I don't think you either read or understood Hansen's paper. The argument isn't that these events are individually impossible to occur. They all fall within the bounds of possibility for the baseline climate of 1951-1980. The argument put forward in the paper is that together they are each "once in a century" events, which means we should not get 3 of them in less than a single decade. The reason we do get them is because global warming is "weighting the dice", changing the probability distribution so that once in a century hot events occur once a decade on average, and once in century cold events occur once in a millennia. That's a rough description of the paper, you really should read the original.
In short, the claim about Russia is false. The claim about the European summer of 2003 is also debunked. (I am not familiar with Texas.)
Sorry, but the evidence you cited doesn't actually conflict with Hansen's paper. Each of the papers claim the events were "low predictability" events. Additionally, there's new research which contradicts the papers you cited that you cited, and points towards Arctic sea ice loss (driven by global warming) as the reason for the "low predictability" of those events.
And why does Hansen not mention extreme cold recently in Alaska?—is that also due to global warming?
Actually, it is. The same block pattern that's been keeping warm air (and record high temperatures) over much of the U.S. is keeping cold air (and cold temperatures) over Alaska. The ice loss appears to have weakened the air currents that would normally break up the blocking patterns.
Bad weather has always existed.
Indeed it has, however, Hansen's paper says the bad weather is biased hot now. It's like taking a 6 sided die, and changing the 1 to a 7. You won't get the same results you used to get.
what I'm asking, where the fuck is this summers heatwaves? there hasn't been a single good heatwave in Finland all summer now.(just couple of days every now and then).
Well, unless the Arctic ice starts to recover, there's a pretty good chance that you won't be seeing many hot summers in Finland in the near future. The warming of the Arctic has weakened the air currents and made "blocking patterns" far more likely, those blocking patterns are keeping warm air over most of North America and preventing it from flowing east to Europe like it used to. The net result may be that some of Europe (particular the northern parts like Norway and Finland) will experience temperatures that are significantly below your previous normal temperatures while the southern parts experience temperatures significantly above normal.
Oh, and it's so unlikely that the Arctic ice will recover, that the posters at Watts Up With That (WUWT), one of the big climate denial blogs, seems to have finally stopped predicting that the Arctic ice will recover "next year". It looks like seeing how very, very wrong they were in previous years has tempered their predictions a bit.
I don't get it. What does a heat wave (consecutive days over 100F) in the 1920s in one corner of Australia, that lasted 160 days in an area that normally gets 154 days over 100F each year, have to do with it?
The basic claim Hansen made is that these recent heat waves are so far out of the ordinary that it would be virtually impossible* for them to have occurred without global warming. I'm not sure how "there was a heatwave in the 1920s in Australia" proves the claim is false.
I suggest you read the link provided. It seems to me, that In the original post, i kan reed, was referring to the percentage of pseudoscience characteristics exhibited by AGW and alternate theories. That's not a statistical measure of how many of the theories are correct, it's the percentage of red flags they raise from the list. Raising even one of the flags isn't a good sign, raising multiple ones is very bad. I'm not sure if there is even a single example of a theory that trips half or more of the flags and is actually science.
Your assertion that "[t]rying to assign the bulk statistic to the individual instance beforehand is simply not valid procedure" is correct but not applicable, because the percentage of red flags raised would be assigned to each individual theory after evaluating it. I'm sure that you would agree that examining and then evaluating something is reasonable.
It's true that sometimes conspiracies actually exist. However claims that mainstream science is engaged in a conspiracy to suppress some bit of research makes it more likely to be pseudo-science, because (far) more often than not the claims are false. It's not a guarantee that it's pseudo-science but it is a red flag that indicates further examination may be required.
He's using the longer list with 22 characteristic of pseudo-science, he's saying that climate change could be showing between 1 and 3 of those characteristics.
You before: Context matters, context matters, you are taking things out of context so you're dishonest.
Me: Here's a quote with perfect context provided.
You now: "It still looks to me like Gore is refusing to debate the science with Lomborg."
Now, when context is very important, you ignore context.
You didn't provide context, you provided accusations and assertions with no evidence to support them. From the quote, Al Gore is refusing to debate him on the science. The additional context (that I had to go and find) is ambiguous on why he declined to debate Lomborg. There are other possible reasons that the one you have asserted are true, for example, this article asserts that "Debating Lomborg just elevates Lomborg’s nonsense to higher visibility and degrades the larger conversation." Contrary to your assertion, I'm not ignoring context, I'm simply doubting your accusations. If you consider doubting your position to be inherently dishonest, you will never be able to engage in rational debate.
Talk about dishonesty, I didn't say that. I said their treatment of skeptics in ways I showed is dishonest.
That seems to be splitting hairs, as I don't see much difference between accusing someone of dishonesty, and accusing them of acting dishonestly, however point taken, you have only accused them of acting in ways that you characterise as dishonest.
Lomborg (who is, BTW, an extreme leftist by American standards) had been hounding Gore for quite a long time before this incident, trying to get Gore to debate him on the political issue. He was at the time one of Gore's most prominent and well-known opponents. Gore knew who he was and what he stood for. There's even more context for you.
