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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Is "climate change" being used to bring in a global Govenment?
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
As far as I can see climate scientists can be a bit defensive about their research sometimes - for instance, it took a big fuss for NASA to release code to one of their climate models.
Actually, scientists can be a bit defensive about their research - it's not just climate scientists. Part of that's just human nature, of course - I suspect that film makers are equally defensive of their product when they read some outrageous review from a critic who seems to have not even sat down to watch it.
But, more importantly, scientists make their living from their intellectual property. Especially in the funding climate that's been developing over the last few decades. If someone has spent considerable amounts of money developing a climate model then they're not going to just turn that code out to the public for anyone and everyone to run, they're going to want to retain rights to use it so that they can earn the service income from running it for other people and the future research projects to further refine that code. Individual researchers may be willing to release that sort of property, but if they're part of a university or other large organisation then their business administration people would have a total fit at the idea.
Fair enough but they can then hardly claim to be disinterested.
Why should they be disinterested, much less claim to be? When you're talking about professional career development, and even potentially future employment, then that usually automatically makes one interested. The days when scientists were independantly wealthy individuals who pursued scientific interests in their spare time are long since past. Today, just like the majority of people, scientists are paid for the work they do - we're often in the privilaged position of doing a job we enjoy and are interested in, but at the end of the day the mortgage needs to be paid and that doesn't happen by giving away for free means of getting money into the lab.
Because if the Universities are run as commercial concerns and their research is seen as work in progress they start to have a vested interest in keeping to the scientific concensus into which they may well have invested heavily.
However at the same time they cannot expect the general public to see such work as entirely unbiased. The "politics" of the UEA research shows that once the position which suits the scientific zeitgeist has been established it is not for scientists to test it but instead the efforts are to disprove the work of those who are seen as opposed - and this can mean dirty tricks as much as experimental method. There appears to have been some sort of blanket ban on drawing attention to anything that didn't fit the results expected by the model. It is a sort of group psychosis.
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Well, that's science for you. The vast majority of the work done is testing things around the edges of established theories, pushing the boundaries of what is known (with a reasonable level of certainty), and seeing if people who think they've seen a flaw have a point. While that work continues to make sense within the framework of the established understanding there's no point trying to radically change that understanding.
At the moment science has what appears to be a pretty good understanding of the climate, even if the precise application of that understanding is impossible because of the sheer complexity of the system. Scientists can productively pursue research that improves data collection and modelling within that theory, and pushes the edges to see where it's weakest and more work is needed.
There isn't another even vaguely plausible theory out there, there's simply no other framework within which research can be conducted that would make any sense at all. There's no conjecture that would allow CO2 to be anything other than a greenhouse gas. No radically different model of ocean and atmospheric circulation that would reproduce even an approximation of the observations current models predict.
When doing anything in life, it's almost never constructive to have something that sort of works but isn't perfect and throw it all away to start again from scratch. You start with what you have that works, and tinker with it to get it working better. And, although there are bits of climate science that don't work perfectly, by and large climate science works pretty well.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Because if the Universities are run as commercial concerns and their research is seen as work in progress they start to have a vested interest in keeping to the scientific concensus into which they may well have invested heavily.
Yes, they do have an interest - Alan said so too. It doesn't mean that what they discover about the climate and what's causing the changes is untrue.
I see this like a team of lawyers discussing how best to defend a client in court; they may decide privately which bits of evidence give a less helpful impression to the court, even if they're genuinely convinced their client is completely innocent. An illicit recording edited by the other side might be made to sound like they were twisting the truth and lying to get the guilty person freed.
Everything the scientists publish has to bear the scrutiny of those qualified to understand the details and offer comment or criticism. The opinions of others may be entertaining but are not relevant. Private emails weren't intended to pass public (or sceptic) scrutiny so they're only really relevant if they demonstrate deception or dishonesty on their part in what they publish; AFIAK, they don't.
I don't see how uncovering private discussions of those involved is anything more than mildly embarrassing, except to those who don't care about the science but are just looking for any excuse to smear the scientists or muddy the waters. Maybe they hope that those with little understanding of the subject matter but who prefer to read misleading websites than try to understand the actual subject will find it in some way convincing. It'll hardly cause anyone to change sides and just makes the scientists look human and frustrated, rather a bunch of paid conspirators.
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Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
[B][QUOTE]Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
I see this like a team of lawyers discussing how best to defend a client in court; they may decide privately which bits of evidence give a less helpful impression to the court, even if they're genuinely convinced their client is completely innocent.
Aumbry's reply:-
Oh dear - if that is the nature of the science - that the data is used to give the helpful impression to back up the theory it doesn't sound very vigorous to me.
You can be insouciant about the UEA e-mails but even George Monbiot sees this as a severe embarrassment and has called for the director of the unit to quit.
