You are right, the schemes I have heard of for selling back to the grid are all at wholesale prices but don't forget your not paying retail, while you are "running backwards" tou are paying nothing.
Not that a bankrupt power company would keep me awake at night but to be fair when you sell it back to the grid, you are competing with all the other sellers in the wholesale market to sell (what is for them) a miniscule trickle they are forced to account for. On an individual basis it's like going to a wholesale fruit market with two grapes and a cherry and expecting to sell at retail.
Perhaps if someone could set up an electricity brochurage[sic] to trade kw credits exclusively between "green retail" producers across the grid, it would be quite a coup for the little guy to confine the big boys to a smaller padock and milk them for their accounting prowess.
The same tug-o-war for "balance" can also be seen in the evolution of transport and water systems. Even without GW, the economic traffic jam at the end of the cheap fuel freeway is now in plain sight.
I'm not from the US and regardless of you views on AGW, $500 'security deposit' for a fully installed AND maintained solar array where you only pay for the power you generate. The price per kwh of the solar power generated is set at your current rate and locked in for between 1-25yrs, the $500 security deposit is to ensure they get it back in good condition should you cancel the service, they have catered for the "moving house" dilema, and seem to have covered all objections since in the worst senario (zero solar output) you end up paying your normal electricity bill.
In Australia the CSIRO has been claiming for over a decade that we can power the whole country (or more) from the renewable sources in this country and more importantly, at a competitive price. After many years of laws designed to erradicate water tanks from the suburbs and towns, the government (for some time) now has subidised rainwater tanks to homeowners because of the drought and the seemingly permenent water restriction.
A solar power scheme like this in Australia would effectively by-pass the government in a similar manner. It would also be quite profitable for the company since we have plenty of sunshine, I can see outback bussineses, farms, ect, lining up for a service like this.
"REnU program" - That is a fanfuckingtastic idea! When will it get to Australia...oh wait...***rushes of to bank with bussiness plan***
From thier FAQ: "You do not pay the security deposit [$500] until after the solar engineer comes to your house and designs your system. They will show you exactly what the system will look like and only after you sign off on the design do you pay the deposit."
Like any contractor they send a guy around, he gives you the speil and you pay a deposit, so I guess you can judge for yourself the "bogus factor" before opening your wallet. I don't see what you have to lose?
They also state their "factory" will be ready somtime in 2007 and are upfront that the "sign up" phase is a plan to generate institutional investment, a long waiting list of "solid appointments" will attract investors like bears to honey.
If one thing is almost certain, grid power is not going to get cheaper in the next few decades. I think the British slashdotter's can attest to the level of their recent utility price hikes, here in Australia our PM has recently warned of similar future rate hikes of up to 40%.
The only downside I can possibly think of is disposing of old technology, but at least it's in a solid (collectable) form, if this service is succesfull it will be just like someone invented a magic "sequestration" bullet that sucked the C02 from a smokestack and burried somewhere...
...somewhere deep...yes, it's got to be burried deep..oh, and offshore too, don't forget deep and offshore...possibly so far offshore it's in international waters, closer to cuba than florida really....
"The *most* beneficial investment however is building/buying a well-insulated house with balanced ventilation. This saves power in summer for AC, and in winther for heating. And a well-insulated house doesn't have higher maintenance-costs than a poorly insulated one."
From my own experience, I paid to get insulation pumped into the roof a couple of years after I moved into my first house in the early 90's, no tax breaks or subsidies at that time so I paid the full price. It cut my heating bill in half (well, almost) and it paid for itself in less than 2yrs. Not sure about this, but I think it is compulsory for new buildings to be insulated here in Australia, they all seem have it built in.
I know stuff all about this, but here is an awesome animation from some Harvard microbologists showing the molecules that are walking around the inside of every cell. Actually, running would be a better term since the animation is much slower than real life.
I hear one group tried this, but a soon as one of them mentioned the word "large", the female spider attached to the butt ate the whole group.
Seriously, I worked in a nylon spinning plant a long time ago and a large knitting machine looks a bit like a spiders butt Howvever, it takes a five story tall "machine" engineered with incredible presicion to make the fine threads that go into a stocking, the static on some parts of the machine can throw a spark over a foot long.
I don't know exactly how a spider's butt works (or for that matter a nylon plant), but I assume the spiders superiour abilities are related to the intricate and amazingly complex nano machinery inside every cell of the spider.
