clavos has also said that the science means nothing to him, as it's a political issue and nothing else.
77 -
Jordan Richardson
Feb 04, 2012 at 11:34 pm
No conspiracy has been assumed, let alone proven it's been assumed. No fraud has been implied either.
So in your opinion, what is Cannonshop implying when he says puts climatologists in quotation marks? Or when he says that scientists are doing this for "Prestige?" Or when he says "it's easy to sell Apocalypse predictions?" Or when he talks about "the fix" as "selling indulgences?"
If "no conspiracy has been assumed," what other explanation is there?
Cannon has the mind of an engineer, and engineers don't disdain science.
Anyone can disdain science, so I have no idea where you go this from. A high school biology teacher with a penchant for sneaking in creationism can disdain science, for instance. Cannonshop may not disdain ALL science, I'll grant, but he sure is being curiously selective in this instance.
78 -
Cannonshop
Feb 05, 2012 at 1:48 am
#77 Jordan, I'll tell you what I'm implying with the quotes, so you don't have to speculate.
Guys like the East Anglia people whose E-mail got hacked and published, Prof. Mann whose "Hockeystick" graph served as the starting point for my skeptical reactions, and the legions of supporters whose argument is based on polling data and what they've been told to believe because it fits the agenda of their political leadership.
In pure science, secrecy is a problem, so is faith-you can't have either one and produce good results. Prominent researchers who refuse to release their data and methodology openly for fear of it being challenged, Supporters and Believers who grasp uncritically to whatever they're told, belong in sneering quotation marks. People who reject experimental data because it doesn't fit the hypothesis (see: the oceanic probe experiment a few years ago) and make excuses belong it that group. Anyone that refuses to re-examine or even to first-examine the data and methodology-not because it's unavailable, but because they've been told and they merely believe.
I didn't say the climate wasn't changing-that's Warren's game, not mine. I said I don't fully and faithfully accept without question that it is Anthropogencially generated, Nor do I buy into the idea that, barring killing a LOT of people, an AGW scenario can be stopped if it is, indeed, occurring.
Population density is rising-we're at over six billion when we were at a mere four billion only a few years ago. It's rising fastest in the Third World, where strip-mining, slash-and-burn agriculture, and high-pollution industry and power generation are the Paradigm, not the exception.
IOW countries that HVE NO ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS are both growing in population, and pollution output-this is VERY different from the sulfur-dioxide situation of the seventies and eighties when it was mainly a first-world situation and governmental,and public, influence could be brought to bear with some hope of it actually working.
Which is one of the reasons several early-adopters in Europe have outright ABANDONED cap-and-trade schemes, and others are discussing doing so.
Further, the problem is, in my opinion, NOT PROPERLY DEFINED. As a species, we have very little experience in measurement of atmospheric and environmental conditions on a global scale, and as sophisticated as our instrumentalities are, I doubt we know nearly as much as we'd collectively like to think we know about how the whole mechanism works, much less where our place IN that mechanism really is.
bEfore you start making policy, you need to know WHAT you're doing, WHY you're doing it, and HOW it works. IPCC can't answer that yet, but as an NGO affiliated with the United Nations, they're certainly game to help the UN soak the rich countries to provide benefit to the leaders of the poor ones, while doing nothing about the lack of environmental controls, human rights, or worker's rights, in those countries. I find this suspect, both from a method, and motive, perspective.
Further, I question the polling data about "98% of all scientists" and "100% of all Climatologists" Glenn Contrarian always trots out in these conversations-Anyone who's taken a basic high-school class on propoganda or advertising knows you can slant results by selecting your polling sample, or by writing your questions to generate specific responses-it's a common advertiser's tactic, and it's deceptive. WHO was polled, who did the polling, what were the questions? How were the signatures obtained, how many responses were by assistants/grad-students/other staff?
We don't know the answers to these. which makes the Bandwagon appeal less appealing, and still leaves the doubt in place.
Finally, there's the "Learning to deal with Millenialists" experience. When someone starts ranting the coming Apocalypse, I grab my wallet with one hand and look for a safe exit with one eye. It's a habit I learned dealing with religious fundamentalist nutters in the Bible Belt, and when it's someone NOT overtly religious, I'm JUST as skeptical, exp. when their answer is to move money around under their direction. MORESO when it's a former Politician, and given the Nobel Committee's recent (last thirty years) behaviours, that Nobel Prize is an incentive to be even MORE suspicious.
Especially if said Nobel winner isn't living the dream he has for me and mine.
79 -
Igor
Feb 05, 2012 at 8:59 am
Despite Warrens and Cannons repeated demands that AGW people absolutely and convincingly prove their case, it seems to me that it is up to potential polluters to prove THEIR case.