[ 24. November 2009, 15:39: Message edited by: aumbry ]
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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Hiro's Leap
Shipmate
# 12470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
You can be insouciant about the UEA e-mails but even George Monbiot sees this as a severe embarrassment and has called for the director of the unit to quit.
I often like Monbiot, but he's a bit of a drama queen sometimes. You're probably quite right that this whole business is going to do a lot of damage to AGW though.
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
There appears to have been some sort of blanket ban on drawing attention to anything that didn't fit the results expected by the model. It is a sort of group psychosis.
I think that's over-stating it. The scientists reacted strongly against Soon's 2003 paper because they thought it was very bad science. This article suggests that biologists would do exactly the same against a bad paper supporting Intelligent Design. Other scientists - e.g. Lindzen - have produced papers critical of AGW, and these were treated much more seriously.
IMO Zwingli has got it spot on:
quote:
Originally posted by Zwingli:
if anything, it would show that even ill informed and dishonest criticism, mostly from outside academia, can have a negative impact on the thinking and conduct of academic scientists.
Posts: 3418 | From: UK, OK | Registered: Mar 2007
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
Aumbry, the discussions between the scientists weren't intended for public scrutiny. When such discussions are made public it may not portray those involved in the best light. It doesn't prove they were deliberately being deceptive, but it doesn't help either. It shows them as people frustrated that their work and conclusions are frequently misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented.
I think you're right - my legal parallel probably doesn't really help as scientists should present the all evidence they collect, even if they can't explain every little thing. In court, maybe their equivalent would be the expert witnesses.
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Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Aumbry, the discussions between the scientists weren't intended for public scrutiny. When such discussions are made public it may not portray those involved in the best light. It doesn't prove they were deliberately being deceptive, but it doesn't help either. It shows them as people frustrated that their work and conclusions are frequently misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented.
I think you're right - my legal parallel probably doesn't really help as scientists should present the all evidence they collect, even if they can't explain every little thing. In court, maybe their equivalent would be the expert witnesses.
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Yes and even expert witnesses can be challenged by the defence or the prosecution.
The Court does not make the decision first and then chooses the expert witness to back the decision up.
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Alan - whilst you know a great deal more about the scientific community and how it operates, it seems likely to me that there is another counterveiling force within the science community that pushes them in the opposite direction to consensus.
Of course when a climate scientist is investigating a hypothesis, they are unlikely to question the most basic understandings of how CO2 functions and its effects. However, I would guess that the vast majority of scientists would become enormously excited if they started to uncover a large number of results that could be uncovering a new phenomenon - results that consistently went in a slightly different direction to the one expected. (I realise a great deal of checking of equipment for any mafunctions etc would initially happen.) After all these results could highlight a parallel phenomenon that could turn out to be significant.
It seems to me that slight deviations from the expected can over time become the foundation stones for a new understanding - a new consensus.
As I understand it any consensus takes a great deal of time to overturn but it must be the dream of many scientists not to just find out the same as everyone else has already found out but to find something new, something never seen before. Finding something significantly new may happen rarely but aren't scientists in their jobs to find new phenomena rather than actually wanting to do research which merely shows they have nothing new to add.
My point is that the competitive instincts of the scientists I know is pretty strong and pushes them in the opposite direction to defference to the current ways of thinking.
Luigi
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Luigi, you are entirely correct. The vast majority of us don't have the opportunity to do more than push the boundaries of knowledge, but we all dream of finding the genuinely new (for a start it'll give us far more career security than just doing the same as everyone else!). When such new discoveries are made they create a flurry of work; verification of the work, examination of alternative explanations within the existing framework as well as outwith it, lots of grant applications to explore it further and lots of publications in the journals.
The nature of the genuinely new discovery is that no one can predict if it'll happen in any given field, let alone what that would be. Even though there's no hint I can see of any such discovery in climate science in the near future, it can't be ruled out.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
It shows them as people frustrated that their work and conclusions are frequently misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented.
And, it's hardly unreasonable for people who have had their work misunderstood to discuss how they can present it in the future to try and avoid misunderstanding. And, if they feel that some people have deliberately misrepresented their work that would be more important, if they make their presentation clearer then the deliberate misrepresentation should hopefully be obvious.
It is, of course, entirely normal for scientists to discuss their work. Even more so when preparing a paper, the authors will edit and comment on drafts with the intention of making the paper clear and concise. That will almost always mean playing some 'tricks' with the data - will the plot be clearer on a log or linear scale? with a smoothing function and if so what? what form of average value to present for the data?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
Oh come off it, Alan. The UEA emails show a bunch of scientists trying to manipulate the peer review process, conceal data (which wasn't theirs in the first place) in the face of Freedom of information requests, and behaving like a cult of true believers rather than enquirers. I'm no sceptic, in that I trust the consensus that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that it demonstrably warms the climate, but I do want a much more mature and open debate than the one that's taking place currently.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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Mr Clingford
Shipmate
# 7961
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
Oh come off it, Alan. The UEA emails show a bunch of scientists trying to manipulate the peer review process, conceal data (which wasn't theirs in the first place) in the face of Freedom of information requests, and behaving like a cult of true believers rather than enquirers. I'm no sceptic, in that I trust the consensus that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that it demonstrably warms the climate, but I do want a much more mature and open debate than the one that's taking place currently.