Again, those are assertions. Evidence to support your assertions would do wonders for the credibility of your argument. I disagree with you, so it should be obvious that I'm rarely going accept your arguments unless they are backed by valid evidence. Doing further research myself, I see that you are correct, Lomberg had been hounding Gore for a while, so Gore most likely knew who he was and what he stands for. However, that doesn't prove your accusations:
"The debate is over" not only applies to those who question the science, but also those who question the political prorities. The Debate Is Over. The High Priest Al Gore has ruled. Honest and rational discussion that contravenes the Scriptures is heresy and will not be tolerated.
You have cited Al Gore refusing to debate one person, unfortunately, that does not actually prove any of the accusations you have made.
It was just a matter of having people willing to actually listen to the facts laid out and honestly reevaluate their posiitons based on them. Apparently, that is an ability missing in certain liberals on this forum.
Like I previously said, that is an ability missing from many people on the Internet, in pretty much every group. One which could just as easily be ascribed to you as to the people you disagree with. It is very easy to affix that label to anyone who doesn't accept your position as truth.
When shown you're dishonest and closed-minded, lash out with personal attacks. Well done.
Is calling someone dishonest and closed-minded not a personal attack? You are the one who wrote: "Dishonesty, or at least me being an idiot, must be the cause for the disagreement." I'm merely pointing out, that there one possible reason "the liberals [couldn't] even comprehend the possibility that I could have a rational argument against their beloved causes" is that you may not have presented "rational argument" in a convincing way. You certainly haven't done a very good job of convincing me that you are rational, intelligent or articulate.
That's too bad, I have found our exchanges vastly amusing, but you really should spend more time learning about logic and argument before claiming to be an expert on them.
You claim that I only "assume" an attack of Ad hominem is invalid for debate.
Once again, that is a straw man argument. I have never disagreed that ad hominem arguments are fallacies. It seems "you have no desire to better yourself, and continue to argue a point that has been repeatedly proven incorrect". You need to understand what your opponent's arguments are and attack the arguments, not your opponent or what you wish they would have said. Until you learn this through and through, you will never master the finer points of debate.
That's an interesting hypothesis but there's no evidence to support it either. Has "Global warming" become so politically charged that it is impossible for any descenting scientist to publish their rejected papers too? Because while I've often seen this claim of bias in publishing, there doesn't seem to any evidence to support it.
Just think about it, if there really were all kinds of papers rejected for political reasons, I'd think that a group like the Heartland Institute would channel some of their money into publishing their own "heretical" journal. I think the reason the Heartland Insitute hasn't done that, is because there's not enough rejected papers to make the endeavor worthwhile, let alone enough high-quality papers. They seem to use up their entire supply of dissenting opinions at their NIPCC conventions.
I suspect this argument is a manifestation of the False consensus effect. The rationale is: it's inconceivable that no scientists agree with my position, so therefore someone must be silencing them. It allows a person to maintain self-confidence in the face of evidence that says 97% of the scientists involved in research in this area agree with the basic premises of global warming (and 2% are unsure).
Telling someone that they are in need of education and maturity a polite way of telling them that they are ignorant. Telling someone they are ignorant in society has been perceived as Ad hominem for at least 30 years. If you had even a fraction of the knowledge you were pretending to have you would know this.
I disagree, I think telling someone that are in need of education and maturity is even more rude than saying they are ignorant on a particular topic. Additionally, saying someone is ignorant may be an ad hominem argument, or it may not be. It must tied to an argument, insults that not tied to arguments are merely insults and not fallacious.
Fact: The use of Ad Hominem is never correct. That is the end of the story. Continuing to belabor the point by using more fallacy is irrational, since you have been provided with numerous examples of 1. How it is incorrect, and 2. How to improve your skills so that you don't have to rely on Ad Hominem.
Again that is straw man argument, I have never claimed that ad hominem arguments are valid. I have said, that I do no think my argument was an ad hominem because it was not part of an exhortation to ignore Jane's comments, but rather speculation on why her comments were moderated down. The different context renders that argument not an ad hominem by definition because it was not used a justification to defeat her arguments, it was used as argument as to why some people would refuse to engage her in debate. Rightly or wrongly, I believe that to be a reason why some people who refuse to engage her. This is the real argument, yet you keep attacking the strawman proxy that you constructed.
Fact: Claiming that you are correct because you are correct is not only an argument from fallacy,
That is not an argument from fallacy ("Argument from fallacy is the formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false." - Wikipedia), this is yet another example where you make a beginner's error. There is no need to claim your are correct because you are correct. You are either correct or not.
it is completely irrational when being used in a circular context. This is what you have repeatedly done, even to the point of attempting to deny your own statements. Denying one's own statements is not just irrational, it is alarming.
Perhaps you mean to say that I am begging the question, by using an assumption that I am correct to argue that I am correct. It does not matter, that is not an argument I have made, I have said repeatedly, that I do not believe that my argument was an ad hominem argument (and thus fallacious) because it was not formed in such a way as to be an ad hominem argument. If I did not dismiss my opponents arguments, rather I entered an argument about the moderators actions and provided an alternate explanation other than they are hypocritical and disagree with her. If her arguments are especially poor, then they deserve to be moderated down.
