Debunking a Climate-Change Skeptic

DJRumpy writes "The Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg won fame and fans by arguing that many of the alarms sounded by environmental activists and scientists — that species are going extinct at a dangerous rate, that forests are disappearing, that climate change could be catastrophic — are bogus. A big reason Lomborg was taken seriously is that both of his books, The Skeptical Environmentalist (in 2001) and Cool It (in 2007), have extensive references, giving a seemingly authoritative source for every one of his controversial assertions. So in a display of altruistic masochism that we should all be grateful for (just as we're grateful that some people are willing to be dairy farmers), author Howard Friel has checked every single citation in Cool It. The result is The Lomborg Deception, which is being published by Yale University Press next month. It reveals that Lomborg's work is 'a mirage,' writes biologist Thomas Lovejoy in the foreword. '[I]t is a house of cards. Friel has used real scholarship to reveal the flimsy nature' of Lomborg's work."

Comments

Absence of Evidence

[iluvcapra]

This is, of course, not evidence that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, but that public critics of ACC feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point, since newspapers "report the controversy" instead of doing their own independent work, and most climate change deniers are happy to adopt any useful argument.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[pudge]

This is, of course, not evidence that Anthropogenic Climate Change is real, but that public critics of ACC feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

You know he was WRONG? Based on what?

Maybe Lomborg was wrong, but you didn't read or research Friel's work, you're just assuming it's correct, which is precisely what the AGW folks are complaining about in regard to Lomborg's work.

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Even if Lomborg was dishonest -- and you have no evidence of that -- the AGW side has been dishonest too, so by your own argument, anyone else could say, "grant-receiving scentists pushing AGW feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point."

Re:Absence of Evidence

[iluvcapra]

Even if Lomborg was dishonest -- and you have no evidence of that -- the AGW side has been dishonest too, so by your own argument, anyone else could say, "grant-receiving scentists pushing AGW feel they can profitably resort to dishonesty to prove their point."

Here we speak of Lomborg, and you immediately begin talking about un-cited "other people" who somehow make Lomborg's mistakes disappear in a puff of equivalency.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[NeutronCowboy]

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were not applicable to the problem, aggregated over different collection methods, and completely irrelevant to the problem caused by deforestation: loss of habitat for endemic species.

And yes, I read his crap. It was a massive disappointment, and the only conclusion I could come to was that he was either ignorant beyond belief, or dishonest.

So yes, we can ignore him. As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research. That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research.

Feel free to argue otherwise, but to be credible, you're going to have to demonstrate that every single paper arguing for AGW is dishonest. Go ahead.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[UnknowingFool]

You do realize, too, that we actual have HARD PROOF that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research, research that the IPCC relied on for its conclusions ... right?

Out of thousands of independent studies done by thousands of scientists that generally lead to the conclusion that climate change is happening and man is most likely the cause, you would ignore all of that because a few scientists might have been dishonest. Yet you would believe one man who has now been shown that there is some issues with his work. If you are truly skeptical you should throw his work too. That still leads to many, many more scientists who have hard data that climate change is happening.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[JordanL]

One of the things that REALLY bugs me about climate research is seeing LEGITIMATE scientists use the word "SKEPTIC" as a SMEAR.

Scientists are SUPPOSED to be skeptic, and I understand that this is not what the phrase is meant to convey, but the mere idea of labeling a scientists "skeptic" to smear him shows how political scientists in general have become. Remember when they were all about the pursuit of truth and knowledge?

I guess it sounds better than "denier", (which sounds like some McCarthy-era witch-hunt-ism), but why can't scientists keep their professionalism in situations which become politicized?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's a smear only in a very specific context: Lomborg and his ilk are, unfortunately, often identified as "skeptics" in the press. They're no such thing, of course -- "denier" or "denialist" is much more accurate* -- but when you have a bunch of people spouting pseudoscientific garbage who are handed the "skeptic" label as a gift, it's inevitable that those who point out the garbage will appear to be "smearing skeptics." The only answer appears to be to point out as often as possible that they aren't skeptics by any reasonable definition of the word. There is simply no amount of evidence that will ever or could ever convince them. Their ideology trumps any data in their minds.

And not only is this the way they think, they assume that everyone else thinks that way too; thus the constant accusations of quasi-religion ("warmism") leveled against people who actually study the data and try to figure out what's happening to the environment. Arguing with denialists is closely akin to arguing with religious fundamentalists. Anything that is not of (their interpretation of) God must perforce be of the Devil. They just can't acknowledge that there are other worldviews that don't fit into their box.

*Since "denier" is often prefaced with a word beginning with "H," those who get called "deniers" often take refuge behind Godwin. "Denialist" works nicely, and in fact may be the most accurate term since it describes an ideology rather than just an action.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not, nor has it ever been that lunatics with their hand out the window yelling, "it feels fine!" are shouted down or ignored. The problem is that over the past 20 years the understanding has evolved that there is a "correct" result, and anyone working to disprove that result is an enemy to be scrutinized, tied to suspicious parties and ostracized.

By contrast, there are respected scientists in every other field attempting to disprove established theories, and should their work pan out, they would publish without fear of immediate rejection by their peers.

It is the nature of scientific theory that it is tested and attacked. That is why we value a theory limke evolution, which has survived these constat attempts to disprove or reduce its scope for a very long time.

Of what value is a body of theory that can only be confirmed, but which brooks no attempt to disprove?

Re:Absence of Evidence

[h4rm0ny]

There are fortunes being made from the AGW proponents also. The head of the CRC (that group that fudged their data) has made a personal fortune from it and I can tell you that in Universities across the land, academics from every quarter have been jamming AGW elements into their work to claw in grant money. If you are saying that financial interest undermines respect for an argument, then you'd better take a look at both sides. Meanwhile skeptics will continue to sit in the middle saying: "show me".

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Boronx]

What are you talking about? Climate theory is so primitive right now that it's "disproved" all the time. If climatology were mechanics, we'd be at the "Big rock hurt more than little rock" stage.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Eunuchswear]

The head of the CRC (that group that fudged their data) has made a personal fortune from it

1. Perhaps you mean CRU (The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit)?
2. Where do you find evidence that they "fudged their data"?
3. Where do you get the idea that Phil Jones (assuming that's who you're talking about) "has made a personal fortune" from being an "AGW proponent" (or anything else - hint: UK universities don't pay enough for people to make personal fortunes)

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DiamondGeezer]

You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?

Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were not applicable to the problem, aggregated over different collection methods, and completely irrelevant to the problem caused by deforestation: loss of habitat for endemic species.

Citation please.

And yes, I read his crap. It was a massive disappointment, and the only conclusion I could come to was that he was either ignorant beyond belief, or dishonest.

So a blanket condemnation based on a single unsourced reference.

So yes, we can ignore him. As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research. That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research.

Here we get to the rub. You dismiss Lomberg based on a selective quotation of a supposed mistake and then bend over backwards to excuse data manipulation, censorship and interference in peer review, and other forms of scientific misconduct.

Not human and petty - just dishonest.

No-one has ever claimed that EVERY researcher has faked his research. But the ones which are supposed to establish that there is a climate crisis? Very, very dubious indeed.

Feel free to argue otherwise, but to be credible, you're going to have to demonstrate that every single paper arguing for AGW is dishonest. Go ahead.

Why should we, when you argue that every single quote from Bjorn Lomberg is dishonest and 'crap'.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[indiechild]

It's the Jungian shadow. Where there is great light, there is great darkness.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[FourthAge]

There'll be a Great Flood as well, sent by God to wash away all the "denialists" and their multitude of sins.

