A Few Things Ill Considered

A layman's take on the science of Global Warming featuring a guide on How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.

Friday, May 05, 2006

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Consensus or Collusion?

(Part of the How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic guide)

This article has moved to ScienceBlogs

It has also been updated and this page is still here only to preserve the original comment thread. Please visit A Few Things Ill Considered there. You may also like to view Painting With Water, Coby Beck's original fine art photography.

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12 Comments:

  • At May 14, 2006 12:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Please, provide a plot of the number of scientists who dare speak against global warming alarmists vs. year, with the source. I did not notice any decrease. Actually, there has been remarkable increase in the number of public addresses against global warming fearmongering in the past 2 months, both in the UK and in the US.

     
  • At May 16, 2006 11:56 AM, Blogger coby said…

    You may have an interesting point here, that those who have put there names behind the "sceptics" against the "alarmists" are not changing as newer and better data and models become available. I have also noticed an increase recently in the public addresses and op-eds attacking climate science. But I suggest that this says alot more about the sceptics than the evidence.

    The article above is about the consensus as represented by the IPCC and virtually every scientific institute concerned with climate, and the attack apon it for the grounds in the objection. You are arguing that there is no consensus.

     
  • At May 18, 2006 5:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    There is no specialty required to undermine the 'greenhouse theory', one need not even rise to 'undergraduate level SCIENCE' to do so. As such there is no 'specialty' that can defend a 'greenhouse theory', it is so incorrect at the most basic levels of SCIENCE that its flaws are insurmountable. The 'greenhouse lobby' simply attempts to ignore these flaws, and otherwise have others also overlook such by 'claiming the IPCC and virtually every scientific institute concerned with climate should be listened to'; i.e. notice WHO is speaking rather than scrutinise WHAT is being said.

    The IPCC is still a committee formed by the actions of a Political Lobby and continues to promote the 'opinion' of the lobby that formed it. There is NOT any reason to accept the IPCC 'opinion' when it is not even noticing the actual PROPERTIES of the materials it would pass opinion of.

    This is the basis of objections to 'IPCC opinion', and the 'climate models' are not at all well performed, infact they are only consistent in NOT describing present 'climate behavior and are only cited in the production of 'scary' scenarios that do NOT represent the reality we all exist in, being made with NO notice of how the REAL materials involved behave IN this reality.

    The 'listen to climate experts' has persisted for now near 20 years, and the 'greenhouse lobby' is yet nowhere more advanced expect in method to explain its failure to rationalise the REALITY we observe.

    To reiterate, Climate is and has always been 'changing'; only ever offering PERSISTENCE. The sea level WILL rise a little within the current 'warm peak', but that IS natural. It will lower again when the motion towards the next glaciation begins, this IS natural. There is also NOTHING to validly produce ANY link of, or even a natural process of, a 'greenhouse effect' or related concepts to ANY 'warming' process, and most certainly NOT any valid link to 'climate change' that utilises the SCIENCE of the materials such 'greenhouse opinion' attempts to involve.

    The 'consensus' often mentioned is only for the MEDIAN surface temperature; this is altering as the materials OF the surface are altered within the sprawl of Humanity production of habitat, not by a supposed 'greenhouse effect'. It is that Humanity IS rematerialing still over the land surface AND has already material sufficient surface to being altering the induction characteristics of kinetic energy by the (now remade) surface materialing.

    This is EVEN SEEN in plots of data produced BY the 'greenhouse lobby' and these plots even display the NOW 15 year lag from land surface alterations to Ocean surface alterations in median temperature. The Oceans display muting of this effect due to the liquid displaying reactions involving Turbulence to these kinetic energy inputs. Kinetic energy involved in producing Turbulence is NOT then measured as 'Temperature' (observed in the drop in measured temperature once 'water at the boil' begins to 'roil and bubble').

    ALSO, those alterations to the Land surface made within the past 15 years are still to be expressed in observations, as is the cumulative effect 'building up' within the past 15 years of kinetic energy induction from the past 400 years of Human produced surface alterations 'IN TOTAL'. Only within the last ~250 years has the technology to make reproducible measures OF temperature as required by SCIENCE been available, so CLAIMS involving mentions OF 600 years are NON FACTUAL. Also, regardless of WHERE/HOW CO2 is produced; the actual properties of this molecule will NOT produce a warming effect within the situation presented within the Atmosphere.


