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12/08/09 | Report as spam
Finally, we agree! "ClimateGate" IS about politics...
...but certainly no more so than the agenda behind Anthropogenic Global Warming" itself has been.
And you're also right in that ClimateGate brings "no new data". It's merely a confirmation of what so many have known all along; there is no "consensus" for AGW, and that the scientific process as the basis of the agenda has been subverted.
But that's where our agreement ends. Your argument that there is "no conspiracy" is no longer viable. Messrs Jones and Mann, the leading advocates of AGW have been caught behaving like politicians, and not the whiter-than-snow scientists you like to pretend that they are.
"Scientists" do not conspire against their peers with whom they do not agree. Instead of enthusiastically sharing their results and data with peers, they do not "hide" problematic data, or just erase it to avoid FOI requests. If their science was honest, and if they had real confidence in it, they would have freely released it to us all. But as even you must now know, they had no confidence in their data, and their science was far from honest.
Dana, why not a blog on why Messrs Jones and Mann felt the need to behave as they did if their science was solid? That would be far more interesting and unique as compared to the propaganda you are now posting.
Your only answer to ClimateGate" has been to deny that it at all matters and blame any controversy on the popular boogeymen of the unhinged left; big oil, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.
And as if that response isn't weak enough, now that the work product of the planet's leading advocates for AGW have been exposed as corrupt, you suggest that it's up to those who don't subscribe to the theory of AGW to make the chase against it. Basically, you're asking us to disprove a negative.
Not only do you get an "F" in science, you get one in logic as well.
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
Science or Politics?
Isn't science supposed to disprove all other hypothesis before treating something as a true? Politics have overwhelmed the scientific process. Scientist are encouraged to play the part of chicken little for both continued funding and it appears...prestige.
Take a look at this speech from Michael Crichton...
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
JohnMcGrew@..
That's for admitting that ClimateGate is about politics.
You're not arguing the science. Not even trying. You're just engaging
in a political hit because you think it will piss people off.
What is your alternative? To ignore the external costs of carbon
energy and keep going in the same direction we've been going? That
doesn't just mean global warming. IT also means poisoning the planet.
The carcinogens in your air and in your water are products of carbon
energy.
But if that's where you want to stand politically go ahead. It's your
right. But it's a stupid place to stand, and for stupid reasons.
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
Who's the "denier" now?
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-
0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
(?)
;
; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
densall=densall+yearlyadj
What is that you may ask? It's the source code for the function in
that generates Mann's "Hockey Stick" graphic that is the gem of the
IPCC reports and Al Gore's movie. This function guarantees that any
data that is passed through the program will result in exaggerated
temperature figures for the 20th century.
Dana, the basis of the AGW agenda has been exposed for what it is. I
don't know what the motivations behind Jones, Mann and others within
their circle really was, (politics, power, ego, grant money?) but it
clearly was not honest science. And I trust the politicians that are
using this even less.
So you ask what my alternative would be? Transparency. Democracy
cannot function without it. Before we embark on spending trillions
of dollars we don't even have, I think we deserve nothing less. If
the scientists who honestly believe in AGW want to make the case,
they are going to have to start over and behave like scientists this
time. Their data and codecs will have to open to their critics;
"open source" if you will. (I believe you're a fan of open source)
They will have to stand up to honest peer review.
I've never argued that we have no effect on the environment. I do
question the degree, I doubt CO2 is our biggest problem, and I am
certain that the course we are following will be more harmful in the
long run than doing noting will be. But either way, defending AGW
based upon what we know today does not enhance "science", but
diminishes it.
I find it amusing that people who gleefully bash Bush for "bad
intelligence" on Iraq are happy to follow this path even after the
"bad intelligence" has been exposed for what it is.
The "scientists" who've played loose and fast are the ones to blame;
Not those of us who are questioning them.
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
gbryantiv
Uh, no.
Science is not required to be absolute before we base actions on what
a consensus agrees with.
What matters in science is the usefulness of a theory. Does it
explain the data and lead to useful invention?
Part of the problem, I'll admit, is that science is increasingly
engaged in the study of systems, rather than isolated problems.
Human health is a system. The Earth is a system. They are complex,
and the solutions are uncomfortable.
But this site is not called StupidPlanet.
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
RE: The war against oil is finally engaged
Declaring war should be more than a headline grabber, as it is always first a formidable moral choice. This column, however, reads not as a declaration, rather more as an insipid PR piece for that amorphous sector of the political and liberal world which cannot live without popular, "feel-good" causes on which to spend money and garner votes. Meanwhile, we do have serious global issues related to our unrequited population growth & material consumption of the last 100 years.
To strike at the heart of deception, it is the inattentive technique of building media sources, and aggregated mdeia-gained credentials, into "fact".