However I think AGW is more like a fascist cult than an Abrahamic religion, because it is an all-out attack on free minds and free thought: "believe exactly as we do, do not question our authority, or the Earth will be destroyed and it will be your fault".

The thought restrictions go way beyond questions about the science. They also require belief in a government solution, summarised by the claim: "Well, even if it isn't happening, why shouldn't we do something anyway? Our plans will make the world a better place no matter what." I've never seen any evidence for that claim, although I believe that Karl Marx wrote a few books about it.

Forget gas chambers and gulags, "if you are not with us, you are against us" is the very definition of fascism. Here are some more:

"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

"It is for the Greater Good."

"The science is settled."

"There is a consensus."

"The debate is over."

I never thought I would see a Slashdot discussion dominated by fascists, but here we are. -1, Free Thinking, and +5, Agrees Totally With Authority.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[shilly]

Who knows why this got modded interesting, it's fuckin' dumb.

Let's try a little thought experiment, shall we? Two scenarios:
1) Let's imagine that you are working on the bleeding edge of science and you're investigating a question that no-one knows the answer to, like "why does Nt-acetylation of bulk proteins happen?". You do some clever research, and whaddya know, you come up with an interesting answer: "it's because acetylation can function as a degradation signal". That forces a need to revisit thinking on protein turnover, a larger topic, and may even mean that we need to think again about exactly how homeostasis works. So you write it all up and if you can get the paper past your clever colleagues who do peer review, you might get published in Science and you can be very proud of yourself. Look, it's happened here!
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/327/5968/966
2) Now, let's imagine that you investigate something a bit more fundamental to modern biological science. Say, the idea that DNA encodes genetic information about the shape of proteins. Let's say you invent a clever experiment and the findings are very striking -- they appear to show that DNA doesn't encode that information after all! Now for the thought experiment bit: do you think that the standards and scrutiny that will be applied to your claim will be higher or lower than in scenario 1, given that your results will require the setting aside / reinterpretation of an enormous mass of prior experimental results and accepted scientific theory. Why, that's right! Your results will be subjected to more careful scrutiny. They will have to be replicated, validated, tested etc etc every which way from Sunday, because the inherent balance of probabilities is that your results are wrong or artefactual or explicable within the current framework, and that the prior thinking was right. It's not *impossible* that the opposite holds true, but it *is* extremely unlikely.

People who seek to demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change is not happening are much closer to scenario 2 than scenario 1. Scientists will quite reasonably say, "just before we chuck out all the accumulated evidence and thinking about how the world works and accept your argument that you've shown it that is, in fact, possible for humans to add net tens of billions of tons of gases such as CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere in the space of decades without it having an impact on climate, do you mind terribly if we take a very long hard look at your evidence and reasoning?"

Re:Absence of Evidence

[wintercolby]

I can't say that I believe in AGW in the same way Christians believe in god. I can't say that I've heard arguments in favor of AGW that didn't accept that our climate is constantly changing, either. It would seem that the argument is that the climate is warming more than it would without mankind's influence.

Many people, like myself, who aren't scientists, but accept that there could be some AGW are more interested in solutions to any ensuing apocolypse. Those solutions are often built upon the "Tree of Knowledge called the Industrial Revolution". There could be no mass manufacture of wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells, electric cars or anything else that we dream up without the foundations of the Industrial Revolution. What we are suggesting is a Green revolution, which as a side affect disenfranchises energy suppliers that make all of their profit from non-renewable sources. It also disenfranchises localities that rely heavily on those non-renewable resources. For decades those same entities have been engaged in practices which we know to disenfranchise their employees and citizens, and which we have reason to believe disenfranchises the rest of the world. There is a big difference between accepting the likelihood of something that is supported by a broad selection of data, and another to believe a book that has no second sources.

What's more, the religious fanatics seem to rejoice in the glee of their apocolyps, as only the sinners get burned. Those of us that consider the merits and logic of scientific research are worried that everyone will get burned.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Attila Dimedici]

And the even larger amount of money that has been poured into convincing everybody that we need to let governments take over ervery aspect of life to prevent "Global Warming/Climate Change". When one looks at the numbers one discovers that Exxon has given more money to people promoting AGW than to people debunking it.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[AmiMoJo]

As someone who believes in man-made climate change I can assure both you and the GP that you are completely wrong about my beliefs.

I don't think we need to give up our modern lives and return to some kind of hippy-farming-commune existence. We just need to develop technology that doesn't pump CO2 into the atmosphere. Sure, that does cost money to develop, but so did drilling for oil or burning coal to generate electricity.

Even if you don't believe in climate change the benefits of not burning coal and oil should be pretty obvious. You can see pollution all around us in the form of the dust and dirt that accumulates on buildings and in my house (which is next to a main road).

Don't think I'm attacking you personally either. We need to change things at government and industrial levels. In the end though there comes a point where we are going to have to force the Chelsea Tractor / Hummer drivers into less polluting cars. I don't see a problem with that - we don't allow people to piss in swimming pools because the majority of people don't want to swim in that. You can't expect to go around spewing crap into the air when there are just as good alternatives that don't do that.

We are not there yet by a long way, but one day we will be and that's all I'm saying:

- We need to develop less polluting technology, if not because of climate change then because of pollution and the finite nature of the oil and coal supplies.

- Eventually technology will get there, but in the mean time I'm still flying long haul and you can still drive your tractor around town. I own a Colt with super-efficient engine, mainly because it's cheaper for me to run. If electric was cheaper I would buy one of these too. Totally selfish and nothing to do with the green lobby.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[DerekLyons]

People who seek to demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change is not happening are much closer to scenario 2 than scenario 1. Scientists will quite reasonably say, "just before we chuck out all the accumulated evidence and thinking about how the world works and accept your argument that you've shown it that is, in fact, possible for humans to add net tens of billions of tons of gases such as CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere in the space of decades without it having an impact on climate, do you mind terribly if we take a very long hard look at your evidence and reasoning?"

Which totally misses the OP's point.
 
Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism. Thus 'skeptic' has become, as used by those scientists (and their political supporters) a pejorative term.
 
Real scientists welcome reviews of their work - but the ones you quote above (and their political supporters) go to great lengths to debunk and marginalize any reviews that don't meet their pre-ordained conclusions.
 
You then go further in accepting the received wisdom of the scientists (and their political supporters) and treating as though it were as well proven as DNA encoding, which it isn't. It has the appearance of so being, but that's because the scientists (and their political supporters) have spent such time and energy loudly insisting they are right and that anyone who claims otherwise is a 'skeptic'.

*Yes, not incorporated into the existing body of work as is usual in science, but debunked.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[ultranova]

There'll be a Great Flood as well, sent by God to wash away all the "denialists" and their multitude of sins.

So they are fundamentalists?

However I think AGW is more like a fascist cult than an Abrahamic religion, because it is an all-out attack on free minds and free thought: "believe exactly as we do, do not question our authority, or the Earth will be destroyed and it will be your fault".

And fascists as well.

The thought restrictions go way beyond questions about the science. They also require belief in a government solution, summarised by the claim: "Well, even if it isn't happening, why shouldn't we do something anyway? Our plans will make the world a better place no matter what." I've never seen any evidence for that claim, although I believe that Karl Marx wrote a few books about it.

Oh, they are commies too!

Forget gas chambers and gulags, "if you are not with us, you are against us" is the very definition of fascism. Here are some more:

And now they're are Hitler and Bush.

Those dastardly conspiring climatologists, is there no boogeyman they can't be compared to?

I never thought I would see a Slashdot discussion dominated by fascists, but here we are. -1, Free Thinking, and +5, Agrees Totally With Authority.

Good thing you're here to make well-reasoned arguments from facts rather than suggest that everyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi Commie Religious Fundamentalist Neocon in league with Hitler and Bush.

