Well, that's nice, but the location of the screen is fixed. So you have a really great, 3D display, but it sits on a desk in front of you. Properly configured, VR goggles might give you a lower resolution directly in front of your face, but that resolution can scroll over a much larger area. Look to your left and you see a 640x480 view into a document you're referencing... face forward and you can return to the new document you're writing... and to your right is the hot chick stripping on her webcam-- I mean, the 3D model you're making. I agree that I'd rather have higher resolution than 640x480, but a lot can be accomplished with such a small screen size if your head and body movements are factored in.
Not a single mention of that nefarious hacker, Rick Astley, who has managed to hijack so many hyperlinks to relevant videos in so many online discussions?
I don't see anything in that link except typical Greenpeace alarmism confounding ridiculously trivial releases of radiation with "millions of litres" of radioactive water. Sure, the water might be slightly radioactive, but so is the carbon-14 in your bones -- what of it? Why don't they give us a calibrated measurement of the radiation in the released waste and put it into perspective relating to other forms of radiation? My guess is because that wouldn't serve to advance their anti-nuke FUD agenda.
Any readers who live in his district should give him a call and voice their opposition to the bill, reminding him we need hope and change from his office.
Stern (of Stern-Levison) himself says that the Earth hasn't cleared its neighborhood of debris. If there's debate over the interpretation of that parameter by one of the authors, it hardly strikes me as precise. Rather than precise, let's try the word, "arbitrary". As in, Stern-Levison arrived at an arbitrary threshold that once classed whether an orbital path was cleared and have since reconsidered this position.
I don't think it was quite good at all. In fact, it wasn't even good. Calling it half-assed would be complementary. Consider:
...a "planet" is defined as a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
The first part suggest it is in orbit around the Sun. Not a sun. The Sun. Thus, there are no other planets in the universe outside of our Solar System. The second part is sorta-kinda okay, and I'll let it slide. But let's look at (c)... Now look at this link. Does that orbit look clear to you? What about a billion years ago, when there was a lot more debris in the Solar System, was the Earth not yet a planet then? Even though it already supported life, had oceans and an atmosphere, etc?
In 1999, the IAU had its first brush with this issue when a proposal was made to consider Pluto a planet associated with the Kuiper belt. Astronomers then were strongly opposed to reducing the planet's status. But the discovery of 2003 UB313 (unofficially called "Xena" and it's satellite is "Gabrielle") might have caused this issue to be revisited. Slightly larger than Pluto, "Xena" was surely going to become our Solar System's tenth planet. But it's position in the Kuiper belt and the possibility for more similarly-sized objects caused some to worry that the number of official planets to grow dramatically. Might the Sun be home to 15, 20, 30 planets ultimately? Clearly, the matter needed to be pinned down. What is a planet after all?
Amazingly, until August 2006, there was no official astronomical definition for a planet. The IAU settled the problem by arguing over several different definitions, ultimately selecting one that kicked Pluto out of the club after two years of frustrating efforts. Indeed, the first committee to look at the problem, a group of astronomers, could not agree on a scientifically accurate definition. A second committee comprised of historians and educators was formed a few months ago to look at the problem from a fresh perspective.
Alan Stern, the head of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto, was outraged that less than five percent of the world's astronomers had a vote on the issue. Others think that the new category for Pluto is awkward when it says "A dwarf planet isn't a planet." Ultimately, I think the definition needs to be refined. Read it again. Then look at this chart. By the official definition currently accepted by the IAU, the Earth itself is not a planet. The existing definition not only places Earth on the questionable list, it also will present problems when we begin to identify planets in younger solar systems orbiting other stars. Inevitably, the issue will have to be revisited (probably in August 2009 at the next IAU General Assembly meeting), and at that time Pluto may be restored to planetary status.
You're my new hero! I've encountered some of what you post here elsewhere, and it all rings true, but do you have a good source(s) for what you're saying?
I would. There's too much to do in this world for one lifetime. Especially when you're a procrastinator from the start. Plus, I want to see the future... the first manned Mars landing. The first interstellar probe. The singularity. Who knows what else. Just because you're happy with a handful of years and a geological instant, doesn't mean everyone else is.
