December 21, 2010

"That snow outside is what global warming looks like."

"Unusually cold winters may make you think scientists have got it all wrong. But the data reveal a chilling truth."

When everything is evidence of the thing you want to believe, it might be time to stop pretending you're all about science.

242 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 242 of 242
caplight said...

"When everything is evidence of the thing you want to believe, it's might be time to stop pretending you're all about science."

Simply stated as it would be in any graduate statistics or experimental design class.

Do they teach that stuff to to lawyers or is the professor just incredibly discerning?

wv: "counde" as in, let Counde Nast show you our ever warming/freezing whatever world.

MikeR said...

"MIKER says "I've said it four times, which is how many times I've posted. So I'm bewildered that it is getting ignored repeatedly;"
Psst. Try not calling everyone fools in your first post next time."

Don't mean to insult anyone, and I didn't (mean to) call anyone in particular a fool, just people in general who do a certain type of thing wrong. But anyhow, how does not wanting to be a fool justify misreading me four times?

There seems to be a lot of resistance to what I'm saying. People tend to mistrust scientists, often for good reason - scientists are people too, and can be political partisans, and can skew their science as a result. And there's no question in my mind but that that has happened repeatedly in the AGW debate. And there is certainly no reason to listen to the scientists involved when they give their "solutions".
But the scientific questions are not going to be settled by anyone but scientists!

dbp said...

MikeR:"And there is certainly no reason to listen to the scientists involved when they give their "solutions".
But the scientific questions are not going to be settled by anyone but scientists!"


The problem is that you are making black & white that which is actually gray. When scientists give solutions, they act as if this has just as much basis as scientific questions that they answer. They also act like the myriad of assumptions they make are all true when they cannot know this.

In addition, one need not be a scientist to read their articles and test their work. The guys who debunked Mann were statisticians not scientists and they showed random data also gives a hockey stick using Mann's methodology.

Scientists are going to find the answers, but they better get used to having their work checked.

Kirk Hawley said...

"To the comments on my comment: Sigh. Presumably none of you are scientists? I am, kind of, but not in that field. So my opinions have no relevance. Nor do yours. Let the scientists sort it out. I am, again, tired of non-scientists intruding into scientific issues."

No I'm not a scientist, but I am a computer programmer with 20 years experience. I have spent quite a bit of time with the leaked East Anglia CRU material, much of which is computer code and maintenance programmer's notes. I see not just bad code, but outright systematic fraud. Furthermore, I think the less technical emails in this material show the same tendency to any unbiased person with a brain in his head.

Anonymous said...

FLS:

Predictions have not come to pass.
Hansen 1988

Why would you choose to ignore one of the the loudest and longest (22 years) predictions made?

Global temperatures have followed the route in scenario C; but GHG emissions are more like scenario B.

MikeR said...

"The guys who debunked Mann were statisticians not scientists and they showed random data also gives a hockey stick using Mann's methodology." Gosh, dbp, I never ever meant to exclude Steve McIntyre. He studied the statistics involved, published his critique - he was and is a major player in his corner of the field. I don't care if someone is a climate scientist. I care if he is willing to put in the time and effort involved in completely understanding the material. I'm not, though, and neither are most of us.

Kirk, if you've studied all that software, you have the right to draw conclusions about it. I presume you wouldn't use that to conclude, This AGW stuff is all a fraud! It's a big field, and this is a small tho important corner. You might decide, as I have, that that particular group of scientists went way overboard in trying to defend their territory, and that they weren't too competent at handling complex data sets.

jdkchem said...

Other than a hunch, what evidence anywhere shows that any CO2 in the air has any effect to trap heat from radiating back into outer space? None is the answer.

That would be incorrect. CO2 is a strong absorber of infrared energy, not nearly as strong as water though. In other words CO2 traps heat and prevents it from radiating back into space. Eventually that trapped heat is re-radiated some back into space some back to earth.

Kirk Hawley said...

"Kirk, if you've studied all that software, you have the right to draw conclusions about it. I presume you wouldn't use that to conclude, This AGW stuff is all a fraud! It's a big field, and this is a small tho important corner. You might decide, as I have, that that particular group of scientists went way overboard in trying to defend their territory, and that they weren't too competent at handling complex data sets. "

Fair enough. But I've got another problem. I tend to read history books. And I keep running into little details that tend to refute the things I'm told by these people. When I read (in a history book) that one of the causes of the original Greenland settlements failing was that the once-clear shipping lanes became dangerous in the 15th century due to icebergs, and it got too cold to raise sheep, I start to wonder if somebody isn't pulling my legs. Because there are icebergs there now, but not apparently 1000 years ago. So... it's hotter now? That's just one example.

