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Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
blau tips news of an open letter from 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates, decrying the "recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular." The letter lays out the basics of the scientific method, and explains how certainly highly-regarded theories — such as the big bang, evolution, and Earth's origin — are commonly accepted due to the strength of the evidence supporting them, though "fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong." It goes on to "call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them." According to the Guardian, the letter "originated with a number of NAS members who were frustrated at the misinformation being spread by climate deniers and the assaults on scientists by some policy-makers who hope to delay or avoid making policy decisions and are hiding behind the recent controversy around emails and minor errors in the IPCC."
AGW on the other hand is nothing more then a hypothesis which has somehow jumped skipped the whole science part and gone straight to being declared a fact. it took darwin decades to come up with the theory of evolution, and decades more to defend it to the point of being accepted. Yet somehow AGW is expected to be accepted as fact in the space of 10 - 15 years? serious research alone takes longer then that for less complex issues.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
There's a problem of time here that I think a lot of people miss.
Anthropogenic global warming is a very, very new theory. Remember, back in the 70s, the climate scientists were telling us all that we were going to go into a massive ice age at any minute. Now, when people bring that up, the excuse is that "well, back then, climate science was in its infancy". Ok, fine, but it's only 30 years later.
Compare this to evolution. That theory goes back to the mid 1800s, before we even knew anything about DNA. It's been well-supported by all the evidence so far, especially now that we know about DNA. There's no one alive now (except any Highlander types perhaps :-) who was alive before the theory of evolution became widespread, so the only people who deny it are the fundie Christians and Muslims (apparently, much of the population of Turkey believes in Creationism). Everyone else doesn't see any type of conspiracy or ulterior motives, and there's over a century of evidence gathered, so not only is it accepted by most scientists (there are some fundies in there though), it's accepted by most of the public too.
Climate science is much, much newer, and many of us remember things before all this global warming hoopla came about, so it's normal for skeptical people to be distrustful, especially when it's easy to see ulterior motives. There's no ulterior motives for evolution: who's going to profit from pushing it if it isn't correct? Textbook makers? However, AGW is a different matter: there's definitely money to be made and power to be had by pushing it. When you're telling everyone that they need to pay a big tax for their CO2 emissions because supposedly it's causing the earth to warm up, why do you think they're not going to balk and question your scientific results?
No one questions that some emissions are harmful: anyone who's been alive for over 3 decades can tell you how much worse car exhaust used to smell, especially before emissions controls in the 70s. Metro areas (esp. LA) have much cleaner air now because of it. However, this is different from CO2 emissions, which are created in large amounts even in an engine that burns its fuel at 100% efficiency. When you also notice that nature itself creates a lot of global warming gases when it makes volcanoes, how can anyone not question the idea that human-produce emissions are so much worse? And then when you consider that climate change is an extremely long-term process, which we've only been studying seriously for a few decades, and that a few tens of thousands of years ago, the sea levels were very different and people were able to walk from Asia to America and from Europe to the British Isles, it's perfectly natural to wonder just how accurate these scientists' theories are. They haven't had much time to test them at all.
Calling people names for disagreeing doesn't exactly help either, though that seems to be a typical play from the liberal playbook: anyone who disagrees is called a "racist", or a "moron", etc.
As for Obama's birth, it's never been proven he was born in Hawaii. According to the birthers, the Certificate shown isn't proof of that, and at the time, people could bring infants into the country and get such a certificate. Of course, they don't have any proof that he wasn't born in the US, but they have raised a valid question, which I don't believe has been sufficiently answered. IIRC, one of Obama's relatives even claimed that he was born in Kenya, and that they witnessed this. I don't know that we'll ever know for sure either way what the real truth is, unless we invent a wormhole machine to look into the past. Personally, though, I think they should amend the Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to be President anyway. The Presidential natural-birth requirement made some sense back in the late 1700s, but not any more. But while they're at it, they should also remove the citizenship-by-birth that currently exists. Most other countries don't have it, for good reason; they r
Oh come on. These guys have spent the last 20+ years politicizing science, subverting the Scientific Method and committing massive fraud -- and they're upset because they are beginning to be investigated?
What these people have done to Science is absolutely inexcusable. They have set back scientific progress -- and the public's confidence in Science -- by decades. As a science nerd, that just flat pisses me off.
