Not in the case of solar, or solar-derived, energy sources (wind, tidal etc). These convert solar energy to electricity, which would've been almost completely radiated as heat anyway (excepting chemical storage, such as photosynthesis).
Fission, fusion, geothermal etc add to our waste heat. Fossil is technically solar-derived, but is releasing millions of years of accumulated solar energy all at once.
Developments in Lithium-Air batteries are rapidly making them viable, and are conservatively estimated to give ten times the power/weight of Li-Ion.
There's also been a number of advances in high-surface-area electrodes that dramatically increase charge and discharge rates. Some of these have already made it to market, such as the MIT spinoff A123 Systems - which coincidentally enough has developed a Lithium Iron electrolyte that handles extreme temperatures very well..
There's a great deal of industrial interest in improving battery technology, and claiming that there's been no breakthroughs in years is simply ignorant, I'm afraid. If you're paying attention, the future of batteries looks pretty rosy.
Who would buy a second hand electric car? They are only good for land-fill.
[Citation needed]. I can see that the battery pack will eventually need replacing, and that can be a significant chunk of change (and will be factored into the value of the car), but I see nothing that suggests the rest of the car will be any less robust.
If anything, the EV drive-train is (or can be) far simpler than any liquid-fuel car, since a battery pack, some wiring and four electric motor/generators (one at each wheel) can replace:
- the engine block - the fuel system - the gearbox, drive shaft and differential(s) - most of the axles - much of the cooling system - the air intake - the alternator and starter motor - the exhaust system - etc
Enlighten me here; which particular Google services are violating which open-source licences? Or are you maintaining that they should release all code they ever write? I believe they're still free to make that choice for themselves (and luckily have chosen to be far more open than their peers).
Google's own Nexus products can be trivially unlocked and rooted, by design. But go ahead and blame them for the decisions of other vendors and carriers.
You may have missed how the Android 4.1 source code was fully opened yesterday, before wide release of the system. Wouldn't call that slow, especially considering they're under no obligation to release the Apache-licenced code at all.
I'd have thought that went without saying. If the student is uncritically accepting their teacher's political beliefs, they're clearly not being taught critical thinking.
Of course, if the student does accept their teacher's political beliefs, that isn't automatically evidence that the student isn't thinking critically - even if they disagree with your own beliefs.
I'm guessing he was taught who George Washington was and how to find the US, but little about applying critical thinking to a discussion. And he clearly prefers it that way.
Maybe he's right about "higher order thinking skills" being broadly applied as a label for general (and not well tested) education reforms; I wouldn't know. But encouraging children to challenge their fixed beliefs is crucial in my books, even if it potentially undermines parental authority (speaking as a parent myself). Any party that explicitly discourages that should be kept well away from positions of authority.
That should be a sign right there that they've likely thought this through more than you have. What makes you think the entirety of their security policy is accurately conveyed in TFA?
PINs through texts are not bulletproof, but they do add security. So do the other methods Google offers, like locally-generated tokens. Certificates are hardly bulletproof either, as Microsoft recently found out. And most methods will fail if you've got a state-sponsored infection like Flame on your system...
It was a Huawei U8300. Pre-paid phone, locked to a network (not that I care), but came with a 1GB microSD card and even $10 credit, fwiw. Pretty good deal for $29. Got it at a deals shop in AU.
You can also get phones like this pretty cheaply, similar specs.
Agreed - if you want a Pi that also has camera, GPS, wi-fi, 3G radio, mic, speaker, LED light, touchscreen, keyboard, battery, and a case, I've bought Android phones as cheap as $29 off-contract. They make fantastic do-anything devices, from remote cameras to GPS trackers, and all you have to do is download an app off the Market. There are also Android SoCs in a USB/HDMI stick for excellent prices.
But if you want a hobbyist device with USB, GPIO & ethernet that you can build a project around, the Pi is a great device to play with. Pre-built phones may be more capable, but they're also less flexible in many ways.
“Crooks and terrorists will just use encryption or secure services to provide nothing but meaningless data - it's Mr or Mrs Average whose lives could be turned upside down by data breaches or bureaucratic spying.”
Now if only that quote had come from the Attorney General, instead of Electronic Frontiers Australia...
Welcome to the party; they've been calling me, my family, my friends and everyone else for years.