When you write that you're no sceptic, do you mean that you trust the consensus that mankind's adding to the planet's Co2 and that we need to do something about it soon, if it isn't too late already?
There are other independent temperature data sets and the oceans are warming, expanding and becoming more acidic, habitats are changing, glaciers retreating and ice shelves reducing.
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Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.
If only.
Posts: 1660 | From: A Fleeting moment | Registered: Jul 2004
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Zwingli
Shipmate
# 4438
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Posted
Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution has an interesting view on the emails, and as he notes, Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias has a similar opinion. I don't know enough to have a developed opinion on the explanations they give, but to the extent that I do, I find myself in agreement.
With respect to the opening post of this thread, one thing the extracts of the emails I have seen definitely don't show is any evidence of a global government conspiracy. There is no evidence either that the scientists are motivated by a desire to bring about such an organisation, or that a global government precursor or those hoping to establish one are manipulating scientists behind the scenes.
Posts: 4283 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
When you write that you're no sceptic, do you mean that you trust the consensus that mankind's adding to the planet's Co2 and that we need to do something about it soon, if it isn't too late already?
Well, it's clear that mankind is adding to Co2. But I think there's legitimate debate about the models and the policy. I'm pleased that expectations are being reduced for Copenhagen. The important thing is that whatever the state of play in the scientific debate the public have to be convinced about both the science and the policy because they are being asked to make radical changes and sacrifices. The signs are that politicians and scientists have not carried the public with them yet.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Spawn - I genuinely don't know enough to make the sorts of assertions you feel you can make. A number of the issues raised appear to have little to do with the science. However there are at least a couple of questions I would like some clarity on in the long run.
However, I know that at times I use, for example, irony or write things with my tongue firmly in my cheek. Those who know me well will easily spot these occasions. So my emails could suggest that I completely contradict myself at times when I am not. Equally some of my emails follow up phone calls and would only make sense in the light of knowledge of the phone call. This is why I am reserving judgement for the moment about what the emails show about the integrity of the scientists involved.
Luigi
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Luke
Soli Deo Gloria
# 306
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Posted
Yes, there's clearly no evidence for an Orwellian Club of Rome style take-over. However they do reveal Al Gore's allegedly overwhelming and water-tight consensus on global warming was a beat up. They also more interestingly show that 'scientists' can be just as subjective and duplicitous as the rest of us.
Hopefully the outing of these emails means we can all get on with being good stewards of the environment without a massive, corruptible carbon trading scheme being forced on us.
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Emily's Voice
Posts: 822 | From: Australia | Registered: May 2001
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
My word Luke - you are easily persuaded. A few emails that have not been contextualised prove that AGW is a myth eh?
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Luke
Soli Deo Gloria
# 306
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Posted
I've always believed the climate is changing but since watching An Inconvenient Truth I've realised that man-made global warming is a over-heated. Since reading The Climate Caper by Garth Paltridge, I've also discovered we don't need a large scale carbon trading scheme to look after the environment. The emails were really the icing on the cake.
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Emily's Voice
Posts: 822 | From: Australia | Registered: May 2001
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Mr Clingford
Shipmate
# 7961
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
When you write that you're no sceptic, do you mean that you trust the consensus that mankind's adding to the planet's Co2 and that we need to do something about it soon, if it isn't too late already?
Well, it's clear that mankind is adding to Co2. But I think there's legitimate debate about the models and the policy. I'm pleased that expectations are being reduced for Copenhagen. The important thing is that whatever the state of play in the scientific debate the public have to be convinced about both the science and the policy because they are being asked to make radical changes and sacrifices. The signs are that politicians and scientists have not carried the public with them yet.
Thanks. I agree that the public have not been carried, thanks in the main, I would suggest, to the efforts of blog writers who have attempted to give the impression that the scientists are wrong.
This is what the Uni of E Anglia had to say yesterday about the matter
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Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.
If only.
Posts: 1660 | From: A Fleeting moment | Registered: Jul 2004
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Luke - basing your view of Global Warming on one film makes it sound as if you don't take science very seriously
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
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Posted
Zwingli, thanks for those links. I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't read the entirety of that email archive. (1) It feels pretty intrusive to comb through someone's private email against their wishes, and (2) it's likely be really boring.
I suspect I'm not alone in this.