I hope this doesn't end until Al Gore himself is in a pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
You restated my point 4, that the warming will cause catastrophic effects. You are making an assumption that I understand nothing about this. That's as good a start as any, and I won't correct you. I only ask that you convince me that catastrophic AGW is correct, or at least holds a reasonably good chance of being correct. I even gave you the list of what you'd have to convince me of already broken out. All you have to do is explain the hypothesis and present the evidence and answer questions. "Shut up," which is the meat of your response, is not a useful substitute.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Okay, then I'll say it. The heads of creationist organizations and anti-AGW organizations are secretly lizard aliens trying to steal our water and eat our children. I mean, look at people like Pat Robertson, Laura Bush, and Rush Limbaugh. Don't you think they would devour your children? Hell, how do you think Rush Limbaugh got so fat in the first place? He only slimmed down later because child sacrifice and cannibalism interfered with his Oxycotin habit.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Your lying is as bad as Obama's. The world's mean temperature has been dropping every year since 1998. Why do you think the term switched from glo-bull warming to "climate change"? Just as The Narrator said above, global warming can never be disproven, especially now since it's called climate change. ANY EVENT, rain, drought, hurricane, etc. supports "climate change." However, that doesn't mean that the Earth is warming. It isn't.
It's not the reality of temperature going up and the likelihood of man's involvement that I'm concerned about.
It's the catastrophic predictions based upon mystery models with hidden data that bothers me. If we're all headed for disaster, then I'll stop driving my car. You'd better be certain, though, and being an ass won't convince me that you're sincere.
You are to brutally honest, full of it.
Ad hominem has no place in this discussion.
I try to look past it, but there are plenty that you completely turn off with that line of attack.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
You are effectively denying all science by grouping AGW sceptics with "useful idiots".
There is one huge problem with AGW: we cannot measure it. So how can you claim it is a scientific fact? If Earth is warming we certainly should be able to measure it, right? Why cannot we?
See, last decade "warming" could be, according to statistics, due to just random fluctuations. This is a mathematical fact and there is no way to deny it. Yet you never hear that fact, you only hear "last decade was warmest ever measured". Why should I trust AGW proponents when they do bad math while knowing it is bad math? Similarly for purposefully claiming Himalayas will dry off in 30 years while knowing it is 100% bogus. What else have they done, cherry picked "scientific" papers perhaps? Who know as they will not tell.
Then there is another, even bigger, problem in the news. Everything "could be caused by global warming", everything, even the Icelandic volcano eruption! But no matter what happens (last winter was exceptionally cold in many, many places) it does not show anything, it is "just weather". This, although true, does not make good science and is very sickening.
I do not claim CO2 emissions are not bad, I do not claim we are not raping the Earth in many ways, I am not even claiming AGW is not true. All I am saying: stick to the science, please, don't deny it.
you get newspapers with front page stories saying "argh all ice is melting we're all gonna die in 2020!"
It's not just newspapers. It's folks like that Nobel laureate Al Gore. And when he and his 20 SUV entourage drive 200 meters to attend a conference after flying a private jet 2500 miles, he buys carbon credits from the company he has ownership stake in to offset it.
Agree. It's almost like cherry picking the 19th century as the base temperature point for a linear extrapolation into the future, or the end of the 70s as a base point for arctic ice coverage.
Both starting points above were colder than the average appropriate time spans around them.
it's in my head
They get away with it because of the extreme polarisation of opinions. If i write up an article detailing how the atmosphere will balloon and aerobreak the moon down on our heads because of man made CO2 sources then i'll get immideate support from the CO2=Bad crowd, atleast from the journalist and non-scientist segment of the crowd even though the science behind the argument is fraudulent. That it have turned into a political alignment instead of science is my main problem with it.
My secondary problem is the hubris of the climate modellers, predicting there will be rain in 12 hours or snow this winter is at best guesstimations, yet people tout their multi decade global predictions as for sure to be really accurate and a reason to ACT NOW because in twenty years it will be too late, never mind waiting five years to see if the model have any accuracy. And if we do wait five years we'll have the new and shiny and untested climate model 5.0 which more accurately reflected the last five years as an indicator of increased accuracy yet still is untested for predicting real future.
"climate scientists"? What a joke. A climate scientist is like an economist. Their theories sound great until they don't. The concept of trying to account for all the energy inputs and output alone is ridiculous, let alone all the other factors. The fallacy that most people don't seem to address is the fallacy that we can EVER predict the future to any useful degree of accuracy. I would be happy if anyone could predict the weather for the upcoming week with more accuracy.
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
An ad hominem is attacking the person rather than the argument.
Telling me I'm full of it is a personal attack.
On a personal note: I hope you learn to control your anger better and realize that all the verbal flailing about only makes you look bad, not me.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?