No, for a start it's an experimental science. And interpreting data correctly is very hard to do, particularly for something like a wide variety of factors affect it. The one common factor I see in these discussions is that people who aren't experimental scientists (e.g. programmers or engineers) have *no* understanding of how subtle and difficult it is. In fairness, neither did I before I did my experimental physics PhD, but at least I wasn't so sure that I knew better than the people who actually practiced these fields. There are so many things that can trip you up and give a completely wrong answer - and unlike programming (where your program doesn't compile or run correctly) you have no automatic way of discovering mistakes.
. Since that action demands changes in behavior for virtually every human on Earth, we are inherently qualified to discuss this.
What? You may be qualified to discuss what, if any, action should be taken, but that doesn't make you qualified to discuss the science. That's independent of its consequences.
That means the climate scientists need to explain their evidence, their models to us.
Now we have governments offering billions to people who prove climate change - do you really think any of them are going to provide evidence to their masters that it's not real?
Do you really think the government want it to be true? They've as much reason as anyone to hope it's not, as the measures to deal with it will be politically unpopular. Furthermore, the Bush administration would have been *very* interested in anti-AGW results, given their fossil fuel links - in fact they pretty much told researchers not to talk about their results showing AGW. Nevertheless, the results showing that climate change was happening kept coming out, despite being against the government line.
If it's real, what does any scientist have to gain from it? Killing us all?
How about money from fossil fuel interests? And if you really have to ask what fossil fuel companies have to gain by denying climate change, then there's no hope for you. It's not going to kill us all (and nobody's said it will) - the doom-mongers are the ones saying that doing anything at all to stop it will destroy civilisation. Speaking of which...
If it was just a scientific issue, then I wouldn't give a rats ass if people are lying or not. However, since the way to "fix" it involved destroying the industrialized world
Good job nobody's proposed destroying the industrialized world then isn't it? Well, nobody anyone's going to listen to. It'll just cost money, resulting in slightly lower economic growth than otherwise (though probably still an overall benefit if you consider costs of adapting to climate change avoided).
Meh, the important people will listen. It's not the job of scientists to convince ideological zealots and the wilfully ignorant, and if they're being jackasses it's only because of having to put up with a great deal of abuse over the years. Frankly the climate scientists are a lot more polite and patient than I would have been. Most of the "sceptic" stuff is on the same level as creationism, tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory and, yes, holocaust denial - not morally equivalent, but equivalent in terms of twisting the facts to fit an ideological agenda. The rest is just ignorance and a lack of appreciation of their own ignorance (Dunning-Kruger effect).
Radioactivity is a concentration problem. Radioactivity, just like chemical pollution, is dangerous only beyond a certain threshold: we are right now exposed to cosmic rays, but that is not a cause of cancer, because our bodies can handle that level of radioactivity: they evolved for millions of years in this environment.
That's not the generally accepted view, which is that any dose of radiation could cause cancer, with probability proportional to dose (up to a point). Your "dangerous beyond a threshold" argument is only true for the acute effects of radiation, not its carcinogenic characteristics. If the standard model is correct, the radiation from coal plants certainly does cause cancer (as do cosmic rays), it's just hard to detect because cancer is so common anyway.
You wouldn't gain much by that, as the voice part uses little bandwidth. There is a "no voice" mode on ADSL, but it only gets you an extra 256 kbps of upstream capacity.
If the data don't make sense according to your theory, you don't discard the data, you discard the theory
Not really, assuming the theory is something well-established and tested. Popper oversimplified things - experimental data is rarely so unambigous that you can outright discard a reliable theory. It's much more likely that you messed up than you proved it wrong, or maybe the theory needs a fairly minor modification rather than complete rejection.
That's no reason to discard data though - not until you understand *why* the discrepancy arises, or at least have established that the data is unreliable in some other way. If, despite diligent effort, you can't find anything wrong with your analysis, then you publish and see if anyone else can explain it. The evidence may well then accumulate to the point at which the original theory is untenable, or alternatively it may demonstrate a different explanation for the original result that doesn't invalidate the theory at all.
By "almost as well" I assume you mean "all the time". The "sceptic" arguments are nothing but a parade of cherry picking with little attempt at genuine investigation.
And there's no real evidence of the proper scientists massaging or ignoring anything. Just because a detailed, written account of everything doesn't exist in stolen, incomplete private documents doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all.