I had serious trouble with Halo and Halo 2, but after taking dramamine before a few weekly sessions with friends, I found that I could tolerate those games even without medical assistance. Still, a few early scenes in Cloverfield had me looking away at a fixed point.
To the general population, someone with multiple personalities has schizophrenia. Does that make them right? Of course not, they have multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder. Facts aren't candidates in a popularity contest.
You've just listed two people who aren't scientists.
The problem isn't the scientists. The problem is the politics. In three days you still don't get it. Read this again:
how about Heidi Cullen's call to have any meteorologist who questions AGW decertified? Or when Governor Ted Kulongoski of Oregon considered firing the state's climatologist George Taylor because Taylor asserts that humans aren't the principle cause of climate change? Or when the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control sought to remove state climatologist David Legates because he didn't support the politically convenient alarmism over AGW? The Governor of Virginia told his state climatologist to make it clear that his views do not agree with the state's official policy after an investigation into removing that climatologist proved fruitless. Colorado state climatologist Roger Pielke writes about this censorship on his weblog. [colorado.edu] Note the players... state climatologists who oppose the alarmist position are being intimidated for their views. How much money has gone into research on global warming? Where has it come from? What happens to the funding for those scientists who disagree with the "consensus" views? And what kind of consensus do you really have, when this many state climatologists are bullied into submission over the space of a handful of months?!
I'm talking about politics tantamount to scientific censorship, and you're busy trying to pigeonhole me and those scientists into being "deniers". You're no better than those politicians.
I mean, an article that says something as stupid as "global temperatures have stopped rising. Data for both the surface and the lower air show no warming since 1999." That's your source? Did you look that little factoid up? Or did you just take it at face value because a denalist was saying it?
What the fuck? Were you snorting cocaine when I said the following?
Well, I've been trying to document sources, but according to the EPW Press Blog... But like I said, I'm not convinced on those numbers, since my instincts tell me that the numbers should be closer together;
You could have been polite and come back with a reasonable response, agreeing that money is corrupting both sides but you have issues with the source, and that'd be just fine. Then we could have a civilized discussion about it and I'd continue to agree that I found the numbers somewhat dubious... as I myself did in my parent post.
Even if Inhofe's information was true, though, what would be the relevance? There's a big difference between getting a research grant from the government and getting a personal check as compensation from the oil companies. The government looks over your shoulder to see that you're spending the money on actual research. The oil companies don't care if you go out and spend it on a Ferarri; in fact, that's kind of the point.
Research scientists don't drive around in Ferraris bought with research money. You're equivocating when you try to act like the money being spend on either side is comparable.
They don't have to be driving Ferraris to have been bought off. Just having a steady job is enough to make most people compromise their principles. Under the pressure I mentioned in my very first response to you I gave a very good reason for skeptical scientists to do exactly that. If Imhofe is right, that kind of financial imbalance should be obvious to anyone in climatology, and a smart researcher will know which side of the bread gets the butter. And to top it all off, how often do men like Spencer and Christy get the kind of exposure that Newsweek gives to the alarmists? "Wow, if I just say we're all doooooomed, I'll continue to get funding, won't piss off any politicians, and might even get my name and picture in Newsweek!" Sure, there's no incentive there. Only a Ferrari will work.
I wonder what kind of car Richard Lindzen or Patrick Michaels drives? Do you think Spencer and Christy have Ferraris, Crashfrog?
You're still arguing personalities instead of science. "So-and-so agrees with me." "So-and-so can't be trusted."
You're not paying attention. I was simply adding to a convenient omission on your part regarding your summary of Dr. Christy and cleaning up your sloppy attempt to paint him as an alarmist. And about this personalities vs. evidence or science thing you keep going on about, I strongly suggest you go back and re-read your first post and my first reply in this topic and try to stay focused. THIS WAS A DISCUSSION OF PERSONALITIES. Remember your first flame about deniers crying about being persecuted and my response listing several instances of that very occurrence? You're having a difficult time staying focused. Either that or you're averting your eyes when your side engages in some decidedly unscientific practices in trying to silence dissent.