Then again, any political issue will inevitable degrade to a mudslinging contest, so I guess it shouldn't surprise me...

Re:Absence of Evidence

[locallyunscene]

If you're trying to argue the money point you really don't have a leg to stand on. The oil industry has orders of magnitude more money flowing through it. If scientists were going to corrupt themselves for money that's the direction they would go in.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[phantomfive]

You know, wouldn't it have been great if climate leaders had gathered together to begin some kind of great scientific technology endeavor to find a way to replace oil and coal? Something like viable electric cars. It would have been like the flight to the moon, except all nations would have been involved. It would have been a unifying experience for the whole world.

Instead they got together and talked about how much money the developed world is going to pay the developing world for the costs of global warming. That is so pathetic in comparison.

Re:Absence of Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

There's another reason besides pollution to find alternatives to coal and oil: they're finite resources and in the case of oil the supply is expected to start declining in the next few decades. We will HAVE to get more efficient and find an alternative at that point. It will be profoundly economically damaging if we don't.

On one hand this is a good thing -- the CO2 problem kind of solves itself if there is less to burn. On the other hand a forced transition could be pretty tough and if we switch to coal it will become worse (CO2 output per unit energy). It makes a lot of sense to stretch out the supply of fossil fuels we have as much as possible. This is doubly the case for strategic reasons in countries which import more than they produce domestically.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The arguments on both sides are right. The climate is changing and the earth is warming. That much is true. However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming. This is also true.

So we should be studying ways to mitigate the impact of climate change, not trying to find ways to reverse the irreversible.

Yawn

[jav1231]

So now we have a celebrity science pissing-match on our hands. This is simple, IPCC was married with politics, like much of the entire debate. Everyone back to the lab, the field, the research. Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science! Until then, no I'm not taking you seriously.

Re:Yawn

[sonicmerlin]

So now we have a celebrity science pissing-match on our hands. This is simple, IPCC was married with politics, like much of the entire debate. Everyone back to the lab, the field, the research. Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science! Until then, no I'm not taking you seriously.

That's absurd. Your sweeping generalization ignores the decades of research poured into the topic by research groups from all over the world. There is ongoing research continually improving upon current models with updated and refined data. You can go take a look at the thousands upon thousands of journal articles written by these scientists, assuming you can even understand the jargon.

Re:Yawn

[DerekLyons]

So now we have a celebrity science pissing-match on our hands. This is simple, IPCC was married with politics, like much of the entire debate. Everyone back to the lab, the field, the research. Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science! Until then, no I'm not taking you seriously.

That's absurd. Your sweeping generalization ignores the decades of research poured into the topic by research groups from all over the world.

No, he's ignoring the handful of years of increasingly politically motivated conclusions based on those decades of research.
 
 

There is ongoing research continually improving upon current models with updated and refined data.

The problem of course being that the models output no result but 'this is because of AGW'. Scientists predict a string of strong hurricane seasons 'because of AGW', and when they don't happen they update the model and 'discover' they didn't happen 'because of AGW'. Warm winter? AGW. Cold winter? AGW.
 
When the models keep being modified and produce the same output regardless of input - then something is up.
 
 

You can go take a look at the thousands upon thousands of journal articles written by these scientists, assuming you can even understand the jargon.

I can find thousands of articles on N-rays and luminiferous aether too.

Yet Again

[sonicmerlin]

In every thread about global warming I see the same nutjob denialist theories debunked over and over again, yet with no change in the opinions of the hardcore denialists.

Here we have yet another denialist conspiracy to mislead the public debunked by actual science. Previously we had the "smoking gun" theory debunked by a blogger.

How many times do these theories need to be debunked before denialist nutjobs give up their crusade against rational science? It's like dealing with a bunch of raving Creationist lunatics.

Re:Yet Again

[mevets]

such is life. Some look for truth; some for excuses. If your focus is truth, don't be dismayed by the bleating; smile and move on. If you can't help yourself, leave a sarcastic comment and move on. Those that need to justify themselves will do so, no matter the cost.

Re:Yet Again

[mjwx]

In every thread about global warming I see the same nutjob denialist theories debunked over and over again, yet with no change in the opinions of the hardcore denialists.

But still we must debunk and continue to debunk. There are a fair few people who just dont know how accurate the science is, a common question I get is "How can we measure air (CO2) from thousands of years ago", I point them towards the Wikipedia page on Ice Cores and say "because it's been trapped there all this time".

A denialist wont listen, they are just looking to confirm their bias (and tabloids have made an industry out of doing this) but you'll occasionally find a rational person who will listen. We aren't trying to change denialists, it's the genuine sceptics we want to reach. The ignorant never hold any real power.

Re:Yet Again

[Beelzebud]

It's not different than arguing with creationists, Richard Hoagland, 9/11 truthers, or holocaust deniers. They've made up their minds, the facts be damned.

Re:Yet Again

[Gadget_Guy]

Try labelling them "the unconvinced" and go from there.

That would be inaccurate. When have you ever seen one of these "unconvinced" actually get convinced. When they have their questions answered with science they either disappear or counter with more completely unrelated arguments as if that is some sort of rebuttal. That is why the science community gets so frustrated. They cannot win merely by giving a rational response.

I have NEVER seen someone make a decision based on these debates. A real skeptic or unconvinced person would be willing to accept the evidence once enough has been presented. That is why I think they are definitely denialists.

Re: Yet Again

[Black Parrot]

It's not the hard core nutjobs that need to be convinced, an impossible task. It's the moderate but disinterested observer who has been befudled by clever marketing.

Also, whenever someone announces that they've discovered that global warming is a big hoax it gets covered in the media and talked about for weeks. But when someone points out that that "discovery" is itself a hoax, the masses never hear about it.

Re:Yet Again

[Neoprofin]

The "unconvinced" aren't the ones arguing with you, they're the ones who lurk, and wonder why if the climate change issue is so cut and dried both sides are so emotional and frequently irrational in their discussion of it. The science may be there, but if the attitude of those wielding it is pompous, arrogant, rude, or in many cases childish or threatening it does little to lend credence to an opinion in either case.

Re:Yet Again

[ThaReetLad]

I think what really winds up the AGW proponents is that the denialists are (with some success) managing to get the media to portray the AGW, IPCC etc as the ones who are "religious" about their beliefs, while the deniers sound very reasonable and plausable saying "the case is not proven", and "there is still some doubt here". They manage to sound like scientists, while the real scientists might as well be standing on street corners shouting "The end is neigh!"

Even if there's no global warming...

[Black Gold Alchemist]

...the flame war here will ensure there is.

Does it matter that it exists or not?

[codepunk]

Does it really matter if we are warming the planet or not?

Even if we are how are we going to fix it? Limit CO2 emissions by something like cap and trade? Great concept but India, China etc are not going to play in
a game that is detrimental to their growing manufacturing industries. Or perhaps we create green energy solutions, problem is none of those solutions are cost
effective to be self sustaining. If we are warming the planet who is to say it is not actually a positive thing?

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[sonicmerlin]

Does it really matter if we are warming the planet or not?

Even if we are how are we going to fix it? Limit CO2 emissions by something like cap and trade? Great concept but India, China etc are not going to play in a game that is detrimental to their growing manufacturing industries. Or perhaps we create green energy solutions, problem is none of those solutions are cost effective to be self sustaining. If we are warming the planet who is to say it is not actually a positive thing?

I see this argument rather often, and I think it fails to see the point. The US has the largest GDP in the world BY FAR. It has the biggest and most robust economy by an order of magnitude, and nearly all gigantic leaps in technological innovation occur here because of the vast consumer market and potential profits (at least when Republicans aren't stymying innovation by giving away money to the rich). If the US creates a cap and trade system that rewards innovators and penalizes fossil fuel users, there is no doubt an explosion of innovation will arrive in the field. Companies like nanosolar would be only the tip of the iceberg.

