Is Bush's Administration Anti-Science?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@bryanl

so much blindness, …

The issue isn’t global warming, it is man’s influence on it, if any. So a first step is to get the issue right, which you haven’t.

This sentence makes no sense. Of course humans cause gloabal warming. the problem is that this administration is unwilling to fully acknowledge thatt or do anything about it.

I am not sure what you mean by evolution from either end. AFAIK, the current administration has no position and has not advocated any position in this area.

I cite is an example both of GWB’s scientific illiteracy and his dismissive attitude towards scientific evidence which does not support his pre-ordained world view. Bush is on record as stating that “the jury is still out on evolutuin.” This is an ignorant statement and a disturbing one for a president to make in the 21st century.

As far as abstinence, there is a lot of data to indicate that your conclusion is incorrect or misinformed.

No there isn’t. Just the opposite in fact. Abstinence only has resulted in a rise in unprotected sexual activity.

I know of no pregnancies or STD events related to abstinence.

Which is beside the point. Abstinence per se is not the issue. The point is that preaching abstinence only, without providing kids with any information on how to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs does not cause kids to be abstinent, it just causes them to have unprotected sex. Bush is putting a selfish, moralistic ideology above important scientific data, and he’s doing it at the expense of the health of children. He’s also creating more unwanted pregnancies, and more abortions, and more impoversished families.

As far as a “self-serving political agenda” that is bad science as it is not defined in any useful way.

But the main issue is that you take up the ad hominem - and, to me, that casts significant suspicion on your arguments.

I’m referring to the link in the OP which you either haven’t read or have chosen to ignore.

[bryanl]

[QUOTE=Of course humans cause gloabal warming…[/QUOTE]

Can’t do much here as this is just plain ignorant.

Science deals very much with concepts called precision and accuracy. Unless and until these become a significant part of the discussion, there can be no discussion of ‘scientific’ concepts. Axiomatic statements such as is your penchant do not allow for any consideration of the limits of knowledge or measure and, therefore, are ignorant and incompetent.

It is particularly interesting that what you seem to decry is ideologically driven belief yet you illustrate just that and the target of your arguments does not.

So, as in many of these sorts of discussions, the first step is trying to get some sort of agreement about what reality really is - and it doesn’t look hopeful for any progress in that regard.

[Fish]

Sorry for the complete sidetrack.

StrongBad: “Say something intelligent.”
Homestar: “Science!”

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

The REALITY is that [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2023835.stm[Humans cause global warming.

Do you dispute this? Or do you live in a different reality?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

The REALITY is that Humans cause global warming.

Do you dispute this? Or do you live in a different reality?

Fixed coding

[Kimstu]

Just to pinpoint the issues a little more clearly, bryan1 is right in saying that global climate change includes long-term trends depending on non-anthropogenic (“anthropogenic” = “human-caused”, in case anyone hasn’t seen that term before) sources. However, DtC and others are correct in pointing out that most climate scientists are quite confident—and have been getting more confident over the past several years, as better evidence is accumulated—that current warming trends do have a significant anthropogenic component. Even more importantly, IMO, they are pretty much unanimous in agreeing that—although the level of anthropogenic impact on current warming may be debatable—continuing to emit greenhouse gases at our present rates will certainly cause major anthropogenic warming in the not-too-distant future.

In other words, there is really no serious scientific contest to the following assertions:

1. Human activities in energy generation and use are currently on a sufficiently large scale to cause anthropogenic changes to the global climate.

2. Such activities, if continued on the current scale, definitely will cause serious anthropogenic changes to the global climate.

3. There is strong evidence that such activities have already caused non-negligible anthropogenic changes to the global climate, although the extent of their impact and the severity of their consequences is still under debate.

I.e., we’ve got a genuine and serious problem on our hands for the foreseeable future, although we may not be absolutely certain yet how bad the problem is right now. Refusing to address that problem until we’ve achieved 100% “precision and accuracy” in our quantitative predictions about its impact is not being “pro-science”—it is merely ducking the issue.

[Desmostylus]

@Kimstu

Refusing to address that problem until we’ve achieved 100% “precision and accuracy” in our quantitative predictions about its impact is not being “pro-science”—it is merely ducking the issue.

It’s not “ducking the issue”, it’s a matter of prudence. It wouldn’t be very smart to waste billions of dollars addressing an issue, only to have it turn out that the problem didn’t exist in the first place. That’s one of the things I’ve always admired about Bush. You can see this responsible attitude at work in other policy areas as well. I especially liked the way he allowed the weapons inspectors in Iraq to finish their jobs, and in the end decided not to invade - refusing to be persuaded by the ridiculous scare-mongering coming from the CIA.