No, I'm just uninterested in doing your homework for you. But you should know that "Mauna Loa is a volcano" is one of the most-often rebutted claims of the global warming deniers. Look, if they're demolishing your argument at Gristmill of all places, you really need some new material. (You'll find a link to 8 other CO2 monitoring stations at that link, incidentally.)
Ah, thank you! Oh, but look, all but one of those eight are associated with volcanoes, too. No luck on reports in central North America? I guess that's an oversight in the evidence collected. No matter, I sincerely doubt volcanic activity would be changing so uniformly at each of those stations. I can't think of a probable mechanism that would effect that many volcanoes simultaneously in the same way, so I'll accept that as generally atmospheric and probably global. I took a sampling of each station at ten year intervals over thirty years and see a pretty uniform increase over that time. I have doubts, however, that the effect is entirely the fingerprint of man. And all of that said, I'd still like to see what the CO2 concentration in PPM is in a few other areas of the planet that aren't next to volcanoes. Just to be thorough. Oh damn, there I go being a denier again.
Oh, come on. Scientific papers aren't direct and blunt because scientific conclusions are rarely direct and blunt. You're asking me to read a paper that says "our research improves one minor aspect of climate modeling" as saying "the entire edifice of global warming is about to come crashing down."
That's just nonsense. You're asking me to disregard my "lying eyes" and read in global warming denial where there actually is none. You're just proving my point - global warming denial isn't based on evidence, it's based on inventing a scientific dispute where there is none.
Wrong. I'm asking you to notice that the paper is blasting the models for an incorrect assumption about the way the "Lindzen iris" works. Remember, Christy is on your side. That is, he thinks there is a human influence on the climate... he just doesn't go along with all the hand-waving hysteria that the alarmists do.
I don't know too many synonyms for "denial", I guess. I'm not using it in reference to anything but the fact that global warming deniers simply dismiss contrary evidence and invent supporting "evidence" from whole cloth, like you've been doing in your posts.
Sorry, but that's simply not behavior that can be described as "skepticism." Skepticism is the foundation of honest scientific inquiry - but you've absolutely turned your back on that. What you're doing can only be described as "denial."
Crashfrog, frankly you haven't been paying nearly enough attention to even begin to guess what I've turned my back on. There is a continuum of opinion on climate change. From "no way, it's not happening and you can never prove it" to "my God, we're all gonna drown or bake unless we do something next week!" I like to think of it as the range between Limbaugh and Gore. Within that range are opinions that inclu
Sure. He's the guy who once said: "It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into irrigated farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the air, and putting extra greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate has not changed in some way" and discovered this warming trend in satellite-measured surface temperatures, over the same period that the Earth's total insolation (the energy incoming from the Sun) has been decreasing.
Yes, I saw that very same Wikipedia article. But did you also read just a little further and see where he said, "I showed some evidence that humans are causing warming in the surface measurements that we have but it is not the greenhouse relation"? Christy's an interesting guy. He actually does agree that humans are influencing the climate. What he doesn't agree with is the hand-wringing alarmism that grips advocates of AGW. You know the sort... the kind that continues to use words like "denier" even after they've been caught with their hands in the duplicitous cookie jar? His colleague, Roy Spencer, on the other hand is probably more of what you'd like to call a "denier". They've put together a really great presentation on the subject that's worth your attention.
I'm sure there are long-term measurements coming from other sources, but I never see them in discussions about climate.
Who don't you go look up what you're looking for? Why are you still paying more attention to debates among laypeople than to the scientific evidence? If you want to know what's actually going on, then go to the primary research - on your own, instead of when asked to do so. If you just want to keep trying to score points in internet debates, you'll keep on doing what you've been doing, I guess.
So I take it you weren't able to find other long-term studies of CO2 levels than the side of a single volcano either? Okay, then I'm gonna go out on a limb here and call bullshit and bet you that the CO2 levels in the middle of Iowa haven't shown the same increase that the side of an active volcano has. It's just a hunch, mind you, but while I'm willing to concede there probably has been some increase, it's almost certainly less.
Sure, but it just highlights the disparity between the press releases and the actual research. The research you've linked to doesn't actually dispute any aspect of any climate model that shows warming; but put it in the hands of the deniers, and suddenly it's the source of a hundred press releases and interviews saying "there's no scientific consensus on global warming."