The "debate" is(/has) therefore going the become dominated by shouty voices in the blogosphere picking quotes up and exaggerating what they mean. I've already seen references to "falsifying data" and "subverting the scientific process" in the Marginal Revolution comments. Taking clearly rhetorical comments such as "I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is" at face value is ridiculous - the author doesn't have the power to do this, and they and their readers would have known this. Parlaying this into "subverting the scientific process" would be a joke if people weren't taking it so seriously. Talking about a "trick" does not mean falsehood in the context used, and that's a very common usage.
Swiftboating as a means of political discourse is sickening. some of the loudest voices don't seem to care about the truth: what matters is what they can make stick, and they know it.
- Chris.
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Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I should probably start by admitting I've only read snippets of the emails reproduced in the paper. I've too many of my own emails to keep up on without eavesdropping on the personal correspondence of other people.
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
Oh come off it, Alan. The UEA emails show a bunch of scientists trying to manipulate the peer review process
OK, from what I've read there were some exchanges relating to a 'troublesome editor'. Well, whoop-dee-doo, haven't we all had words to say about an editor and/or referee of a journal. I doubt there's any scientist with more than 10years experience of the peer reviewed journal publication process who hasn't found themselves with a paper rejected and mouthing off about the editor (especially if the editor allows less good papers to be published). Admittedly, in my case it was with colleagues I was actually in the same room with so there's no electronic record of it - well, apart from the letter to the editor expressing my disappointment and lodging my objection the to referees comments.
And, note that some of those comments were relating to work that had clearly been published somewhere. Peer-review is much more than simply whether or not a paper appears in a given journal. It also includes the response to the paper from the scientific community - in fact, that's probably a far bigger part of the process than the 2 or 3 referees and editors who decide whether to publish it in their journal in the first place. Important and valuable work published outwith the peer-reviewed journal system will be recognised as such, poor work published in a peer-reviewed journal will be ignored. What I see in the bits of emails I've seen quoted is people engaged in the peer-review process rather than people seeking to undermine it.
quote:
conceal data (which wasn't theirs in the first place) in the face of Freedom of information requests
What I've seen is suggestions about deleting email correspondence, rather than actual scientific data.
quote:
I do want a much more mature and open debate than the one that's taking place currently.
As do I. But, that's not helped by criminals stealing personal communication and releasing selected excerpts of that to the public.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
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Posted
Sorry for the double - edit window expired. A couple of quotes from the CRU Response which Mr Clingford posted: quote:
The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may have been designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature of the urgent action which world governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change.
quote:
One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks.
This underlines my point about swiftboating. This is an attempt to muddy the waters at a crucial time: a distraction, not part of any reasonable debate.
- Chris.
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Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Of course the real only way to counter such a widely accepted scientific opinion is to try to cast doubt on the science or claim it's all a conspiracy. This is really hard when you know nothing at all and don't trust anyone to help you learn the basics. This is the Myrrh approach of denying anything involving actual established, uncontroversial science or facts or expertise of others, while meekly accepting anything critical of real science without question or the slightest understanding of why it's complete rubbish.
IRL that would be libel. I've explained my method. Look at both sides of the argument.
Your claim is that AGW is widely accepted scientific opinion. For you and other AGW's to continually ignore and disparage those saying it doesn't conform to scientific method isn't objective of you. What it shows is you AGW's have put your fingers in your ears and la la la the unproven propaganda to drown out giving this any actual thought.
It doesn't bother you that no real science from all geological and climate and historical research has never shown the Hockey Stick.
It doesn't bother you that the Hockey Stick and apologies for it, Briff, have been shown to be actually manipulated data.
It doesn't bother you that these data have only been peer reviewed among the coterie producing it and were never actually rigorously analysed by the IPCC.
It doesn't bother you that persistent stonewalling for independent checking is the preferred method protecting the hypothesis, data withheld and destroyed so that it couldn't be checked.
None of this bothers you because you either aren't scientists or haven't a clue what science is.
Instead you produce a litany of excuses for every example of scientific malpractice to perpetuate this scientific fraud.
You have no credibility.
That is an objective assessment from one who has looked at both sides of the argument.
It's fake turtles all the way down, to the very beginning of Revelle to the continuing manipulation. Only conmen and the deluded use these methods, that's a well known proven fact.
Do yourselves a favour, read the arguments against before posting more manmade global drivel.
One may call oneself a scientist and one may be lauded as a scientist by others, but if one can't fathom that if it smells like shit it is shit unless it's been engineered to smell like something else, one in the wrong profession.
Myrrh
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
I agree with aumbry that, politically, this will have a big impact. I also agree with Zwingli and sanityman, among anothers. Yeah, it's a swiftboating and 'culture warfare as usual'...
