Streetlight Collects Sun Power to Light the Night

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]jellico[/nom]Ah, there's the rub. Anthropogenic, meaning caused by man, is where everyone gets their panties in a twist. Because, somehow we exist outside of the natural ecosystem so anything we do is automatically adverse and extreme.[/citation]
*headdesk* Please, try to keep the judgmental attitude tucked away and don't presume to tell me what people who accept AGW think about humans. It does not change the facts that human activities are driving the massive increase in atmospheric CO2 and other GHGs, which are responsible for the recent warming trend. You can view us as just another animal or "something apart" or whatever, but the point is that anthropogenic merely means humans are doing it. It's not "bad because we're doing it," in fact as far as plain jane science is concerned there isn't a "bad." Human extinction is not "bad" from a scientific point of view, it would just be something that happens. However, destabilizing the climate to which we've grown accustomed and during which we've invested so much agrarian capacity can be "bad" for us.

You go on and on about supposedly established facts. Well, let me give you some.Fact: We don't know nearly as much as we would like to think that we do.Evidence: The body of understanding is constantly changing.

Generally speaking, few people are in a position to appreciate the tentative nature of knowledge more than scientists. However, until you have some actual EVIDENCE that something is wrong, it's best to act as if that something isn't wrong. The best evidence we have strongly points towards humans driving rapid climate change. Until strong evidence jumps up at us that this is incorrect, we need to act on the best evidence.

Fact: We can't predict the climate anymore accurately than we can predictly earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, etc.Evidence: Scientists readily admit we can't predict these events.

Scientists repeatedly admit we can't predict specific earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, and we have a hard time predicting the exact path of hurricanes and tornadoes. However, we can identify the conditions that lead to those events pretty well. Want to know where and when a hurricane is likely to hit? Keep your eyes on those tropical depressions, especially during certain months of the year. Same with tornadoes. Those two are perhaps the most predictable of your examples, and they happen to deal with weather; funny how that works.
But the long-term global climate is fundamentally NOT like an isolated hurricane or a volcano. Weather is not climate. The dynamics of the climate can in a general sense be predicted with reasonable accuracy with physics: if you understand the heat going in, the heat coming out, a few dynamics of large bodies of water and air masses, you can create a physical model (which is not a statistical model and doesn't rely on any historical data) that can generally tell you what extra energy will do in a system. And these long-term models are not subject to the same drastic fluctuations as short-term weather models that depend heavily on the vagaries of local conditions. It's actually simpler to predict long-term climate for the whole planet than a local weather forecast three weeks out, because it takes some truly powerful events (like the eruption of Mt. Tambora) to derail climate and there are just fewer of those.

Fact: Science is very often co-opted by politics to serve a political end.Evidence: Governments and the various religious institutions have almost always resisted radical new ideas (such as the earth being round, the earth not being the center of the universe or even the solar system, etc., etc.) and have done so by having their own government scientists and scholars proclaim that their doctrines are based on the work of the best scientists in the world and that they have reached a concensus on that issue (sounds familiar?).

That's actually not very likely to happen, and I don't think you quite understand the scientific community very well if you think they're by and large going to give up looking for facts in order to promote fraudulent ideas for the rest of their careers. That kind of behavior is the exception rather than the rule.

Many years ago, when the most dire predictions of global warming were being presented, I was very concerned. I mean, this is some pretty scary stuff. But I also know the media's propensity towards exaggeration, sensationalism, and apocalypic predictions (one need only recall the army of reporters on the shores of Hawaii following the recent earthquake in Chile). So, I started looking at the data, and more importantly, at the sources of the data. What I found is that the most dire predictions are coming from those who are invested or funded by those with an interest in "carbon credits."

NASA has a vested interest in "carbon credits?"