Bell Labs got funding thanks to AT&T's regulated return on investment - AT&T couldn't lose by funding it. Its principal role was to support the telephone business, and as they could recoup the investment from their telephone operations, shielded from competition, even tangentially related research could be justified. That was the driver for the research, and wouldn't happen in a free market - a phone company without research spending could out-compete them, so only research with a reasonably short term economic benefit could be justified. So no real science at all. Would we have got a transistor under such an environment, or just a really advanced vacuum tube?
Your last remark on the relative spending on research may be true for applied research and product development, but basic research with no obvious application? Which profit-minded company operating in a free market would fund that? Which do?
Yes, but it was dependent on the understanding of the laws of nature, such as quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, electronic structure of semiconductors etc. While Bell Labs undoubtedly did a lot of valuable science, it built on what had been done previously. Without that background, it would not have been possible.
In any case, Bell Labs did not operate in a free market - it was part of a very large regulated monopoly. Generally, competing private companies do not have the resources to do basic research - they can only afford things which will lead to products in the near future. Anything non-patentable is no good, as it will help the competitors as much as themselves. Since AT&T was split up, the research output is greatly diminished.
Free markets by themselves are not enough for new technology. In fact, historically, a good deal of new technology was motivated by military requirements. Additionally, revolutionary technology (e.g. the transistor) depends on a background knowledge of science which is generally *not* obtained by companies seeking a profit, but by government funded research.
Free markets are good for developing products though, and improving existing technologies.
hey filed ‘chemical engineers’ as chemists and physical engineers as ‘physicists’
Which is of course ridiculous. Engineering and science are entirely different in terms of way of thinking. I admit this is only my own anecdotal evidence, but in my experience engineers and computer people are a *lot* more dogmatic, rigid and indeed conservative than physicists.
Or even multiplayer Doom 2. All the more recent FPSs that I've played, including Quake, seem slow paced in comparison. There was something particularly intense about the small number of players, fast movement, compact maps and quick deaths in Doom 2 that hasn't really been reproduced since.
What in the name of God are the Americans doing with their cars that they need a 250hp V6 for decent acceleration?
Automatic transmissions? While they're all very convenient, they do change up too quickly, so sometimes you don't have the power there when you want it. I used to have a 1995 Ford Mondeo with a 115 bhp 1.8 litre engine, and it easily felt powerful enough for general driving, but then it was a manual and I could leave it in a low gear if necessary.
First, "scientific method" involves welcoming peer review of your work. As we now know, many of the leading climatologists working in AGW research have refused to publish their work in scientific journals that post criticism of their work.
We do? Last I checked it was the "sceptics" who didn't publish their work in peer reviewed journals, but presented it on blogs and at conferences sponsored by right-wing thinktanks.
Try it - put the names of your least favourite climate researchers into Google Scholar.
Well, there is old adage, "don't bite the hand that feeds you".
A rather unfortunate way to look at the relationship between the people and the business giants. Businesses should exist for the benefit of the population, not the other way round.
But as long as there is competition, if you don't like the services or the actions of one company, use another.
And what if they all do the same thing? More interestingly, what if it's to your personal advantage to go with company A even if everyone making that decision would do harm overall? (Aka the "prisoner's dilemma").
As for your other statements:
Pure free market vs government control of everything is a false dichotomy, you can have a regulated market for example.
The IPCC isn't a government - it can't create laws. Any government acting on its advice may or may not be elected, depending on where you live, but that's true regardless.
It's actually the Libertarians that are pushing much of this. They are currently allied with the "right wingers" as many of their goals are the same (smaller government, free market, local control).
And, as is typical of the ideological zealot, any evidence which may cast doubt on the practicality of their goals is rationalised away. Or just outright denied, and the messengers attacked.
That argument would suggest that we can't protest about the operators of anything that we depend on. If there's no practical choice but to use a particular company, does that mean they're therefore immune to criticism?
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By it's very name, if there is no climate change, they will have nothing to do.
The IPCC doesn't conduct the research, and in any case it doesn't have the ideological goal of convincing the world that climate change is correct (unless that's what the data indicates). On the other hand, the CEI does have an ideological goal of little government interference in business, and climate change threatens that.
In any case, the speaker in the video, Dr Richard Lindzen is a fairly well respected climate researcher at MIT, and was one of the principle authors of one of the chapters of the IPCC report. He's as reliable as anyone.
He's more credible than most "sceptics", certainly, but hardly has the word of God. I'm not automatically going to trust him over any other climate scientist. In particular, his presentation has some rather... overstated and political messages in it, which is poor form for an academic presentation. Again, not proof that he's wrong, but it raises eyebrows.