Most European and Asian countries already have gas prices more than twice as high as ours. Just imagine the massive shift in capital to innovative startups that would have occurred over the last two decades had the US taxed gasoline appropriately. Imagine the massive private expenditures into developing consumer-grade alternative energy products. It's just mind-boggling to think what the US could do if it were as forward thinking as some other countries are.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Kierthos]

If we are warming the planet who is to say it is not actually a positive thing?

Penguins, polar bears, people living in Alaska, Tuvaluans (the entire country is at most 4.5 meters above sea levels), anyone else living really close to a coastline....

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[TheSync]

Depending on how fast the planet is warming, I would think the massive flooding would be detrimental to their growing manufacturing industries.

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report predicts sea level rises of 7 inches to 23 inches over the next 90 years depending on scenario. The truth is that while it is possible that there could be increases in hurricane activity, "massive flooding" is unlikely to have a significant effect on industrial production. An industrialized country like China can build up a seawall one inch per year, or move factories away from coasts.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Neoprofin]

Why don't we just give all Americans incurable diseases while we're at it to stimulate the medical industry properly? Snarky sounding, but perhaps you're right, the US has shown a fairly strong track record for solving problems that it can actually be motivated to deal with.

It's worth pointing out though that the high cost of gasoline outside of the US has been pushing large numbers of people to CNG, which although less less polluting is still not a long term solution to the problem, simply a delaying effort that very well may be immediately offset by increased use. In India it costs half as much but releases 2/3rds the CO2 for equivalent usage. These systems can however sometimes run on landfill waste products at which point we simply have a logistical problem.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[SirWinston]

>Most European and Asian countries already have gas
>prices more than twice as high as ours. Just
>imagine the massive shift in capital to innovative
>startups that would have occurred over the last
>two decades had the US taxed gasoline appropriately.

I see this argument frequently, but it ignores the simple reality that unlike in Europe and Asia, the American economy is based on a highly mobile workforce able to commute great distances by automobile. The middle class, in particular, is enabled by and enriched by the automobile and cheap gasoline--the wealthier can live in expensive neighborhoods close to work, and the poor live wherever they can while commuting as little as possible; but, the middle class often work in areas where they could either not afford nearby housing which caters to the more affluent, or where nearby housing caters to the poor.

That's not always the case, of course, but it often is and the middle class has thrived on the ability to live in cheaper yet comfortable neighborhoods further from job centers--i.e., living in the suburbs while commuting to the city, or living in the country and commuting to the burbs. There's also a greater mobility and variety of jobs available to the middle class thanks to cheap gas: where I live, many commute to Washington, D.C., many others to Richmond, and a few to Charlottesville--meaning the job markets of 2.5 major cities are effectively local. Tax gas at a high rate, and people will have less employment mobility, fewer competitive opportunities, and lower overall wages due to the lowered competition among employers in formerly-neighboring employment centers. Additionally, with permanently expensive gas making long commutes cost-prohibitive for the middle class, there would be a huge migration out of the burbs and into more urban areas--where are all the urban poor going to move when whole cities are gentrified almost overnight? Into deserted suburbs with few native local job opportunities?

Tax gas at a high rate, and the mobile workforce and all the competitive advantages it bestows evaporates; the middle class would be eviscerated, and the poor would be displaced. Like it or not, there is no viable public and/or mass transit in most of the U.S.--we haven't needed it thanks to cheap gas, nor has it been as practical as in Europe thanks to our sprawling landmass.

So, do we heavily invest in public/mass transit now in a crash program, to the tune of trillions of dollars almost all at once, so we can end our reliance on cheap gas? No, that's impractical, too expensive, and no one has either the political will or political capital. Do we just levy those high gas taxes, and see if the dire predictions are false? No, because even if it wouldn't destroy the middle class, it would destroy so many political careers that no one is dumb enough to try it--remember that when oil stayed above $100/barrel for a record number of weeks not long ago and U.S. gas prices stayed at record levels, populist anger boiled so hot that Congress was subpoenaing oil executives and threatening to tax their profits and repeal gas taxes and doing ANYTHING to keep a lid on popular sentiments that threatened to derail every incumbent in their wake.

So no, there will not be high gas taxes in this country, nor should there be. What there should be is a plan to phase out gasoline, not through punitive taxes aimed at the working classes but through taxes and legislative pressures on automakers to phase in certain percentages of electric or hybrid vehicles by target dates. We mandate automakers to include lots of once-expensive tech which has since come down in manufacturing cost; why not, in the name of national security as well as the environment, mandate targeted percentages of electric offerings? If prices of new cars do rise in the short term while early adopters bear the brunt, so be it--the more financially challenged can stick with their old cars for a few years more until costs come down. It may seem unrealistic to exp

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[SirWinston]

> Does it really matter if we are warming the planet or not?

No, no it doesn't:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/123218/stossel-thu-dec-10-2009

I'm all for switching from fossil fuels to renewables as quickly as is practicable. I can hardly wait for the day when I can go into a dealership and buy an affordable electric car, and can charge it on a nuclear-fed electric grid instead of the coal-based grid I'm on now. I want solar panels on every roof where they'd do any good and wind turbines wherever they'd be useful. BUT, we don't have to risk our economy to get there. We don't have to be taken in by lies and exaggerations to get there.

Climate change is a fact. How much of it is anthropogenic is far from certain. What we should do about it is, basically, the same thing we should do regardless--cleaner, renewable energy is the logical future in any event. But the AGW alarmists would have us cripple our economies with carbon taxes and gas taxes and all sorts of boondoggles to try to make the change quicker, whereas the reality is, as is pointed out in the video discussion linked above, we should be slow and steady and reasonable about changing our economy to rely less on fossil fuels. Being too hasty and redirecting too many resources will end up killing millions more through aid cuts than will be killed by climate change.

Re:Does it matter that it exists or not?

[Dragoness Eclectic]

And which politician is going to vote to lower his constituents standard of living? No one who wants to be re-elected. Hell, no one who wants any kind of legacy, because anything that affects the bulk of the citizenry as badly as over $3 / gallon gas did the other year will be promptly repealed by the politicians still in office who want to stay in office--or not be lynched.

As eloquently explained in one of the above posts, major increases in the cost of gasoline would wreak havoc on the economy and the middle-class. I disagree with the poster that the middle-class would be hardest hit--2008's insane gas prices hurt the so-called "blue-collar" class the worst. Those were the guys who were just making ends meet, and whose jobs often depending on driving: truckers, cabbies, deliverymen, etc.

In addition, the higher cost of a necessity, gasoline, means less money to spend on anything else, so luxuries go by the wayside. What happens to the economy when people stop spending on anything except absolute necessities? If you answer, "the stock market crash and recession that started in 2008 and is still going on", you, sir, are a winner! (Yes, mismanagement by the big banks and insurance companies who apparently didn't plan for the possibility of an economic downturn exacerbated the crash, but there would have been no crash without that economic downturn).

In an ironic twist, when our gasoline prices approached those of Europe's, it clobbered Europe's economy as well. Seems like people just weren't buying European imports and taking European vacations any more...

Ah, the old footnote trick

[snowwrestler]

It's well established that most people don't actually check footnotes[1]. Thus you can construct an original argument, footnote a few contained facts [2], and the presence of the footnotes lends an air of support to the entire argument [3].

Without reading both books, I can't take sides on the merits. But I will say some of the stuff in TFA sets off my alarms--like spending a footnote on a WHO report just to cite the population of Europe.