And also to fair, nobody credibly claims the accuracy of a space probe trajectory for climate models but the methods are sound and the "fuzzyness" is quantified in the same manner as the flight plan for Cassini. What climatologists do claim is their models are accurate enough to be usefull and that many, but not all, of their predictions for the current climate have been confirmed by observation. One of the more stunningly successfull predictions is a phenomena called "polar amplification", one of the more stunning failures is the "missing methane" observed over the past decade (perhaps they got metric and imperial mixed up:).
The 2001 IPCC report (aka: "the consensus") is due to recieve an update this year, many scientists belive the 2001 IPCC predictions have proven to be on the conservative side, but I guess we will have to wait and see.
The science can be judged in isolation via standard scientific skepticisim, the basic premise that the globe is warming and humans are causing it has the required "extrodinary eveidence", the error bars that you speak of do not extend into the opposite conclusion, the claim will continue to be subject to skepticisim via the scientific method and therefore the predictive power of the models will continue to gain strength (yes, there is also a very slim chance a new branch of physics or math could overturn the conclusion, but the same it true for any usefull model). OTOH: It will also continue to attract psuedo-science and psuedo-skepticism in the same way evolution has for 150yrs.
These "extrodinary claims" are in my mind "alaming" news that I have watched unfold as an adult since the eighties when I myself did not belive it was based on "hard" science. I am now convinced the consequences will be detrimental and possibly catastrophic to agriculture and fish stocks in particular. I don't pretend to have the political answers even though I have some strong opinions. However given the huge and prolonged public attention across the globe, if politican's refuse to come to the table in good faith then they are not doing their job (SNAFU). Kyoto IMHO was a miserable failure in it's prescriptions, in some respects it has now become a kind of political roadblock until it expires in 2012. OTOH Kyoto was a stunning success at focusing political and scientific attention on the problem, and at the very least has provided a table to sit around.
"My argument is that you can't take fuzzy data, drill it out to 5 decimal points, and suddenly claim it's precise data because your computer model goes out to that many significant digits."
If that's your argument you just lost. Ask the boys at NASA who planned the trajectory of the Cassini probe. The "three body problem" has no anylitical solution, they have a computer that takes "fuzzy data" and iterates it over physical laws expressed as non-linear equations. Their approximation to reality spat out an optimal solution that shot Cassini through the gaps in the rings of Saturn, twice!
In short your argument is that an entire branch of mathematics is fundementally flawed, or maybe you mean the branch called statistics is fundemntally flawed since by your assertion it cannot cope with "bias" and "fuzzy data".
So wich branch of mathematics is fundementally flawed, or is it just maths and physics in general that is flawed?
What makes you think you were practicing skepticisim
"AND THIS IS WHAT MANY GLOBAL WARMING PUNDITS ARE CLAIMING"
This shouting about the "hottest year in X tousand years", do you have a source where someone is claiming that as fact? My regular source only talks about "the hottest year(s) on record", ie: ~100-150yrs. They are all bunched up in the last decade, that is if you belive in statistics and error bars?
As I intimated earlier, your myopic political rage has overtaken any capacity you may have once had to hold a logical disscusion. The few "facts" that I can pick out from the rest of the paranoid gibberish in your post were debunked over a decade ago.
Your post does nothing for you except degrade your own credibility, it makes you sound like a bible thumping creationist who wouldn't recognise scientific skeptisim if it bit him on the arse.
"the general process for estimating that the global mean temperature is 1 degree higher than it was 10,000 years ago"
We are certain it's one degree higher than it was 100yrs ago, no need to go back to the dawn of civilization unless you are interested in what has occured in the distant past (paleoclimate). Of course paloclimate is less certain about some things than we are about recent conditions. However, it is very certain the current rate of change has not been seen by homo-sapiens. It's also very certain that the northern ice cap is much older than the human race and it is unreasonable to assert it is not currently dissaperaing at a geologically rapid rate.
Your objections to the assertions of paleoclimatologists are well thought out, but they overestimate the mixing of N/S climate and underestimate the strength given to the argument by diverse proxies arriving at the same answer. But still you are correct in asserting that the further back in time one goes the less certain the reconstructions. Diverse proxies go back a few millenia, after that the field narrows as proxies such as tree rings, agriculture and the written word no longer have wide coverage.