Bruce Hayden said...

Fair enough. But I've got another problem. I tend to read history books. And I keep running into little details that tend to refute the things I'm told by these people. When I read (in a history book) that one of the causes of the original Greenland settlements failing was that the once-clear shipping lanes became dangerous in the 15th century due to icebergs, and it got too cold to raise sheep, I start to wonder if somebody isn't pulling my legs. Because there are icebergs there now, but not apparently 1000 years ago.

Sorry, your data is incorrect. It has been replaced by tree ring data from carefully selected pine trees that definitively shows that there was no warming or cooling at the times that we were led to believe that there were. And, the tree ring data has been personally vetted by the same scientists who gave us the CRU climatic data sets and I think that Mann, the creator of the ingenious hockey stick, may have also been involved.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

MikeR said...

Kirk, if you've studied all that software, you have the right to draw conclusions about it. I presume you wouldn't use that to conclude, This AGW stuff is all a fraud! It's a big field, and this is a small tho important corner. You might decide, as I have, that that particular group of scientists went way overboard in trying to defend their territory, and that they weren't too competent at handling complex data sets.

I, too am a programmer, and while I haven't looked at their code, I did read through the programmer notes. As bad as the software was, what's worse is that the peer review process never saw anything wrong, because the peer review process never looked at what they were doing to their data.

I've also looked at the GHCN data, and in particular the adjustments done to produce the adjusted data set. It takes very little analysis to see that the adjustments are not valid, and produce nearly half of the increase in the rate at which temperatures are rising. And again, peer review didn't catch this.

Yes, I'm sure there are many scientists working on climate change who are technically competent. Why aren't they pointing out these problems?

pst314 said...

"When everything is evidence of the thing you want to believe, it's might be time to stop pretending you're all about science."

They're all about the funding.

"And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? It's called riding the gravy train."

pst314 said...

"I am, again, tired of non-scientists intruding into scientific issues."

Then the scientists should stop intruding into our lives.

pst314 said...

"I am, again, tired of non-scientists intruding into scientific issues."

Which I guess means that scientists are a priesthood, and we peasants are supposed to shut up and do as we are told.

Anonymous said...

I presume you wouldn't use that to conclude, This AGW stuff is all a fraud! It's a big field, and this is a small tho important corner.

Hold on.

NOAA was using their temperature data and so was the IPCC.

Saying this was a "small corner" is a deliberate misrepresentation.

I repeat: there is no evidence the globe is warming. The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

Additionally, there is no evidence man has any measurable impact on the climate.

You nor anyone reading can provide any data to the contrary.

edward said...

Ann and company here is a bit of information that might be interesting to those looking for actual information rather than posturing (Robert Cook please take note, Oh and BTW RC I am a real science professor at Winona State University.)


By anybody’s definition, Tucson, Arizona, is a warm place. The question of just how warm started attracting special attention about 20 years ago when the government’s official climate-monitoring station began racking up a series of daily record high temperatures, with a greater number of new records set each year.

Tucson observed 21 new record daily highs in 1986 and 23 in 1987. For 1988, the number climbed again, to 38 record highs, and it jumped to 59 the following year. Remarkably, in 1988 and ’89 all but one of these milestones were achieved on days when no other station within a thousand miles set a record of its own.

The growing pile of record daily highs from the National Weather Service (NWS) office at Tucson International Airport—and the absence of corresponding new records from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on very similar terrain just three miles away—suggested a problem with NWS monitoring equipment.....

Link:
http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/oct/oct07.html

traditionalguy said...

jdkchem...Thanks for replying to my question which is THE issue that needs all of the study. In the real atmosphere. What tests are showing that 700 ppm of CO2 rather than 300ppm of CO2 will cause "trapping" any measurable heat. That answer is still none. The effect of a narrow infrared spectrum absorption by CO2 would still require a CO2 level at more than 10,000 ppm to be even 1% of the air would still be many times less than H2O ppm. The only measurement worth the trouble to do is the cloud formation incidence. Clouds either are blocking most of the sun's energy from reaching earth to warm a radiator source back towards outer space, or they are not.