[Alan_Owes_Bess]

Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic

2.) The jury is not “out” on evolution.

Of coures, W. thinks that 'the jury is still out" on evolution so it’s not he like he has even a junior high school understanding of science to begin with.

I actually wasted a bit of time trying to find this Bush quote. The best I could come up with was this:

And, like Reagan, he has refused to endorse the scientific principle of evolution. During the 2000 campaign, a New York Times reporter asked whether he believed in evolution. Bush equivocated, leading the Times to write that he “believes the jury is still out.”

LINK

The actual archived quote from the NYT is not readily accessible, but the rest of the hits on the net treat it as an actual quote by Bush, Another example:

“Mr. Bush, do you or do you not believe that evolution is not just a theory but a scientifically established fact?” (Apparently, Bush was actually asked this question recently, and he replied that “the jury is still out”!!

LINK

A reporter’s supposition about what a particular politician thinks about something is not entitled to quotes as if the politician had actually uttered those words. Admittedly to do so knowingly is to engage in the standard operating procedure of reporters, but it is not honest.
1.) Global warming is real.

On the other matter where you so confidently declare that global warming is real and caused by human activities, based on nothing more than the opinions of a small but loud scientific clique, how sure can we be that the small number of scientists are acting on purely scientific motives and do not have a political agenda, like those fraudulent doomsayers, Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore.

The impact that mankind has had on the weather conditions of this planet are totally insignificant when compared to the impact that, for example, the Malenkovitch (or Malenkovich) cycle has had:

LINK

or the sunspot cycle has had:

LINK

and, more here with pretty graphs:

LINK

The term “scientist” is a fairly loose description, anyway. Are all of those 20 Nobel Prize winners experts in environmental science?

Those who are not and express an opinion are frauds in this context. Those who are qualified in environmental science may be able to support their opinions with hard scientific data, but I would prefer to know what the remainder of their profession thinks before treating their opinions with significant respect.
3.) “Abstinence Only” education is a fucking disaster.
It’s supposed to be. By definition. Don’t you see?

[Kimstu]

Des: You can see this responsible attitude at work in other policy areas as well…

Nice, Des.

For the benefit of the sarcasm-impaired, though, I repeat: when it comes to anthropogenic global warming, we do know we’ve got a problem. It’s true that we don’t yet know exactly how bad the problem is now nor exactly how bad it’s going to get, but there is no question that the longer we neglect it, the worse the consequences will be.

And after all, it’s not as though anti-global-warming measures are bad things in themselves. If the scientific consensus were suggesting, say, that in order to control anthropogenic climate change we would all have to go on the Atkins diet for 20 years, I’d be right up there in the vanguard of the resistance screaming about how we shouldn’t take drastic measures based on an incomplete scientific consensus, yadda yadda.

But the vast majority of advocates for climate-change-control policies are just saying that we should implement quite achievable goals for improved energy conservation, energy efficiency, and pollution reduction, as well as a modest increase in funding for renewable energy. These are the sorts of regulations that the affected industries tend to complain about when they’re first proposed but which often end up saving them money in the long run.

Conserving energy, reducing pollution, and finding improved alternatives to politically disputed fossil fuels would be good things even if there were no such thing as anthropogenic climate change. What kind of shortsighted foolishness would refrain from promoting them merely because some industrial lobbies would prefer that we all go on pissing away far more energy than we need and putting up with unnecessary pollution? I’m afraid the answer is, “the kind of shortsighted foolishness espoused by the current Administration.”

AOB: The impact that mankind has had on the weather conditions of this planet are totally insignificant when compared to the impact that, for example, the Malenkovitch (or Malenkovich) cycle has had […]

Well, duh, Alan. I really don’t think anyone is seriously claiming that anthropogenic impacts are more significant, in terms of global climate change during the earth’s entire history, than major geological and orbital cycles lasting millions of years! All they’re saying is that anthropogenic impacts appear to be (and if unchecked, will certainly be) very significant in the context of humanity’s relationship to its global environment.

However, I don’t know that I’d call anthropogenic impacts “totally insignificant” even on the grand scale. The very link you cited quotes Peter Barrett of the Antarctic Research Center at Victoria University (NZ) as saying “Global climate, even in 50 years’ time, may be warmer than the Earth has experienced in the past 12 million years.” Twelve million years ain’t no mere blink of the eye, even in geological time.

