Funny thing … very little research money goes to those who are concluding that the earth is flat. Flat earthers are being suppressed!
This line of argument is beyond silliness. No, scientists, with some notable exceptions, are not data whores.
Posts by those who cover their eyes to data provided on the real likely economic impacts vs costs of abatements are not even worth reading.
Too bad Sam hasn’t bothered to return, because at least his line of discussion was of some intellectual value.
Real science is about managing uncertainty. Right now there is little uncertainty that a significant portion of current global climate change is due to humankind’s contributions. There is virtually no uncertainty that business as usual continued and expected increases in emissiions will amplify the effects of global climate change no matter what its cause, anthropogenic or otherwise. The risk of drastic and rapid climate change with huge economic impacts and huge impacts on human quality of life is very large. The cost of reducing that risk dramatically by mitigating now is relatively cost-effective. Some of the actions that would mange that risk would also have other benfits that would further skew the cost-benfit analysis towards early aggressive mitigation. These include but are not linited to decreasing the Western world’s reliance on foreign oil from the ME, and increased environmental quality.
Sorry I haven’t had a chance to respond. I just got in from a late night at work. I’ll try to pick up my thread of the discussion and answer Dseid - but first I need to eat and chill for a while.
It might be useful for me to just start a new thread.
AGW is hardly to that level. It just reached a 90% probability recently, with the new report. 90% likely means that there’s a 10% chance they are wrong. The chance that the Sun orbits the Earth is exactly 0, not 10%. Personally, I think that AGW is 100% correct but that we still don’t know the extent to which humans have contributed. In other words, humans are at least partly to blame. Perhaps mostly. I am somewhat conservative and skeptical.
But perhaps more studies might show that the current scientific consensus is wrong (maybe it’s all sunspots). If so, dudes will publish papers that refute AGW and the consensus will swing back. There will still be some 10% who won’t accept it, either way.
Well, me, when I am 90% sure that I see a tsunami approaching, I don’t use my mobile to ring China and tell them to shut down their power stations and I don’t start raising funds to breed sea gulls to flap their wings over the wave.
I head for the hills
As it is it looks pretty slow, so I’ll probably stroll towards the hills, and probably stop off about a mile inland in the hope that I’ll have a nice beachfront property for my last few years.
I suppose one should not mock the afflicted, but it is so easy.
So what happens when it’s not just you heading for the hills, but rather millions of people, actually a good percentage of the world’s population, heading for those same hills?
Please don’t refrain on our account. Given that in general your anti-AGW arguments are inaccurate or downright silly, your analogies weak and confused, and your understanding of even the most basic relevant scientific claims seriously flawed, mockery is about the only thing you have to contribute to this discussion. It would be cruel of us to try to take that away from you by being offended by it or complaining about it.
Gee, do you think that removing their accreditation will help their careers? If I lost my MCSE certification I could no longer claim it on my resume and would no longer be eligible for many positions. If Maytag lost the Good Housekeeping seal of approval or the seal from Underwriters Laboratory, I sure as hell wouldn’t trust them.
Meteorologists have to educate themselves on the science of climate change because:
it is intricately linked with their jobs and
the great number of queries they will receive from the general public. I can’t easily contact the IPCC but I can send letters to my local meteorologist and reasonably expect a response.
Her belief that these people should have the seal of approval removed for speaking about their skepticism is akin to extortion. [Tony Soprano voice]”Gee, it would be terrible if you spoke up and something happened to you.[TSv]
As you say, “Bzzzt.” Mr. Taylor was appointed to the position in 1991, when Oregon’s legislature created a state climate office at the college. Mr. Kulongoski wants to change the position to a governor-appointed one. And why does the Governor want the title removed?
Well, if the shoe fits… Kidding! You bet I am bothered by this. Open skepticism is the best way to get answers. By labeling these scientists as “on a par with Holocaust deniers" we make their jobs much more difficult. The scientists who claimed that a retrovirus was responsible for HIV were originally in the minority but AFAIK they weren’t labeled as incompetent nor did they lose positions on august panels as happened to Christopher Landsea or be removed as director of research.
This is not how science is supposed to operate. Due to politicization of this subject, tensions have run high. Should there be calls for “war-crime” trials for the scientists who denied a link between HPV and cervical cancer as some people would like to see for global warming skeptics?
First of all, her belief is not akin to extortion. As far as I know, she is not in a position to have the power to change the AMS policy regarding certification. Hence, what she has made is a suggestion. You might believe that this suggestion is a bad one…However, unless it is made by someone who has the power to enforce this, there is no way it can be extortion.
Furthermore, it certainly seems within the bounds to question what the criteria for receiving AMS certification ought to be. For example, do you believe it is extortion if the American Medical Association doesn’t certify a doctor who does not believe in the germ theory of disease? Her point was not that these people were skeptical but rather that they were woefully uninformed about the field. They simply did not seem, for example, to know what evidence there was for the current warming being caused by man. You can disagree with the prominent paradigm in a field but if you are woefully ignorant regarding the evidence that has led people to that paradigm, yours is not really an informed opinion.
Well, the point is that, in many states, the designation of “state climatologist” has been one that has been bestowed without much thought or care. When it was not a controversial position, then the state didn’t really care. Now, however, when you have people who are using that title in order to bestow on themselves an aura of greater importance to their opinions on this subject, it makes sense to be a little more concerned about “who is speaking out essentially in our name”. If I used my position as a research scientist at my company to start speaking out, with very controversial opinions, and emphasized my position with the company in order to claim credibility on these issues…or even to imply that this might be the company’s position, you can bet that my company might not look very positively on this.