If you are older, believe yourself to be mature, believe that you have all of the knowledge in the world, and can not possibly be wrong or incorrect then you have more severe issues than simply being ignorant.
The same argument is exactly as applicable to yourself, consider it carefully.
The chain of posts you have made trying to support your use of Ad hominem against someone is rather sad no matter what the cause. The original answer for a mature person educated in rhetoric and dialogue would have been "You are correct it was not good dialogue, I'll try and refrain from using the tactic, thanks for pointing it out." which completely contradicts the path you have taken.
False dichotomy: you ignore the possibility that you are wrong and that it was valid debate, even if rude towards Jane. You assume that you are correct and use that assumptio
So to answer your first statement, the answer is no. The difference is far more vast than just an "observation".
Then you should have expanded on what you think the difference is.
In fact your whole first paragraph is simply an argument from fallacy and an attempt to divert from the definitions already provided.
Of course, your argument is actually an argument from fallacy, where as my paragraph was not. I identified what appears to be the "obvious" difference between your examples. You ignored that statement because you claim it is a fallacy and therefore wrong which itself an argument from fallacy. In fact I see no reasonable ground whereby anyone could claim my argument was an argument from fallacy, I didn't even accuse your argument of being a fallacy. Are you sure that you really understand rhetorical argument? You continue to make simple errors in your application of rhetoric, and they are severely undermining your claims of expertise.
In fact, it seems to me that you have habitually used ad Hominem attacks in every single one of your messages (or almost every one). Your constant refrain of "immature and uneducated" is both tiresome and meant to belittle your opponent. Given that you have used to that refrain to frequently disregard my arguments, it is clearly an ad hominem, made all the worse because your entire argument seems to be that ad hominems should never be used in serious debate. The hypocrisy of constantly using them during your arguments is therefore particularly galling.
If you decide to respond again, I would suggest you spend less time lecturing me on how I should become more educated and answer the arguments in a honest manner, because your current behaviour seems intellectually dishonest and arrogant to the point of pretentiousness. A wise man allows his skill with rhetorical argument speak for itself, instead of boasting of it.
What do you mean "Except for Fox". The media is alarmist, it always has been and likely always will be, it's how they get people to look at the ads. Fox just uses different topics to generate their alarmist ad views.
That's because "more taxes == more revenue" is actually true for most cases. For example, it generally hold true if you are on the right side of the Laffer curve. Estimates of where the right side begins differ, but it may as high as 70% taxation. If you did not believe that increasing taxes generally increased revenue, you'd have to believe that the most possible taxes will be collected at 0% taxation, which is obviously wrong.
And that there are never any unintended consequences to, say, Obamacare, which feed back into the system and cause weird effects.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. Liberals only have to believe that the weird effects will be better than the problems that currently exist to support Obamacare and that belief is pretty reasonable.
In fact, it would seem that conservatives believe it's difficult/impossible to completely understand the behavior of complex systems, while liberals believe that regulation and rules and laws, of which more is better, always have exactly the effect they expect.
Well that's an obvious strawman argument, there are many type of regulations, rules and laws that liberals do not support.
The most cogent argument for the differences between conservative and liberals that I've even seen are value based. Specifically that conservatives value tribal identity, conformity and leadership more highly than liberals, and liberals value equality and benevolence more than conservatives and that most liberal-conservative conflicts come from these differences. Specifically, that the emphasis on leadership, conformity and tribal identity leads conservatives to embrace punishments for failing to act according to the leaderships directives, which liberals don't support because they believe it is more important to treat people who are different well and equally than it is to punish them for failing to conform to conservative standards.
This also explains why the liberal Democrats act like a herd of cats, and the Republicans act like a feral dog pack. The conservative values embrace internal discipline, while the liberal values inherently distrust it.
Whatever the reason, the point is that it doesn't matter who funded it, the conservatives won't accept climate change, no matter how many facts or studies you perform.
That's not entirely true. If Romney wins, and he, Limbaugh and O'Reilly all turned around and said "Global warming has now been proven", the majority of conservatives would not only believe, many would pretend that conservatives have always believed that global warming was true. I think the libertarians and some of the hard core opposition would stay true to their doubt, but the debate on global warming would immediately shift to the best way to deal with it. Additionally, I suspect the conservative level of belief in climate change would, almost overnight, surpass the liberal level of belief.
Of course, that won't happen because the Republicans are beholden to interests that don't want them to accept climate change (the Koch brothers and Murdoch among others).
You statement does not contradict rrbohbeck. He said if you hold precipitation steady, yields drop by 10% per degree of warming. Obviously, precipitation changes may ameliorate or exacerbate that effect.
Actually, they Koch brothers also have a long and sordid history of breaking environmental regulations with their businesses. They appear to be as much against traditional pollution regulations (such as limits on the amount of mercury that can be dumped in drinking water) as they are against climate change regulations. From what I've read they don't think they should bear any responsibility for pollution and that it should be the drinker's duty to make sure his water is clean and free of pollution (and thus should bear all the related costs).
If you are serious, I'd suggest starting with Skeptical Science. They don't allow abusive comments either for or against AGW and there's a ton of information there. Start with the Big Picture link and they'll lay out a very convincing science based case for AGW.