Doesn't the "Precautionary Rule" apply here? Before we proceed with hydraulic fractionating, fracking, shouldn't we be sure that it does no harm? Isn't it the responsibility of the proponents to prove their project harmless?
80 -
Glenn Contrarian
Feb 05, 2012 at 9:52 am
Cannonshop -
Further, I question the polling data about "98% of all scientists" and "100% of all Climatologists" Glenn Contrarian always trots out in these conversations
I suggest you refrain from ADDING 2% to what I've repeatedly said, that it's 98% of all climatologists and 96% of all scientists.
And you STILL haven't addressed my questions. YOU claimed:
"Climatologists" have yet to build a model that is accurate going both directions without adjusting the inputs DURING the experiment-i.e. they have yet to build an accurate model without cooking their data
Reference, please. And make it a good one.
And while you're at it, could you please point out to me any organization that knows more about planets and atmospheric chemistry than NASA? Oh, silly me, I forgot! They're all in on this vast left-wing conspiracy, too!
And you still didn't answer as to the wisdom of betting the planet that you're right and that 98% of the world's climatologists and 96% of the world's scientists are wrong.
========
AND you didn't address Jordan's observation that:
For starters, [Cannonshop] condescendingly puts climatologists in quotation marks. He assumes there's a conspiracy to fudge or at least inflate the data because it's "fashionable." And he assumes, without evidence, that AGW is a case of scientific fraud that has somehow suckered in the scientific community the world over.
How is that not disdain for science?
81 -
Cannonshop
Feb 05, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Okay, Glenn...Here's a little something about your "betting" comment:
You're betting you can do something about a phenomena you don't even UNDERSTAND. Action-plans implemented off bad, incomplete, or misunderstood data aren't generally successful-they usually end up doing more damage than good.
Flatly, if you don't know, you need to find out, and that task is not assisted by disingenuousness, faith, blind obedience, or panicked "Do Something" mentalities.
If you're RIGHT, then you need to know WHY you're right before you know WHAT to do...and if you're wrong, it's better not to act until you uncover what IS going on, and what options you actually HAVE.
Wasting resources and time just "doing something" might look REAL good, but it's not the same thing as using time and resources to do THE RIGHT THING (or, at very base minimum, the thing that WILL work.)
That all assumes you're on the right side this time. If the AGW hypothesis is WRONG, then those resources you're keen to redirect "Doing Something" won't be available to handle ACTUAL problems-such as how to adapt to a climate change you can't influence before the environment kills you.
82 -
Glenn Contrarian
Feb 05, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Cannonshop -
Your first error is that you're assuming that I don't understand the phenomenon. I do understand it. I may not know all the scientific minutiae, but I do understand the overall phenomenon...just like one doesn't have to understand every single tree to comprehend the forest as a whole.
=========
Your second error is that AGW is a hypothesis. In the eyes of the vast majority of scientists - and almost all the climatologists - ALL of whom have significantly more education than you or I when it comes to science, AGW is not at all a hypothesis, but a fact.
========
Your third error is your continuing assumption that because there is not a 100% consensus among climatologists about AGW (since it's 'only' 98%), that there's still doubt. Cannonshop, any scientist of note will tell you that in any scientific profession - or any other profession, for that matter - there's ALWAYS a few crackpots. ALWAYS. Just because there's a few who disagree with the 98% does NOT mean that there's actual reason for doubt. It simply menas that YOU are giving equal weight to the remaining 2% (which is largely comprised of crackpots and those who are falling seriously afoul of conflict-of-interest violations).
After all, do you REALLY think it's merely a coincidence that most of those climatologists who disagree with AGW work for or are funded wholly or in part by Big Oil? Do you really think that's just a coincidence?
========
Your fourth error is in assuming that the 98% of climatologists who know that AGW is real, somehow WANT it to be real. Here's a clue, Cannonshop - they DON'T. They - like most sensible people (and just like YOU) - really, truly WANT AGW to be wrong. They would much rather be wrong about the whole global warming schmiel. But that's not what their observations and studies show. I would much rather they be wrong, too!
And that brings us back to the wager, Cannonshop. Climatologists WANT to be wrong on this, because they know where this leads - famine, greatly-increased weather-related disasters, water wars, and so forth. They WANT you to be right...but that's simply not where their observations lead.
You, on the other hand, want to be RIGHT, just like all other AGW-deniers. You are willing to bet the planet that 98% of climatologists are wrong, just so you can score a few political points and maybe save some oh-so-precious taxpayer dollars.
They want to save lives all over the planet, even if it costs a few oh-so-precious taxpayer dollars. You want to save oh-so-precious taxpayer dollars, and you're willing to ignore the warnings of 98% of the world's climatologists in order to do so. That's what it all boils down to.
