :)
(I saw you linked to the same, factually incorrect, post several times in this Slashdot article alone)
Anyway. Watt's lost a lot of money on his surfacestation-work - but since the end result is a better quality network I think it's important no matter what the actual conclusion might be. It can't be bad to know the actual siting locations and quality - can it? Thus, I'm one of many people who've donated money to surfacestations.org.
Regarding the NOAA study on the 70 stations, they didn't do what they claimed - they instead studied the homogenized datasets which, of course, will show the same thing as the full dataset since they're ... homogenized with all those stations.
Now, will you change your opinion based on facts - or do you go by dogma? ;)
it's in my head
It isn't about gutting the current economy. It's about providing incentive structures for developing green technology.
Businesses don't develop new methods and technologies unless they have a reason to. Sometimes that reason is that an entrepreneur saw that the future would be different and had a product that would advance us towards that new paradigm.
Sometimes external factors, usually the government, create such incentives. For instance, look how much technology has been developed for military purposes. All of those were provided by the government.
And the government can provide non-war incentives. Like carbon credits. That proposal has been the green-technology version of micro-loans, a private-sector way to assist a public-sector problem. Make it make sense to find ways to lower emission so you can sell your credits to another company and businesses will find ways.
The GP said that China has become a leader in green technology. It has because the government realizes (all too well) that it can't keep down the same path forever. For many, standards of living have increased to the point where the cost of living can no longer be met by low-level factory jobs. Those jobs are moving to Vietnam and elsewhere. So China has focused on higher-level jobs.
In the same way, it's realized that its water pollution and other problems like that can only be ignored so long. That they will slap them in the face (like pollution during the Olympics almost did) if they don't start addressing it. The big question will be, as the GP suggested, whether we (US), or other countries that eventually provide green incentives, will be buying Chinese technology and hiring Chinese contractors to pursue such incentives or if we will be on the cutting edge enough to use our own resources. The longer we wait to "jump on the bandwagon," the more likely that scenario is.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
For one thing, if you are given a data set with temperatures for various dates for various locations around the globe, you don't need a PhD to plot a simple chart showing temperatures along one axis and dates along another axis. A chart like that can be used to determine if the trend if towards higher temperatures or not.
A second chart which maps CO2 levels for those same dates can be used to arrive at a simple correlation between temperature and CO2 levels. Again, I don't see why someone with even rudimentary understanding of statistics can't do this.
And oh, if we are only going to be believing PhDs, allow me to point out that Gavin Schmidt's PhD is in Mathematics while IPCC head Pachauri's PhD is in mechanical engineering.
Also, may I point out the simple fact that many of the skeptics have PhDs in climatology and atmospheric sciences (Dr.Roy Spencer, Dr. John Christy).
And if the author is going to be making a big deal about peer-review process (completely ignoring the fact that the peer review process being used was completely flawed because of lack of data to do this peer review), may I point out this article from BBC which points out that IPCC got the dates wrong for the melting of Himalayan Glaciers by 300 years?! and it took their "peer-review" process only 2 years to figure this out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8387737.stm
Also, IPCC now acknowledges that many of the papers they referenced for their reports didn't go through peer review at all.
This is what I've been telling people for years. I would also like to add that the smog in L.A. is also cyclical and natural, as well as the bad air in China. None of it is man made except for the lies that surround it. There's no way humans could pollute a planet let alone a city.
Can I bum a sig?
That you're an idiot?
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Yes, you are very lucky to have scientists to think for you. Thats our job.
That's one of the dumbest things I've heard in a while. Scientists don't think for anyone but themselves, they are there to provide testable theories which fit testable facts.
and so shouldn't be complaining when those specialists consider each others (peer reviewed) conclusions to be inherently more valuable
The problem with this is that scientists who are skeptical are excluded and you end up with little cliques of self reinforcing dogma. Religion, if you will.
The words "Fuck that" spring to mind.
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would you enlighten me on how does CO2 cause smog ?