You know, like you just did. Have you even read the article? I went and looked it up in my campus library. Did you just read the abstract?
I sure did, but I'm puzzled by your interpretation of the article, because Christy et al say in it:
...While many investigators have found that these two cloud effects mostly cancel in their influence on the tropical ocean-atmosphere system's heat budget, any imbalance between these two large terms could significantly feed back on global warming. This makes accurate convective and cloud parameterizations in General Circulation Models (GCMs) critical for improving confidence in those model's predictions of future warming...
Emphasis mine. They go on to say in the conclusion that
During the composite oscillation's rainy, tropospheric warming phase, the longwave flux anomalies unexpectedly transitioned from warming to cooling, behavior which was traced to a decrease in ice cloud coverage. This decrease in ice cloud coverage is nominally supportive of Lindzen's "infrared iris" hypothesis. While the time scales addressed here are short and not necessarily indicative of climate time scales, it must be remembered that all moist con
Let's stick with peer-reviewed research, ok? This is a press release. Show me the science this is based off.
Will this do? Or is there some problem with Geophysical Research Letters? You originally said the "deniers" were spending "approximately zero time in the lab or in the field, actually recording data and making observations." This is just one example that invalidates that ignorant statement. You also presented me with a handy "etc." that you claim makes an easy out, although the examples you cited might be just as easy to prove as rocks don't fall down and the sky isn't blue. Still, I think this "press release" is a marvelous example of exactly the sort of research that counters the results of the climate models because, quite simply, a central assumption of all the climate models got it wrong. Garbage in, garbage out and the models are producing garbage projections.
You won't be able to tell me that, because CO2 records are maintained for only one place on the planet... the side of a volcano in Hawaii!
That's just false. We have CO2 measurements from all over the world; and the Hawaii measurements are hardly suspect, given the altitude of the measurements.
You're right, I worded that very poorly. I meant that the measurements I've always seen come from Mauna Loa. I'm sure there are long-term measurements coming from other sources, but I never see them in discussions about climate. That's peculiar, since that package wasn't originally placed for climate-monitoring reasons, but to monitor the volcano -- because volcanoes do produce CO2. So how about it? Are there any graphs out there for a location in the middle of North America? Even just a simple dataset that can be used to draw such a time vs. concentration graph will do. Honestly, I'd expect this to be paraded out by skeptics if the graphs showed appreciable difference from Mauna Loa, so if you can link to such a detail, it'd probably be an easy point for your side.
The press release? That's exactly what I'm talking about. The climate change deniers are putting all their energy into making press releases and publishing articles in the newspaper - instead of publishing research in scientific journals.
Where's the research? Don't link to press releases. Link to primary research. You won't be able to - because there isn't any. It's a scam.
Do you even know who John Christy is? He's not some schmuck living off bribes from Exxon, he's a pre-eminent researcher in climatology. Here's a short biography for him at NASA. Get your nose out of the "Earth Mother's Guide to Global Warming". You might do well to understand something about the people you're dismissing as "selfish greedy bastards" who don't take the time to do the research.
*Human activity doesn't produce gases like CO2 and SO2
*Those gases have a radically different absorption spectra than science currently understands
*The sun doesn't actually provide energy for the Earth
etc.
Tell me, does one have to prove a single one of those items, or all from the list? If the latter, I'm really worried about the "etc." part, because that looks like a ripe opportunity for one to shove goalposts around. If the former, consider this little tidbit and the devastating consequences for the models which forecast so much doom. There's no question in my mind that humans pollute, and that some of that pollution might impact the climate in addition to the air quality. But how much? On what scale? You seem reasonably well-informed on this issue, so I'm sure you know when you focus on CO2 that CO2 is a marginal greenhouse gas, contributing very little to the overall warming of the planet. And while we're talking about CO2, how much has it risen in New York City? Or any small town in Iowa? Or central Canada? You won't be able to tell me that, because CO2 records are maintained for only one place on the planet... the side of a volcano in Hawaii!
Anthropogenic global warming is based on basic physical facts like those. Of course, if the only thing you know about the issue is what you're hearing from the deniers, you'd naturally think that scientists sit around and say "damn, we're making a fortune off the global warming industry, what else can we assert is responsible?"
