So who are the global warming deniers, the people who treat projections and models as the gospel truth, or the scientists who keep investigating and questioning?
This report from the BBC leads one to conclude that those who most frequently shout that the scientific “consensus” must drive public policy are the real deniers:
Scientists say current concerns over a tipping point in the disappearance of Arctic sea ice may be misplaced.
Danish researchers analysed ancient pieces of driftwood in north Greenland which they say is an accurate way to measure the extent of ancient ice loss.
Writing in the journal Science, the team found evidence that ice levels were about 50% lower 5,000 years ago.
They say changes to wind systems can slow down the rate of melting.
They argue, therefore, that a tipping point under current scenarios is unlikely.
I don’t know what the answers are on the movement and cause of global warming, but I do know not to trust people who tell me just to trust them and not to question modeling which is notoriously inaccurate.
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[…] tip to Prof. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection for the […]
Ah, the Global Warmist Doomsdayers and their collusion about scientific facts trumping reality, then trying to posture themselves to oversee every aspect of our lives and govern it to their agenda is comical, to say the least.
Riddle me this…..
It is a proven fact that Dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Science has the skeletons and fossils. Massive collosal beasts. Humble yourselves global warmists and please go back to the Dinosaur, hypothetize again about it’s origins and demise, without all the nonfiction and fairytales.
It cannot be done. If our past cannot be explained, how is it anyone can predict the future of Planet Earth.
To think, they think they can gage the shrinkage of the oceans and glaciers, is funny? They continue to dare grandstanding that their theories are the only intelligent reality available ever.
Only a fool would believe that.
I can’t find the link at the moment, but a recent study showed that it is not scientific competence that determines an individual’s belief on global warming, rather it was shown that the worldview of that individual played a greater role. Those who held an egalitarian worldview were more likely to support the current solutions to global warming. All in all both sides have sheep who just follow the herd and a sliding scale of intelligence and scientific aptitude. The current global warming debate tilts significantly towards egalitarian solutions, so the question is not whether or not you believe in anthropogenic global warming, but do you agree with the solutions that are on the table. Perhaps some people are capable of seeing the unintended consequences of the solutions or believe that there really is nothing that can be done short of mass suicide or forced starvations. Unfortunately many people do not understand how our way of life and the survival of our children depends on capitalism. Humans survive by consuming resources and expelling CO2. Nothing short of suicide can change that. I am not willing to sacrifice my family for the Earth. It has nothing to do with my scientific aptitude. The life forms of Earth will continue to evolve and it is very unlikely that all life on Earth will cease to exist unless due to a catastrophic natural event. Even after a volcano scorches and eradicates all life in it’s path, it is amazing how abundantly that life grows back. The Earth and the life on it grows ferociously, sometimes so abundantly we have to fight it back to prevent disease or attack or to make room for a little piece of civilization. I am not going to feel guilty for being human. I want to drive a minivan because my family won’t fit in a Prius and I’ll be damned if I feel guilty for taking my children to Drs. appointments and buying groceries, especially when most of the people preaching to me have a higher standard of living and larger carbon footprint. Al Gore can go live in a yurt and shut his mouth.
Better yet, Al Gore can be a yurt and 4 people can live there.
That’s awesome. If he grew that old beard back he may be able to house a whole family in that nest 🙂
One more thing, science is never settled. There is no such thing as absolute truth in science. If a topic is not open to peer review and scrutiny it is not science. Even so, there are probably maybe ten people in the world if any that have read every single scientific paper that relates to global warming and even then one’s worldview could still cloud that person’s perception and interpretations. No individual scientist is perfect or has the capacity to know it all.
Continuous questioning is what the scientific process is all about. How can anything be “settled” when we know we are learing new information every day? Neurological science that I learned was absolute 15 yrs ago has been disproved. If I didn’t continue to educate myself and stay up on my professional journals, my patients would not be receiving the best care…they’d be receiving 15 yr old “settled” care. You and the Professor are correct, in science you are a denier when you stop questioning.
For the “know it all” technocrats and their sheep, it is easier to call their opponents stupid than to withstand the scrutiny and peer review that true science demands. Science really has a free market nature and that just doesn’t mix well with the top down central planner kind of crowd. Why follow the scientific method when yoy can dictate absolute truth.
Experimental scientists, such as chemists and physicists and engineers, look at the math. They see somebody arguing that a rise in some sort of averaged temperature over a decade of three hundredths of a degree is supposed to be cataclysmic.
I did what many other scientists did: I looked at a handy thermometer, namely the outside thermometer on my automobile, and noted that the temperature at my home was typically 5 degrees Farenheit less than at a specific site less than a mile away. As far as I was concerned, my experience showed that the experimental error for temperature readings in that town was at lease plus or minus 2.5 degrees Farenheit, and probably more like 5 degrees.