I'm not sure what you are talking about here.....he basically pulled the data from the satellites. Are you suggesting that the satellites might be having trouble with their measurements?
I'm suggesting that the physical interpretation of the measurements isn't as straightforward as it may appear, that the result hasn't been independently verified and it would be just one piece of evidence among many. I've seen lots of preliminary results in other areas of science which *seemed* to suggest one thing but where there was actually some other explanation. This is particularly true for results on a complex system like the climate.
A negative correlation of radiation with sea surface temperature (not global temperature) doesn't have an immediate, obvious and unambigious interpretation to me, which is why I'd like to read some responses from actual experts in the field.
If they didn't, would you trust them enough at this point to transfer billions of dollars at a proposed solution?
Since climate change is a long term trend, I'm not too concerned that they can't predict short term ones, as long as they can acknowledge and quantify the uncertainties.
Do you have that video on the form of a paper? I'm wary to trust a document with no review and no opportunity to find responses, especially one labelled with the domain of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The mere fact that he's presenting this at a CEI sponsored conference rather than a typical climate science one is... suspicious. I find it amusing that many sceptics allege political (left wing) motivations of the AGW proponents but turn a blind eye to the anti arguments being strongly associated with an organisation which claims that it is "A non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. This doesn't make it wrong, but this is undeniably an ideological organisation, not a scientific one. Have a look at who's behind it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooler_Heads_Coalition) Scepticism is called for. And yes, I'd say the same about pro-AGW arguments presented via Greenpeace.
Right, back to the point. Has anyone reproduced his result? While this isn't my field, I do know enough about real-world research to know that things are rarely cut and dry, especially with cutting-edge measurements of complex systems. I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to reliably assess his result, so I'll wait for some independent reproductions, complementary studies and responses and criticisms from experts.
From what I understand there isn't really any evidence for a lack of warming in the last decade. Yes, if you fit a line for the 1998-2008 data region then there's no increase, but the spread of data points suggest that the slope would have a huge error bar, and is probably compatible with warming, cooling or whatever the hell you like. In fact, did the models even claim to be able to predict with enough precision for decade-scale assessment?
The final point is that modelling the stock market is quite different. There are well understood physical laws involved in climate, whereas the behaviour of humans involved in share trading is rather trickier. Neverless you can make some predictions about the stock market over sufficiently long periods. Your argument about "postdictions" validating models is valid - since models are to a significant extent based on previous results, you have to be very careful to avoid a convoluted form of begging the question.
Yes, but nothing to do with the neutrality regulations. It could have been done with or without them.
The fact that the ISPs here in the UK are private and are not subject to any neutrality regulation hasn't stopped the government from seriously proposing various nasty measures.
Well, the satellite's certainly H.264. There wasn't any terrestrial HD last time I checked but maybe that's changed recently.
I would have thought cutting back on the terrestrial bitrate (if there is one) would make more sense than for satellite - there's a lot less capacity for terrestrial TV, so a greater need for efficiency.
No, they'll use the data to *dishonestly* support their points. In other words, to make it look as though there's a problem where there isn't. Very easy to do, if you're so inclined and aren't above a little dishonesty of your own. You don't even need dishonesty actually, incompetence combined with an ignorance of your incompetence and a desire to find a particular result will do nicely. Just trawl through until you find something that looks vaguely suspicious. Don't bother to investigate further, just take it and shout "Explain that!". Repeat. In other words, just keep slinging shit at the wall until something sticks. It's an effective propaganda tool, but science it ain't.
The fact is that you don't *need* the raw data to do legitimate criticism. If something is wrong with their method, criticise it based on how it's been described in the literature (and it is). Other climate scientists at different institutions felt perfectly capable of assessing the work without the raw data, why do these "sceptics" require it?
If you really want to "know the truth" rather than just try and push a point of view, there's nothing stopping you reading the published material, of which there is plenty. No need for any club membership.
. They have nothing to lose by releasing the data other than being proven wrong.
Apart from all the things I said that you've made a point of ignoring in favour of just repeating your original statement?
Someone bitching about politics isn't a scientist, and when they hide their numbers you can't call what they do 'science'.
Funny how all these strong statements of what is and isn't science tend to come from people who've never done any. Only publishing relevant summarised data and results is normal.
Slashdot Mirror
Look, AGW is not string theory.