83 -
Cannonshop
Feb 05, 2012 at 1:29 pm
The issue, Glenn, is that you want to re-tool your civilization based on a phenomena you yourself don't fully understand, using tools you don't understand, methods you don't understand, based on what amounts to blind faith and advertising using SOME science.
Shut down the emotions, and address the situation like an engineer. How much do you REALLY know about the climate, how it works, how the pieces fit together, and what the dominant conditions are when there were NO people about.
Best hypothesis on that last bit, incidentally, was that the earth was a pretty cold place for most of the history of life on it, cycling from frozen ice-age to warmer-than-today interglacials.
Hell, in the AD1000 era (okay, 1000 C.E.) Greenland was Wheat country-it's why the Vikings settled there. a little bit later, still in human history, we had both the "little ice age" and the "Year without a summer".
going back to about where we start seeing Cro Magnon man, most of Canada and a good bit of the U.S. were buried under ice-sheets.
There are significant arguments going on about whether or not those ice-age conditions appeared gradually, or suddenly (in geological terms, a difference between centuries and mere decades).
Without knowing for certain what the real climate cycle actually IS, we can't ascertain what's changing it, without that, we don't know if we CAN do anything to influence it enough to matter.
we COULD end up, after taking your actions, with the same outcomes your AGW folks are pushing-but with additional burdens imposed on us in emergency fashion based on half-baked policies that are, in the end, more destructive than adopting NO policies...or we could end up looking at an advancing wall of ice coming from Canada, and no resources to keep the remains of our civilization operating.
best guesses so far are that temperature 'Peaks" right before the onset of ice-age conditions-that's common between both gradualist and catastrophic onset backers.
ALL of which just means we don't know enough about the phenomena, to base policy and adopt measures to deal with it-and there's enough evidence that adopting the wrong measures CAN be worse than doing nothing-and on a system as complex and poorly understood as "This little planet", the odds are better than even that doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing.
84 -
Glenn Contrarian
Feb 05, 2012 at 1:55 pm
Cannonshop -
And there's another one of your errors - "Without knowing for certain what the real climate cycle actually IS, we can't ascertain what's changing it, without that, we don't know if we CAN do anything to influence it enough to matter."
"We just don't know what's causing it!" That's the new excuse among conservatives, now that GW is so obvious. As if with all the scientific observation on a global basis we have on hand is of no use at all.
And THEN you say that 'half-baked policies' (like what, cutting pollution is a 'half-baked policy'?) is worse than NO policy at all????
Have you ZERO clue about where AGW leads? Have you not done any REAL research showing the degree of sea-level rise, the increase of moisture in the atmosphere, the changes in climate worldwide?
Ah, but I forget - it's better to let the climate go straight to hell than it is to do anything about it, just like it would have been better to let GM crash and burn and all its employees be fired than it was to give them a freaking loan so they could get back on their feet and retake their place as the world's largest automaker.
"Throw the baby out with the bathwater" - that's the Republican way!
85 -
Igor
Feb 05, 2012 at 2:00 pm
83-Cannon displays some wisdom:
...we don't know enough about the phenomena, to base policy and adopt measures to deal with it-and there's enough evidence that adopting the wrong measures CAN be worse than doing nothing-and on a system as complex and poorly understood as "This little planet", the odds are better than even that doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing.
Exactly my point.
Before we bet the entire planet environment (a big valuable irreplaceable resource) on propping up oil use for A Few Dollars More in the pockets of oil magnates, we must use the Precautionary Principle and FIRST determine safety, cost and ROI. And we can't used politicians and whored-out consultants for advice.
Even the most intemperate gambler doesn't bet the farm for just a couple bucks in the pot.
86 -
Clavos
Feb 05, 2012 at 3:25 pm
In the eyes of the vast majority of scientists - and almost all the climatologists - ALL of whom have significantly more education than you or I when it comes to science, AGW is not at all a hypothesis, but a fact.
True it is not a hypothesis, it is a theory, like Einstein's "theory" of relativity, or the "theory" of evolution; it is not, however a "fact," and I doubt even the most ardent scientist supporting the "theory" would argue it's a "fact."
Clav, that's mere anti-semantic drivel. Words must have whatever meaning the user desires. I think it's called freedom of choice. Or something. I'm at a loss for words, doubtless a good thing because otherwise I'd spout some stuff from Humpty Dumpty.
It refers to the distinction between fact and theory in evolution, but, especially since the tactics used to attack AGW theory are often identical to those used by creationists, it is apt.
Humpty Dumpty is precisely what's going on in here. You're showing your legal education.
@88
Dreadful, convincing as the article you linked to may be, it's still blurring a crucial conceptual distinction. And the distinction can't be bridged by approaching the level of certainly as though a limit. Facts and theories do not form a spectrum.
90 -
Jordan Richardson
Feb 05, 2012 at 6:44 pm
So Cannonshop, the basic thrust of your argument is that we don't know enough to know that pumping noxious chemicals into our environment is probably not the best thing to do. Is that "thinking like an engineer?"