I can recite the pitch opening from memory by now (it almost always begins, "I am from the Windows Technical Support Department", in a strong Indian accent). At first I was irritated ("Huh? Go away"), then angry ("Don't ever call me again!"), then amused ("Why yes! Which one of the seven completely different boxen are you referring to?"), then bored ("Computer? You mean my Google pad thing?"), then concerned ("Do you realise your supervisor is making you break the law?"), and now I just hang up mid-syllable.
And even then they sometimes ring right back, just in case I hung up by accident.
So not only did he "negotiate" RI into loaning his startup $75M (which was a huge chunk of their $125M jobs-development budget, and was pretty controversial at the time), he did so claiming he'd sunk "$35-$38 million" of his own money into the company.
Turned out, the figure was closer to $3M, and he promptly paid himself back with the RI loan money, removing any personal stake in the success of his company.
From the CRU emails, we saw they were not doing that. They are not acting in good faith.
Yes, I read what you said earlier (dunno why you think saying it twice will be more convincing), and I notice you're still carefully avoiding specifics. I've have read the CRU quotes being bandied about, and the context surrounding those quotes, and I could only guess at what specific parts of those emails you're so convinced are evidence of "bad faith". But to be perfectly honest, I don't much care - since none of this involves challenging any actual science or data, it's purely your opinion of their comments, and not a reflection on their work (which, as mentioned, has been thoroughly cleared).
So I guess this is the source of your apparent bias. You read some comments (possibly out of context) that you didn't like, so now you feel that justifies discarding their conclusions, without having to challenge their data or methodology. I'm curious if this means you also disregard the (remarkably similar) conclusions of all those other scientists, such as the NASA, NOAA and Berkely studies. I'd even ask if you have looked at the data yourself (as you say I must do), but I'm betting that (not being a full-time climatologist) all you've seen is a couple of cherry-picked examples that fit your own views - yet you still feel you can toss out the work of thousands of scientists who have looked at (all) the raw data.
I've tried to show you things that are sketchy, for example, with WG2.
As I recall, you quoted a line or two about extreme weather and claimed (without any justifications) that it was "irrelevant" (certainly looked relevant to me, and many others). You also complained that there wasn't enough emphasis on the positives, while hand-waving away all the many negatives and the reasoning behind them. Whenever I link to a discussion or study that provides evidence against your assertions, you drop that line and assert something else. Sorry, but I can't imagine anyone would find that convincing.
so what is the point?
And at last we agree. Since we've now come full circle, where you're simply re-quoting yourself rather than backing up those original comments with any reasoning or evidence, I'm no longer holding out hope of learning anything new from you. And I doubt you're listening to me, if you're dismissing all the qualified experts too. Thanks for the attempt, but I don't see any point continuing this discussion either.
They were clearly not following good scientific principles
And we're back to the vague accusations again. Sorry, it's not clear at all. If the CRU scientists were cleared of any charges of scientific misconduct, and nothing was found that might alter their scientific conclusions, then what precisely is the problem you have with them?
A scientist should present the data as it is
And again, what makes you think they were not? You still think it's their bias rather than your own?
You can't try to hide, or minimize data that doesn't support your view. You don't chop off the end of your tree ring data just because you don't like it.
Are we still discussing the WGII authors' alleged bias, or is this about the CRU guys now?
I'd agree that ignoring data "just because you don't like it" is absolutely bad science. In fact, I'd happily describe that as "scientific misconduct", particularly given the high-profile, high-stakes nature of the research. That sort of thing could be very bad for one's career, if someone were to review one's work closely and discover this. Luckily, we had eight such reviews.
If you are indeed accusing the CRU scientists of doing this (hard to be sure, since you still have yet to make or link to a single accusation of any substance), then you'd also have to accuse all eight of the inquiry committees of thorough incompetence and/or collusion - or concede that, in the view of each of the inquiries, there was a perfectly acceptable scientific reason for any data discarded, not "just because they didn't like it".
"Well," I said, "there aren't any [applications]."
Yet. Justifying pure research always requires this proviso, and I'm sure Feynman was fully aware of that.
Entire fields "corrupted"? That's a dangerous-sounding generalisation
Yes it is, which is why I didn't make it myself, I let Richard Feynman make it.
Well, he never used the word "corrupted". Closest quote I could find to what you're saying is "it seems to have been the general
policy then to not try to repeat psychological experiments", which is not exactly the same, is it?
We know from the East Anglia email releases that important scientists at the middle of AGW research are not following good scientific principles.
Would that be those same scientists who were cleared of all scientific misconduct charges by no less than eight independent inquiries? About the worst you could accuse them of was a little too much snark.