So I immediately knew that the claimed temperature “change” did not, in the experimental sense, denote “change” at all. The readings had been THE SAME for ten years, because the difference in the readings was INSIGNIFICANT. That is, the difference in yearly temperature averages was less than the experimental error.
Later, I read that one of the papers claimed that the “experimental error” was the reading error for the temperature gauges being used. This is a fundamental, first-year undergraduate-level error, for a chemist. The “experimental error” is the total error for the system, not just the accuracy of the thermometer. If all you needed for an accurate temperature measurement was a better thermometer, chemists would not use boiling chips and electronic stirring rods.
You are on to something. If you research it a bit, you will find studies of the ground temperature monitoring system. In the US, teams of volunteers inspected many of the ground monitoring stations and found all kinds of problems. There are strict standards for these things and many of the stations failed to meet them. A common problem is a station that was built in an open field as required but then was subsequently surrounded by buildings, parking lots, etc. The development nearby raises the temperature readings at that station from what they were when the station was established and the station is no longer reliable.
The studies’ conclusion is that the historical record of actual temperatures is not reliable except for satellite measurements which don’t go back very far. So, we’re not really sure that the earth is warming or, if so, by exactly how much.
If there was enough grant money in it, some scientists would be claiming impotency is hereditary.
Professor, if you don’t already, I’d strongly recommend following Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit.
Steve’s steady and patient work over the years in challenging the underlying intellectual basis of the flawed and alarmist “Hockey Stick” theory that was so consistently promoted as gospel by a relatively closed group of true believer climate change advocates, remains as riveting a tale of true scientific and mathematical curiosity and challenge as any we have witnessed in our time, or, for that matter, are likely to soon witness again.
I got to Joanne Nova’s http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/ Skeptic’s Handbook by way of Anthony Watt’s
wattsupwiththat blog which had this piece and others on the “Spanish Green Jobs” fiasco.
Bookmark Climate Audit, wattsupwiththat, icecap, and Jonova.
Don’t forget Ryan Maue, John Christie, Joe Bastardi.
Check out the work of Svensmark.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/20/a-dalton-minimum-repeat-is-shaping-up/
Prof you mentioned Academic Political Science departments a few days ago – for discussion purposes if one were to think of the Federal Government as the biggest of just another “Big Company” then the ‘most profitable’ of the nasty out-for-profit big businesses is the growth from 6 Trillion to 14 Trillion achieved by this administration working closely with the leaders of the 111th Congress.
So …if we do need to “Soak The Rich” how about the worlds first Trillionaires – Obama-Reid-Pelosi?
I have not heard that short-term changes in polar sea ice has been conclusively determined to be good or bad. Arctic sea ice has declined but antarctic sea ice has increased – so have at it.
Greenland is so-called because it was green when the Scandinavians arrived there centuries ago — but it is not-so-green now.
Then there is the wobble in the earth’s axis which over time surely affects climate — and of course, we cannot forget that “It’s the Sun, Stupid.”
“Greenland is so-called because it was green when the Scandinavians arrived there centuries ago — but it is not-so-green now.”
Well, Damn those Scandinavians! So, it’s not carbon dioxide after all, eh? Settled Science, right, East Anglians?!
(Just watch. The U.N. will set up yet another climate conference just like Copenhagen, but this time they’ll insist that the United States of America pay trillions of dollars to all developing countries which promise to not become Scandinavian.)
When a computer model of the climate is created that can accurately predict the fluctuations and trends in the KNOWN changes over the last hundred years of recorded values, THEN I’ll be willing to accept what it’s results are for the future.
To date none have. I’ll even let them just predict 50 years. 25 years? The current models (and I use that term loosely) have yet to accurately predict even a years worth of future from past data. Note the claims of a wild hurricane season last year. Didn’t happen.
So far weather can barely be predicted with certainty at about 10 days. (which is better than in the past but not by much) There still are situations where those predictions fail.
Filed under “Humor, British” –
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8379759.stm
Just another chance for Gore to write another book or win another Nobel prize. Nothing more, nothing less.
“It’s no longer acceptable in mixed company, meaning bipartisan company, to use the goddamn word climate. It is not acceptable. They have polluted it to the point where we cannot possibly come to an agreement on it.” — Al Gore
http://coloradoindependent.com/95450/al-gore-calls-b-s-on-corporate-polluters
This is a perfect example of a politician who thinks the other guy is always wrong. It’s the “why won’t the other guy give in ?” mentality. We used to call that sort of behavior (i.e. not giving in) as a “principled stand,” but now their “evil” or “terrorists.” The corollary to this is “bipartisanship” when it means the “other guy finally agrees with you.”