1

2

3

Its All About Power and Money

[RudyHartmann]

Greenland was colonized during a period of global warmth. That it is why it was named that way. When the solar cycle became colder, Greenland lost population due to global cooling. The climate was not influenced then by Scandinavians driving gas guzzling, CO2 belching SUV's. Man is not powerful enough to change the earth's climate to any "significant" degree. But that big thermonuclear ball in the sky is. A billion petrochemical fueled cars will not influence the sun. But, I still think we should find better sources of energy. Petrochemicals can be very dirty. I think we should only use them for a feedstock for plastics and use Thorium reactors to make our energy. Thorium reactors could even be used to get rid of the deadly nuclear waste from Uranium/Plutonium reactors. http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/12/01/how-a-liquid-fluoride-thorium-reactor-lftr-works/ Scientists are men that can be influenced by propaganda just like any man can be. I think the climate change scare is just another way for politicians to steal our hard earned money. BTW, I also love this video from George Carlin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw

Re:Its All About Power and Money

[Gadget_Guy]

Greenland was colonized during a period of global warmth. That it is why it was named that way.

According to the Reverend J. Sephton in his book Eirik the Red's Saga, Greenland was named as a marketing ploy by Eirik: "Because," said he, "men will desire much the more to go there if the land has a good name."

Yes, it would have been warmer and greener than it was now, but if there was subterfuge in the naming of the country then I don't imagine that it was a tropical paradise. It also doesn't mean that it was as consistantly warmer across the globe as it is now.

But it is also a distraction. Do you deny that being shot by a gun could kill you, merely because other people have died without being shot. Just because it got warmer then doesn't mean that we are not causing it to get warmer now. It is getting hotter, faster and more globally than it did back then.

Man is not powerful enough to change the earth's climate to any "significant" degree. But that big thermonuclear ball in the sky is. A billion petrochemical fueled cars will not influence the sun.

Nobody has every claimed that we are making the sun hotter. This demonstrates that you really don't understand the problem. The problem is that the heat from the sun is being trapped here. As an analogy, my house stays pretty cool even on hot days without the need for air conditioning. As long as it gets cooler at night, it stays pleasant during the day. But if it stays hot at night, it doesn't get a chance to lose the build-up of heat from the previous day and it gets more unpleasant as after day. The days are not necessarily hotter, but the accumulated heat energy means that each successive day has a larger affect.

Scientists are men that can be influenced by propaganda just like any man can be. I think the climate change scare is just another way for politicians to steal our hard earned money.

The climate change "scare" as you call it was instigated by the scientists, not the politicions. They don't just watch the news and think "yeah, I had better parrot that line too". They just follow their data, and all get to the same place. It is either a giant conspiracy or the truth. Which seems the most likely.

However, if you can come up with ANY evidence to back up the claim that it is the politicians that are leading our scientists around then please present it. Oh, have a look at all those CRU emails that were released. They should be able to tell you the names of the politicians who are giving the orders (if there are any). Come back and let us know.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I'm sure you know all about how the Earth's Milankovitch Cycle plays into past Earth cooling/warming cycles. And how because of this CO2 historically lags global temperature. Not to mention how we are defiantly in an interglacial because of our placement in a Milankovitch Cycle so it would be very odd if temperature was not increasing like we are seeing.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

If lomborg had any faith in the veracity of his "science" he would publish it in peer-reviewed journals. As it stands his solitary journal publication was in a sociology journal.

Considering the mountain of propoganda surrounding the issue of AGW (on both sides) any sane spectator will quite rightly continue to ignore his rants until he has the balls to submit them to formal scientific scrutiny.

This is not to say that your link is not informative in the current context and IMHO should be modded as such, just that it's contents are not worth the electrons they are written with.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[bloodhawk]

So one can also conclude that as friel is publishing his as a book that his is also one huge fabrication and should not be taken seriously?

From a quick reading of some reviews and lomborgs response it sounds most likely that they are both just publicity Whores with very little credibility.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[benjamindees]

If lomborg had any faith in the veracity of his "science" he would publish it in peer-reviewed journals.

You mean like the peer-reviewed journals that were systematically fixed by pro-AGW scientists in order to exclude dissenting researchers?

He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[brucmack]

I haven't read his books, but I live in Denmark so Lomborg gets quite a bit of press here, especially under the climate change conference in December. In interviews he's always come across as a pragmatist more than a skeptic.

He has two main arguments:

1) Think about the return on investment.

Let's say we can cool the earth one degree by spending a trillion dollars. Is it worth the investment? What do we really get out of it? How many other problems could have been fixed with that money?

2) The current approach to fighting climate change is wrong.

UN treaties and money aren't going to stop the developing world from using fossil fuels. The only surefire way to get off of coal is to develop something that is cheaper. Instead of giving money to developing countries to bribe them not to pollute, we should invest the money in new technology, so that in 10, 20, 30 years we can say "here, this is cheaper than coal and doesn't pollute".

I think both of his points are important to consider, though I don't agree with him completely. There are risks to his solution - what if our investments don't bear fruit, and coal is still the cheapest energy source in 30 years? What if climate change causes political destabilization so we don't have enough time to get finished?

I don't think anybody has a perfect solution, but I do think that Lomborg contributes positively to the debate.

Re:He's more pragmatic than skeptic

[10101001 10101001]

1) Think about the return on investment.

Let's say we can cool the earth one degree by spending a trillion dollars. Is it worth the investment? What do we really get out of it? How many other problems could have been fixed with that money?

If it were a mere one trillion dollars for the whole world, it'd really be a drop in the bucket and well worth the investment. Aside from the issue of ROI, one has to consider the externalities of not spending the trillion dollars. Look at the mostly current financial/economic crisis. How much do you think that cost countries? How much do you think will be the cost of long-term shifting weather patterns? I'd imagine it might trivially be a lot more than most people would care to stomach compared to doing something now.

2) The current approach to fighting climate change is wrong.

UN treaties and money aren't going to stop the developing world from using fossil fuels. The only surefire way to get off of coal is to develop something that is cheaper. Instead of giving money to developing countries to bribe them not to pollute, we should invest the money in new technology, so that in 10, 20, 30 years we can say "here, this is cheaper than coal and doesn't pollute".

Funny, but that's the main reason cap and trade is such a good idea. It causes developed countries to start polluting significantly less, raises the current costs of coal/oil/etc (inherently making long-term investments in other energy sources possibly viable), allows for the collected taxes to be pushed into new energy technology, and hopefully the result will be energy that effectively is cheaper than the coal/oil/etc's original price. Even if the whole energy technology step doesn't work to produce something cheaper than coal/oil/etc, the system will both have proven that you can still be a developed country using massively less amounts of coal/oil/etc per capita (meaning developed countries, mimicking developed countries, need not believe they'll tank for what might others seem a reckless course of action) and almost certainly have higher efficiency technology to export to other countries so they'll inherently use less coal/oil/etc (since the efficiency technology will have been created in a [mostly] market based system and should be generally economical sound anywhere).

What if climate change causes political destabilization so we don't have enough time to get finished?

We're going to see that anyways. China has already taken some pretty bold steps about securing oil supplies for its developing economy. That's a major reason for the great increase in the price of oil; that is, if China hadn't been securing and using those oil wells, other western powers would have for their still increasing oil consumption. You can only pump so much oil out of the ground at one time, and so at some point Americans and Chinese will no longer be able to simply expand through more oil extraction. At that point, increasing the efficiency of technology will be necessary. In the interim, both China and America's economy will suffer rather badly (the US needs ~2.5% economic growth yearly just to maintain itself and China needs something close to ~10%) as oil prices will skyrocket.