You are entitled to your political view, but very few people outside the US see carbon trading as some sort of communist plot to destroy the US or any other economy. It used to be the same here in Australia but there has now been a remarkable political "greening", this stunning shift in attitute has come from conservatives and is reflected in ordinary people. It has come about for two reasons, the first is our trully bizzare weather. The second is our prime minister and GWB got together last year and decided to try and stitch up the economics of the nuclear fuel cycle (ref: Indian nuke deal). Whatever their motives, I welcome my government's sudden enthusiasim. As for the US, I suspect that NASA's "remote sensing capacity" vs "man on mars" dilema will be used as a "bargaining chip" for future GHG negotiations (between now and 2012). I have no illusions, Kyoto was a miserable failure in many respects, but it has clearly been an extremely valuable instrument for focusing political and scientific attention on what I, and literally billions of others consider a "clear and present danger".
"carbon sequestering and increasing atmospheric albedo".
I'm sorry but this is just vapourware from the coal industry (and my government), coal would be the temporary lossers of any change in GHG politics, not the entire "US economy". I won't bother pointing out the hunders of billions in indirect costs associated with oil imports as the neo-cons seem to have worked that one out themselves and also oil is a much more intractable problem it would best if oil was used for fertilizer and plastics but replacing gas for personal transport is still a very optimistic decade or two away. A car has a life of 10-15yrs, a power station has a life of 30+yrs and there is one power station for every million cars or so. I agree it is good to work on cleaning up coal, but coal is also the softest target for regulation and/or taxation.
As an historical analogy, it is instructive to look up Edison's political and court battles with the encumbent gas companies who provided street lighting at the begining of the 20th century. Edison of course did more than invent a light bulb, he invented the now encumbent electricty generating and transmition industry to power his bulbs. A very important point to notice is that the gas and the electricity industries are now both major drivers of "the economy". Edison ensured a more stable economy through disversification of energy supply. The time has come for one or more economic "drivers" to ask for directions from their passengers, then again, Blair is still up the back of the bus waving a map at George.
Eloquent, and as I'm sure you realise only "scratching the surface". Someone tried to tell me in this thread that the "population explosion" was a "1980's myth" and that "we would stabalise at 10bln souls", thank you for encouraging me to keep reading!
"You suggest that expressing skepticism is incompetence."
No, and that burning smell is your strawman going up in flames.
I suggest: Willfully expressing profound ignorance of a realted field of expertise and repeatedly passing it off to the public as an authorative scientific statement after being corrected by one's peers IS by definition incompetence, but you can assume mallice if you like.
And as I said from the very start this is not about censorship it's about misinformation. Ironically it now appears that TFA is actually a politicaly inspired character assasination. So far from defending science against "censorship" it would appear that you are unwittingly aiding a certain politician's personal crusade to "dismantle the scientific method".
I could care less if the weatherman says "everyone knows the moon is made of cheese", since it's obvious he is joking. Nor do I object if he presents his personal opinions as personal and as opinions. And if you dig a bit deeper you will find that the scientist is not suggesting skeptsism be censored from science, she is suggesting AMS members be held to proffessional standards of behaviour and ethics.
Disclaimer: "Why is it so?" is a question that has stuck with me since watching the originals in the 60's. Here is my definition of skepticisim that also has an excellent rundown on the scientific method. Here are some fresh fruits from the dedicated and large scale application of those principles. I have held a BSC since 1990, I do not belong to any proffesional or political organisations, nor do I intentionally speak for anyone else.
Since I tire of repeating myself, here is my take on "economic ruin" brought about by a leftist plot that uses global warming to overtake the planet.
I agree the actions to be taken (if any) require a political "consensus" and TFA itself, is an example of the propoganda used in those "negotiations". Misrepresentation of the science is what concerns most scientists. Having said that, "science advises policy" but it's only natural for non-politicians to want to hear it from the horses mouth. The scientists I have talked to rarely get into policy disscussions and when they do they stress that it's their personal opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right, the schemes I have heard of for selling back to the grid are all at wholesale prices but don't forget your not paying retail, while you are "running backwards" tou are paying nothing.
Not that a bankrupt power company would keep me awake at night but to be fair when you sell it back to the grid, you are competing with all the other sellers in the wholesale market to sell (what is for them) a miniscule trickle they are forced to account for. On an individual basis it's like going to a wholesale fruit market with two grapes and a cherry and expecting to sell at retail.
Perhaps if someone could set up an electricity brochurage[sic] to trade kw credits exclusively between "green retail" producers across the grid, it would be quite a coup for the little guy to confine the big boys to a smaller padock and milk them for their accounting prowess.
The same tug-o-war for "balance" can also be seen in the evolution of transport and water systems. Even without GW, the economic traffic jam at the end of the cheap fuel freeway is now in plain sight.