And, by the way, it is not like these people are active researchers in the field of climate change, at least as far as I know.
Ah…Landsea lost his position because he resigned it (see also here). The IPCC in fact asked him to stay on. It was Landsea who was making all sorts of unrealistic demands regarding what the IPCC had to do in order to get him to stay on.
As for Tennekes, I have been unable to find any independent verification for the claim made in that article in the National Post that “because his critiques of climate science ran afoul of the orthodoxy required by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, he was forced to leave.” And, that series of articles you linked to is known to have severe factual errors so I have my doubts about that claim.
Look, the fact is that the “skeptics” who are actual working scientists in the field, like Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, John Christy, Roger Pielke Sr., Henrik Svensmark have continued to be active in the field. I have heard no evidence that their careers are in any way threatened or anything else. (Some of their ideas might be criticized by other scientists but that is par for the course in science.) In fact, Lindzen was invited to be part of the NAS 2001 panel that wrote a report on climate change (in response to questions from the Bush Administration). Spencer and Christy were both part of the recent panel that wrote a report for the U.S. Climate Science Research Program; Roger Pielke Sr. was also a member until he resigned. If anything, the scientific community has bent over backward to include these people despite the fact that they haven’t always behaved with great decorum. (E.g., Lindzen wrote a bizarre op-ed following the publication of the NRC report in which he basically disassociated himself with part of the summary and then claimed that the media had misread and misreported what the report said, then proceeded to explain what he felt it said [which was likely what it would have said if he had written it alone but not what it actually said]. And, in more recent op-eds and an article that appeared in some multi-disciplinary journal, Lindzen has said things that seem to do a pretty good job of undermining his own reputation [which is kind of sad in my view since he is apparently a very good atmospheric scientist]…much more so than anything anyone has said about him could.)
Wrong; he wants to take over only the title “State Climatologist” to apply to a new, additional position, which will be appointed by the governor. Nowhere have I seen any factual evidence that the existing position which Mr. Taylor holds—namely, the leadership of the Oregon Climate Service—is under threat of elimination, or that anyone intends to replace it with the proposed new position. Nor is there any evidence that anybody is trying to kick Mr. Taylor out of the position that he now holds.
In other words, Taylor’s dissent on climate science is not being suppressed, nor is his career being ruined in any way. There’s simply an argument going on about what job title should be attached to his position.
jshore has already addressed your other erroneous and/or inadequately supported claims about climate skeptics being professionally persecuted.
Your problem seems to be that you’re mixing up climate science with political PR about climate science. The call for war crimes trials in your link was aimed at “denial industry” PR merchants who deliberately misrepresent scientific conclusions in order to mislead popular opinion about global warming. Not at scientists who are simply expressing honest doubts or skepticism about AGW theories.
Despite your oft-repeated but ill-supported claims that AGW skeptics are being victimized in the scientific mainstream, you’ve shown no actual evidence that political opinions about AGW are really significantly affecting the way that “science is supposed to operate”. All you’ve shown is that some journalists and bloggers tend to politicize and dramatize scientific issues, but I think we knew that already.
A very cogent quote pertaining well to the “war on terror” and particularly how it led us to deal with a non-existent threat by invading Iraq. However, I don’t see how it applies to an issue like climate change, which most scientists do think is in fact a very real concern.
:rolleyes: Do you have some kind of cite showing a corelation? Not that it should matter…each debate should be separate. Attempting to poison the well by tieing thing together is usually not a good idea if one wants to actually debate a subject.
Given the strong correlation between belief in AGW and U.S. political scales (see, for example, here or just look at the breakdown in the Senate vote on the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act), whether they be classified as conservative / liberal OR Dem / Rep, and similarly for Iraq, I would say it is pretty much a no-brainer that there would be a fairly reasonable correlation. This doesn’t mean the correlation is perfect by any means. John McCain is an example of someone who strongly believes in AGW and also supported the war in Iraq.
As for tying them together: Well, when someone like Happy Wanderer (or Michael Crichton) brings up issues of creating a state of fear, I think it is fair to question whether the person bringing up this point objects to the creation of a state of fear in general or just when the fearfulness pushes society in directions that they happen to object to for other reasons. And, since some people seem to be particularly bad at making decisions about what is worth worrying about (probably because their views are ruled by ideology rather than facts), it doesn’t hurt to look at someone’s track-record.
So tell us, FRDE—as a sheep who’s broken away from the pack, and is among the fortunate few as yet unaddled by lifelong lead poisoning—on what rational basis you have come to conclude that AGW is fraudulent and/or no cause for real concern.
Please, you’ve obviously devoted a lot of time to the matter and have much wisdom to offer; don’t restrict your commentary to brief, ironic snipes. Shine your light on the darkness of our ignorance, I beg you. How did you discover the truth? Please be specific and gentle with us feeble-minded types.
By the way, if you search on google video, you can find links that have the whole show in one piece…if you have the bandwidth. I watched it last night…Not a whole lot to add to the issues already talked about or linked to in that thread. I was amazed the degree to which they focussed on arguments that are now essentially discredited like the claim that the surface temps are warming faster than the lower troposphere as a whole. And, I was amazed the degree to which they attacked strawmen…I.e., they never explained any of the conventional scientific explanations for the facts they brought up that supposedly contradict the AGW theory. Overall, a really shoddy job…although it probably could be convincing to those who aren’t really up enough on the subject to see through it.