Which is pretty fuckin' stupid when you think about it. Climatology isn't exactly making people rich. Al Gore still makes a lot more off his political connections than on the royalties off Inconvenient Truth. Of course, there's a fortune to be made denying anthropogenic climate change, but don't let that fact get in the way of your ignorance.
How much money was spent on Climatology thirty years ago? Back in the seventies, a number of states in the U.S. were closing down their state climatology departments. How much is being spent on it now? How about those "carbon offset credits"... where does the money go that is spent on those? Someone is making a profit there. How much money has been flooding into environmental groups because of the heightened awareness of global warming and the need to do something about it (2005 IRS 990 filings: Greenpeace: $15,636,026, Sierra Club: $85,183,485, World Wildlife Fund: $120,910,695)? You're following the dollars on one side of the argument, but blind to the other. I have no doubt that money from oil companies is interfering with the scientific and public discussion of this subject... but but how much of a hit will environmental and other activist groups take if the biggest environmental danger of the 21st century turns out to be a bust? You can't tell me they don't have a financial incentive to lie and cheat just like the oil companies do.
Hell, let's see them investigate. I've never heard of a global warming "skeptic" (to use the charitable term) who didn't spend all his or her time mouthing off in the press about how it's all a conspiracy and "help, help, I'm being repressed" and approximately zero time in the lab or in the field, actually recording data and making observations.
Remember this link? And it isn't a charitable term, it's an accurate term, without the idiotic associations that come with "denier".
Why is that? Because, like creationism, global warming denial is a movement that can only survive commensurate with its ability to convince ignorant laypersons like yourself. The reason they spend all their time mouthing off and none actually doing sc
Review the history of Alfred Wegener, the founding father of plate tectonics. He died in 1930, marginalized by the scientific community for the heretical notion that the continents once fit together. His ideas were resurrected thirty years later. Or how about Raymond Dart, the fellow who found the first Australopithecus skeleton and postulated an African origin for humanity? Would you have hired him? Because at the time when he announced that little gem, the paleo-anthropological community was in the thrall of a tasty little hoax called the Piltdown Man, which conveniently played into the preconceived prejudices of the European scientific community that humans must have originated in Europe; preferably England. It was another twenty-five years before the Piltdown hoax was seen as the fraud it was; a conclusion that should have been obvious from the start, except it played right into the expectations of the "consensus".
Global Climate Change is another Piltdown Man. If there's a drought, that's global warming. If it rains too much, that's global warming. Too many hurricanes? Global Warming. A year with less hurricane activity? Must be global warming. It's a notion with no falsifiability. A hypothesis with no clear way to disprove it. And that's a huge indication that there's a problem. It plays right into the environmentalist prejudice that anything humans do is bad... a theology we've been shovel-fed for the last forty years.
Science, dear Crashfrog, isn't about a consensus. It's about a pursuit for the truth, and it very often leads good scientists down pathways the establishment, whether it be the Catholic Church or the Church of Gaia, considers heretical. It's about sharing data and replicating results. When Michael Mann was asked for his data and programs to support his "hockey stick", he stalled and tried to shout-down anyone who bothered to ask, claiming they were obstructionists. Guess what? When the data did come out and the programs analyzed, it turned out those programs would generate something that looked like a hockey stick with random data. And he used data about tree rings that the original researcher stated should not be used to reflect temperature proxies. That hockey stick had been used to bludgeon down arguments that temperatures a thousand years ago had been warmer and that current temperatures variations were less than the historical record. It became known as the "fingerprint of humanity" and became a lever to catapult global warming into a major political topic. There was nothing wrong with Mann's efforts to look for a human fingerprint. I suspect he knowingly fudged his data, but even if he did, that wasn't the worst part about the whole hockey stick fiasco. The worst part was the way Mann's results were blindly accepted just because they agreed with a prevailing notion, without regard to the historical record and without replication of results.
But hey, what's the point of arguing? You've as good as admitted that people who don't go along with the "consensus" shouldn't be afforded the ability to pursue their own investigations. You're comfortable with the notion of ostracizing men like Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer, the state climatologists of Oregon, Colorado, and Delaware. It's just fine with you if they're treated with exactly the same contempt as Alfred Wegener or Raymond Dart.