Judith Curry's comments apply to last year's paper, which you might be able to tell because it was written last year. Muller's comments pertain to this year's paper.
Opening statement of the PDF from the Berkeley page says:
According to a new Berkeley Earth study released today, the average temperature of the Earth’s land has risen by 1.5 C over the past 250 years. The good match between the new temperature record and historical carbon dioxide records suggests that the most straightforward explanation for this warming is human greenhouse gas emissions.
Seems like the Berkeley study is saying exactly the same thing as Muller.
Ok, then you're get slightly suboptimal growing. Keep in mind that we grow most things outdoors. That means for most of our crops and most of the time, we don't have control over any of the above factors. Hence, our crops are grown suboptimally. It doesn't keep us from harvesting a hell of a lot of food.
Actually, much of the food has had centuries, to millennia of adaptation behind it. For instance it took over 1000 years for Native Americans to adapt Mexican corn to North American conditions. Most of the crops in the U.S. are being grown in conditions that are reasonably close to their ideal because they have been adapted to the historical conditions. I'm not sure what the numbers are exactly, but as I understand, the vast majority (75% or more?) of human calorie consumption comes from a handful of crops (around 6, I think). Rice, corn and various grains (wheat, barley, flax). Disruptions to those supplies can have massive repercussions for global population.
These crops are adaptable but if it takes decades to adapt a new grain over those same decades the climate continue to change, we could face a permanent situation of outdated adaptations and permanently reduced crop yields, at least until we run out of fossil fuels and the climate stabilises. That might not seem like much of a problem, but massive famines could trigger revolts, civil wars and international wars. What good are economic sanctions if a country's people are already starving?
They aren't predicting huge changes in the global average temperature, local changes can be much higher or lower than the average. Additionally, local changes to weather patterns could have dramatic impacts on crop land. Changes in wind patterns can dramatically change the amount of precipitation (rain and snow) delivered to an area. This year's drought and heatwave are mostly attributable to a change in Arctic wind patterns. If it becomes a yearly phenomenon, it could have a very significant impact on American agriculture.
The primary difference between your two examples appears to be that the second isn't supported by "an observation". What I find interesting, is what you will accept as an observation seems very arbitrary. As in, it's an observation if you agree with it, and not an observation if you disagree. Perhaps, you need to be more objective.
You should by now know what the definition of a crank is. It's someone who holds unorthodox views on a subject and continues to hold them in the face of overwhelming evidence that those views are incorrect. That is behavior that I have observed. It seems by your definitions, either both our comments are valid or both invalid.
If I claim Jane is a crank, that's an ad hominem attack according to you, regardless of how I justify the claim. However, if you claim I am immature and uneducated, that's a valid argument regardless of how you justify the claim, again according to you.
You just did, above. You didn't know the context of Gore's tirade against Lomborg, yet you automatically assumed dishonesty. But the context shows the political, the attempt to stifle dissenting views even where the science is agreed.
I still don't agree with your characterisations, I find them misleading and dishonest. You consistently over-reach what the evidence says to push forward an extremely biased view. It still looks to me like Gore is refusing to debate the science with Lomborg. It's not clear that he understood (or even cares) what position Lomborg stands for. This one piece of evidence is circumstantial and flimsy. It need more evidence to support your hypothesis. Given that your other quotes don't support your hypothesis, I can't agree to it, and given the deceptive manner in which you cited the quotes, it does give the appearance of dishonest behaviour on your part. If you had, from the start, cited Al Gore's refusal to debate Lomborg itself as your reason, rather than quoting a few words from the rejection without context, I would merely consider your evidence unconvincing and not dishonest.
No, it is not. Pointing out dishonest behavior is not dishonest.
It is, if the dishonest behaviour does not exist.
Claiming dishonesty simply because of a disagreement on the science or politics is dishonest.
Yes, it would be, if it occurred. Yet, you accuse anyone who believes in that AGW is happening of being dishonest. Gross generalisations of that sort should set off alarm bells. It's extremely unlikely that everyone you disagree with is uniformly dishonest.
In neither case could the liberals even comprehend the possibility that I could have a rational argument against their beloved causes. Dishonesty, or at least me being an idiot, must be the cause for the disagreement.
Here's a clue: That's not a property of liberals, it's a property of people who disagree with you on the Internet. I suggest you perform some experiments and try posting some blatantly pro-AGW comments on WUWT or another climate change denial web site or go to conservative web sites and post comments about how great Obamacare is or how great electric cars are. There are idiots and asses on every side of every issue.
Additionally, if you were better at communicating your ideas, fewer people would think you're an idiot. This is 10th or 11th post in this debate between us, and only now have you presented a real argument to support your position. If you've done similarly poorly on the other issues you cited, it would be no wonder they assumed you were dishonest or stupid. This conversation has been incredibly tedious, and you may noticed that I have remarked multiple times on the poor quality of your debating form. If you can't be bothered to communicate clearly and concisely, you shouldn't blame others for misunderstanding you.