    For a short comment with slides, see:-
    http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/113579/index.php#comments

    ## Welcome to the 'greenhouse' induced Uranium Age. ##

    Your's, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
    From the PC of Peter K Anderson
    E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com

     
  • At June 29, 2006 6:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You are A KOOK. SERIOUSLY. CAPS OFF.

     
  • At February 20, 2007 7:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Beware the wrath of Algore, yee Global Warming heretics. REPENT, and yee may be saved! Repent not, and yee shall suffer hellfire.

     
  • At March 10, 2007 7:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "I suppose fewer and fewer scientists disagreeing is consistent with more and more supression of ideas, but you know, it is also the result of having the right answer."

    Coby, you wouldn't be talking about 'The Truth' there would you.

    Out of interest, which stand did you take on the y2k debate and WoMD?

     
  • At March 10, 2007 10:45 AM, Blogger coby said…

    Hi dozza,

    No, there I am talking about the theory that best fits the available evidence.

    Y2K I did beleve would be a big problem. Considering all the efforts that went in to prevention it is hard to take the lack of disaster as evidence that the danger was never there.

    WMD I never bought. So?

     
  • At June 17, 2007 9:38 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    dozza,
    The reason Y2K wasn't the problem was because thousands of computer professionals and IT people worked extremely hard to make sure it wouldn't be a problem. Y2K was because of easily understood technical issues in mostly older computer systems and programs and were fixed, not that Y2K was a hoax (I suppose from "liberal" whackjobs working for the, um, Y2k industry whatever that means).

    No offense, but the way you guys think is pretty scary, a true "Assault on Reason" to use the title of Al Gore's book, and incompatible with any long-term civilization. With you're thinking, anytime an issue comes up that lots of people are concerned about, it must be a hoax because (in your perception at least) a few similar concerns didn't cause a lot of damage. I guess we should just stick our heads in the ground and be happy, even as we go into oblivion, because obviously it must be just like the Y2K problem years ago.

    I realize names like troglodyte are used to describe right-wing thinking but in reality in some ways it really is more fit to a stone age or fundamentalist-run society, it's incompatible with the modern world where we have to deal with real threats and being blinded to them because of ideology, greed, or a false sense of superiority will do us all in.

     
  • At January 14, 2008 10:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    With you're thinking, anytime an issue comes up that lots of people are concerned about, it must be a hoax because (in your perception at least) a few similar concerns didn't cause a lot of damage.

    Actually, the skeptics who use arguments like this are much worse than simply dismissing the concerns of a lot of people. They'll actually scream for preventative measures if they LIKE the problem. So, if the U.S., say, takes precautions against terrorism in the wake of evidence that we can be attacked, and there are no terrorists attacks in the months or years that follow, they'll say, "See! We stopped 'em! Good thing we took those preventative measures!"

    They won't say, as with this Y2K example, "There wasn't a problem! Why did we bother spending money and time on it?" Because they LIKE the terrorist prevention, and so want to BELIEVE that it's done something, whether the evidence supports that or not.

    In short, they ignore their OWN belief in preventative measures when it suits them. Just like they ignore and cherry pick the evidence that suits them. You really can't have it both ways. If you believe preventative measures work, then you ought to believe that if we take such measures, and the thing we worried about does not happen, then the prevention worked. Just like if you get a flu shot and you don't get the flu, the shot worked.

    But such skeptics only believe such things, and use such points in their own arguments when it suits them.

     
  • At February 14, 2008 2:14 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Hmm anyone look at the history of Science and check out when a group or panel of Scientists ever got anything right? Weren't they mostly an obstacle to this? Gravity? nope, Orbit of the planets? no, Cure smallpox? hell no, Relativity? give me a break. Hasn't Science advanced mostly because of lone mavericks stubbornly ignoring the consensus? (Newton, Darwin, Jenner, Einstein, Copernicus, Galileo). And now we're supposed to hand over the future to a bunch of run of the mill Scientists brandishing some fancy computer models..and oh yeah that formed a panel. How reassuring.

     
  • At March 18, 2008 6:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Martin - Can you reference any concrete, evidence-based information that substantiates what you suggest? That is what I would find reassuring.

     
  • At July 11, 2008 11:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

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