Slashdot Mirror
Seven digits makes someone new, junior? :)
Well, that's nice, but the location of the screen is fixed. So you have a really great, 3D display, but it sits on a desk in front of you. Properly configured, VR goggles might give you a lower resolution directly in front of your face, but that resolution can scroll over a much larger area. Look to your left and you see a 640x480 view into a document you're referencing ... face forward and you can return to the new document you're writing ... and to your right is the hot chick stripping on her webcam-- I mean, the 3D model you're making. I agree that I'd rather have higher resolution than 640x480, but a lot can be accomplished with such a small screen size if your head and body movements are factored in.
Merriam-Webster would appear to disagree with you.
I'm ashamed at how long it took me to get that.
Not a single mention of that nefarious hacker, Rick Astley, who has managed to hijack so many hyperlinks to relevant videos in so many online discussions?
I don't see anything in that link except typical Greenpeace alarmism confounding ridiculously trivial releases of radiation with "millions of litres" of radioactive water. Sure, the water might be slightly radioactive, but so is the carbon-14 in your bones -- what of it? Why don't they give us a calibrated measurement of the radiation in the released waste and put it into perspective relating to other forms of radiation? My guess is because that wouldn't serve to advance their anti-nuke FUD agenda.
I just wanted you to know that I had mod points and I chose not to mod you down.
... slashdot you.
Never gonna mod you up, never gonna mod you down, never gonna spurn your posts or
Astronauts earn their space wings at 50 miles.
Any readers who live in his district should give him a call and voice their opposition to the bill, reminding him we need hope and change from his office.
... call your senators and tell them to vote no.
The rest of us
Don't just grumble and complain here, make your voice heard where it really counts.
Stern (of Stern-Levison) himself says that the Earth hasn't cleared its neighborhood of debris. If there's debate over the interpretation of that parameter by one of the authors, it hardly strikes me as precise. Rather than precise, let's try the word, "arbitrary". As in, Stern-Levison arrived at an arbitrary threshold that once classed whether an orbital path was cleared and have since reconsidered this position.
This'll all be cleared up in August 2009.
I hope.
In 1999, the IAU had its first brush with this issue when a proposal was made to consider Pluto a planet associated with the Kuiper belt. Astronomers then were strongly opposed to reducing the planet's status. But the discovery of 2003 UB313 (unofficially called "Xena" and it's satellite is "Gabrielle") might have caused this issue to be revisited. Slightly larger than Pluto, "Xena" was surely going to become our Solar System's tenth planet. But it's position in the Kuiper belt and the possibility for more similarly-sized objects caused some to worry that the number of official planets to grow dramatically. Might the Sun be home to 15, 20, 30 planets ultimately? Clearly, the matter needed to be pinned down. What is a planet after all?
Amazingly, until August 2006, there was no official astronomical definition for a planet. The IAU settled the problem by arguing over several different definitions, ultimately selecting one that kicked Pluto out of the club after two years of frustrating efforts. Indeed, the first committee to look at the problem, a group of astronomers, could not agree on a scientifically accurate definition. A second committee comprised of historians and educators was formed a few months ago to look at the problem from a fresh perspective.
Alan Stern, the head of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto, was outraged that less than five percent of the world's astronomers had a vote on the issue. Others think that the new category for Pluto is awkward when it says "A dwarf planet isn't a planet." Ultimately, I think the definition needs to be refined. Read it again. Then look at this chart. By the official definition currently accepted by the IAU, the Earth itself is not a planet. The existing definition not only places Earth on the questionable list, it also will present problems when we begin to identify planets in younger solar systems orbiting other stars. Inevitably, the issue will have to be revisited (probably in August 2009 at the next IAU General Assembly meeting), and at that time Pluto may be restored to planetary status.
You're my new hero! I've encountered some of what you post here elsewhere, and it all rings true, but do you have a good source(s) for what you're saying?
I would. There's too much to do in this world for one lifetime. Especially when you're a procrastinator from the start. Plus, I want to see the future ... the first manned Mars landing. The first interstellar probe. The singularity. Who knows what else. Just because you're happy with a handful of years and a geological instant, doesn't mean everyone else is.