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I don't think you either read or understood Hansen's paper. The argument isn't that these events are individually impossible to occur. They all fall within the bounds of possibility for the baseline climate of 1951-1980. The argument put forward in the paper is that together they are each "once in a century" events, which means we should not get 3 of them in less than a single decade. The reason we do get them is because global warming is "weighting the dice", changing the probability distribution so that once in a century hot events occur once a decade on average, and once in century cold events occur once in a millennia. That's a rough description of the paper, you really should read the original.
In short, the claim about Russia is false. The claim about the European summer of 2003 is also debunked. (I am not familiar with Texas.)
Sorry, but the evidence you cited doesn't actually conflict with Hansen's paper. Each of the papers claim the events were "low predictability" events. Additionally, there's new research which contradicts the papers you cited that you cited, and points towards Arctic sea ice loss (driven by global warming) as the reason for the "low predictability" of those events.
And why does Hansen not mention extreme cold recently in Alaska?—is that also due to global warming?
Actually, it is. The same block pattern that's been keeping warm air (and record high temperatures) over much of the U.S. is keeping cold air (and cold temperatures) over Alaska. The ice loss appears to have weakened the air currents that would normally break up the blocking patterns.
Bad weather has always existed.
Indeed it has, however, Hansen's paper says the bad weather is biased hot now. It's like taking a 6 sided die, and changing the 1 to a 7. You won't get the same results you used to get.
what I'm asking, where the fuck is this summers heatwaves? there hasn't been a single good heatwave in Finland all summer now.(just couple of days every now and then).
Well, unless the Arctic ice starts to recover, there's a pretty good chance that you won't be seeing many hot summers in Finland in the near future. The warming of the Arctic has weakened the air currents and made "blocking patterns" far more likely, those blocking patterns are keeping warm air over most of North America and preventing it from flowing east to Europe like it used to. The net result may be that some of Europe (particular the northern parts like Norway and Finland) will experience temperatures that are significantly below your previous normal temperatures while the southern parts experience temperatures significantly above normal.
Oh, and it's so unlikely that the Arctic ice will recover, that the posters at Watts Up With That (WUWT), one of the big climate denial blogs, seems to have finally stopped predicting that the Arctic ice will recover "next year". It looks like seeing how very, very wrong they were in previous years has tempered their predictions a bit.
I don't get it. What does a heat wave (consecutive days over 100F) in the 1920s in one corner of Australia, that lasted 160 days in an area that normally gets 154 days over 100F each year, have to do with it?
The basic claim Hansen made is that these recent heat waves are so far out of the ordinary that it would be virtually impossible* for them to have occurred without global warming. I'm not sure how "there was a heatwave in the 1920s in Australia" proves the claim is false.
* Less than 0.1% probability
I suggest you read the link provided. It seems to me, that In the original post, i kan reed, was referring to the percentage of pseudoscience characteristics exhibited by AGW and alternate theories. That's not a statistical measure of how many of the theories are correct, it's the percentage of red flags they raise from the list. Raising even one of the flags isn't a good sign, raising multiple ones is very bad. I'm not sure if there is even a single example of a theory that trips half or more of the flags and is actually science.
Your assertion that "[t]rying to assign the bulk statistic to the individual instance beforehand is simply not valid procedure" is correct but not applicable, because the percentage of red flags raised would be assigned to each individual theory after evaluating it. I'm sure that you would agree that examining and then evaluating something is reasonable.
It's true that sometimes conspiracies actually exist. However claims that mainstream science is engaged in a conspiracy to suppress some bit of research makes it more likely to be pseudo-science, because (far) more often than not the claims are false. It's not a guarantee that it's pseudo-science but it is a red flag that indicates further examination may be required.
He's using the longer list with 22 characteristic of pseudo-science, he's saying that climate change could be showing between 1 and 3 of those characteristics.
You before: Context matters, context matters, you are taking things out of context so you're dishonest.
Me: Here's a quote with perfect context provided.
You now: "It still looks to me like Gore is refusing to debate the science with Lomborg."
Now, when context is very important, you ignore context.
You didn't provide context, you provided accusations and assertions with no evidence to support them. From the quote, Al Gore is refusing to debate him on the science. The additional context (that I had to go and find) is ambiguous on why he declined to debate Lomborg. There are other possible reasons that the one you have asserted are true, for example, this article asserts that "Debating Lomborg just elevates Lomborg’s nonsense to higher visibility and degrades the larger conversation." Contrary to your assertion, I'm not ignoring context, I'm simply doubting your accusations. If you consider doubting your position to be inherently dishonest, you will never be able to engage in rational debate.
Talk about dishonesty, I didn't say that. I said their treatment of skeptics in ways I showed is dishonest.
That seems to be splitting hairs, as I don't see much difference between accusing someone of dishonesty, and accusing them of acting dishonestly, however point taken, you have only accused them of acting in ways that you characterise as dishonest.
Lomborg (who is, BTW, an extreme leftist by American standards) had been hounding Gore for quite a long time before this incident, trying to get Gore to debate him on the political issue. He was at the time one of Gore's most prominent and well-known opponents. Gore knew who he was and what he stood for. There's even more context for you.