No, for a start it's an experimental science. And interpreting data correctly is very hard to do, particularly for something like a wide variety of factors affect it. The one common factor I see in these discussions is that people who aren't experimental scientists (e.g. programmers or engineers) have *no* understanding of how subtle and difficult it is. In fairness, neither did I before I did my experimental physics PhD, but at least I wasn't so sure that I knew better than the people who actually practiced these fields. There are so many things that can trip you up and give a completely wrong answer - and unlike programming (where your program doesn't compile or run correctly) you have no automatic way of discovering mistakes.
. Since that action demands changes in behavior for virtually every human on Earth, we are inherently qualified to discuss this.
What? You may be qualified to discuss what, if any, action should be taken, but that doesn't make you qualified to discuss the science. That's independent of its consequences.
That means the climate scientists need to explain their evidence, their models to us.
It's all published, knock yourself out.
Now we have governments offering billions to people who prove climate change - do you really think any of them are going to provide evidence to their masters that it's not real?
Do you really think the government want it to be true? They've as much reason as anyone to hope it's not, as the measures to deal with it will be politically unpopular. Furthermore, the Bush administration would have been *very* interested in anti-AGW results, given their fossil fuel links - in fact they pretty much told researchers not to talk about their results showing AGW. Nevertheless, the results showing that climate change was happening kept coming out, despite being against the government line.
If it's real, what does any scientist have to gain from it? Killing us all?
How about money from fossil fuel interests? And if you really have to ask what fossil fuel companies have to gain by denying climate change, then there's no hope for you. It's not going to kill us all (and nobody's said it will) - the doom-mongers are the ones saying that doing anything at all to stop it will destroy civilisation. Speaking of which...
If it was just a scientific issue, then I wouldn't give a rats ass if people are lying or not. However, since the way to "fix" it involved destroying the industrialized world
Good job nobody's proposed destroying the industrialized world then isn't it? Well, nobody anyone's going to listen to. It'll just cost money, resulting in slightly lower economic growth than otherwise (though probably still an overall benefit if you consider costs of adapting to climate change avoided).
Meh, the important people will listen. It's not the job of scientists to convince ideological zealots and the wilfully ignorant, and if they're being jackasses it's only because of having to put up with a great deal of abuse over the years. Frankly the climate scientists are a lot more polite and patient than I would have been. Most of the "sceptic" stuff is on the same level as creationism, tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory and, yes, holocaust denial - not morally equivalent, but equivalent in terms of twisting the facts to fit an ideological agenda. The rest is just ignorance and a lack of appreciation of their own ignorance (Dunning-Kruger effect).
Radioactivity is a concentration problem. Radioactivity, just like chemical pollution, is dangerous only beyond a certain threshold: we are right now exposed to cosmic rays, but that is not a cause of cancer, because our bodies can handle that level of radioactivity: they evolved for millions of years in this environment.
That's not the generally accepted view, which is that any dose of radiation could cause cancer, with probability proportional to dose (up to a point). Your "dangerous beyond a threshold" argument is only true for the acute effects of radiation, not its carcinogenic characteristics. If the standard model is correct, the radiation from coal plants certainly does cause cancer (as do cosmic rays), it's just hard to detect because cancer is so common anyway.
You wouldn't gain much by that, as the voice part uses little bandwidth. There is a "no voice" mode on ADSL, but it only gets you an extra 256 kbps of upstream capacity.
See here.
If the data don't make sense according to your theory, you don't discard the data, you discard the theory
Not really, assuming the theory is something well-established and tested. Popper oversimplified things - experimental data is rarely so unambigous that you can outright discard a reliable theory. It's much more likely that you messed up than you proved it wrong, or maybe the theory needs a fairly minor modification rather than complete rejection.
That's no reason to discard data though - not until you understand *why* the discrepancy arises, or at least have established that the data is unreliable in some other way. If, despite diligent effort, you can't find anything wrong with your analysis, then you publish and see if anyone else can explain it. The evidence may well then accumulate to the point at which the original theory is untenable, or alternatively it may demonstrate a different explanation for the original result that doesn't invalidate the theory at all.
By "almost as well" I assume you mean "all the time". The "sceptic" arguments are nothing but a parade of cherry picking with little attempt at genuine investigation.
And there's no real evidence of the proper scientists massaging or ignoring anything. Just because a detailed, written account of everything doesn't exist in stolen, incomplete private documents doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all.
