Slashdot Mirror
Russians Claim More Climate Data Was Manipulated
DustyShadow writes "On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) claimed that the Hadley Center for Climate Change had probably tampered with Russian-climate data. The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations. The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley CRU survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century."
Now you're telling me that someone is funding international organizations and peer reviewed journals and leading scientists in the field ... so they can slow down the economy with phony climate results? How are they going to profit off that again?
From academia: Tenure, speaking engagements, grants, articles, books, presidential advisory positions, paid contributor to MSNBC.... the list goes on.
From the media: Magazine/Newspaper subscriptions/Nelson ratings (bad news sells. If it bleeds, it leads.) Government contracts (See GE, which owns MSNBC), You primary products becoming mandated and/or pushed by government regulation (See GE and their CFL bulb business), Interviews with top political leaders (how many times has President Obama been on Fox News? How many times on MSNBC?), Scoops/Tips/Leads to your journalists... the list goes on.
And then you say 'green industry'! That's also hilarious! The companies dumping the most money into green tech are also the ones that are already lead players in the energy and fuel sectors! They are the vast majority of the 'green industry.
Great! So the problem is fixing itself. Why do we need government intervention again? Won't government just screw it up for these guys?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Now you just have to show that EVERY paper negative about AGCC was always rejected by every journal. Wow, some work, isn't it? It's going to take a lot more to prove a global conspiracy by nearly every scientist involved in the area than a single email by one person about two papers. Because otherwise, the only thing you've shown is that.... a single person rejected two papers based on personal bias against the conclusion.
Not to mention that the email said that they might still be published. In terms of a smoking gun, that's pretty damn weak.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Yep. One of the most shocking things about global warming (should you choose to accept this theory) is that the Western countries that are causing it also stand to benefit. Russia was a no-brainer once you mentioned Siberia, the all-time classic example of a vast tract of land unsuitable for use because it's too cold. But I also question whether Europe or the US will be badly affected - affected for sure, but if the farm belt moves north into the Dakotas, so what?
The whole history of Western expansion is that we've built our economy on the backs of cheap foreign labor. As an American, you're "rich" precisely because the Chinese who make your goods earn 10x less than you. This system has survived because the "slave labor" class is like a hot potato that gets passed around. Once the Chinese grow out of it, they'll just hand it off to $THIRD_WORLD_COUNTRY.
But now we're threatening to take the very air they breathe and water they drink from the third world, via climate change, and profit from it. Under these conditions, how long do you think the empire-based economic model can survive?
I know this might be a bit far out there, but a) you did qualify with a big "if", and b) there may be (and I don't know being unilingual, and sometimes I'm not so good in that language, either) a colloquialism or idiom in Russian that translates poorly into English.
Not being monolingual and being accutely aware of how badly Google translation munges stuff I wrote (in the message you are responding to) "insofar as the Google translation is correct." Apparently you missed that.
Basically, you said, "if I'm right, I'm right, no?" ... But that's just a strawman
Had I "basically" written that, I did not, it would be a tautology, not a strawman.
Then again, even should we grant you the big assumption ...
Which big assumption?
you're tearing down their argument based on an interesting combination of ad hominem
I agree with you my objection to Mr Delingpole (or Ms Divine from the SMH) is ad hominem. But allow me to explain. There are some authors attached to (semi-)reputable journals such as the Telegraph, and other's I may read from time to time, whose work has proven to be so scandalously poor that I have made a conscious decision never to reward them with clicks. This is my right. When Delingpole's page came up I felt violated.
Here I cannot agree, what I wrote was not an appeal to authority and your saying so leads me to question whether you understand the fallacy you are citing.
Moreover, while argumentum ad verecundiam might strictly speaking be a lgoical fallacy, ie. X is not True because A says so, Science is, as I am constantly reminding people, largely based on authority. ie. A is more likely than I to know whether X is True or not. Authority tells me that cars can hurt human bodies, as a result I avoid walking in front of them.
Secondly a statement implying that scientific orthodoxy accepts AGW as highly likely, is in no way an appeal to authority, it is a simple statement of fact.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Regarding your appeal to authority (dozens of peer reviewed papers), I would point out, as I love to on these occassions, the thousands of peer reviewed papers published with respect to the dietary causes of stomach ulcers.
Now on your substantive point that the automated process throws away "bad" stations and only includes "good" ones, let's be clear here:
That reason may well be something similar to Mann's "confirmation bias" method of proxy selection, ie. throw away all data that doesn't match your pre-conceived idea of what the data should look like.
Here are some "second options" :
Are all those doctors quacks, every one of them?