Yes, that is all true, but it is also completely unrelated to GW.
Far from it. While those specific events cannot be blamed on GW with any certainty, there are plenty of papers that say that extreme weather events will increase as a direct result of GW (since more energy is being added to the system). There's every reason to suggest that these kind of consequences will only increase.
they emphasize the negative, while trying to minimize the positive
Maybe, just maybe, it's because what they're seeing is overwhelmingly that the negatives outweigh the positives? Is there any reason their statements must be balanced? This isn't a diplomatic negotiation, it's a summary of the facts and conclusions, as best as we understand them.
It seems very much like you're looking for conclusions that agree with your own, and when you don't find them, you're projecting some sort of bias onto the authors. Have you ever considered the bias might be on your part instead? After all, their combined expertise and awareness of the issues massively outweighs your own, yet you assume that it's them that's wrong rather than yourself.
the question is whether it's enough to worry about
Yes well, when you start from the position that your opinions (based on a few basics and a brief skimming of the web) are more valid than theirs (based on centuries of collective expertise and full access to all the raw data), perhaps you should be worrying about something closer to home first.
Entire fields "corrupted"? That's a dangerous-sounding generalisation, but it wouldn't surprise me if bad practices were all too common in some of the dodgier "sciences". I could believe that more rigorous scientists would abandon certain fields (like parapsychology) simply because of the continued lack of repeatable results, leaving only the hacks to waffle on.
I like a good Feynman story as much as the next guy, but you're still alleging that this applies to climatologists too, once again without any evidence. You want us to believe on your say-so that, despite the intense media interest, many peer-reviewed papers, enormous political, economical and geophysical stakes, and the huge controversy surrounding the field, all those thousands of scientists are throwing their reputations and careers to the winds by commonly taking shortcuts and not checking their work, or even each other's. You want us to ignore the multiple, independent bodies of work (e.g. NASA, CRU, NOAA) that have all closely agreed, even when studies specifically set out to carefully check that work.
If you want us to believe that climate science is full of unprincipled scientists with poor methodology, then you'll have to explain why this is apparently only true selectively, presumably for the WG2 projections you're taking issue with, because your unsubstantiated insinuations aren't particularly convincing on their own.
WG2 does not measure up to the level of scientificness found in WG1. It is my opinion...
If you have any actual point-by-point critiques, we can discuss those. Until then, I'm afraid it'll remain only your opinion.
I trust one scientist who follows good scientific principles more than 1000 who don't.
Given your lack of specifics, I'm more likely to conclude that you trust one scientist who comes to your favoured conclusions more than 1000 who don't.
We've already established that many climate scientists do not follow good scientific principles.
Sorry, I must have missed that part. As far as I can see, it's the climate scientists that are responding to criticism with data and evidence, while 99% of deniers continue to spout the same old myths, and I've yet to see the remaining 1% come up with anything that hasn't been thoroughly rebutted by those with more expertise. While I'm sure you can dig up examples of climatologists behaving badly (a couple spring to my mind), I'd bet I could find 10 counter-examples for each one, and of course this does not invalidate the work & conclusions of the thousands of other climatologists.
I want you to read WG2 critically and see for yourself
I've certainly read it, but I lack the expertise to critically evaluate it - I can only form a layman's opinion. Unless you're a climatologist, I'd imagine the same applies to you. Since I won't be gaining more than a small fraction of that expertise any time soon, I'm best served by relying on the consensus of those that have. But most of their conclusions appear inevitable, given sufficient warming. If we keep pumping CO2 into the air at an ever-increasing rate, the only remaining debate is about time-frames.
didn't you feel embarrassed to link to this article [wsj.com]?
There was a rebuttal of their "data" in the link next to it, if you prefer (which itself links to this one).
But frankly, while I'm happy to agree than an appeal from authority is no guarantee of correctness, when we're dealing with a subject complex enough that years of expertise are required for a thorough understanding of the issues, we should be giving the experts' conclusions far more weight. And when such a wide majority of these experts agree, then it would be idiotic not to base our policy on the best conclusions we have.
Slashdot Mirror
Not in the case of solar, or solar-derived, energy sources (wind, tidal etc). These convert solar energy to electricity, which would've been almost completely radiated as heat anyway (excepting chemical storage, such as photosynthesis).
Fission, fusion, geothermal etc add to our waste heat. Fossil is technically solar-derived, but is releasing millions of years of accumulated solar energy all at once.