I'm not from the US and regardless of you views on AGW, $500 'security deposit' for a fully installed AND maintained solar array where you only pay for the power you generate. The price per kwh of the solar power generated is set at your current rate and locked in for between 1-25yrs, the $500 security deposit is to ensure they get it back in good condition should you cancel the service, they have catered for the "moving house" dilema, and seem to have covered all objections since in the worst senario (zero solar output) you end up paying your normal electricity bill.
Perhaps there is some catch, but it looks to me like a very affordable, win-win scheme to cut your bills and your GHG's, I hope their business plan is profitable enough for both sides that it catches on quick.
In Australia the CSIRO has been claiming for over a decade that we can power the whole country (or more) from the renewable sources in this country and more importantly, at a competitive price. After many years of laws designed to erradicate water tanks from the suburbs and towns, the government (for some time) now has subidised rainwater tanks to homeowners because of the drought and the seemingly permenent water restriction.
A solar power scheme like this in Australia would effectively by-pass the government in a similar manner. It would also be quite profitable for the company since we have plenty of sunshine, I can see outback bussineses, farms, ect, lining up for a service like this.
The expression here in Australia is - "If ya carrrn't dig it up, chop it down, or shood'it, it ain't en export industry". /sarcasm.
"REnU program" - That is a fanfuckingtastic idea! When will it get to Australia...oh wait...***rushes of to bank with bussiness plan***
...somewhere deep...yes, it's got to be burried deep..oh, and offshore too, don't forget deep and offshore...possibly so far offshore it's in international waters, closer to cuba than florida really....
From thier FAQ: "You do not pay the security deposit [$500] until after the solar engineer comes to your house and designs your system. They will show you exactly what the system will look like and only after you sign off on the design do you pay the deposit."
Like any contractor they send a guy around, he gives you the speil and you pay a deposit, so I guess you can judge for yourself the "bogus factor" before opening your wallet. I don't see what you have to lose?
They also state their "factory" will be ready somtime in 2007 and are upfront that the "sign up" phase is a plan to generate institutional investment, a long waiting list of "solid appointments" will attract investors like bears to honey.
If one thing is almost certain, grid power is not going to get cheaper in the next few decades. I think the British slashdotter's can attest to the level of their recent utility price hikes, here in Australia our PM has recently warned of similar future rate hikes of up to 40%.
The only downside I can possibly think of is disposing of old technology, but at least it's in a solid (collectable) form, if this service is succesfull it will be just like someone invented a magic "sequestration" bullet that sucked the C02 from a smokestack and burried somewhere...
"The *most* beneficial investment however is building/buying a well-insulated house with balanced ventilation. This saves power in summer for AC, and in winther for heating. And a well-insulated house doesn't have higher maintenance-costs than a poorly insulated one."
From my own experience, I paid to get insulation pumped into the roof a couple of years after I moved into my first house in the early 90's, no tax breaks or subsidies at that time so I paid the full price. It cut my heating bill in half (well, almost) and it paid for itself in less than 2yrs. Not sure about this, but I think it is compulsory for new buildings to be insulated here in Australia, they all seem have it built in.
"Its just a lot easier with the volcano."
A little thought experiment, I drill a hole into a mountain of granite, and you drill a hole into the steaming lava pimple.
Also it's kinda hard to find an active volcano on the Australian mainland these days.
"Just because a resource is abundant and cheap isn't a reason to abuse it. You don't waste water, do you?"
What water? The guy next door refills his swimming pool every 10ms.
Lack of memory for my 500TB database that contains all known implementations of "Hello World" is definitely a hardware problem.
I have seen the commentary version and have a rough idea of what is happening but I prefer the music version, it's much kinder to my layman's brain. :)
You don't need volcanic hotspots, it can be done with a large chunk of granite.
I know stuff all about this, but here is an awesome animation from some Harvard microbologists showing the molecules that are walking around the inside of every cell. Actually, running would be a better term since the animation is much slower than real life.
"large metal spider butts"
I hear one group tried this, but a soon as one of them mentioned the word "large", the female spider attached to the butt ate the whole group.
Seriously, I worked in a nylon spinning plant a long time ago and a large knitting machine looks a bit like a spiders butt Howvever, it takes a five story tall "machine" engineered with incredible presicion to make the fine threads that go into a stocking, the static on some parts of the machine can throw a spark over a foot long.