Again, those are assertions. Evidence to support your assertions would do wonders for the credibility of your argument. I disagree with you, so it should be obvious that I'm rarely going accept your arguments unless they are backed by valid evidence. Doing further research myself, I see that you are correct, Lomberg had been hounding Gore for a while, so Gore most likely knew who he was and what he stands for. However, that doesn't prove your accusations:
"The debate is over" not only applies to those who question the science, but also those who question the political prorities. The Debate Is Over. The High Priest Al Gore has ruled. Honest and rational discussion that contravenes the Scriptures is heresy and will not be tolerated.
You have cited Al Gore refusing to debate one person, unfortunately, that does not actually prove any of the accusations you have made.
It was just a matter of having people willing to actually listen to the facts laid out and honestly reevaluate their posiitons based on them. Apparently, that is an ability missing in certain liberals on this forum.
Like I previously said, that is an ability missing from many people on the Internet, in pretty much every group. One which could just as easily be ascribed to you as to the people you disagree with. It is very easy to affix that label to anyone who doesn't accept your position as truth.
When shown you're dishonest and closed-minded, lash out with personal attacks. Well done.
Is calling someone dishonest and closed-minded not a personal attack? You are the one who wrote: "Dishonesty, or at least me being an idiot, must be the cause for the disagreement." I'm merely pointing out, that there one possible reason "the liberals [couldn't] even comprehend the possibility that I could have a rational argument against their beloved causes" is that you may not have presented "rational argument" in a convincing way. You certainly haven't done a very good job of convincing me that you are rational, intelligent or articulate.
Here's a tip, if you
That's too bad, I have found our exchanges vastly amusing, but you really should spend more time learning about logic and argument before claiming to be an expert on them.
You claim that I only "assume" an attack of Ad hominem is invalid for debate.
Once again, that is a straw man argument. I have never disagreed that ad hominem arguments are fallacies. It seems "you have no desire to better yourself, and continue to argue a point that has been repeatedly proven incorrect". You need to understand what your opponent's arguments are and attack the arguments, not your opponent or what you wish they would have said. Until you learn this through and through, you will never master the finer points of debate.
That's an interesting hypothesis but there's no evidence to support it either. Has "Global warming" become so politically charged that it is impossible for any descenting scientist to publish their rejected papers too? Because while I've often seen this claim of bias in publishing, there doesn't seem to any evidence to support it.
Just think about it, if there really were all kinds of papers rejected for political reasons, I'd think that a group like the Heartland Institute would channel some of their money into publishing their own "heretical" journal. I think the reason the Heartland Insitute hasn't done that, is because there's not enough rejected papers to make the endeavor worthwhile, let alone enough high-quality papers. They seem to use up their entire supply of dissenting opinions at their NIPCC conventions.
I suspect this argument is a manifestation of the False consensus effect. The rationale is: it's inconceivable that no scientists agree with my position, so therefore someone must be silencing them. It allows a person to maintain self-confidence in the face of evidence that says 97% of the scientists involved in research in this area agree with the basic premises of global warming (and 2% are unsure).
The mathematicians are suppressing my brilliant papers proving that 2 + 2 = Chocolate. Help, I'm being repressed!
Telling someone that they are in need of education and maturity a polite way of telling them that they are ignorant. Telling someone they are ignorant in society has been perceived as Ad hominem for at least 30 years. If you had even a fraction of the knowledge you were pretending to have you would know this.
I disagree, I think telling someone that are in need of education and maturity is even more rude than saying they are ignorant on a particular topic. Additionally, saying someone is ignorant may be an ad hominem argument, or it may not be. It must tied to an argument, insults that not tied to arguments are merely insults and not fallacious.
Fact: The use of Ad Hominem is never correct. That is the end of the story. Continuing to belabor the point by using more fallacy is irrational, since you have been provided with numerous examples of 1. How it is incorrect, and 2. How to improve your skills so that you don't have to rely on Ad Hominem.
Again that is straw man argument, I have never claimed that ad hominem arguments are valid. I have said, that I do no think my argument was an ad hominem because it was not part of an exhortation to ignore Jane's comments, but rather speculation on why her comments were moderated down. The different context renders that argument not an ad hominem by definition because it was not used a justification to defeat her arguments, it was used as argument as to why some people would refuse to engage her in debate. Rightly or wrongly, I believe that to be a reason why some people who refuse to engage her. This is the real argument, yet you keep attacking the strawman proxy that you constructed.
Fact: Claiming that you are correct because you are correct is not only an argument from fallacy,
That is not an argument from fallacy ("Argument from fallacy is the formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false." - Wikipedia), this is yet another example where you make a beginner's error. There is no need to claim your are correct because you are correct. You are either correct or not.
it is completely irrational when being used in a circular context. This is what you have repeatedly done, even to the point of attempting to deny your own statements. Denying one's own statements is not just irrational, it is alarming.
Perhaps you mean to say that I am begging the question, by using an assumption that I am correct to argue that I am correct. It does not matter, that is not an argument I have made, I have said repeatedly, that I do not believe that my argument was an ad hominem argument (and thus fallacious) because it was not formed in such a way as to be an ad hominem argument. If I did not dismiss my opponents arguments, rather I entered an argument about the moderators actions and provided an alternate explanation other than they are hypocritical and disagree with her. If her arguments are especially poor, then they deserve to be moderated down.