...Ruth Limbaugh: "I've instinctively known this from the get-go, from 20 years ago! The whole thing is made up, and the reason I know it is because liberals are behind it! When they're pushing something, folks, it's always bogus."
Notice the "I've instinctively known..." - this is truthiness, not truth.
The implications are huge. If I discover an unguarded comment in a letter by a scientist who researched gravity, maybe I will be able to fly ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
I agree with aumbry that, politically, this will have a big impact. I also agree with Zwingli and sanityman, among anothers. Yeah, it's a swiftboating and 'culture warfare as usual'...
...Ruth Limbaugh: "I've instinctively known this from the get-go, from 20 years ago! The whole thing is made up, and the reason I know it is because liberals are behind it! When they're pushing something, folks, it's always bogus."
Notice the "I've instinctively known..." - this is truthiness, not truth.
The implications are huge. If I discover an unguarded comment in a letter by a scientist who researched gravity, maybe I will be able to fly
He is Rush not Ruth. He's a chap by the way.
One statement in that article which is dubious is "it is not an environmental movement anymore... smart business and investors agree".
Well to the extent that smart investors are making decisions to back low carbon-emission projects this is because they come with an enormous government subsidy. No sensible investor would build a wind farm on the basis of the actual real return it would make on capital without the government subsidies. Similarly the bogus Eco-towns initiative backed by Gordon Brown would see little or no business interest without subsidy. Ditto the dash to build several new nuclear power stations - a project that not so long ago the environmental movement was telling us could destroy the planet with a "China-syndrome".
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Of course the real only way to counter such a widely accepted scientific opinion is to try to cast doubt on the science or claim it's all a conspiracy. This is really hard when you know nothing at all and don't trust anyone to help you learn the basics. This is the Myrrh approach of denying anything involving actual established, uncontroversial science or facts or expertise of others, while meekly accepting anything critical of real science without question or the slightest understanding of why it's complete rubbish.
IRL that would be libel. I've explained my method. Look at both sides of the argument.
And I've said how your method appears to me. You may truly believe you're being fair and logical but it doesn't mean you're right and it's not how I see it. What happens now?
quote:
Your claim is that AGW is widely accepted scientific opinion. For you and other AGW's to continually ignore and disparage those saying it doesn't conform to scientific method isn't objective of you. What it shows is you AGW's have put your fingers in your ears and la la la the unproven propaganda to drown out giving this any actual thought.
Is this where people usually refer the writer to pots and kettles?
quote:
It doesn't bother you that no real science from all geological and climate and historical research has never shown the Hockey Stick.
It doesn't bother you that the Hockey Stick and apologies for it, Briff, have been shown to be actually manipulated data.
Says you. I'm not sure what the outcome of the Hockey Stick affair was but Climate Scientists didn't rush to change sides in droves while expressing sorrow at having been duped so I assume it was fully explained. If not, please educate me, preferably from a genuine science source.
quote:
It doesn't bother you that these data have only been peer reviewed among the coterie producing it and were never actually rigorously analysed by the IPCC.
It doesn't bother you that persistent stonewalling for independent checking is the preferred method protecting the hypothesis, data withheld and destroyed so that it couldn't be checked.
None of this bothers you because you either aren't scientists or haven't a clue what science is.
Instead you produce a litany of excuses for every example of scientific malpractice to perpetuate this scientific fraud.
You have no credibility.
That is an objective assessment from one who has looked at both sides of the argument.
It's fake turtles all the way down, to the very beginning of Revelle to the continuing manipulation. Only conmen and the deluded use these methods, that's a well known proven fact.
Do yourselves a favour, read the arguments against before posting more manmade global drivel.
One may call oneself a scientist and one may be lauded as a scientist by others, but if one can't fathom that if it smells like shit it is shit unless it's been engineered to smell like something else, one in the wrong profession.
Myrrh
For 'coterie' I read "Climate Scientists" and I don't know how many are involved. Do you know whether the IPCC are supposed to scrutinise? I'm not sure but I think once papers pass peer review and are published they become part of the body of work others discuss, argue about and refer to in their own work but I'm not a scientist so I'm guessing here.
You still seem to think that your lack of knowledge provides a good basis to challenge highly qualified people who spend their lives on this stuff. That's not really credible.
.
Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
That is an objective assessment from one who has looked at both sides of the argument.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
OK, maybe I'll accept looked at both sides of the argument. But, I've seen no evidence of any attempt to comprehend the arguments put forth by climate scientists. In fact, most of what I've seen you reproduce from the 'sceptic' side has been obviously crank websites. There are 'sceptics' who have put forward serious arguments, some through the peer-reviewed climate science literature ... but you don't seem to have assimilated those arguments any better than the scientific consensus.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
OK, from what I've read there were some exchanges relating to a 'troublesome editor'. Well, whoop-dee-doo, haven't we all had words to say about an editor and/or referee of a journal. .