But it's cool for McDonald's (and most retailers) to record you, with their own security cameras?
Developments in Lithium-Air batteries are rapidly making them viable, and are conservatively estimated to give ten times the power/weight of Li-Ion.
There's also been a number of advances in high-surface-area electrodes that dramatically increase charge and discharge rates. Some of these have already made it to market, such as the MIT spinoff A123 Systems - which coincidentally enough has developed a Lithium Iron electrolyte that handles extreme temperatures very well..
There's a great deal of industrial interest in improving battery technology, and claiming that there's been no breakthroughs in years is simply ignorant, I'm afraid. If you're paying attention, the future of batteries looks pretty rosy.
Who would buy a second hand electric car? They are only good for land-fill.
[Citation needed]. I can see that the battery pack will eventually need replacing, and that can be a significant chunk of change (and will be factored into the value of the car), but I see nothing that suggests the rest of the car will be any less robust.
If anything, the EV drive-train is (or can be) far simpler than any liquid-fuel car, since a battery pack, some wiring and four electric motor/generators (one at each wheel) can replace:
- the engine block
- the fuel system
- the gearbox, drive shaft and differential(s)
- most of the axles
- much of the cooling system
- the air intake
- the alternator and starter motor
- the exhaust system
- etc
That's a lot of saved wear & tear.
Enlighten me here; which particular Google services are violating which open-source licences? Or are you maintaining that they should release all code they ever write? I believe they're still free to make that choice for themselves (and luckily have chosen to be far more open than their peers).
Google's own Nexus products can be trivially unlocked and rooted, by design. But go ahead and blame them for the decisions of other vendors and carriers.
You may have missed how the Android 4.1 source code was fully opened yesterday, before wide release of the system. Wouldn't call that slow, especially considering they're under no obligation to release the Apache-licenced code at all.
[citation needed]
I'd have thought that went without saying. If the student is uncritically accepting their teacher's political beliefs, they're clearly not being taught critical thinking.
Of course, if the student does accept their teacher's political beliefs, that isn't automatically evidence that the student isn't thinking critically - even if they disagree with your own beliefs.
Good tip; don't think I ever tried that.
I'm guessing he was taught who George Washington was and how to find the US, but little about applying critical thinking to a discussion. And he clearly prefers it that way.
Maybe he's right about "higher order thinking skills" being broadly applied as a label for general (and not well tested) education reforms; I wouldn't know. But encouraging children to challenge their fixed beliefs is crucial in my books, even if it potentially undermines parental authority (speaking as a parent myself). Any party that explicitly discourages that should be kept well away from positions of authority.
sending an email might have close to zero cost attached
Why, you're right again, Watson! This missive contains numerous self-evident truisms, does it not?
Driver: But it's OK! See, it's a Garmin "Ye Olde Trip Almanacke", and it's based only on trips made 100 years ago!
Officer: In that case, welcome to the Ansonville city limits, sir.
I know practically nothing about crypto
That should be a sign right there that they've likely thought this through more than you have. What makes you think the entirety of their security policy is accurately conveyed in TFA?
PINs through texts are not bulletproof, but they do add security. So do the other methods Google offers, like locally-generated tokens. Certificates are hardly bulletproof either, as Microsoft recently found out. And most methods will fail if you've got a state-sponsored infection like Flame on your system...
It was a Huawei U8300. Pre-paid phone, locked to a network (not that I care), but came with a 1GB microSD card and even $10 credit, fwiw. Pretty good deal for $29. Got it at a deals shop in AU.
You can also get phones like this pretty cheaply, similar specs.
Agreed - if you want a Pi that also has camera, GPS, wi-fi, 3G radio, mic, speaker, LED light, touchscreen, keyboard, battery, and a case, I've bought Android phones as cheap as $29 off-contract. They make fantastic do-anything devices, from remote cameras to GPS trackers, and all you have to do is download an app off the Market. There are also Android SoCs in a USB/HDMI stick for excellent prices.
But if you want a hobbyist device with USB, GPIO & ethernet that you can build a project around, the Pi is a great device to play with. Pre-built phones may be more capable, but they're also less flexible in many ways.
How to watch Game of Thrones.
“Crooks and terrorists will just use encryption or secure services to provide nothing but meaningless data - it's Mr or Mrs Average whose lives could be turned upside down by data breaches or bureaucratic spying.”
Now if only that quote had come from the Attorney General, instead of Electronic Frontiers Australia...
Welcome to the party; they've been calling me, my family, my friends and everyone else for years.