If you are older, believe yourself to be mature, believe that you have all of the knowledge in the world, and can not possibly be wrong or incorrect then you have more severe issues than simply being ignorant.
The same argument is exactly as applicable to yourself, consider it carefully.
The chain of posts you have made trying to support your use of Ad hominem against someone is rather sad no matter what the cause. The original answer for a mature person educated in rhetoric and dialogue would have been "You are correct it was not good dialogue, I'll try and refrain from using the tactic, thanks for pointing it out." which completely contradicts the path you have taken.
False dichotomy: you ignore the possibility that you are wrong and that it was valid debate, even if rude towards Jane. You assume that you are correct and use that assumptio
So to answer your first statement, the answer is no. The difference is far more vast than just an "observation".
Then you should have expanded on what you think the difference is.
In fact your whole first paragraph is simply an argument from fallacy and an attempt to divert from the definitions already provided.
Of course, your argument is actually an argument from fallacy, where as my paragraph was not. I identified what appears to be the "obvious" difference between your examples. You ignored that statement because you claim it is a fallacy and therefore wrong which itself an argument from fallacy. In fact I see no reasonable ground whereby anyone could claim my argument was an argument from fallacy, I didn't even accuse your argument of being a fallacy. Are you sure that you really understand rhetorical argument? You continue to make simple errors in your application of rhetoric, and they are severely undermining your claims of expertise.
In fact, it seems to me that you have habitually used ad Hominem attacks in every single one of your messages (or almost every one). Your constant refrain of "immature and uneducated" is both tiresome and meant to belittle your opponent. Given that you have used to that refrain to frequently disregard my arguments, it is clearly an ad hominem, made all the worse because your entire argument seems to be that ad hominems should never be used in serious debate. The hypocrisy of constantly using them during your arguments is therefore particularly galling.
If you decide to respond again, I would suggest you spend less time lecturing me on how I should become more educated and answer the arguments in a honest manner, because your current behaviour seems intellectually dishonest and arrogant to the point of pretentiousness. A wise man allows his skill with rhetorical argument speak for itself, instead of boasting of it.
What do you mean "Except for Fox". The media is alarmist, it always has been and likely always will be, it's how they get people to look at the ads. Fox just uses different topics to generate their alarmist ad views.
Liberals believe more taxes == more revenue.
That's because "more taxes == more revenue" is actually true for most cases. For example, it generally hold true if you are on the right side of the Laffer curve. Estimates of where the right side begins differ, but it may as high as 70% taxation. If you did not believe that increasing taxes generally increased revenue, you'd have to believe that the most possible taxes will be collected at 0% taxation, which is obviously wrong.
And that there are never any unintended consequences to, say, Obamacare, which feed back into the system and cause weird effects.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. Liberals only have to believe that the weird effects will be better than the problems that currently exist to support Obamacare and that belief is pretty reasonable.
In fact, it would seem that conservatives believe it's difficult/impossible to completely understand the behavior of complex systems, while liberals believe that regulation and rules and laws, of which more is better, always have exactly the effect they expect.
Well that's an obvious strawman argument, there are many type of regulations, rules and laws that liberals do not support.
The most cogent argument for the differences between conservative and liberals that I've even seen are value based. Specifically that conservatives value tribal identity, conformity and leadership more highly than liberals, and liberals value equality and benevolence more than conservatives and that most liberal-conservative conflicts come from these differences. Specifically, that the emphasis on leadership, conformity and tribal identity leads conservatives to embrace punishments for failing to act according to the leaderships directives, which liberals don't support because they believe it is more important to treat people who are different well and equally than it is to punish them for failing to conform to conservative standards.
This also explains why the liberal Democrats act like a herd of cats, and the Republicans act like a feral dog pack. The conservative values embrace internal discipline, while the liberal values inherently distrust it.
Whatever the reason, the point is that it doesn't matter who funded it, the conservatives won't accept climate change, no matter how many facts or studies you perform.
That's not entirely true. If Romney wins, and he, Limbaugh and O'Reilly all turned around and said "Global warming has now been proven", the majority of conservatives would not only believe, many would pretend that conservatives have always believed that global warming was true. I think the libertarians and some of the hard core opposition would stay true to their doubt, but the debate on global warming would immediately shift to the best way to deal with it. Additionally, I suspect the conservative level of belief in climate change would, almost overnight, surpass the liberal level of belief.
Of course, that won't happen because the Republicans are beholden to interests that don't want them to accept climate change (the Koch brothers and Murdoch among others).
You statement does not contradict rrbohbeck. He said if you hold precipitation steady, yields drop by 10% per degree of warming. Obviously, precipitation changes may ameliorate or exacerbate that effect.
Depends on what you are claiming is pollution.
Actually, they Koch brothers also have a long and sordid history of breaking environmental regulations with their businesses. They appear to be as much against traditional pollution regulations (such as limits on the amount of mercury that can be dumped in drinking water) as they are against climate change regulations. From what I've read they don't think they should bear any responsibility for pollution and that it should be the drinker's duty to make sure his water is clean and free of pollution (and thus should bear all the related costs).