MikeR said...

"NOAA was using their temperature data and so was the IPCC.
Saying this was a "small corner" is a deliberate misrepresentation.
I repeat: there is no evidence the globe is warming. The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.
Additionally, there is no evidence man has any measurable impact on the climate."

Hmmm. A deliberate misrepresentation? Is it possible I'm just mistaken? Why go there?
And anyhow, is it possible that you're mistaken? I'm sorry, but this is just the kind of thing I'm writing against. If you tell me that you've studied the scientific papers involved, that's one thing. But the impression you're giving is that you've read a blog or two with some Climategate quotes. Interesting of course, but it means that I don't see why your opinion matters. I don't mean, Why should your opinion matter to me? I mean, Why should it matter to you - why should you take it seriously? Do you really expect to be able to understand a complex scientific topic with literally thousands of scientists involved, working for decades, from reading some blog posts? Especially in a field like this one, where everything has been overwhelmed by partisan politics on both sides, and pretty much everything we the public read was written by someone on one of the "sides".
Would you offer an opinion on nuclear physics? Or brain surgery?

MikeR said...

"Which I guess means that scientists are a priesthood, and we peasants are supposed to shut up and do as we are told." Pst, I have five times posted here that that is exactly the opposite of what I'm saying.

Anonymous said...

Let the scientists sort it out. I am, again, tired of non-scientists intruding into scientific issues.

Really? Seriously? Do scientists have special scientist cards? Are they part of a guild of some kind.

It's one thing to be an elitist. It's quite another, very stupid thing to cast aspersions on people you disagree with because you don't think they are elite enough. There's a word for people like you, dude. That word is tool.

traditionalguy said...

MikeR...The internet has lecture series by bigger "Scientists" in this area than you are familiar with. You are the one stuck on stupid.

Bruce Hayden said...

Hmmm. A deliberate misrepresentation? Is it possible I'm just mistaken? Why go there?
And anyhow, is it possible that you're mistaken? I'm sorry, but this is just the kind of thing I'm writing against. If you tell me that you've studied the scientific papers involved, that's one thing. But the impression you're giving is that you've read a blog or two with some Climategate quotes. Interesting of course, but it means that I don't see why your opinion matters. I don't mean, Why should your opinion matter to me? I mean, Why should it matter to you - why should you take it seriously? Do you really expect to be able to understand a complex scientific topic with literally thousands of scientists involved, working for decades, from reading some blog posts
?

So, you are asserting that we should just trust the scientists who have a direct pecuniary interest (typically through grants and the like) instead.

Oh, and one of the things that ClimateGate taught us was that there really weren't that many people at the center of the controversy.

Most of the stuff that I have read has been GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). If you start from the assumption that there will be a certain continuing level of warming, then maybe all the glaciers will melt. That sort of thing. Their work may be good or bad, but it really doesn't add or subtract from the question of whether there is CO2 caused AGW.

And that comes down to two real issues - whether there really is warming, and whether it is plausible, or even likely, based on the underlying science.

As has been pointed out above, the data that has been so routinely cited to support the existence of global warming has been seriously compromised. There are five primary climatic data sets. The validity of the CRU data set has been seriously compromised by the ClimateGate emails, code, etc. It is fairly evident that they cannot recreate the data set from scratch. A lot of massaging was necessary to compensate for holes in the data (as well as for other things, such as the urban heat island effect), and they can't justify much of what they did. And, a lot of it looks fishy, and needs to be explained.

You would think that with one of the five data sets compromised, the other four would be able to provide sufficient legitimacy. But, it turns out that at least three of them were calibrated using the CRU data sets, which means that they too are now suspect. This includes the two satellite data sets, which might be less vulnerable to measurement error.

As to the physics, the more that it is looked at, the more that the scientists involved realize that they don't know enough yet to make good predictions. The one thing that seems to have come out over the last year or so is that warming becomes less sensitive, not more so, as CO2 continues to increase. IN other words, it was widely hypothesized that the curve curved up, and it appears that it really curves down. We shall see.