We need to be developing alternative energies and efficiency technology now and not wait until "the market" takes care of things. "The market" doesn't take into consideration that while it might work hypothetically in a perfect world given enough time, in the real world a drastic short-term change in supply or demand can result in the sort of political instability that results in a lot of "force" upon a lot of people. And that can be very unpleasant for everyone involved.

another IPCC 'fact' bites the dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the ocean rise report cited by the IPCC has been retracted to go along with the bogus North Africa food shortage, increased natural disaster frequency and intensity, Brazilian rain forest depletion, and Himalaya glacier claims. Then there's East Anglia and Mr. Jones conceding that there'd been no statistically significant global warming for the last 15 years. I have always respected the healthy skepticism seen on slashdot, but unfortunately when AGW comes up often it seems that the game changes for many contributors and the 'science' is all of a sudden 'settled'. What's going on?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you cannot trace (or there is big disagreement about) the contribution of phenomenon X to measured data of global warming, how can you trace the contribution of phenomenons Y and Z? Isn't this a logical impossibility?

Re:This is like the Bigfoot argument

[azaris]

By that I mean there will be people that believe what they want no matter what the evidence. To be clear I mean there's zero solid evidence of Bigfoot yet some will always believe in it.

I think you got your analogies screwed up. Or do you compare AGW to Bigfoot?

I find it bizarre that people refuse to accept we are having an impact on the environment. The evidence is everywhere. I'm not talking global warming both sides of that argument are bordering on religion I'm talking how much the world has changed. Look at common resources. Ever watch any of the logging shows? What they are cutting now are so small no one would have bothered with them 20 or 30 years ago but in many areas it's all that's left and it's so bad that when they do find old growth trees the lumber mills aren't even set up for them. They are simply too rare to bother with.

Deforestation and overlogging are problems that do not depend on the AGW hypothesis. You're making the green fallacy of equating any and all negative changes in the environment to CO2.

Look at swordfish. They said 200 years ago you could all but walk across the Grand Banks because of all the fish. Now the swordfish they take are virtually all immature fish that have yet to reproduce. Most fisheries have collapsed, a fact. When was the last time you saw a butterfly? How many and how often? When I was growing up you'd see them by the hundreds virtually any summer day. Now I see a few a year. Same with frogs.

Speak for yourself. There might be variations in local spiecies populations due to human actions. That has nothing to do with whether CO2 is causing global changes.

Most great apes are down to a few percent of their original populations. It'd take a good sneeze to wipe them out and they are our closest relatives.

Again, caused by deforestation and expanding human land use, not CO2.

People say the snow storms proved global warming was a hoax. Well guess what I live in central Maine and we have already lost most of our snow and it's getting up into the 50s. This is supposed to be the worst time of year for snow and cold. Don't believe anyone or any study if you want.

Individual weather phenomena are never evidence for, or against, AGW.

Trust your eyes. I see radical change everywhere I look.

It's surprising how much "evidence" you can see proving something you've already made your mind up about being real. The same way only deeply religious people ever seem to find evidence by God.

What people still can't get through their heads is the warming is overall and we are experiencing both extreme hot and cold days. It's the average that is towards warming.

No one is really disputing the warming. What is being disputed is how much of it is due to CO2 and what will be the effect in the future.

The real point is we are headed for more extreme weather and that is very bad.

The claim that AGW causes extreme weather is highly disputed even among genuine climatologists.

With species extinction people need to understand it took hundreds of millions of years to create this much diversity and it will take that long to restore it. Even if it came back in a few million years look at it this way we've been around for 200,000. That means no human will ever see it this diverse again.

Statements without evidence based on hubris.

We are in the middle of one of the worst extinction events in Earth's history and we are the cause and there's no debate about that one.

Blatant lie wrapped up in an assertion of absolute truth.

Most species are dying from habitat loss, we call them cities.

Do you even know how many species there exist in the entire world?

Seriously plagiarized post

[Dahamma]

Sort of ironic that the submission is about an exhaustive check of sources when he completely copies the original story in his summary without even mentioning the source (beyond a very vague link that IMO is NOT sufficient when pulling whole sentences from the original article...)

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Cassius Corodes]

Do you honestly think that scientists have not spotted that? Or that they though nobody else was going to spot that? If this was the Achilles heel of their argument - don't you think being the conspiracy theory world-wide crew they would have not shown it? Or maybe they were using reverse physiology?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Darinbob]

But if the cause isn't man made, then we can say "don't blame me!" when disaster strikes.

Imagine if this thinking was applied to other areas. Hurricanes aren't man made, so we don't need to get out of the way. Floods aren't man made so I can build my house on the river bank. Lightning is a natural phenomena so I can keep golfing in the rain.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[fractoid]

While you make a compelling point that someone somewhere must have spotted this, you don't seem to have any explanations of the phenomenon under discussion.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[TapeCutter]

Not sure who the "he" is that you are refering to, neither have done any climate science but Lomborg claims he has and that his rants should be included in the IPCC reports.

Lomborg paints himself a persecuted DaVinci, a lone voice of scientific genius against the harsh dogma of the establishment. Basically Friel has published a detailed book review debunking that picture, the journal of nature also reviews books and like Friel they do not claim them to be anything more than researched opinion.

Re:Lomborg has a response

[Gadget_Guy]

You mean like the peer-reviewed journals that were systematically fixed by pro-AGW scientists in order to exclude dissenting researchers?

Do they really try to exclude dissenting researchers, or just ones who use bad science (or misleading citations that do not match what is being argued in the paper)? If somebody does use bad science to make outrageous claims and they then get rejected by the journals, they will claim that they were rejected because of bias or a conspiracy. And unfortunately, people will believe them.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[w0mprat]

However, it has not been shown that humans are the primary cause of this warming. This is also true.

True? That has been shown over and over, infact if you want a 'smoking gun' you could look at some simple measurements: Mankind has increased greenhouse gas 40% over pre industrial levels. This issue is convenient ignored, because this is kind of a damning direct epirical measurement. The real question is how much it is going to warm up or more specifically is a given ammount of warming a minor issue or a epic fucktastrophe.

Now, I don't know if you would call that a smoking gun, but to me that really smokes.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[TapeCutter]

Exactly, when people call AGW a hoax what they are really saying is that a large chunk of fundemental physics is a hoax.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EzInKy]

Though I agree that humans are a significant contributor to climate change arguing the point is a waste of effort. Once the window is broken it really doesn't matter whether it was Billy or Jane who was the culprit, the most important thing is to replace the glass to prevent the basement from flooding.

Re: Who cares either way?

[Zorque]

Just because a company uses a situation to make money means it doesn't exist? I guess all those flag-makers taking advantage of 9/11 must mean the Trade Center is still standing.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[DiamondGeezer]

Unfortunately correlation is not causation. The ice cores show no forcing of temperatures as a result of carbon dioxide rise.

Rabies

[Dobeln]

The above poster illustrates something very important:

Part of the reason one should be very skeptical of AGW alarmists is their rabies-like demeanor and aggression against all that they perceive as even the slightest heresy against their little modern day apocalypse cult.

Wider implication: Never trust the results in any discipline that is subject to a reputation cascade. (I.e, disciplines where even mild dissenters are ostracized)

The tip of the iceberg

[Dobeln]

You do not "debunk", you ostracize. The main modus of debate of AGW proponents from day one has been moralistic, not empirical.

Hence the conversion of "skeptic" from badge of honor to a mark of shame, and the introduction of the "denier" label to further amp up the hysteric persecution of those who dont go with the program.

This also explains the skepticism of the general public. Joe Blow doesnt know his tree rings from his ice cores, but he sure knows what fanaticism looks like.