Here's what I find when I look at prominent denialists: most of them have strong ties toward specific political ideologies and/or fossil fuel industries. They don't tend to do much science. Many of them are connected directly to "free market" think-tanks, which in turn get lots of money from fossil fuel interests. Rather than trying to publish papers they spend more time writing editorials, attending lectures where Exxon will pay them a thousand dollars to present a talk specifically against global warming, or publishing vanity papers to their own websites. Meanwhile, the 12,000-something other climate scientists are busy doing real research, publishing hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals, and making very little money.
Don't automatically assume that any government-funded research is going to be politically biased. During the 8 years of the Bush administration and its 6 years of Republican control over both houses, scientists were still churning out paper after paper that indicated human-driven warming in the face of a government hostile to that idea (or at least hostile to the implied consequences). Some of the papers done at the request of the government during this time were, in fact, edited without the consent of the scientists involved to downplay the certainty of global warming. Research started under the previous Clinton administration was totally ignored by the Bush Whitehouse. If there has been any political pressure exerted on scientists by the government recently, it has been exactly the opposite of the way you're thinking. Don't even get started on the idea that climate scientists are just looking for grant money by supporting a conclusion of warming: NSF funds are doled out by a committee that includes no politicians but mostly active or former researchers, in other words the people deciding where that money goes are scientists.

Them and the IPCC are simply the modern version of the government scientists insisting the world is, indeed, flat.

If that's the case you should be able to find far more than 3% of climate scientists willing to say so, right? Or do you think almost all the world's scientists, from all walks of life and various political and culture backgrounds, are fundamentally corrupt and/or incompetent enough to keep promoting a blatant lie for decades on end? I think it's far more likely that the smaller number of dissenters is subject to those flaws in significant proportions.
Frankly I don't even understand the whole idea behind this claim that the US government (whichever the administration) and the IPCC are out to scare us all from a climate change. What is even in it for them?

The bottom line is this, if you eliminate the opinions of those "scientists" (and considering the fraudulent work recently uncovered by the exposure of emails from the University of East Anglia, this is not unreasonable)

Actually there hasn't been any evidence of fraud turned up over that. None of the investigations have found any falsified data or scientific misconduct. I think there was a ruling that they violated the FOI law but that the statute of limitations had already passed. None of the data was found to be false, misleading, or invalidated. None of the scientists were engaged in any bad behavior except for not turning over data under a FOI request. On the contrary, much as been spun about a few lines in ten years' worth of emails: bloggers have consistently misrepresented the meaning of "hide the decline" and made it look like there was a manipulation of peer-review on the part of the researchers when in fact they were responding to a breach of peer-review on the part of a particular journal by suggesting a boycott against publishing in that journal until the editors responsible were outed. The incident, by the way, eventually caused half the editors to resign over the review misconduct that let the bad paper through, so it seems the CRU folks were justified in calling it out.

...and also eliminate the opinions of those who believe that "god wouldn't allow this to happen;" then what you are left with is a bunch of true, unbiased, scientists who have concluded that there simply isn't enough information, one way or the other, to reach any conclusions about anthropogenic climate change.

Again: if your reasoning and accusations were accurate, we'd expect far more than 3% of scientists to object to the idea of AGW, unless you think nearly every one else is a knowing liar or too stupid to understand their own specialty. I just don't understand how you can keep making this argument in the face of the numbers.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

Well that was certainly longer than I thought when I typed it up in the middle of the night. Let me see if I can make a concise, condensed version:

-You seem to be under the impression that there's some kind of scientific controversy surround climate change as there is in the public. But that's simply not the case. No such controversy is reflected in the scientific literature, or the scientific bodies, or among the scientists who study climate.
-Nothing that climate "skeptics" have claimed to unearth significantly undermines the mainstream position.
-As the idea that we're warming the planet with our emissions has been the majority view since at least the 1970s, it's unlikely to be influenced by politics because the changing political climate would not have supported such a strong conclusion if it were liable to fade in and out of political favor with the various administrations and congresses, nor would it likely have such global scientific acceptance.
-Remember that scientists, by and large, are convinced by evidence rather than authority, and if someone had managed to conclusively show that we weren't behind the recent warming trend they would have at least as much fame as those whose ideas they demolished.
-Being outed as a fraud is a death sentence for a scientist's career as a credible researcher among their peers, so there's very little incentive for a scientists to knowingly back something they know to be false. And scientists are constantly checking each other's work for the reason above.
-Scientists generally don't get rich by doing science, either, so almost nobody goes in for a career in science to make a quick buck by pandering for the rest of their lives for no reward.
-Given the decades that we've had to research the climate with ever-increasing coverage, nuance, and sophistication, it strikes me as likely that the idea of AGW, if it were so flimsy, would already have run into major scientific problems years ago. Instead what you see if you trawl the literature is mounting evidence for the conclusion rather than significant divergence of evidence. The conclusion only grows stronger as more research is conducted, rather than less certain. Independent labs around the world generally find that their data agrees with each others' work. This indicates to me that it's at least on the right track.