Think twice: 100 "No-Bells" [my affectionate shorthand] also signed an attack on President Bush for systematic "anti-science". Whatever your politics, it is not clear thinking to confuse the ethics of stem cell research and his elected right to regulate government spending thereto as "anti-science". All science requires an ethical component, from atomic bomb making & dropping, to truth in data, as we have recently seen in climate warming. The Nobels have no corner on ethics, no do they have a particular corner on personally evaluating the reams of data of which climatological prediction is composed. The former director of the Livermore Lab systematically refuted the basis of the Nobel anti-Bush petition as completely uninformed, third-hand nonsense, designed at heart to increase their research funding.
Second strike is the suppression at the Obama EPA of a significant in-house report, of equally significant credentials, concluding the carbon issue had insufficient data, to say the least. This after President Obama repeatedly attacked Bush for his "ideological" science. Check the Wall Street Journal, "The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic". This is an issue which will again go before the Supreme Court, as it determines whether the Executive branch can replace Congress on the terms of any possible Copenhagen treaty and domestic control of industry.
We need to take care of our planet, but not with back-room politics and pandering media. Try again SmartPlanet, but please be smarter.
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
JohnMcGrew@... -- let me repeat
You are making political arguments against one report produced by one
center. You are cherry-picking bits and pieces designed to support
your political point of view.
That's not science. It's not a scientific argument. It's politics.
It's a political argument.
Science isn't one study. It's not one report. It's an enormous number
of people working in an enormous number of directions, at the same
time, and the distillation of all that.
When you use politics against science, you demean the scientific
method and show an enormous ignorance. It's sad.
Yet you insist on the scientific method when its results deliver what
you want.
You can't just have the convenient truths. If you are to practice the
method you have to accept the inconvenient ones as well. Unless, of
course, you want to get in the game, practice science, and deliver an
alternative theory that meets the test of data. Which you admit
you're unwilling to do.
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
RE: The war against oil is finally engaged
Drop that "global warming" religion and find a real one. Til then just let scientists be scientists and news reporters be news reporters, unless they truly are writing for the editorial page, in which case they'de be writing opinions, not reporting.
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
Dana, let me repeat: You're in denial.
As you said, there are "an enormous number of people working in an
enormous number of directions" that dispute AGW. The only place
there is a "consensus" is within the media and political echo chambers.
Tell me this: What do you think about the "scientists" within the EPA
who are being censored by the Obama administration? Are they too
stealth employees of big oil, the WSJ & Fox News?
You are the one facing the real "inconvenient truth".
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12/08/09 | Report as spam
RE: The war against oil is finally engaged
After reading all this incredible thinking, I really need to say, mankind has a problem: he/she is mankind. Capable of fantastic science and deep life philosophical considerations but still caught in the mud eating fish with wide open throat and having sex with her own children - in short terms, not even being the best animal among the other ones. A superior creature? Well then, prove THAT hypothesis! (Oh no, now I created yet another discussion forum!)
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12/09/09 | Report as spam
Sorry to be rude but my objection remains - and fossils ARE history!
Dear readers, I ask you to forgive the very rude and satirical tone in my comment above! Receivers were both the writer of the main text and all the answers on it. However, my underlying objection remains. How to ever agree on anything in this world since most people tend to discuss things from their worm's-eye view instead of being interested in really taking in all facts?
Perhaps a discussion forum does not give space enough for facts since there is such an enormous amount of them. I do not know but reading a discussion like the one here is ONLY frustrating. It does give ZERO, for me at least. When the topic is that the world only consists of mistrust and conspiracies, we have got stuck. Seriously stuck. If we believe that even thousands of researchers can take part in a conscious conspiracy, then there is nothing more to be said between people in our civilisation. Only fist fighting remains! Please, go to the boxing arena then and leave this forum. I beg you!
Regarding oil and coal, these fuels will die their own dead. But it seems to take too long time to avoid bad effects that we do not want to suffer from. The human need of resources is far too big to rely on fossil sources any longer. Why fight the new solutions when we really will need them - a mixture of many new solutions. This is independant of any climate debate. Let them conquer the world, and stop throwing sh_t on each other!
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12/09/09 | Report as spam
Sorry to be rude but my objection remains - and fossil fuels ARE history!
Dear readers, I ask you to forgive the very rude and satirical tone in my comment above! Receivers were both the writer of the main text and all the answers on it. However, my underlying objection remains. How to ever agree on anything in this world since most people tend to discuss things from their worm's-eye view instead of being interested in really taking in all facts?
Perhaps a discussion forum does not give space enough for facts since there is such an enormous amount of them. I do not know but reading a discussion like the one here is ONLY frustrating. It does give ZERO, for me at least. When the topic is that the world only consists of mistrust and conspiracies, we have got stuck. Seriously stuck. If we believe that even thousands of researchers can take part in a conscious conspiracy, then there is nothing more to be said between people in our civilisation. Only fist fighting remains! Please, go to the boxing arena then and leave this forum. I beg you!