I don't know exactly how a spider's butt works (or for that matter a nylon plant), but I assume the spiders superiour abilities are related to the intricate and amazingly complex nano machinery inside every cell of the spider.
I think the Douglas Adam's quote about power and presidents applies here :)
How freaky was that farmers almanac tip!!!!
And also to fair, nobody credibly claims the accuracy of a space probe trajectory for climate models but the methods are sound and the "fuzzyness" is quantified in the same manner as the flight plan for Cassini. What climatologists do claim is their models are accurate enough to be usefull and that many, but not all, of their predictions for the current climate have been confirmed by observation. One of the more stunningly successfull predictions is a phenomena called "polar amplification", one of the more stunning failures is the "missing methane" observed over the past decade (perhaps they got metric and imperial mixed up :).
The 2001 IPCC report (aka: "the consensus") is due to recieve an update this year, many scientists belive the 2001 IPCC predictions have proven to be on the conservative side, but I guess we will have to wait and see.
The science can be judged in isolation via standard scientific skepticisim, the basic premise that the globe is warming and humans are causing it has the required "extrodinary eveidence", the error bars that you speak of do not extend into the opposite conclusion, the claim will continue to be subject to skepticisim via the scientific method and therefore the predictive power of the models will continue to gain strength (yes, there is also a very slim chance a new branch of physics or math could overturn the conclusion, but the same it true for any usefull model). OTOH: It will also continue to attract psuedo-science and psuedo-skepticism in the same way evolution has for 150yrs.
These "extrodinary claims" are in my mind "alaming" news that I have watched unfold as an adult since the eighties when I myself did not belive it was based on "hard" science. I am now convinced the consequences will be detrimental and possibly catastrophic to agriculture and fish stocks in particular. I don't pretend to have the political answers even though I have some strong opinions. However given the huge and prolonged public attention across the globe, if politican's refuse to come to the table in good faith then they are not doing their job (SNAFU). Kyoto IMHO was a miserable failure in it's prescriptions, in some respects it has now become a kind of political roadblock until it expires in 2012. OTOH Kyoto was a stunning success at focusing political and scientific attention on the problem, and at the very least has provided a table to sit around.
Your wife may enjoy this animation from some talented Harvard microbiologists, peace :)
That's not only funny, it's profound.
"My argument is that you can't take fuzzy data, drill it out to 5 decimal points, and suddenly claim it's precise data because your computer model goes out to that many significant digits."
If that's your argument you just lost. Ask the boys at NASA who planned the trajectory of the Cassini probe. The "three body problem" has no anylitical solution, they have a computer that takes "fuzzy data" and iterates it over physical laws expressed as non-linear equations. Their approximation to reality spat out an optimal solution that shot Cassini through the gaps in the rings of Saturn, twice!
In short your argument is that an entire branch of mathematics is fundementally flawed, or maybe you mean the branch called statistics is fundemntally flawed since by your assertion it cannot cope with "bias" and "fuzzy data".
So wich branch of mathematics is fundementally flawed, or is it just maths and physics in general that is flawed?
What makes you think you were practicing skepticisim
"AND THIS IS WHAT MANY GLOBAL WARMING PUNDITS ARE CLAIMING"
This shouting about the "hottest year in X tousand years", do you have a source where someone is claiming that as fact? My regular source only talks about "the hottest year(s) on record", ie: ~100-150yrs. They are all bunched up in the last decade, that is if you belive in statistics and error bars?
As I intimated earlier, your myopic political rage has overtaken any capacity you may have once had to hold a logical disscusion. The few "facts" that I can pick out from the rest of the paranoid gibberish in your post were debunked over a decade ago.
Your post does nothing for you except degrade your own credibility, it makes you sound like a bible thumping creationist who wouldn't recognise scientific skeptisim if it bit him on the arse.
"the general process for estimating that the global mean temperature is 1 degree higher than it was 10,000 years ago"
We are certain it's one degree higher than it was 100yrs ago, no need to go back to the dawn of civilization unless you are interested in what has occured in the distant past (paleoclimate). Of course paloclimate is less certain about some things than we are about recent conditions. However, it is very certain the current rate of change has not been seen by homo-sapiens. It's also very certain that the northern ice cap is much older than the human race and it is unreasonable to assert it is not currently dissaperaing at a geologically rapid rate.
Your objections to the assertions of paleoclimatologists are well thought out, but they overestimate the mixing of N/S climate and underestimate the strength given to the argument by diverse proxies arriving at the same answer. But still you are correct in asserting that the further back in time one goes the less certain the reconstructions. Diverse proxies go back a few millenia, after that the field narrows as proxies such as tree rings, agriculture and the written word no longer have wide coverage.