[Alan_Owes_Bess]

Originally posted by k----u

Well, duh, Alan. I really don’t think anyone is seriously claiming that anthropogenic impacts are more significant, in terms of global climate change during the earth’s entire history, than major geological and orbital cycles lasting millions of years!

I disagree.

That is precisely what is being claimed by the alarmists, and I reject the multifarious theses of those frauds.

Neither you nor I believe in astrology. However, I think you believe in a form of reverse astrology. The activities of man affect the planets? stars? Whatever. You probably read too much Paul Ehrlich in your goatish youth.

Posted by K----u

Actually, it’s a pretty simplistic thumbnail sketch of various facts (e.g., “The Suez Canal is 100 miles long”) and superficial cultural stereotypes (“Arabs love children; they lavish a great deal of time and attention on them”) that some guy at the Baylor business school seems to think it important for people doing business in Middle Eastern countries to know (“Very often, the first meeting (or first few meetings) will simply be spent on polite small talk. […] During this time, your Kuwaiti counterpart will be trying to evaluate subjectively whether or not business should take place in the future”). I think you’d have to work a little harder to really achieve a “good general background on Arab Islamic culture”.

Harsh criticism indeed. However, I believe it was fine and quite in order to broadcast this information to the world at large.

To get back to basics, I was responding to the prior content free posts.

The OP has now been provided with links to two COST FREE and COMPLETE versions of the Koran and she is in a position to judge its merits by herself, if she chooses to do so.

Whether you like it or not.

[jshore]

@Alan Owes Bess

On the other matter where you so confidently declare that global warming is real and caused by human activities, based on nothing more than the opinions of a small but loud scientific clique, how sure can we be that the small number of scientists are acting on purely scientific motives and do not have a political agenda, like those fraudulent doomsayers, Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore.

This must be a new definition of “small but loud scientific clique” which includes:

(1) The IPCC reports which had the input of hundreds of scientists in order to review the state of the peer-reviewed science in the field and is usually one of the first references cited in any paper on the subject of climate change appearing in the peer-reviewed literature.

(2) The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which has published a variety of recent reports on the subject.

(3) The council of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), which issued this statement.

(4) The council of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), which issued this statement.

(5) The editors of the journals Science and Nature, the most prestigious multidisciplinary science journals in the world who have weighed in on this issue a few times.

(6) Even British Petroleum, which has acknowledged the potential seriousness of climate change and has already implemented a Kyoto-like reduction in their own emissions, completing it 8 years ahead of schedule and at a claimed net cost-savings to the company.

That’s one clique I don’t mind being a part of!

On the other hand, on the “other side”, you really do have a small but loud clique of people who nearly all seem to be, in one way or the other, tied to fossil fuel (especially coal) industry funding or right-wing / libertarian think-tanks.

The impact that mankind has had on the weather conditions of this planet are totally insignificant when compared to the impact that, for example, the Malenkovitch (or Malenkovich) cycle has had:

LINK

Did you actually read this site? If anything, it raises alarm bells even stronger than the IPCC by warning of possible “trigger points” such that anthropogenic climate forcings might cause sudden climate changes due to feedback effects (such as dramatic changes in ocean currents like the Gulf Stream) that are not included in the models:

One way to view the future is to obtain data from the distant past, for if we continue to burn fossil fuels and deforest at the current rate, within a century we might find ourselves with greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and surface temperatures similar to those of that ancient past.

…

The evidence from polar ice is of sudden spurts in the emissions of greenhouse gases from purely natural sources, with temperature increasing in tandem. Positive feedback mechanisms are clearly at work, yet they are nowhere to be seen in the current general climate models that the IPCC uses to predict future climate change.

If we are to learn anything from the distant past it is that we should take all precautions not to perturb a system, which at some unknown critical point, jumps violently into a very different state. The fate of Antarctica, that vast polar continent, sheared off from the rest of the living world, has warned us of that.

As for the Malenkovich oscillations, to my knowledge everyone agrees that these were the cause…or at least the major trigger…for climate change in the past before human society evolved to the point when we could significantly alter the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. (There is also evidence of a positive feedback effect whereby the release of CO2 that the warming caused then caused further warming, as would be expected from elementary principles of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.) Unfortunately, we are entering a new…and uncharted…era when humans are the ones exerting the most rapidly changing forcings on the climate system.