You may be willing to trust a small group of scientists with at least indirect financial interests in their research. I am not, and neither are many here.

newscaper said...

for MikeR and Robert Cook:

Funny how so many AGW believers are so ready to tell me that I know nothing about 'climate science' so should shut up -- even though with my degrees in computer science and mechanical engineering I am in a far, far better position than they are to make relatively more informed judgments about what we have been learning about the quality of research.

If I was as sloppy as these guys I would have *never* passed the labs for freshman calculus-based physics.

Also funny how many organizations including the government, AAAS etc are addressing data integrity and standards (even while ignoring Climategate or trying to insist it meant nothing).

The 'models' have fundamental, gaping holes (inadequate treatment of water vapor dynamics being #1), the data are suspect (both historic and current collection), and these two problems sre interwoven in that, far from being true bottom-up physics-based models, key components consist of glorified fudge factors penciled in based on the problematic data!

In other words model-as-curve-fit rather than model-as-simulation. To the extent curve fits can be useful (at best they may describe but cannot explain) it is only for interpolating within the bounds, the interval over which it was computed -- for extrapolation, not so much.

Baked a hockey stick into the 'data' - check.
Reverse engineer mystery constants into the 'model' from the 'data' -- check.

Claim that hindcasting with the model recapitulates the starting 'data' -- check.

SOunds suspiciously like circular reasoning? -- check.

You are right that those who say the claim manmade CO2 is influencing climate is inconceivable are overstepping.

However, if A)manmade CO2 is the biggest driver by far, *and* B)the changes are significant and very negative on balance-- why in hell aren't the AGWers pro-nuclear? Pebble bed reactors, breeders, modern passively safe designs, thorium fission research (far more abundant than uranium and unsuitable for nuclear weapons) and broader fusion research (not just the 'big science' tokamak and ITER projects but polywell, etc).

Their lack of interest betrays their other motives.

former law student said...

you are asserting that we should just trust the scientists who have a direct pecuniary interest (typically through grants and the like) instead.

1. Who funds the research?
2. What is their stake in the results?
3. Do they have more money than the oil industry? The kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Wisconsin Electric? Mr. Peabody's Coal?

Anonymous said...

FLS -- At the very best, by accepting your argument we can only conclude that we should be skeptical about all science that is funded by people other than the scientists themselves.

Not a bad conclusion, but perhaps not the one you were hoping for,

PD Quig said...

Ice core data showing climate variation over millions of years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DWB5yid3PA

Enough said.

MikeR said...

"Really? Seriously? Do scientists have special scientist cards? Are they part of a guild of some kind." No, Seven Machos, they aren't. Anyone who is willing to put in the time and effort to understand the material properly - including the math - is eligible. Anyone who isn't, isn't. Sorry.

"The internet has lecture series by bigger "Scientists" in this area than you are familiar with. You are the one stuck on stupid." This I just couldn't follow. I have no problem at all with people educating themselves. You can listen to lectures, or study research papers, or learn it however you like. Don't, however, read a few blogs by other experts and think that makes you qualified to comment. It doesn't.

"So, you are asserting that we should just trust the scientists who have a direct pecuniary interest (typically through grants and the like) instead."
"You may be willing to trust a small group of scientists with at least indirect financial interests in their research. I am not, and neither are many here." Fascinating how many times I can say this without being heard. I trust no one. I trust no scientist. I have made one claim, and one claim only: This issue will ultimately be decided by scientists alone, not by people who haven't studied the material seriously.

"Funny how so many AGW believers are so ready to tell me that I know nothing about 'climate science' so should shut up -- even though with my degrees in computer science and mechanical engineering I am in a far, far better position than they are to make relatively more informed judgments about what we have been learning about the quality of research." So many of these comments are mystifying. I have a Bachelors in Physics and a PhD in Mathematics. So what? I haven't studied the subject of climate science in detail, so my opinion is entirely irrelevant. If I had taken the time to work through the scientific papers in the field, then my opinion would be relevant, even though I might not be an official "climate scientist". As for your opinion, well, make an honest judgment of your mastery of the relevant material. If you've really studied it, fine. If you've read some blogs, not. Don't tell me about your degrees.
I am not telling you to shut up if you know what you're talking about. I am asking you to if you don't.