If you are serious, I'd suggest starting with Skeptical Science. They don't allow abusive comments either for or against AGW and there's a ton of information there. Start with the Big Picture link and they'll lay out a very convincing science based case for AGW.
Judith Curry's comments apply to last year's paper, which you might be able to tell because it was written last year. Muller's comments pertain to this year's paper.
Opening statement of the PDF from the Berkeley page says:
Seems like the Berkeley study is saying exactly the same thing as Muller.
Ok, then you're get slightly suboptimal growing. Keep in mind that we grow most things outdoors. That means for most of our crops and most of the time, we don't have control over any of the above factors. Hence, our crops are grown suboptimally. It doesn't keep us from harvesting a hell of a lot of food.
Actually, much of the food has had centuries, to millennia of adaptation behind it. For instance it took over 1000 years for Native Americans to adapt Mexican corn to North American conditions. Most of the crops in the U.S. are being grown in conditions that are reasonably close to their ideal because they have been adapted to the historical conditions. I'm not sure what the numbers are exactly, but as I understand, the vast majority (75% or more?) of human calorie consumption comes from a handful of crops (around 6, I think). Rice, corn and various grains (wheat, barley, flax). Disruptions to those supplies can have massive repercussions for global population.
These crops are adaptable but if it takes decades to adapt a new grain over those same decades the climate continue to change, we could face a permanent situation of outdated adaptations and permanently reduced crop yields, at least until we run out of fossil fuels and the climate stabilises. That might not seem like much of a problem, but massive famines could trigger revolts, civil wars and international wars. What good are economic sanctions if a country's people are already starving?
They aren't predicting huge changes in the global average temperature, local changes can be much higher or lower than the average. Additionally, local changes to weather patterns could have dramatic impacts on crop land. Changes in wind patterns can dramatically change the amount of precipitation (rain and snow) delivered to an area. This year's drought and heatwave are mostly attributable to a change in Arctic wind patterns. If it becomes a yearly phenomenon, it could have a very significant impact on American agriculture.
The primary difference between your two examples appears to be that the second isn't supported by "an observation". What I find interesting, is what you will accept as an observation seems very arbitrary. As in, it's an observation if you agree with it, and not an observation if you disagree. Perhaps, you need to be more objective.
You should by now know what the definition of a crank is. It's someone who holds unorthodox views on a subject and continues to hold them in the face of overwhelming evidence that those views are incorrect. That is behavior that I have observed. It seems by your definitions, either both our comments are valid or both invalid.
Quite different from claiming someone lacks education and maturity in dialogue don't you think?
Quite simply, no, I don't. Please explain how your insults are less insulting.
If I claim Jane is a crank, that's an ad hominem attack according to you, regardless of how I justify the claim. However, if you claim I am immature and uneducated, that's a valid argument regardless of how you justify the claim, again according to you.
Are you truly unable to see the double-standard?
You just did, above. You didn't know the context of Gore's tirade against Lomborg, yet you automatically assumed dishonesty. But the context shows the political, the attempt to stifle dissenting views even where the science is agreed.
I still don't agree with your characterisations, I find them misleading and dishonest. You consistently over-reach what the evidence says to push forward an extremely biased view. It still looks to me like Gore is refusing to debate the science with Lomborg. It's not clear that he understood (or even cares) what position Lomborg stands for. This one piece of evidence is circumstantial and flimsy. It need more evidence to support your hypothesis. Given that your other quotes don't support your hypothesis, I can't agree to it, and given the deceptive manner in which you cited the quotes, it does give the appearance of dishonest behaviour on your part. If you had, from the start, cited Al Gore's refusal to debate Lomborg itself as your reason, rather than quoting a few words from the rejection without context, I would merely consider your evidence unconvincing and not dishonest.
No, it is not. Pointing out dishonest behavior is not dishonest.
It is, if the dishonest behaviour does not exist.
Claiming dishonesty simply because of a disagreement on the science or politics is dishonest.
Yes, it would be, if it occurred. Yet, you accuse anyone who believes in that AGW is happening of being dishonest. Gross generalisations of that sort should set off alarm bells. It's extremely unlikely that everyone you disagree with is uniformly dishonest.
In neither case could the liberals even comprehend the possibility that I could have a rational argument against their beloved causes. Dishonesty, or at least me being an idiot, must be the cause for the disagreement.
Here's a clue: That's not a property of liberals, it's a property of people who disagree with you on the Internet. I suggest you perform some experiments and try posting some blatantly pro-AGW comments on WUWT or another climate change denial web site or go to conservative web sites and post comments about how great Obamacare is or how great electric cars are. There are idiots and asses on every side of every issue.
Additionally, if you were better at communicating your ideas, fewer people would think you're an idiot. This is 10th or 11th post in this debate between us, and only now have you presented a real argument to support your position. If you've done similarly poorly on the other issues you cited, it would be no wonder they assumed you were dishonest or stupid. This conversation has been incredibly tedious, and you may noticed that I have remarked multiple times on the poor quality of your debating form. If you can't be bothered to communicate clearly and concisely, you shouldn't blame others for misunderstanding you.