Well, you haven't read the emails concerned, but there looks to me as though there's more to it than that.
quote:
What I've seen is suggestions about deleting email correspondence, rather than actual scientific data.
Well, correspondence can be the subject of FOI. They also talk about deleting attachments to avoid FOI disclosure. To delete data and correspondence which is the subject of FOI requests is illegal.
[ 25. November 2009, 13:06: Message edited by: Spawn ]
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
Thanks. I agree that the public have not been carried, thanks in the main, I would suggest, to the efforts of blog writers who have attempted to give the impression that the scientists are wrong.
This is what the Uni of E Anglia had to say yesterday about the matter
quote:
It is important, for all countries, that this warming is slowed down, through substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the most dangerous impacts of climate change.
snip
In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.
You'd hope scientists would be up in arms about such statements of faith but I guess they can't afford to be 'deniers'.
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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Inger
Shipmate
# 15285
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Posted
About deleting emails: it seems to me the suggestion found in the hacked correspondence might be the best evidence that no deletions took place. I've never myself embarked on any such endeavor, but if I had, I do think that I would start with the email in which the suggestion was made. I certainly wouldn't leave it to be found...
Posts: 332 | From: Newcastle, UK | Registered: Nov 2009
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
It is not difficult to see why climate scientists might have a vested interest in promoting the idea of climate Armagedon.
Until 10 years ago they would have been scientific nobodies working in a dingy, cold and damp underfunded 1950's lab and probably dreaming of becoming a BBC weatherman a la Bert Ford and being able to afford a week in Majorca.
Then suddenly the Berlin Wall comes down, nuclear war is averted and it is necessary to find a doomsday scenario to scare the public with. Someone picks up on global warming (possibly the ghastly Mrs Thatcher) the politicians like it and then its big government grants, new labs, lots of new colleagues, academic empires, newspaper articles and global climate summits to which you can write your expert witness statement while flying with your team business class. I's fortnights in Barbados from now on. Anyone for the World Climate Conference in Acapulco?
Until that point you had been writing about the coming ice age but that stuff had to all be junked. Inter-glacial period - cobblers.
Of course there is always some scientist-hermit-nutcase who will disagree with you but they have to be scrunched.
It's all human nature.
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
It is not difficult to see why climate scientists might have a vested interest in promoting the idea of climate Armagedon.
Until 10 years ago they would have been scientific nobodies working in a dingy, cold and damp underfunded 1950's lab and probably dreaming of becoming a BBC weatherman a la Bert Ford and being able to afford a week in Majorca.
Then suddenly the Berlin Wall comes down, nuclear war is averted and it is necessary to find a doomsday scenario to scare the public with. Someone picks up on global warming (possibly the ghastly Mrs Thatcher) the politicians like it and then its big government grants, new labs, lots of new colleagues, academic empires, newspaper articles and global climate summits to which you can write your expert witness statement while flying with your team business class. I's fortnights in Barbados from now on. Anyone for the World Climate Conference in Acapulco?
Until that point you had been writing about the coming ice age but that stuff had to all be junked. Inter-glacial period - cobblers.
Of course there is always some scientist-hermit-nutcase who will disagree with you but they have to be scrunched.
It's all human nature.
And how many "doomsday deadlines" can you recall in your lifetime? I remember quite a few. One that stuck with me was when I was told that the rainforests would all be gone before I ever grew up and got a chance to see them. Well I loved the idea of rainforests, and that thought made me sad and scared.
Scare the children...fucking assholes.
The bright spot in this email thingy from a US POV is that it will further damage efforts for "knee-cap and tax" legislation. Maybe even kill it altogether, which would be great.
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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman
Posts: 1486 | From: White Rose City | Registered: Sep 2005
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
So all negative predictions are wrong are they?
Funnily enough I remember very few 'scare stories' where there was such a prolonged wide spread concensus.
Also what the headlines say and what the scientists say are very different.
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Peer review isn't invalidated if some practitioners use or record information in biased ways. Failure to replicate results - or critical reviews of evidence/presentations - take care of that in the long run. I note the UEA press release in this context.
Unfortunately, there is no process known to humans which can invalidate conspiracy theories sufficiently to dissuade those who have a penchant for them.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Inger:
About deleting emails: it seems to me the suggestion found in the hacked correspondence might be the best evidence that no deletions took place. I've never myself embarked on any such endeavor, but if I had, I do think that I would start with the email in which the suggestion was made. I certainly wouldn't leave it to be found...
The suggestion is made by one of the authors of the emails that because of FOI requests they all delete that email. This may have been done but just because an email is deleted doesn't mean that it automatically ceases to exist.
[ 25. November 2009, 13:59: Message edited by: Spawn ]
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Until that point you [climate scientists] had been writing about the coming ice age but that stuff had to all be junked.