It amazes me that my simple point is bringing such a strong reaction. Is there one of you who would go to a brain surgeon unless you knew that he had studied as much of the field as was possible? Is there one of you who thinks that your opinion on how to design an airplane is as good as an engineer at Boeing? Can you really be as contemptuous of the "scientific elite" as you sound?
The only thing I can figure is that you are contemptuous of this particular field of science. Probably about the same way as I am about sociology, or Woman's Studies, or any of the non-math-oriented pseudo-sciences that clog up liberal arts programs. Perhaps the politics and ClimateGate and all have convinced you that the whole lot of climate scientists aren't really scientists at all.
If you feel like that, I understand better where you're coming from. I think it's too strong a conclusion to draw from ClimateGate, though. There are people in the field like Judith Curry and Hans von Storch, who are just trying to do their jobs and get things straight.

Anonymous said...

Dude, you don't even know how to use italics on the Internet. Get over yourself.

Bruce Hayden said...

1. Who funds the research?

Primarily governments. Including our own.

2. What is their stake in the results?

For those behind the funding - curtailment of the use of fossil fuels. For the researchers - funding.

3. Do they have more money than the oil industry? The kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Wisconsin Electric? Mr. Peabody's Coal?

Yes. And a lot of it is from you and me. I would be interested though is your figures on how much these different parties are paying to fund anti-AGW research.

Bruce Hayden said...

It amazes me that my simple point is bringing such a strong reaction. Is there one of you who would go to a brain surgeon unless you knew that he had studied as much of the field as was possible? Is there one of you who thinks that your opinion on how to design an airplane is as good as an engineer at Boeing? Can you really be as contemptuous of the "scientific elite" as you sound?

I think that might have been valid a couple of years ago, when it comes to climate scientists. But, since then, those at the center of the controversy look more and more like the types of quacks that used to bleed people, or prescribe narcotics for headaches.

What I would do if I had to have brain surgery done on myself or a loved one, would be to look at the track records of those whom I an considering doing the surgery. How many, if any, complaints have been filed against them? How many malpractice suits? Did they lose any of them? What is their win/loss ratio (i.e. how many patients have they lost). And, yes, I would ask other doctors in related practices.

The difference between climate scientists and aerospace engineers is that with the later, you know when they have screwed up. The plane crashes. And, if, say, Boeing produces a plane that crashes too often, then they are likely to go bankrupt. And, since the survival of the company is tied to their designing planes that fly, and don't crash, it is highly likely that if I fly in one of their plans, I will survive it (and, in the case of Boeing, have likely done so maybe 500 times so far).

So, what is the downside if these climate scientists screw up? If their math is just a little off? We found with Michael Mann and his hockey stick, that that just meant that his work got prominently displayed in an IPCC report. He is still employed. Still tenured. And, apparently exonerated for not committing intentional scientific fraud.

So, what is the basis for anyone's belief in the reliability of their scientific work? Who is going to die if they are negligent?

MikeR said...

Bruce Hayden, sounds as if you agree with me.

Birkel said...

"The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics, such a planetary machine can never exist."

Citation to a Peer Reviewed Article that hasn't been refuted.

Revenant said...

Is there one of you who would go to a brain surgeon unless you knew that he had studied as much of the field as was possible?

Suppose I needed a brain surgeon to remove a tumor. I look one up, call him, and arrange for an appointment.

"So," I ask him, "How many successful surgeries have you performed?"

"Thousands!" he replies, "in simulation, of course."

"Er... how many actual surgeries? You know... in real life?"

"Oh, in real life? Er... none. But I'm confident that my understanding of the theory will lead to a successful surgery. All the models I used predict success!"

Anonymous said...

Do you really expect to be able to understand a complex scientific topic with literally thousands of scientists involved, working for decades, from reading some blog posts?

Er, it isn't "complex" at all.

They are taking inaccurate temperature data and feeding it into computer models that are programmed to an outcome.

Then they're calling it science.

A deliberate misrepresentation? Is it possible I'm just mistaken?

No. You're a liar.

And since the facts aren't on your side, you've posted a bunch of bluster.

Anonymous said...

Would you offer an opinion on nuclear physics? Or brain surgery?

Hysterical.

Um, if brain surgeons were caught operating on someone's heart yet saying it was a brain, why yes, yes I would.

Further, to compare inserting inaccurate weather station data into computer models to "brain surgery" or "nuclear physics" is obscene.

But then again, we've already demonstrated you're a liar. So who is surprised?

I repeat: there is no evidence the globe is warming.

Additionally, there is no evidence man has any measurable impact on the climate.