[jshore]

@jshore

(5) The editors of the journals Science and Nature, the most prestigious multidisciplinary science journals in the world who have weighed in on this issue a few times.

See this Science editorial by Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy, for example, in response to Bush’s decision not to regulate CO2 emissions. Here is part of what he said:

By now the scientific consensus on global warming is so strong that it leaves little room for the defensive assertions that keep emerging from the cleverly labeled industrial consortium called the Global Climate Coalition and from a shrinking coterie of scientific skeptics. To be sure, the president didn’t say he doubted that consensus. He just acted as though he did.

During the past year in these pages, we have published over 30 peer-reviewed reports and articles documenting findings that relate to global climate change. Some of these extended the kinds of modeling studies cited in the IPCC report. Others documented the intensification of the El Niño events that has accompanied the warming we have already experienced. Still others measured the retreat of glaciers, the thinning of polar ice caps, the extraordinary growth in the heat content of the world’s oceans, and other indicators. All of them, in one way or another, support the concerns that the president now says he is not prepared to address.

And that’s just from one journal. Consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in science. Of course there is room for arguments about the economics. How much should we reduce emissions? How fast? And at what cost? These questions are open to debate. But there is little room for doubt about the seriousness of the problem the world faces, and other nations, including most of our trading partners in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, understand that. This decision will surely discourage international efforts to move toward an emissions control regime.

We were all led to believe that the president, to the surprise of many, was prepared to take the constructive path he outlined in the campaign–the path his appointees had announced they would follow. News reports indicate that industry representatives talked him out of that position. Well, it must have been a one-sided argument. In this space a week ago, I argued that the absence of leadership in the Office of Science and Technology Policy had permitted the development of an unbalanced budget portfolio in the sciences. Here is another cost: There was no authoritative science voice around to say, in response to those who argue that global warming isn’t to be taken seriously, “Mr. President, on this one the science is clear.”

[jshore]

@jshore

(6) Even British Petroleum, which has acknowledged the potential seriousness of climate change and has already implemented a Kyoto-like reduction in their own emissions, completing it 8 years ahead of schedule and at a claimed net cost-savings to the company.

And, to be fair, Shell has taken a similar tack:

The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate.

We believe action is required now to lay the foundation for eventually stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere in an equitable and an economically responsible way. It is time to pursue stable, market-based policies that help energy users and suppliers pursue innovative energy solutions.

…

By the end of 2002 we had met our first GHG target, reducing emissions by over 10 percent compared to 1990, through efforts such as the elimination of continuous venting.

[5cents]

@Diogenes the Cynic

3.) “Abstinence Only” education is a fucking disaster.

Pun intended?

[Squink]

jshore seems to be the only poster who has thus far mentioned the stem-cell fiasco. The issue deserves more attention, as it was one of the first concrete examples of the administration’s methods of formulating national science policy.
When the cloning and stem-cell issue came up back in 2001, Bush called on everyone for input; scientists, bioethicists, pro-lifers, even the Pope. Then, after months of solanaceous pondering, the president made his decision that stem-cell research would be limited to work on existing cell lines. He gave a major speech about the issue. Widely hailed at the time as a reasonable compromise, some of the president’s numbers looked funny from day one:

From speech:
As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist. They were created from embryos that have already been destroyed, and they have the ability to regenerate themselves indefinitely, creating ongoing opportunities for research.
I have concluded that we should allow federal funds to be used for research on these existing stem cell lines, where the life-and-death decision has already been made.
Leading scientists tell me research on these 60 lines has great promise that could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures. This allows us to explore…

The suspicions of cherrypicking were later confirmed:

By contrast, several scientists noted, the National Institutes of Health last month conceded on its Web site that only nine colonies of embryonic stem cells are available to researchers under the restrictions imposed by President Bush in August 2001. That is far fewer than the 70-plus lines advertised on that site until last month, most of which have proven unsuitable for research or unavailable from the labs that isolated them.

After all the president’s show of assembling the facts, and working towards compromise, he still managed to be off in his numbers by a factor of 7. It’s difficult to believe that this was an innocent mistake.

[edwino]

The complete UCS report is availible here and it is a valuable read.