Regarding oil and coal, these fuels will die their own dead. But it seems to take too long time to avoid bad effects that we do not want to suffer from. The human need of resources is far too big to rely on fossil sources any longer. Why fight the new solutions when we really will need them - a mixture of many new solutions. This is independant of any climate debate. Let them conquer the world, and stop throwing sh_t on each other!
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12/09/09 | Report as spam
Truly Ironic.
In our previous exchange regarding "denialism" (http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/denialism-is-a-game-for-the-whole-political-family/2041/#comments), I posted the following, literally days before the release of the "ClimateGate" documents:
The Scientific Method, RIP
Science, as we once respected it, died when "peer review" and the "scientific method" was discarded in the name of political expediency.
The hardly veiled shot at those who dispute the idea of anthropogenic global warming is a perfect example; Since it's not possible to honestly use the scientific method to test their theories, proponents must resort to computer modeling to
"simulate" their hypothesis. Such models require large degrees of speculation and synthesis to function, using statistical methods that even the social sciences scoffed at when I was in school.
Since many of these models that are used to justify political action are considered de-facto proprietary by their creators, they miss out
on the other half of honest science, "peer review".
It's so much easier to label all those who question the "assumptions of scientific truth" as religious zealots looking for safe harbor in
a "comfortable lie". And I'm certain that there's plenty of people who do exactly just that. But for the rest of us, I suggest otherwise; that we demand honesty and transparency over political
expediency when it comes to "science". We're seeing less and less of that these days.
Who knew that such confirmation of that would appear only days later?
So now those who as a matter of routine throw about the pejorative of "denier" are now the ones in complete denial. Ironic.
Dana, it's SO ironic that you accuse me of "cherry-picking bits and pieces designed to support your political point of view.", when it fact, you are the one guilty of doing so. Except what you and Al "the science is settled" Gore do instead of picking and choosing data, is picking and choosing the "scientists" who've done the picking and choosing of data for you. How convenient.
There is no "consensus" on AGW. Never was. As you yourself said, "Science isn't one study. It's not one report. It's an enormous number of people working in an enormous number of directions, at the same time, and the distillation of all that." The only problem is, that today in Copenhagen, they are only taking bits and pieces of reports that as a whole orient in a single direction. It's not science. It's politics.
You are the one using politics against science, not I. The ignorant "consensus" argument is proof enough of that. Unlike yourself, I insist on the scientific method, period. Unlike you, I don't just want have the convenient truths. As you allude, the only science being practiced here is "political science" of the Saul Alinsky kind, and it's not being played by me.
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12/11/09 | Report as spam
Global Warming Denialism is a lie
We know that to be true because they have launched a political attack against science.
You can't do that. When you subject science to political tests, all you do is discourage your scientists and encourage those who compete with them.
We saw this in stem cell research -- the work simply moved to other countries. And we could see it here -- the market for solar and wind energy is now dominated by China and Germany.
We need to compete if we're to grow our economy. That means accepting science, and not denying it through the mechanism of politics.
Everything in our modern world is a product of the scientific method. Those who would argue it must be overthrown for their political convenience are arguing against progress. And against our economic future.
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12/15/09 | Report as spam
Again, the only thing worse that your comprehension of science...
...is your use of logic.
"When you subject science to political tests, all you do is discourage your scientists and encourage those who compete with them."
And yet, what you've been calling "science" has always been subject to political tests. Since the government almost exclusively funds "science" that is designed to validate AGW, what is what we get; science biased towards validating AGW.
Case in point: In the wake of the EACRU scandal, the British Meteorological Office is "encouraging" their scientists sign a statement defending the "professional integrity" of global warming research.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6951029.ece
"One scientist said that he felt under pressure to sign the circular or risk losing work. The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change."
I'm sure that Joseph McCarthy is giggling right now.
Again, this is what you are defending. Who's really in denial?
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12/17/09 | Report as spam
RE: The war against oil is finally engaged
If there weren't political consequences then this could be just a scientific argument. However once "science" becomes political, it does so for both sides. You can't say its improper for skeptics/deniers when it's not for supporters/believers.
On the tech side, we all know about bleeding edge technology. While it?s fun for early adopters, it is seldom something that would benefit the mainstream consumer. Solar and wind is only mainstream in Europe because their governments have forced it on their citizens. However their economies have been bleeding the past 8 years while ours has continued to grow.
If a majority of people support the climate change argument then let everyone make their own decisions. They can invest in solar/wind energy companies and purchase from them. They can drive electric cars and other green technologies. As the demand for hydrocarbon fuels drop, the oil companies will become less profitable. Without India and China also limiting their hydrocarbon use then the effect of our country doing so will be similar to a voluntary individual policy.
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12/18/09 | Report as spam
I'd agree with the above...
...if the issue was ever about "choice". It's not. It's about
totalitarianism and wealth redistribution. The last thing that most of
these "deniers" wish is for people to be making their own decisions.
That's "freedom", and to them, that is the problem.
ClimateGate is politics. It is not science.