After all, how can one trust a science where "skepticism" is career death? The answer is simple: One cant. And as the tip of the iceberg is now visible for all to see - the remaining question is how much is hidden by the sea...

The Friel Emergency Literacy Fund

[Dobeln]

After reading about half of Lomborgs rebuttal, I think the more pertinent issue is "can Friel read"? Perhaps we can set up a literacy fund to help the good man get some remedial ed?

As for your assertion that "Lomborg paints himself a persecuted DaVinci":

1. As far as I know, he has never compared himself to DaVinci. I.e, you are making shit up.

and

2. He has had the pleasure of being convicted (and then aquitted) of the novel thought-crime of "unintentional dishonesty". Gotta love those cultists - they are at least an inventive bunch.

Re:I usually just point out

[Neoprofin]

Several investigations found his publications (newspaper articles)to be dishonest

From your link:

The DCSD did not provide specific statements on actual errors. On this point the MSTI stated "the DCSD has not documented where [Dr. Lomborg] has allegedly been biased in his choice of data and in his argumentation, and ... the ruling is completely void of argumentation for why the DCSD find that the complainants are right in their criticisms of [his] working methods. It is not sufficient that the criticisms of a researcher's working methods exist; the DCSD must consider the criticisms and take a position on whether or not the criticisms are justified, and why.

A Dutch think tank, HAN, Heidelberg Appeal the Netherlands, published a report in which they claimed 25 out of 27 accusations against Lomborg to be unsubstantiated or not to the point.[13] A group of scientists with relation to this think tank also published an article in 2005 in the Journal of Information Ethics,[14] in which they concluded that most criticism against Lomborg was unjustified, and that the scientific community misused their authority to suppress Lomborg.

I assume you've read it and know that there are still plenty of other criticisms (like this new book) but as for peer-review and open dialogue I think it's hard to say that Lomborg hasn't had his work examined and even harder to say that he hasn't been forthcoming in responding to detractors in a far more transparent way than any journal I've ever read. I've never read TSE but I can't say that I understand where you get the "frothing" part of his response. Maybe you should imagine it being read by a calm voice, whether you agree with it or not.

Re:We'll run out of oil first

[HungryHobo]

Well it's not like one day oil will cost 50 dollars a barrel and the next it'll all be gone.

As the reserves run dry there will be years during which the price climbs and climbs and people will switch to other fuels.
Ships that run on oil getting too costly to run?
well then some smart buggers will build some more nuclear powered ships or ships which are more efficient or ships which are powered by fuel cells or any other method and they'll make a lot of money because they'll be offering to transport goods far more cheaply than the companies who's ships run on oil.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[biryokumaru]

Once the window is broken it really doesn't matter whether it was Billy or Jane who was the culprit...

Unless you want to stop Jane from bashing in any more windows. It's not like we're going to stop contributing to global warming if we ignore the question of whether we're contributing to it.

The most important virtue of Lomborg...

[Dobeln]

... is not his actual arguments (important as they may be), but rather that the attacks on him - in their viscousness, dishonesty and general rage-inducing pompousness - highlight how venal large swathes of the "scientific establishment" have become.

That's why he's so hated

[Sycraft-fu]

He's not just saying "Nope, this isn't a problem, ignore it, don't worry, etc, etc." A person like that is much easier to dismiss. What he's saying is "Yes, this is a problem, but not a big one, and certainly not one worth all the money and effort being proposed to fix it. Instead, we should spend that on other things that would have a much bigger impact on quality of life." More or less he's not disagreeing with the fundamental premise or conclusion, he's disagreeing with the policies being proposed because of that.

This drives the global warming proponents totally mad. Most of them seem to be of the opinion that what they have to do is convince people that global warming is real, and caused by humans. Once that is done, people should be willing to accept whatever policies they say are necessary. No questioning of the costs or the utility, they've proven the problem and now whatever they say needs to happen should happen without further question.

So Lomborg has become one of their top enemies because he doesn't fundamentally disagree on the idea that the world is warming, just that it is worth while to try and solve when there are so many other problems to human life. For that, they hate him.

That is one of the things that makes me question motives in this whole thing. I can understand exasperation with people who believe your research is incorrect/false/made up if your truly believe it is right. You think you've got it correct, done a lot of work in that regard, you get mad when people say "Nuh uh!". However, when someone is disagreeing not with that, but with the policies you demand and you get even more angry at them, well that makes me wonder: Is the research really what's important to you, or are you using it just to try and drive policies that you want, regardless of their use? It would seem to me that how to deal with the problem would be open for discussion, yet discussion of that generates the most backlash. Makes you wonder.

Let's be honest

[dreamchaser]

Come on now, how about a little intellectual honesty? The falsification and other shenanigans by the pro-AGW crowd have been all over the news in recent months. That doesn't make any disingenousness or innacuracy by Lombard excusable and GP didn't say it was.

The whole GW issue has become more about money (grants and taxes) and power/prestige than real science, on BOTH sides.

AGW is not a proven fact, and the shenanigans of both skeptics and supporters of the theory are doing science an injustice.

Re:Let's be honest

[randomencounter]

Somebody needs to learn how to recognize patterns and outlyers.

The pattern of anti-AGW "research" is ignorant and/or dishonest.

A few dishonest scientists sexing-up their research to try to get more grant money doesn't invalidate the data collected by others.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ArcherB]

They do NOT affect total energy received from the sun over the course of the year which remains constant.

Small nitpick here. While the sun is extremely stable when compared to its interstellar cousins, it is by no means constant. For example, there is an 11-year sunspot cycle that varies the amount of solar radiation we receive by about .1%, which is much greater than the amount of change caused by the amount of C02 man has put into the atmosphere. Of course, there are longer cycles as well that may affect climate over a much longer range, but we have not had the instruments to make measurements that far back to nail down the exact effect on the climate.

And while you did say, "over the course of of the year", the orbit of the Earth itself is elliptical enough to vary the amount of energy we receive from the sun.

 

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Nesa2]

Everyone will always talk about research to prove the global warming, but no one really knows exactly what this research is. Watching ice melt on Google earth is not research. Saying CO2 in atmosphere contributes to green house effect warming earth is not research. And all the "research" companies funded by governments have yet to reveal their research and prove it. This is why it was a big deal when hackers released information from one of those research firms that actually questions all of their research on global warming.

I will not believe it until there is a research paper that 90% of scientists can agree on. I don't take anyone's word for any of this. Either show me proof or get out of my face. And I don't want to see proof of global warming as YOU see it, I want it as 90% of scientific community sees it. Such research is yet to be published and agreed on.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[EzInKy]

Despite being one who would be labeled as a socialist by the likes of Limbaugh and O'Reilly, I do agree with you. Punishing humans for being human is really quite absurd. Religious nuts have been trying to do so for millennia and have yet to keep people from fornicating. Yes, the climate will change and no, penalizing people will not stop it from happening.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[tbannist]

That's unfortunately because the article proves that the "climate skeptics" are frauds too, they've lied and mislead and deceived people for their own benefit which, of course, according to your own standard means they are wrong and can't be believed.

So there, the world must be colder because it's can't be getting warmer because the scientists and the CRU are mean, the non-scientists and IPCC made a mistake in a 400 page report, and the so-called skeptics are continuously and repeated proven wrong over and over again. That's the only possible conclusion. Right? Right?

Wait. Maybe science doesn't work like that.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[ArcherB]

But if the cause isn't man made, then we can say "don't blame me!" when disaster strikes.

Imagine if this thinking was applied to other areas. Hurricanes aren't man made, so we don't need to get out of the way. Floods aren't man made so I can build my house on the river bank. Lightning is a natural phenomena so I can keep golfing in the rain.