This administration has a general problem with data. They cherry-picked intelligence on WMDs in Iraq. They did the same with a bunch of different environmental findings. They have done the same on a multitude of other things, from the economy to sex ed to the stem cell decision. Part of this is certainly based on their faith and their moral system. Part of it is probably reactionary to the perception that the Clinton White House flapped in the wind with every poll result, and so they have picked a story and they are sticking to it. But it has become dangerous and pathologic. This has not been a characteristic of any other White House to my knowledge – they all changed their tunes based on current findings and observations. A new issue with this administration is that many appointees have been subject to stringent litmus tests based on their political and scientific views. Those that fail are dismissed or not appointed. This has led to a large migration of top scientists out of major advisory posts, and an appointment of underqualified people and/or ideologues instead.

As a biologist, I have no qualifications for evaluating the environmental science. But I have environmental scientist friends, and they certainly believe that we need to reduce greenhouse gases and other forms of air pollution. The vast majority of environmental scientists in the world state the same. It only makes sense. But Bush has a cadre of scientists that agree with him, so he thinks it is OK, and has censored other findings. This is not how science works. This does not make it a scientific controversy. Nearly every finding in science has its detractors and evidence to the contrary, because the world is complicated. The scientific consensus represents a perspective of all data. So I would say that the consensus is that we have a problem with greenhouse gases and climate change, and we need to do something to control that.

Where I get really irate is in biology and health related issues. The US got to the absolute top of scientific research by putting funding completely in the hands of a peer-review system at the NIH and NSF. Bush has stepped in with new regulations on research and is perhaps doing irrepairable harm to American research. The stem cell thing is a highly-publicized version of it, demonstrative of all of the worst aspects of this administration: cherry picking data, misrepresentation of findings, oversimplification of a complicated topic, and an ultimate decision based on one man’s faith. What really gets me (and what hasn’t been mentioned here) is a section in the report on OMB rulemaking in policy review. Basically, the White House and Congress are supporting legislation that forbids government-funded researchers from reviewing science used in policy making. I.E., any science used in any government policy making decision must be reviewed exclusively by scientists from industry. So environmental science reviewed by scientists working for Exxon, lung cancer studies for decisions on cigarette sales reviewed by tobacco industry scientists, etc. This is a phenomenally bad idea – these are the scientists most likely to have the greatest amount of bias.

The health stuff is just unmentionable. The abstinence-only sex ed teaching may reduce teen sex, but it is not nearly the most effective method of spending the federal dollar. Almost every study confirms this. They have replaced CDC fact sheets on proper condom usage with a fact sheet showing the failure rates of condoms in preventing HIV and emphasizing abstienence. Similarly, they are behind the posting of a highly doubted correlation between abortion and breast cancer on the National Cancer Institute’s web site, despite objections from the CDC staff. This has thankfully been reversed after public outcry.

For any doubters and those who want to blame this on the political process, the UCS report addresses that as well (Part III: An Unprecedented Pattern of Behavior). This administration has appointed undertrained people with the correct political views to the highest levels of governmental scientific advisory. That has not been done before. They have injected dogma into the EPA and CDC to an unprecedented degree, according to people who have been at those agencies for decades and served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. I would like to conclude this diatribe with this quote from the report, from Margret Scarlett, a CDC staff member for 15 years:

Ronald Reagan was very uncomfortable with the issue of sex education and the transmission of HIV. Nonetheless, with the help of the CDC, his administration got factual information out to every household in the country. His actions stand in dramatic contrast to the sorry record of the current administration on informing the public about issues related to sex education and HIV transmission.

[elfkin477]

@jshore

This must be a new definition of “small but loud scientific clique” which includes:

(1) The IPCC reports which had the input of hundreds of scientists in order to review the state of the peer-reviewed science in the field and is usually one of the first references cited in any paper on the subject of climate change appearing in the peer-reviewed literature.

(2) The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which has published a variety of recent reports on the subject.

(3) The council of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), which issued this statement.

(4) The council of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), which issued this statement.

(5) The editors of the journals Science and Nature, the most prestigious multidisciplinary science journals in the world who have weighed in on this issue a few times.

(6) Even British Petroleum, which has acknowledged the potential seriousness of climate change and has already implemented a Kyoto-like reduction in their own emissions, completing it 8 years ahead of schedule and at a claimed net cost-savings to the company.

That’s one clique I don’t mind being a part of!

On the other hand, on the “other side”, you really do have a small but loud clique of people who nearly all seem to be, in one way or the other, tied to fossil fuel (especially coal) industry funding or right-wing / libertarian think-tanks.

What about the other side that includes scientists who believe we’re headed into another ice age? While I know some of them try to connect this to global warming, (I’m just not sure how warming the Earth enough to melt the ice caps is going to make it cold enough to have an ice age…) not all do. Competing theories that, at least on the surface, seem at odds is enough to confuse the average Joe.