By contrast, of those most publicly "skeptical" of AGW, very few are scientists or experts in relevant fields. Most of them had direct connections to interests vested in the status quo and against any major reforms from above. Some of these same people and their organizations were involved in the campaign to spread uncertainty and doubt about the risks of smoking on behalf of Big Tobacco. They largely do not interact with other scientists or participate in the broader scientific community. They almost always align with the same partisan think-tanks, lobbyists, and industry front-groups. They generally get a lot of money from fossil fuels, directly or indirectly. Every insinuation you've made about mainstream climate scientists who accept AGW applies more readily and accurately to the so-called skeptics. And they are so few in number compared to mainstream climate scientists that they barely register as statistically significant.

 

[chunkymonster]

[citation][nom]WheelsOfConfusion[/nom]You seem to be under the impression that there's some kind of scientific controversy surround climate change as there is in the public. But that's simply not the case.[/citation]

Sorry, FAIL! Can you say, "climategate". Also, citing a wikipedia entry as "proof" to support your point is about as valid as citing the Bible for proof of Intelligent Design.

In case you haven't been reading the news lately, the IPCC has been pretty much discredited and Chairman Pachauri has been made to look like a fool as a result of recent admissions of falsifying data as well as having to rescind their report regarding the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas.

Your arguments are recycled AGW propaganda that have since been proven to be part of a politically driven agenda aimed at passing international climate change legislation in order to impose draconian rule and excise tax increases on the peoples of sovereign nations.

Take it somewhere else!

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]chunkymonster[/nom]Sorry, FAIL! Can you say, "climategate".[/citation]
Already went over that, but perhaps if you have some specific issues we can discuss those in more detail. What exactly do you think was revealed by the leaked emails, and which communications make you think that?

Also, citing a wikipedia entry as "proof" to support your point is about as valid as citing the Bible for proof of Intelligent Design.

Very funny, but unlike you I've actually set aside the time to go through all the sources cited for those statements. Well, almost all: some of them were dead links or maybe overtrafficked by the time I got there. But that still leaves a crapload of PDFs and web pages to go through. If you want to say the Wiki article is unreliable here, the burden of proof is on you to go through all the references and point out where they don't say what the article says they say.

In case you haven't been reading the news lately, the IPCC has been pretty much discredited...

Because of one or two errors in the non-physical science portion of the ~3000 page report? Errors which have been acknowledged and disavowed months ago? Errors which are not in the Working Group 1 report, which is the only one set aside as the physical science basis for how the climate change has changed based on peer-reviewed scientific papers? Let me make this easier for you: not only has the general conclusion of the actual science-based section of the report NOT been shown to be wrong in regards to whether we're causing climate change, it is considered by most climate scientists to be TOO conservative in its estimates. In fact one of the papers for sea level change that was used in that report was recently retracted because it predicted too little sea level rise, rather than too much. But this tendency of the IPCC papers to "err on the low-ball side" has been known to scientists literally for years now, since there is usually a deadline for papers to be included for consideration and plenty of research that just missed the deadline indicated things like faster-than-expected glacier loss. No, the IPCC has not been discredited, unless your standards for credibility are never making any mistakes no matter how insignificant. But somehow I don't think that's really your standard.

Your arguments are recycled AGW propaganda that have since been proven to be part of a politically driven agenda aimed at passing international climate change legislation in order to impose draconian rule and excise tax increases on the peoples of sovereign nations.Take it somewhere else![/citation]
No, my arguments are simply summarizing the state of the science. I really don't care what your crazy half-baked political conspiracy theories think about that, so long as you don't accuse me of not reflecting the science well.