Bell Labs got funding thanks to AT&T's regulated return on investment - AT&T couldn't lose by funding it. Its principal role was to support the telephone business, and as they could recoup the investment from their telephone operations, shielded from competition, even tangentially related research could be justified. That was the driver for the research, and wouldn't happen in a free market - a phone company without research spending could out-compete them, so only research with a reasonably short term economic benefit could be justified. So no real science at all. Would we have got a transistor under such an environment, or just a really advanced vacuum tube?
Your last remark on the relative spending on research may be true for applied research and product development, but basic research with no obvious application? Which profit-minded company operating in a free market would fund that? Which do?
Yes, but it was dependent on the understanding of the laws of nature, such as quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, electronic structure of semiconductors etc. While Bell Labs undoubtedly did a lot of valuable science, it built on what had been done previously. Without that background, it would not have been possible.
In any case, Bell Labs did not operate in a free market - it was part of a very large regulated monopoly. Generally, competing private companies do not have the resources to do basic research - they can only afford things which will lead to products in the near future. Anything non-patentable is no good, as it will help the competitors as much as themselves. Since AT&T was split up, the research output is greatly diminished.
Free markets by themselves are not enough for new technology. In fact, historically, a good deal of new technology was motivated by military requirements. Additionally, revolutionary technology (e.g. the transistor) depends on a background knowledge of science which is generally *not* obtained by companies seeking a profit, but by government funded research.
Free markets are good for developing products though, and improving existing technologies.
hey filed ‘chemical engineers’ as chemists and physical engineers as ‘physicists’
Which is of course ridiculous. Engineering and science are entirely different in terms of way of thinking. I admit this is only my own anecdotal evidence, but in my experience engineers and computer people are a *lot* more dogmatic, rigid and indeed conservative than physicists.
Or even multiplayer Doom 2. All the more recent FPSs that I've played, including Quake, seem slow paced in comparison. There was something particularly intense about the small number of players, fast movement, compact maps and quick deaths in Doom 2 that hasn't really been reproduced since.
What in the name of God are the Americans doing with their cars that they need a 250hp V6 for decent acceleration?
Automatic transmissions? While they're all very convenient, they do change up too quickly, so sometimes you don't have the power there when you want it. I used to have a 1995 Ford Mondeo with a 115 bhp 1.8 litre engine, and it easily felt powerful enough for general driving, but then it was a manual and I could leave it in a low gear if necessary.
Or, for that matter, "turbo".
Although the all-time ridiculously overstated product name has to be the Gillette Fusion Power Stealth.
First, "scientific method" involves welcoming peer review of your work. As we now know, many of the leading climatologists working in AGW research have refused to publish their work in scientific journals that post criticism of their work.
We do? Last I checked it was the "sceptics" who didn't publish their work in peer reviewed journals, but presented it on blogs and at conferences sponsored by right-wing thinktanks.
Try it - put the names of your least favourite climate researchers into Google Scholar.
Well, there is old adage, "don't bite the hand that feeds you".
A rather unfortunate way to look at the relationship between the people and the business giants. Businesses should exist for the benefit of the population, not the other way round.
But as long as there is competition, if you don't like the services or the actions of one company, use another.
And what if they all do the same thing? More interestingly, what if it's to your personal advantage to go with company A even if everyone making that decision would do harm overall? (Aka the "prisoner's dilemma").
As for your other statements:
Pure free market vs government control of everything is a false dichotomy, you can have a regulated market for example.
The IPCC isn't a government - it can't create laws. Any government acting on its advice may or may not be elected, depending on where you live, but that's true regardless.
It's actually the Libertarians that are pushing much of this. They are currently allied with the "right wingers" as many of their goals are the same (smaller government, free market, local control).
And, as is typical of the ideological zealot, any evidence which may cast doubt on the practicality of their goals is rationalised away. Or just outright denied, and the messengers attacked.
That argument would suggest that we can't protest about the operators of anything that we depend on. If there's no practical choice but to use a particular company, does that mean they're therefore immune to criticism?
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By it's very name, if there is no climate change, they will have nothing to do.
The IPCC doesn't conduct the research, and in any case it doesn't have the ideological goal of convincing the world that climate change is correct (unless that's what the data indicates). On the other hand, the CEI does have an ideological goal of little government interference in business, and climate change threatens that.
In any case, the speaker in the video, Dr Richard Lindzen is a fairly well respected climate researcher at MIT, and was one of the principle authors of one of the chapters of the IPCC report. He's as reliable as anyone.
He's more credible than most "sceptics", certainly, but hardly has the word of God. I'm not automatically going to trust him over any other climate scientist. In particular, his presentation has some rather... overstated and political messages in it, which is poor form for an academic presentation. Again, not proof that he's wrong, but it raises eyebrows.