I can recite the pitch opening from memory by now (it almost always begins, "I am from the Windows Technical Support Department", in a strong Indian accent). At first I was irritated ("Huh? Go away"), then angry ("Don't ever call me again!"), then amused ("Why yes! Which one of the seven completely different boxen are you referring to?"), then bored ("Computer? You mean my Google pad thing?"), then concerned ("Do you realise your supervisor is making you break the law?"), and now I just hang up mid-syllable.
And even then they sometimes ring right back, just in case I hung up by accident.
So not only did he "negotiate" RI into loaning his startup $75M (which was a huge chunk of their $125M jobs-development budget, and was pretty controversial at the time), he did so claiming he'd sunk "$35-$38 million" of his own money into the company.
Turned out, the figure was closer to $3M, and he promptly paid himself back with the RI loan money, removing any personal stake in the success of his company.
Doubt it. The kickstarter project is already oversubscribed and sold out; they really don't need more backers.
science does not _clearly_ show that it is man made
Funny how 19 out of 20 earth scientists are completely convinced by their observations that it is man-made, then.
From the CRU emails, we saw they were not doing that. They are not acting in good faith.
Yes, I read what you said earlier (dunno why you think saying it twice will be more convincing), and I notice you're still carefully avoiding specifics. I've have read the CRU quotes being bandied about, and the context surrounding those quotes, and I could only guess at what specific parts of those emails you're so convinced are evidence of "bad faith". But to be perfectly honest, I don't much care - since none of this involves challenging any actual science or data, it's purely your opinion of their comments, and not a reflection on their work (which, as mentioned, has been thoroughly cleared).
So I guess this is the source of your apparent bias. You read some comments (possibly out of context) that you didn't like, so now you feel that justifies discarding their conclusions, without having to challenge their data or methodology. I'm curious if this means you also disregard the (remarkably similar) conclusions of all those other scientists, such as the NASA, NOAA and Berkely studies. I'd even ask if you have looked at the data yourself (as you say I must do), but I'm betting that (not being a full-time climatologist) all you've seen is a couple of cherry-picked examples that fit your own views - yet you still feel you can toss out the work of thousands of scientists who have looked at (all) the raw data.
I've tried to show you things that are sketchy, for example, with WG2.
As I recall, you quoted a line or two about extreme weather and claimed (without any justifications) that it was "irrelevant" (certainly looked relevant to me, and many others). You also complained that there wasn't enough emphasis on the positives, while hand-waving away all the many negatives and the reasoning behind them. Whenever I link to a discussion or study that provides evidence against your assertions, you drop that line and assert something else. Sorry, but I can't imagine anyone would find that convincing.
so what is the point?
And at last we agree. Since we've now come full circle, where you're simply re-quoting yourself rather than backing up those original comments with any reasoning or evidence, I'm no longer holding out hope of learning anything new from you. And I doubt you're listening to me, if you're dismissing all the qualified experts too. Thanks for the attempt, but I don't see any point continuing this discussion either.
They were clearly not following good scientific principles
And we're back to the vague accusations again. Sorry, it's not clear at all. If the CRU scientists were cleared of any charges of scientific misconduct, and nothing was found that might alter their scientific conclusions, then what precisely is the problem you have with them?
A scientist should present the data as it is
And again, what makes you think they were not? You still think it's their bias rather than your own?
You can't try to hide, or minimize data that doesn't support your view. You don't chop off the end of your tree ring data just because you don't like it.
Are we still discussing the WGII authors' alleged bias, or is this about the CRU guys now?
I'd agree that ignoring data "just because you don't like it" is absolutely bad science. In fact, I'd happily describe that as "scientific misconduct", particularly given the high-profile, high-stakes nature of the research. That sort of thing could be very bad for one's career, if someone were to review one's work closely and discover this. Luckily, we had eight such reviews.
If you are indeed accusing the CRU scientists of doing this (hard to be sure, since you still have yet to make or link to a single accusation of any substance), then you'd also have to accuse all eight of the inquiry committees of thorough incompetence and/or collusion - or concede that, in the view of each of the inquiries, there was a perfectly acceptable scientific reason for any data discarded, not "just because they didn't like it".
"Well," I said, "there aren't any [applications]."
Yet. Justifying pure research always requires this proviso, and I'm sure Feynman was fully aware of that.
Entire fields "corrupted"? That's a dangerous-sounding generalisation
Yes it is, which is why I didn't make it myself, I let Richard Feynman make it.