T'Pal never did much for me, personally. Not even the lead singer for the band.
... I'd sure like to lick the paint off her ears.
T'Pol, on the other hand
I had serious trouble with Halo and Halo 2, but after taking dramamine before a few weekly sessions with friends, I found that I could tolerate those games even without medical assistance. Still, a few early scenes in Cloverfield had me looking away at a fixed point.
To the general population, someone with multiple personalities has schizophrenia. Does that make them right? Of course not, they have multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder. Facts aren't candidates in a popularity contest.
Shhhhh! Listen!
Whoooooooosh!
Wow. I wonder what that was?
What the fuck? Were you snorting cocaine when I said the following? You could have been polite and come back with a reasonable response, agreeing that money is corrupting both sides but you have issues with the source, and that'd be just fine. Then we could have a civilized discussion about it and I'd continue to agree that I found the numbers somewhat dubious
I wonder what kind of car Richard Lindzen or Patrick Michaels drives? Do you think Spencer and Christy have Ferraris, Crashfrog?
You're not paying attention. I was simply adding to a convenient omission on your part regarding your summary of Dr. Christy and cleaning up your sloppy attempt to paint him as an alarmist. And about this personalities vs. evidence or science thing you keep going on about, I strongly suggest you go back and re-read your first post and my first reply in this topic and try to stay focused. THIS WAS A DISCUSSION OF PERSONALITIES. Remember your first flame about deniers crying about being persecuted and my response listing several instances of that very occurrence? You're having a difficult time staying focused. Either that or you're averting your eyes when your side engages in some decidedly unscientific practices in trying to silence dissent.
Ah, thank you! Oh, but look, all but one of those eight are associated with volcanoes, too. No luck on reports in central North America? I guess that's an oversight in the evidence collected. No matter, I sincerely doubt volcanic activity would be changing so uniformly at each of those stations. I can't think of a probable mechanism that would effect that many volcanoes simultaneously in the same way, so I'll accept that as generally atmospheric and probably global. I took a sampling of each station at ten year intervals over thirty years and see a pretty uniform increase over that time. I have doubts, however, that the effect is entirely the fingerprint of man. And all of that said, I'd still like to see what the CO2 concentration in PPM is in a few other areas of the planet that aren't next to volcanoes. Just to be thorough. Oh damn, there I go being a denier again.
Wrong. I'm asking you to notice that the paper is blasting the models for an incorrect assumption about the way the "Lindzen iris" works. Remember, Christy is on your side. That is, he thinks there is a human influence on the climate ... he just doesn't go along with all the hand-waving hysteria that the alarmists do.
Crashfrog, frankly you haven't been paying nearly enough attention to even begin to guess what I've turned my back on. There is a continuum of opinion on climate change. From "no way, it's not happening and you can never prove it" to "my God, we're all gonna drown or bake unless we do something next week!" I like to think of it as the range between Limbaugh and Gore. Within that range are opinions that inclu
Whoops! I accidentally left out the link to the EPW Senate blog page I referenced. Sorry about that, I'm not trying to hide the sources.
Yes, I saw that very same Wikipedia article. But did you also read just a little further and see where he said, "I showed some evidence that humans are causing warming in the surface measurements that we have but it is not the greenhouse relation"? Christy's an interesting guy. He actually does agree that humans are influencing the climate. What he doesn't agree with is the hand-wringing alarmism that grips advocates of AGW. You know the sort ... the kind that continues to use words like "denier" even after they've been caught with their hands in the duplicitous cookie jar? His colleague, Roy Spencer, on the other hand is probably more of what you'd like to call a "denier". They've put together a really great presentation on the subject that's worth your attention.
So I take it you weren't able to find other long-term studies of CO2 levels than the side of a single volcano either? Okay, then I'm gonna go out on a limb here and call bullshit and bet you that the CO2 levels in the middle of Iowa haven't shown the same increase that the side of an active volcano has. It's just a hunch, mind you, but while I'm willing to concede there probably has been some increase, it's almost certainly less.