You nor anyone reading can provide any data to the contrary.

Anonymous said...

ascinating how many times I can say this without being heard. I trust no one. I trust no scientist. I have made one claim, and one claim only: This issue will ultimately be decided by scientists alone, not by people who haven't studied the material seriously.

You are delusional.

The "issue" has already been "decided" by leftists who are in power in many western governments, including Obama.

You are incoherent at this point.

Kirk Hawley said...

"It amazes me that my simple point is bringing such a strong reaction. Is there one of you who would go to a brain surgeon unless you knew that he had studied as much of the field as was possible? Is there one of you who thinks that your opinion on how to design an airplane is as good as an engineer at Boeing? Can you really be as contemptuous of the "scientific elite" as you sound?"

If I went for brain surgery and the surgeon showed up with hammer, a couple of chisels, some scissors and a rusty razor blade, we might be justified in considering him to NOT be a brain surgeon, even if we are not brain surgeons ourselves. A good look through the CRU material leaves some of us with a similar response.

MadisonMan said...

Citation to a Peer Reviewed Article that hasn't been refuted.

Actually, it has been.

MikeR said...

"Er, it isn't "complex" at all." "And since the facts aren't on your side, you've posted a bunch of bluster." Well, I'm guess I'm done with my protest. Maybe someone listened, but not you, it seems. Remember, I've taken everyone at his word. If someone says he's studied the subject in detail, I've accepted him as an expert. Some of you, on the other hand, make no claim to expertise. Your claim is, I've read enough blogs to know as much as anyone. Well, it's your business and your choice to be (a) ignorant, and (b) arrogant about it. I am also ignorant, but in my mind that has consequences. I will not claim to know anything about a subject when I don't.

"If I went for brain surgery and the surgeon showed up with hammer, a couple of chisels, some scissors and a rusty razor blade, we might be justified in considering him to NOT be a brain surgeon, even if we are not brain surgeons ourselves." Fine. But what about Hans von Storch? There are thousands of other climate scientists, working on dozens of parts of the field. It is silly to think that they are all charlatans. More importantly, ask the experts you approve of. Ask Steve McIntyre. Ask Richard Lindzen. Ask them if the majority of the other scientists in the field are running a hoax. If they don't say so, why do a lot of people who know less than they? Climategate was about an important part of the field, but not the whole field. Hopefully some of the more sensible people will establish better standards. And if not, if it's too polarized now to get much done, then in a decade. Eventually science will get done in the only way it ever gets done - the people working on it will work it out. In the meantime, I think most of us should reserve judgment, instead of deciding scientific questions on inadequate information, or based on our political philosophy or on which blogs we like to read.

former law student said...

Citation to a Peer Reviewed Article that hasn't been refuted.

Actually, it has been.


From the abstract of the rebuttal, the authors of the original article do not believe that objects radiate heat in all directions, and that this is the fundamental error which pervades their peer-reviewed article.

For those behind the funding - curtailment of the use of fossil fuels. For the researchers - funding.

Bruce asserts that scientists produce work establishing the existence of manmade global warming to obtain government funds to produce more falsified, specious work. The government's interest is to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

This assumes that scientists can live with the cognitive dissonance between the rewards of the search for truth and the quite modest cash rewards that researchers receive.

Whereas the rewards of extracting and selling fossil fuels are several orders of magnitude greater. Who is more motivated to fake results?

Although it's only a pop culture representation, compare the TV lifestyle of fossil fuel producers J.R. Ewing and Jed Clampett to that of the scientific researchers on the Big Bang Theory.

Kirk Hawley said...

"Hopefully some of the more sensible people will establish better standards. And if not, if it's too polarized now to get much done, then in a decade. "

This is one of the really sad things here - if we really do have a problem with the climate, a bunch of clowns have, for now, destroyed the possibility of getting to the bottom of it.

"In the meantime, I think most of us should reserve judgment, instead of deciding scientific questions on inadequate information, or based on our political philosophy or on which blogs we like to read."

Well DUH! Congratulations, you're a "climate warming denier."

MikeR said...

"Well DUH! Congratulations, you're a "climate warming denier." As I've been saying, I'm a skeptic. I'm as annoyed with the true-believers as the true-deniers.

blog owner said...

Simple logic: Everything proves global warming. Everything also causes global warming. Global warming is bad. Therefore everything should be banned.

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