You are entitled to your political view, but very few people outside the US see carbon trading as some sort of communist plot to destroy the US or any other economy. It used to be the same here in Australia but there has now been a remarkable political "greening", this stunning shift in attitute has come from conservatives and is reflected in ordinary people. It has come about for two reasons, the first is our trully bizzare weather. The second is our prime minister and GWB got together last year and decided to try and stitch up the economics of the nuclear fuel cycle (ref: Indian nuke deal). Whatever their motives, I welcome my government's sudden enthusiasim. As for the US, I suspect that NASA's "remote sensing capacity" vs "man on mars" dilema will be used as a "bargaining chip" for future GHG negotiations (between now and 2012). I have no illusions, Kyoto was a miserable failure in many respects, but it has clearly been an extremely valuable instrument for focusing political and scientific attention on what I, and literally billions of others consider a "clear and present danger".
"carbon sequestering and increasing atmospheric albedo".
I'm sorry but this is just vapourware from the coal industry (and my government), coal would be the temporary lossers of any change in GHG politics, not the entire "US economy". I won't bother pointing out the hunders of billions in indirect costs associated with oil imports as the neo-cons seem to have worked that one out themselves and also oil is a much more intractable problem it would best if oil was used for fertilizer and plastics but replacing gas for personal transport is still a very optimistic decade or two away. A car has a life of 10-15yrs, a power station has a life of 30+yrs and there is one power station for every million cars or so. I agree it is good to work on cleaning up coal, but coal is also the softest target for regulation and/or taxation.
As an historical analogy, it is instructive to look up Edison's political and court battles with the encumbent gas companies who provided street lighting at the begining of the 20th century. Edison of course did more than invent a light bulb, he invented the now encumbent electricty generating and transmition industry to power his bulbs. A very important point to notice is that the gas and the electricity industries are now both major drivers of "the economy". Edison ensured a more stable economy through disversification of energy supply. The time has come for one or more economic "drivers" to ask for directions from their passengers, then again, Blair is still up the back of the bus waving a map at George.
"Carbon sequestering" - I
Eloquent, and as I'm sure you realise only "scratching the surface". Someone tried to tell me in this thread that the "population explosion" was a "1980's myth" and that "we would stabalise at 10bln souls", thank you for encouraging me to keep reading!
"If you think there is no money in the environmental lobby you are dead wrong."
I hope you are right because I want to see those anti-science propogandists at Exonn, broke and living in Sudan.
There is no proof that humans are causing the current warming trend.
/sarcasm
Yet another victim of the weatherman's bullshit, they must be stopped.
"You suggest that expressing skepticism is incompetence."
No, and that burning smell is your strawman going up in flames.
I suggest: Willfully expressing profound ignorance of a realted field of expertise and repeatedly passing it off to the public as an authorative scientific statement after being corrected by one's peers IS by definition incompetence, but you can assume mallice if you like.
And as I said from the very start this is not about censorship it's about misinformation. Ironically it now appears that TFA is actually a politicaly inspired character assasination. So far from defending science against "censorship" it would appear that you are unwittingly aiding a certain politician's personal crusade to "dismantle the scientific method".
I could care less if the weatherman says "everyone knows the moon is made of cheese", since it's obvious he is joking. Nor do I object if he presents his personal opinions as personal and as opinions. And if you dig a bit deeper you will find that the scientist is not suggesting skeptsism be censored from science, she is suggesting AMS members be held to proffessional standards of behaviour and ethics.
Disclaimer: "Why is it so?" is a question that has stuck with me since watching the originals in the 60's. Here is my definition of skepticisim that also has an excellent rundown on the scientific method. Here are some fresh fruits from the dedicated and large scale application of those principles. I have held a BSC since 1990, I do not belong to any proffesional or political organisations, nor do I intentionally speak for anyone else.
Since I tire of repeating myself, here is my take on "economic ruin" brought about by a leftist plot that uses global warming to overtake the planet.
I agree the actions to be taken (if any) require a political "consensus" and TFA itself, is an example of the propoganda used in those "negotiations". Misrepresentation of the science is what concerns most scientists. Having said that, "science advises policy" but it's only natural for non-politicians to want to hear it from the horses mouth. The scientists I have talked to rarely get into policy disscussions and when they do they stress that it's their personal opinion.