[edwino]

elfkin477
The climate change issue is a very complicated one. These issues are complicated and do confuse the average Joe. That’s why the adminstration needs to take the best scientific consensus as a basis for policy decisions, not just what one group is saying or by cherry picking data that only supports their conclusions. In order to weigh the findings of the groups you mentioned with the global warming people and the people who believe there is no climate change, they need good scientific advisors who give nonpoliticized information. Some people on this board are probably qualified to debate the climate change data, but it is MHO that this is not the primary focus of this debate. This debate is about the politicization of science by the current administration.

The evidence, to date, is that the administration has discarded and censored all findings that support climate change. They have excised this science from reports. They have chosen to act on a limited set of data, not on a scientific consensus. That is what the UCS is complaining about. It is as if the administration were to make foreign policy decisions while just pretending that China doesn’t exist. Any reference to China would be omitted from State Department reports, and any wonks wanting to deal with Chinese issues would be dismissed or not hired.

[Uncivil]

@Knorf

What do you all think? Does the administration “cherry pick” and manipulate science in a manner comparable to the way it is accused of handling intelligence about Iraq?

In short, does the Bush administration allow political and idealogical objectives to overrule science (and tangentially, intelligence)?

Interesting articles. I’d guess that most governments do this sort of thing to degree. When appointing officials, they are much more likely to choose ones that agree with their point of view, or who are at least politically savvy. Most politicians aren’t scientists, and don’t think like them, so probably aren’t well qualified to even understand scientific reports. And they are perfectly capable of ignoring science for political ends, the lobbyists have more influence.

However, the articles suggest that the Bush administation is particularly bad in this respect.

[Kimstu]

AOB replied to me: *“Well, duh, Alan. I really don’t think anyone is seriously claiming that anthropogenic impacts are more significant, in terms of global climate change during the earth’s entire history, than major geological and orbital cycles lasting millions of years!”

I disagree.

That is precisely what is being claimed by the alarmists, and I reject the multifarious theses of those frauds.*

Cite, please? Who, exactly, are the “alarmists” you speak of, and what, exactly, are they saying? As for me, the people I was talking about are the vast majority of climate scientists, who as far as I know are not claiming that anthropogenic climate change is more significant than very long-scale cycles. As I said before, they’re simply predicting that “anthropogenic impacts appear to be (and if unchecked, will certainly be) very significant in the context of humanity’s relationship to its global environment.”

As jshore pointed out, and as I mentioned before, anthropogenic changes may indeed be non-negligible even on the scale of those major events—as your own link confirms. But conceding the reality and potential dangers of anthropogenic climate change doesn’t require one to believe that the dangers will necessarily have more impact than the major cataclysms of geological time; and in fact, most climate scientists don’t believe that.

*Neither you nor I believe in astrology. However, I think you believe in a form of reverse astrology. The activities of man affect the planets? stars? Whatever. *

That’s a ridiculous hyperbole. It’s rather like saying that someone who claims that airplanes can fly probably also believes in yogic levitation. Claiming that terrestrial human activity is somehow powerful enough to cross interplanetary or interstellar space and impact other planets or stars would indeed be a scientifically unsupported belief. However, claiming that terrestrial human activity is powerful enough to affect the atmosphere and climate we live in (and emit our megatons of gases into) is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, and very well supported scientifically.

You probably read too much Paul Ehrlich in your goatish youth.

(“Goatish”? What on earth does “goatishness” have to do with anything currently under discussion? Are conservatives really still worrying that maybe leftists and enviros in the '60s got laid more often than they did? Time to let go of it, pal. In any case, I was four years old when Ehrlich’s infamous book came out in 1968; a kid rather than a goat, so to speak. )

No, I never read Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb. But I would caution the climate-change deniers who keep trying to dismiss anthropogenic global warming as a mere Ehrlichian panic that there are very significant differences between the two cases.

Ehrlich’s neo-Malthusian predictions of unsustainable overpopulation causing massive famines within the next ten years were always widely disputed, and within a decade were conclusively falsified. In the decade and a half since the formation of the IPCC in 1988 to study the possibility of anthropogenic climate change, on the other hand, the evidence for the reality of the problem has significantly increased, and has convinced more and more climate scientists. Trying to dismiss the issue by lumping the IPCC and its ilk in with discredited doomsayers like The Population Bomb may be a convenient tactic for climate change deniers, but so far the data doesn’t justify it.