(italicised addition mine).aumbry, you do realise that this isn't true? From this summary: quote:
In the 1970s, there was a book in the popular press, a few articles in popular magazines, and a small amount of scientific speculation based on the recently discovered glacial cycles and the recent slight cooling trend from air pollution blocking the sunlight. There were no daily headlines. There was no avalanche of scientific articles. There were no United Nations treaties or commissions. No G8 summits on the dangers and possible solutions. No institutional pronouncements. You could find broader "consensus" on a coming alien invasion.
Quite simply, there is no comparison.
Unfortunately, headlines are driven more by a desire to sell papers than by scientific consensus. This is still going on today. Like you say, it's human nature.
- Chris.
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Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Spawn - I was thinking about your statement that the scientists and politicians haven't carried the people with them. Just suppose they are right, what more could / should they do? (After all the poll I presume you are referring to was conducted before the email scandal hit the headlines.)
They have released papers, documents etc that have persuaded almost all international opinion politically (192 countries attending the Copenhagen conference - with a wide range of political standpoints) and virtually every national / international academy of scientists. The public, on the other hand, often seem to want to believe what is convenient for them to believe - no-one likes to think of themselves as part of the problem.
In the end my view is that it is easier to pull down than build up. Those building the consensus have attempted to construct a narrative that makes sense of the (vast majority of the) data. Those who deny it don't make any attempt to come up with an alternative narrative. Much of what is written on forums is blatantly scientifically illiterate. However there is also the issue that occasionally they point out genuine weaknesses with some of the science. The weaknesses may be small but for some this apparently this means that all the science untrustworthy.
(Of course there is no such thing as perfect science, where every single piece of data fits perfectly. So some seem to think that one inconvenient result destroys a whole theory. This in my view is where the low level of scientific literacy really lets us all down.)
Every theory that has ever been accepted as true I reckon can be demolished using 'common sense' arguments. After all science is in many ways the study of the counter-intuitive.
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Hiro's Leap
Shipmate
# 12470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Only conmen and the deluded use these methods, that's a well known proven fact.
You have an extremely flexible definition of "proven fact" Myrrh. As has been noted several times on this thread, these leaked emails utterly demolish your 'conman' conspiracy theory. In this private, not-for-public-eyes chat, the scientists still consistently show their grave concern about the climate, as well as their anger at people who try to downplay the problems.
Whatever other conclusions people choose to draw from these emails, it's crystal clear that these scientists are not frauds, not conmen, and not in cahoots with sinister One World conspiracies.
There are legitimate issues here (e.g. whether or not the people named have acted improperly with peer review) but there's no doubt that the scientists are totally sincere in believing CO2 is causing significant temperature rise.
Posts: 3418 | From: UK, OK | Registered: Mar 2007
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
Okay - I will give the global warmers and the government the benefit of the doubt if we see the following:-
100% grants for people to insulate their lofts and double glaze their homes. This would save more fossil fuel than all the windfarms and low energy bulbs planned, would provide jobs and save people heating costs.
No more planning permission for out of town developments which simply create traffic and destroy small shopping centres.
No more planning permission for wind farms which are expensive eyesores and the investment to go into the nuclear progamme.
No more governmental or scientific attendance at international conferences. Government are keen to bang on about the benefits of technology so do it all by video. If they are absolutely unavoidable they should be held in the world's poorest and most polluted places (no luxury holiday element).
Take measures to control the country's population. You cannot say that we are going to suffer from environmental degradation caused by man but take a sanguine view of the fact that immigration is likely to raise the current population by 10 million in UK.
No new government installation, civil service offices, universities or other institutions with a workforce of more than 50 to be sited anywhere where they cannot be fully serviced by public transport and therefore no parking spaces on these sites. Phase out all existing public service parking.
No ministrial limousines and MPs can only claim the cost of using public transport - any motoring costs should be paid for out of their own pockets like everyone else.
No more unnecessary wars ( a new-Labour high carbon specialty).
Property taxess to be based on the size of the property and not the rateable value.
No more HIPS - a complete waste of money - the savings could go into the insulation regime.
No more exporting of manufacturing jobs on the basis that the global economy is the best way as all this does is destroy jobs at home and increase the cost of transporting goods from China to the rest of the world i.e import tariffs based on distance a manufactured good is transported.
All long distance holiday flights to be heavily taxed and the money raised to be used to build high speed rail network.
Motorways to have tolls but car tax abolished.
No building of a third runway at Heathrow - just because big business wants it.
Give farmers of marginal land grants to plant woodland.
That will do for a start.
[ 25. November 2009, 14:59: Message edited by: aumbry ]
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by 205:
quote:
It is important, for all countries, that this warming is slowed down, through substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the most dangerous impacts of climate change.
snip
In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.