And that was kinda Bjorn's point. It doesn't really matter so much as to WHY the climate is getting warmer and there is little we can do about it. Sure, we can do some things like make more efficient cars and power our homes with nuclear/wind/solar/hydro power, but with the massive amounts of cash we are throwing at the problem could be better spent preparing for global warming than fighting it. For example, rather than spend trillions of dollars to get third world countries to not build their economies, we could spend billions feeding or moving the people that may or may not be affected by GW.

As to Bjorn's sources being debunked or whatever, this conclusion that I've mentioned above is clearly sited by common sense. No more citation is required.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sonnejw0]

Climate Change Argument Summary:
1) Straw man, 2) Defer to expert opinion, 3) ad hominem, 4) ad hominem, 5) red herring, 6) straw man, 7) misinterpretation, 8) ad hominem ... 9) ??? (form political action committee?) ... 10) PROFIT!!!

Simply, there's no data. It's all correlative, and "green" energy (i.e. nuclear) are better for the economy and national security so we should be utilizing them anyway.

Except that none of what you said is true

[chrb]

It's interesting to note that none of what you said is true. In fact, the "No Warming" believers have more in common with creationists:

• Believe that there is a vast scientific conspiracy against them
• Believe that there is a vast political conspiracy against them
• Are led by a small number of disciples (Watts, McIntyre etc.) who proclaim that they know the truth and the rest of the world is wrong
• Refuse to accept any alternative to their position regardless of how rational it is
• Dismiss evidence (ice cores, shortened winters, instrumental temperature data etc.) out of hand if it doesn't fit their view of the world
• Repeat confused and illogical ideas that have been repeatedly debunked ("but it's cold outside", "but they can't predict the weather!", "it's the sun, dummy!", "mars and pluto are warming too!", "there is no warming", "there is warming but we have no idea why", "it's Milankovitch cycles", "the co2 molecule has never been shown to trap heat", "the ice cores data is faked", "they don't account for badly sited temperature measuring stations", "they fix the numbers by accounting for poor temperature measuring stations", etc.)

I see both sides digging in

[wurp]

I think the whole thing has become so politicized that an honest viewpoint from either side is rare. The global warming believers think it's such a big impact if it's true that they feel they can't honestly present counter-evidence, and the unbelievers think the cost is so high that it can't be paid without incontrovertible evidence.

Unfortunately, climate science doesn't have a great record (the planetary ecosystem and climate are pretty goddam complicated). At the same time, we will never have evidence that the average idiot will understand and accept for anything as complex as a checking account.

Most people, myself included, have no real basis on which to make a decision, so we pick the side with the people we trust.

Personally, I trust scientists much more than businessmen. Good scientists are trained to be brutally honest with themselves, and to use methods that expose rather than hide flaws in their own reasoning.

Businessmen are trained to be confident in their abilities and conclusions regardless of reality.

This means that when businessmen look at the objective opinions of good scientists, with their "given this" and "see chart X for exceptions", they blow them off. Then they spend millions pointing out how the scientists can't even make up their mind.

For me, it's an easy choice. That doesn't mean that I am immune to arguments either way, just that I tend to listen with my own slant, and I recognize it.

I personally wish we would just give respected climate scientists some money and some peace for a couple of years to fight it out among themselves without worrying about the viewpoint of uninformed idiots, but I know it's not going to happen.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[silverbax]

I agree, wish I had upmod points, the only commercial reason to promote the 'do nothing' concept is to protect market share for existing companies. I don't understand why oil companies aren't making a 'land grab' for the green technologies.

What did 'Scientific American' do about Lomborg?

[drainbramage]

As I recall after The Skeptical Environmentalist was published 'Scientific American' offered $$ for articles debunking Lomborg.
NOTE: Not asking for analysis. Money and publishing only for anti Lomborg articles.
Sort of an abuse to call that process scientific.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's so nice of you to *try* to explain it, but the simple fact of the matter is that when it actually comes down to it, even the "experts" don't really know how it works. No one does. I've read their "explanations" on why CO2 must affect global temperatures, even though it follows it. It basically goes like this:

"Well, CO2 doesn't initiate global temperature increases (they have to admit that, because it's obvious) but it still has to affect them."

Why?

"Well, because greenhouse gases make our planet hotter than it would be without them, therefore MORE of them HAS to make it MORE hotter!!"

Oh really? Why?

"Because there's definite correlation between rising temperatures and rising CO2! When the temperature was higher, the CO2 was higher!"

Um... correlation is not causation. How do you actually know the increased CO2 contributed significantly to increased temperatures?

"Well, we don't really know that, but it HAS to!!"

And so it goes.

It HAS to, because it HAS to. Nevermind that none of this is relevant to the ultimate question: does it really MATTER if it gets somewhat hotter, considering that fact that we still have quite a ways to go before we get to the warmest it's ever been, even in human history.

Really, when it comes down to it, there's no such thing as an "expert" on climate science. NO ONE is an expert on the subject. Collectively, we simply don't know enough for anyone to really understand it. Much like there were no medical experts even as recently as two or three hundred years ago. They were using leeches to drain our blood to heal us FFS. They didn't even know germs existed until about 150 years ago.

The only thing we have empirical evidence for (as pertains to current global climate) right now is that it's somewhat warmer than it was a couple hundred years ago. Everything else at this point is conjecture and hypothesis.

And frankly, when you clear aside all the smoke and mirrors, the most logical explanation based on the evidence we do have is that the warming trend is natural, and is entirely a result of increased sun activity.

I'm not against being responsible environmentally. Having more forests is a good thing. Less pollution is a good thing. Less trash is a good thing. More species surviving is a good thing. But there's no real proof that increased CO2 affects any of these goals in a bad way. If anything, increased CO2 will help the regrowing of forests, which I see as being the biggest thing we as humans can do to help repair the damage we've done environmentally at this point.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[budgenator]

Sorry,I read the linked page and I couldn't find where they were addressing the points made by BadAnalogyGuy. How about this if anthropgenic CO2 is responsible for significant global warming, then why after the CO2 levels have still been rising, there has been No Significant Global Warming for 15 years?

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[sac13]

Before humans, temperature was driving the change, and CO2 caused the feedback.

Now, CO2 is driving the change (cause we have coal power plants now), and temperature causes the feedback (because warming up the oceans still reduces their capacity to hold CO2)

So the existence humans changed the laws of physics?

The coldest period in the last half billion years had atmospheric CO2 levels 10 times what we have today. Why wasn't the CO2 driving the change then? It certainly wasn't the temperature.

Maybe if the climate "researchers" would open up their methodologies, source code and data, I might be able to understand it.

I understand why they don't, though. It would be like MS opening up the Windows source code. People would feel very ripped off about what they've been paying for.

If you hide your data AND your entire methodology from ANYONE that would seek to replicate and evaluate your results, you're not practicing science. And until that is all publicly available for consumption (which it IS NOT), I can't consider AGW to be science.

When I hear someone talking out of both sides of their mouth explaining exception after exception to their mythical model that has all the answers, I assume I am dealing with a charlatan. Science is ENTIRELY about being a skeptic. The AGW crowd demean skeptics. Thus, the AGW crowd must not be scientists.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[budgenator]

Are you sure they aren't? What your calling Oil companies, think of themselves as Energy Companies, if they can supply our energy needs with economically viable renewables and save the petrolium crude for high profit boutique chemicals they'd do it in a heart beat.

Re:Cue the teabaggers.

[riverat1]

Maybe if the climate "researchers" would open up their methodologies, source code and data, I might be able to understand it.

I doubt you would be able to really understand it but their methodologies are available in the peer reviewed literature they have published and more data and code than you could probably analyze in your life is available from the many links on this page.