I'm not sure what you are talking about here.....he basically pulled the data from the satellites. Are you suggesting that the satellites might be having trouble with their measurements?
I'm suggesting that the physical interpretation of the measurements isn't as straightforward as it may appear, that the result hasn't been independently verified and it would be just one piece of evidence among many. I've seen lots of preliminary results in other areas of science which *seemed* to suggest one thing but where there was actually some other explanation. This is particularly true for results on a complex system like the climate.
A negative correlation of radiation with sea surface temperature (not global temperature) doesn't have an immediate, obvious and unambigious interpretation to me, which is why I'd like to read some responses from actual experts in the field.
If they didn't, would you trust them enough at this point to transfer billions of dollars at a proposed solution?
Since climate change is a long term trend, I'm not too concerned that they can't predict short term ones, as long as they can acknowledge and quantify the uncertainties.
Do you have that video on the form of a paper? I'm wary to trust a document with no review and no opportunity to find responses, especially one labelled with the domain of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The mere fact that he's presenting this at a CEI sponsored conference rather than a typical climate science one is... suspicious. I find it amusing that many sceptics allege political (left wing) motivations of the AGW proponents but turn a blind eye to the anti arguments being strongly associated with an organisation which claims that it is "A non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. This doesn't make it wrong, but this is undeniably an ideological organisation, not a scientific one. Have a look at who's behind it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooler_Heads_Coalition) Scepticism is called for. And yes, I'd say the same about pro-AGW arguments presented via Greenpeace.
Right, back to the point. Has anyone reproduced his result? While this isn't my field, I do know enough about real-world research to know that things are rarely cut and dry, especially with cutting-edge measurements of complex systems. I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to reliably assess his result, so I'll wait for some independent reproductions, complementary studies and responses and criticisms from experts.
From what I understand there isn't really any evidence for a lack of warming in the last decade. Yes, if you fit a line for the 1998-2008 data region then there's no increase, but the spread of data points suggest that the slope would have a huge error bar, and is probably compatible with warming, cooling or whatever the hell you like. In fact, did the models even claim to be able to predict with enough precision for decade-scale assessment?
The final point is that modelling the stock market is quite different. There are well understood physical laws involved in climate, whereas the behaviour of humans involved in share trading is rather trickier. Neverless you can make some predictions about the stock market over sufficiently long periods. Your argument about "postdictions" validating models is valid - since models are to a significant extent based on previous results, you have to be very careful to avoid a convoluted form of begging the question.
Yes, but nothing to do with the neutrality regulations. It could have been done with or without them.
The fact that the ISPs here in the UK are private and are not subject to any neutrality regulation hasn't stopped the government from seriously proposing various nasty measures.
Well, the satellite's certainly H.264. There wasn't any terrestrial HD last time I checked but maybe that's changed recently.
I would have thought cutting back on the terrestrial bitrate (if there is one) would make more sense than for satellite - there's a lot less capacity for terrestrial TV, so a greater need for efficiency.
No, they'll use the data to *dishonestly* support their points. In other words, to make it look as though there's a problem where there isn't. Very easy to do, if you're so inclined and aren't above a little dishonesty of your own. You don't even need dishonesty actually, incompetence combined with an ignorance of your incompetence and a desire to find a particular result will do nicely. Just trawl through until you find something that looks vaguely suspicious. Don't bother to investigate further, just take it and shout "Explain that!". Repeat. In other words, just keep slinging shit at the wall until something sticks. It's an effective propaganda tool, but science it ain't.
The fact is that you don't *need* the raw data to do legitimate criticism. If something is wrong with their method, criticise it based on how it's been described in the literature (and it is). Other climate scientists at different institutions felt perfectly capable of assessing the work without the raw data, why do these "sceptics" require it?
If you really want to "know the truth" rather than just try and push a point of view, there's nothing stopping you reading the published material, of which there is plenty. No need for any club membership.
BBC HD is a separate channel from normal BBC broadcasts, and uses H.264 rather than MPEG2.
The standard definition channels remain MPEG2 for compatibility.
. They have nothing to lose by releasing the data other than being proven wrong.
Apart from all the things I said that you've made a point of ignoring in favour of just repeating your original statement?
Someone bitching about politics isn't a scientist, and when they hide their numbers you can't call what they do 'science'.
Funny how all these strong statements of what is and isn't science tend to come from people who've never done any. Only publishing relevant summarised data and results is normal.