You'd hope scientists would be up in arms about such statements of faith but I guess they can't afford to be 'deniers'.
Why on earth would you expect scientists to be any less worried about their future and their childrens future than anyone else?
Do you really think that they would do better science if they tried to pretend that there was no problem? If they kidded themselves that it wasn't important or dangerous?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Saul the Apostle
Shipmate
# 13808
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Posted
I don't think its neccesarily being used to bring in global government...but it is being trotted out like it was ''gospel'' (which it is not) and has the effect of scaring half the population sh**less and has thus developed its own strange momentum.
Global warming/climate change = unproven theory = another scaremongering story IMO.
Saul
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"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."
Posts: 1772 | From: unsure | Registered: Jun 2008
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Spawn - I was thinking about your statement that the scientists and politicians haven't carried the people with them. Just suppose they are right, what more could / should they do? (After all the poll I presume you are referring to was conducted before the email scandal hit the headlines.)
I don't think the near-apocalyptic alarmism, the inseparability of science from politicking and environmental campaigning has helped. The absolute arrogant certainty of some of the predictions, forecasting and modelling is an extreme turn-off. In short, the damage can be repaired when politicians stop pretending to be scientists and scientists stop pretending to be politicians.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Saul - which parts of the theory do you think are unproven?
Which scare stories do you think had a similar level of scientific consensus behind it. (I am talking about the national and international science academies here!)
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Spawn - I can only presume that you are more sceptical than you are trying to make out. After all if the scientific consensus is right then drastic action will be needed. So strong language is appropriate. If the science is wrong then of course it is totally inappropriate. It is impossible to accept the science and think that business as usual will produce nothing more than a little inconvenience.
The near-apocalyptic language may seem extreme to us - my children are highly unlikely to have to contend with many of the more negative aspects of global warming. That doesn't mean to say that mass migration and the accompanying conflict that is likely to provoke won't prove to be a matter of life and death for many of the poorest on the planet.
I was wondering where in the scientific literature you felt there was this certainty about the climatologists positions. Everything I have read has been couched in probabilities.
[ 25. November 2009, 20:10: Message edited by: Luigi ]
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Luke
Soli Deo Gloria
# 306
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Luke - basing your view of Global Warming on one film makes it sound as if you don't take science very seriously
Does anyone really have a complete handle on all the global warming science? I personally haven't gone beyond reading articles in the paper, one book and a few blogs (e.g. Andrew Bolt, named by Prime Minister Rudd as one of a small group of individual's threatening the future of our planet with his global warming denial). I reckon I know as much as the average man on the street. Are you an expert?
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Emily's Voice
Posts: 822 | From: Australia | Registered: May 2001
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Spawn - I can only presume that you are more sceptical than you are trying to make out. After all if the scientific consensus is right then drastic action will be needed.
No, it seems to me that the scientific consensus can agree that pre-existing trends towards warming have intensified as a result of pollution by human beings. There is no scientific consensus on the forecasts and models, because these are in the province of prediction.
I'd prefer strategic, sensible decision-making to hasty, drastic action informed by loose and apocalyptic language.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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romanlion
editorial comment
# 10325
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
So all negative predictions are wrong are they?
Well certainly those about total equatorial deforestation and a coming glaciation were.
quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
Funnily enough I remember very few 'scare stories' where there was such a prolonged wide spread concensus.
For that time, if Newsweek put it on the cover, that was all the concensus you would have been aware of unless you were privy to the science community yourself. And since that was barely a quarter century ago, in what context do you use the word "prolonged"?
quote:
Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I don't think its neccesarily being used to bring in global government...but it is being trotted out like it was ''gospel'' (which it is not) and has the effect of scaring half the population sh**less and has thus developed its own strange momentum.
Global warming/climate change = unproven theory = another scaremongering story IMO.
Saul
I agree. Only adding that if you extrapolate the impact of the recommendations they trot out, it's easy to see how the agenda lends itself towards "Global Governance".
No conspiracy, just shitty, collectivist public policy.
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"You can't get rich in politics unless you're a crook" - Harry S. Truman
Posts: 1486 | From: White Rose City | Registered: Sep 2005
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Romanlion - So now I know - something being put on the front cover of Newsweek means widespread scientific consensus. Staggering. How many national academies signed up to it?
Posts: 752 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
Loose and apocalypic language? How would you prefer what are considered to be the most likely outcomes to be described? Tell us what you think is most likely to happen. Of course there is a less certain aspect to predictions, that doesn't mean that some of the trends that can already be seen are not genuinely very alarming if they are extended logically.
You seem to judge the science according to how alarming it is rather than how likely it is. Perhaps you can point to a prominent thinker who both thinks that the science is probably correct and everything will be pretty much OK. I have no idea as to what sort of scenario you think we should be responding to.
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