I sure did, but I'm puzzled by your interpretation of the article, because Christy et al say in it:
Emphasis mine. They go on to say in the conclusion that
Tell me, does one have to prove a single one of those items, or all from the list? If the latter, I'm really worried about the "etc." part, because that looks like a ripe opportunity for one to shove goalposts around. If the former, consider this little tidbit and the devastating consequences for the models which forecast so much doom. There's no question in my mind that humans pollute, and that some of that pollution might impact the climate in addition to the air quality. But how much? On what scale? You seem reasonably well-informed on this issue, so I'm sure you know when you focus on CO2 that CO2 is a marginal greenhouse gas, contributing very little to the overall warming of the planet. And while we're talking about CO2, how much has it risen in New York City? Or any small town in Iowa? Or central Canada? You won't be able to tell me that, because CO2 records are maintained for only one place on the planet ... the side of a volcano in Hawaii!
How much money was spent on Climatology thirty years ago? Back in the seventies, a number of states in the U.S. were closing down their state climatology departments. How much is being spent on it now? How about those "carbon offset credits" ... where does the money go that is spent on those? Someone is making a profit there. How much money has been flooding into environmental groups because of the heightened awareness of global warming and the need to do something about it (2005 IRS 990 filings: Greenpeace: $15,636,026, Sierra Club: $85,183,485, World Wildlife Fund: $120,910,695)? You're following the dollars on one side of the argument, but blind to the other. I have no doubt that money from oil companies is interfering with the scientific and public discussion of this subject ... but but how much of a hit will environmental and other activist groups take if the biggest environmental danger of the 21st century turns out to be a bust? You can't tell me they don't have a financial incentive to lie and cheat just like the oil companies do.
Remember this link? And it isn't a charitable term, it's an accurate term, without the idiotic associations that come with "denier".
Review the history of Alfred Wegener, the founding father of plate tectonics. He died in 1930, marginalized by the scientific community for the heretical notion that the continents once fit together. His ideas were resurrected thirty years later. Or how about Raymond Dart, the fellow who found the first Australopithecus skeleton and postulated an African origin for humanity? Would you have hired him? Because at the time when he announced that little gem, the paleo-anthropological community was in the thrall of a tasty little hoax called the Piltdown Man, which conveniently played into the preconceived prejudices of the European scientific community that humans must have originated in Europe; preferably England. It was another twenty-five years before the Piltdown hoax was seen as the fraud it was; a conclusion that should have been obvious from the start, except it played right into the expectations of the "consensus".
... a theology we've been shovel-fed for the last forty years.
Global Climate Change is another Piltdown Man. If there's a drought, that's global warming. If it rains too much, that's global warming. Too many hurricanes? Global Warming. A year with less hurricane activity? Must be global warming. It's a notion with no falsifiability. A hypothesis with no clear way to disprove it. And that's a huge indication that there's a problem. It plays right into the environmentalist prejudice that anything humans do is bad
Science, dear Crashfrog, isn't about a consensus. It's about a pursuit for the truth, and it very often leads good scientists down pathways the establishment, whether it be the Catholic Church or the Church of Gaia, considers heretical. It's about sharing data and replicating results. When Michael Mann was asked for his data and programs to support his "hockey stick", he stalled and tried to shout-down anyone who bothered to ask, claiming they were obstructionists. Guess what? When the data did come out and the programs analyzed, it turned out those programs would generate something that looked like a hockey stick with random data. And he used data about tree rings that the original researcher stated should not be used to reflect temperature proxies. That hockey stick had been used to bludgeon down arguments that temperatures a thousand years ago had been warmer and that current temperatures variations were less than the historical record. It became known as the "fingerprint of humanity" and became a lever to catapult global warming into a major political topic. There was nothing wrong with Mann's efforts to look for a human fingerprint. I suspect he knowingly fudged his data, but even if he did, that wasn't the worst part about the whole hockey stick fiasco. The worst part was the way Mann's results were blindly accepted just because they agreed with a prevailing notion, without regard to the historical record and without replication of results.
But hey, what's the point of arguing? You've as good as admitted that people who don't go along with the "consensus" shouldn't be afforded the ability to pursue their own investigations. You're comfortable with the notion of ostracizing men like Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer, the state climatologists of Oregon, Colorado, and Delaware. It's just fine with you if they're treated with exactly the same contempt as Alfred Wegener or Raymond Dart.