Well, he never used the word "corrupted". Closest quote I could find to what you're saying is "it seems to have been the general policy then to not try to repeat psychological experiments", which is not exactly the same, is it?
We know from the East Anglia email releases that important scientists at the middle of AGW research are not following good scientific principles.
Would that be those same scientists who were cleared of all scientific misconduct charges by no less than eight independent inquiries? About the worst you could accuse them of was a little too much snark.
Yes, that is all true, but it is also completely unrelated to GW.
Far from it. While those specific events cannot be blamed on GW with any certainty, there are plenty of papers that say that extreme weather events will increase as a direct result of GW (since more energy is being added to the system). There's every reason to suggest that these kind of consequences will only increase.
they emphasize the negative, while trying to minimize the positive
Maybe, just maybe, it's because what they're seeing is overwhelmingly that the negatives outweigh the positives? Is there any reason their statements must be balanced? This isn't a diplomatic negotiation, it's a summary of the facts and conclusions, as best as we understand them.
It seems very much like you're looking for conclusions that agree with your own, and when you don't find them, you're projecting some sort of bias onto the authors. Have you ever considered the bias might be on your part instead? After all, their combined expertise and awareness of the issues massively outweighs your own, yet you assume that it's them that's wrong rather than yourself.
the question is whether it's enough to worry about
Yes well, when you start from the position that your opinions (based on a few basics and a brief skimming of the web) are more valid than theirs (based on centuries of collective expertise and full access to all the raw data), perhaps you should be worrying about something closer to home first.
Entire fields "corrupted"? That's a dangerous-sounding generalisation, but it wouldn't surprise me if bad practices were all too common in some of the dodgier "sciences". I could believe that more rigorous scientists would abandon certain fields (like parapsychology) simply because of the continued lack of repeatable results, leaving only the hacks to waffle on.
I like a good Feynman story as much as the next guy, but you're still alleging that this applies to climatologists too, once again without any evidence. You want us to believe on your say-so that, despite the intense media interest, many peer-reviewed papers, enormous political, economical and geophysical stakes, and the huge controversy surrounding the field, all those thousands of scientists are throwing their reputations and careers to the winds by commonly taking shortcuts and not checking their work, or even each other's. You want us to ignore the multiple, independent bodies of work (e.g. NASA, CRU, NOAA) that have all closely agreed, even when studies specifically set out to carefully check that work.
If you want us to believe that climate science is full of unprincipled scientists with poor methodology, then you'll have to explain why this is apparently only true selectively, presumably for the WG2 projections you're taking issue with, because your unsubstantiated insinuations aren't particularly convincing on their own.
WG2 does not measure up to the level of scientificness found in WG1. It is my opinion...
If you have any actual point-by-point critiques, we can discuss those. Until then, I'm afraid it'll remain only your opinion.
I trust one scientist who follows good scientific principles more than 1000 who don't.
Given your lack of specifics, I'm more likely to conclude that you trust one scientist who comes to your favoured conclusions more than 1000 who don't.
We've already established that many climate scientists do not follow good scientific principles.
Sorry, I must have missed that part. As far as I can see, it's the climate scientists that are responding to criticism with data and evidence, while 99% of deniers continue to spout the same old myths, and I've yet to see the remaining 1% come up with anything that hasn't been thoroughly rebutted by those with more expertise. While I'm sure you can dig up examples of climatologists behaving badly (a couple spring to my mind), I'd bet I could find 10 counter-examples for each one, and of course this does not invalidate the work & conclusions of the thousands of other climatologists.
I want you to read WG2 critically and see for yourself
I've certainly read it, but I lack the expertise to critically evaluate it - I can only form a layman's opinion. Unless you're a climatologist, I'd imagine the same applies to you. Since I won't be gaining more than a small fraction of that expertise any time soon, I'm best served by relying on the consensus of those that have. But most of their conclusions appear inevitable, given sufficient warming. If we keep pumping CO2 into the air at an ever-increasing rate, the only remaining debate is about time-frames.
didn't you feel embarrassed to link to this article [wsj.com]?
There was a rebuttal of their "data" in the link next to it, if you prefer (which itself links to this one).
But frankly, while I'm happy to agree than an appeal from authority is no guarantee of correctness, when we're dealing with a subject complex enough that years of expertise are required for a thorough understanding of the issues, we should be giving the experts' conclusions far more weight. And when such a wide majority of these experts agree, then it would be idiotic not to base our policy on the best conclusions we have.