And how exactly is cutting down on pollution and being more responsible with our resources a "wrong measure?"
91 -
Jordan Richardson
Feb 05, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Cannonshop,
You're betting you can do something about a phenomena you don't even UNDERSTAND.
Speaking for myself, I'm betting it's better to try to do something (by doing less of the destructive things we know are doing harm) than it is to sit around and do nothing.
This isn't about "re-tooling" a civilization (although we may be in need of a little tinkering); it's about living smartly and frugally without needing to cave to the modern standards of excess, greed and destruction we've decided are "normal." It's about not dumping chemicals in our water, not cranking toxic smoke into our air, not poisoning our soil, not settling for shit that is so genetically altered that it doesn't even resemble food anymore (see Monsanto's menu of genetically engineered organisms, for instance).
If I look at the simple risk vs. reward equation, it seems stupid to refuse to act when so much is potentially at stake. The downside of doing the "wrong thing" is much less significant/frightening than the upside of doing the "right thing."
The power elites have always wanted us to sit on our asses and do nothing because we don't "UNDERSTAND" anything. They've always wanted our hands off the wheel, so they tell us that we can't really change anything, we can't reverse the "natural" tide of civilization and we damn sure can't change the world. We're just here to be good slaves and good consumers, floating by without noticing the destruction, greed and deceit.
You may be fine with that, Cannonshop, but I'm not.
92 -
Igor
Feb 05, 2012 at 7:10 pm
#87-Dan: Wittgenstein disagrees. He says that a word means exactly what context suggests that it means. For example, the word 'bad' means something failed or inadequate to many people, but to a jiving inner city kid it means 'good', or even 'cool', which, in this context means something desirable and attractive, not frozen or inert.
Thus the problem of the biblical literalists: we don't have enough context to know what the original words in Aramic (or even Greek) meant.
Words must have whatever meaning the user desires.
93 -
Clavos
Feb 05, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Aramaic
94 -
Igor
Feb 05, 2012 at 7:38 pm
#86-clavos demonstrates, conveniently enough, a common problem with the laymans understanding of science and the world.
'Theories' and 'facts' are not commensurate: they cannot be measured on the same scale. A 'theory' does not graduate to a 'fact' in some fashion. They exist orthogonally, in different dimensions, as it were.
If one tries to do that one is driven to the conclusion that theory is more powerful than mere 'fact'. Theory explains known results and predicts the future outcome of experiments. Facts are just datapoints that suggest a theory to an adept observer, and then confirm or deny a theory.
95 -
Clavos
Feb 05, 2012 at 7:46 pm
I know (and think I demonstrated that), Igor.
But then, as everyone knows, no one on the right has a brain, so I probably didn't.
While meaning is use, it doesn't mean either that anything goes. The Humpty Dumpty charge still applies.
97 -
Glenn Contrarian
Feb 05, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Igor -
Well said on #94.
98 -
Cannonshop
Feb 05, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Glenn, your "Theory" has too many holes-it's accepted mainly because not accepting it means no funding.
Also, the methods used to DEFEND Anthropogenic Global Warming are identical in tactics to those used to PROMOTE Creationism-the only real difference, is how much official sanction exists between the two.
99 -
Cannonshop
Feb 05, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Which may have something to do with the way Creationism doesn't empower the State, but AGW most certainly DOES.
100 -
Cannonshop
Feb 05, 2012 at 11:43 pm
Let me explain the difference for you-
Evolution and Plate Tectonics have both withstood serious academic challenge-repeatedly, this makes them "THEORIES", because at each point where they have faced serious academic challenge, openly, without hiding methodology or faking data, they've passed and the challenges have failed.
AGW has not faced serious academic challenge-far from it, it's gotten the softball right from the start in the eighties when it became clear we weren't going into another ice-age any time soon.
Further, as learned in the leaked E-mail situation, the people whose work formed the core of your "Theory" were quite concerned that their methods would be revealed to the public-secrecy is, put bluntly, counter to good science, esp. when your science is capable of driving policies.
The killer is that they could not get the climate models they were (and are) presenting to the international community to work, without altering the data they were using. This makes the methods highly suspect, and with those methods, the conclusions become highly suspect.
Widespread acceptance of shady methodology almost DEMAND an external, non-scientific, influence to drive it. This does not have to be some kind of 'conspiracy' (as Warren alleges in his article), Laziness and ideology or a desire to 'change the world for the better', or just good old fashioned personal belief that the ends justify the means is enough-the Ends being reducing pollution (a laudable goal) the means being apocalyptic scare tactics (a method borrowed from the Religious Right.)
101 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 12:12 am
Why're we still using fossil fuels?
They're definitely a finite resource, after all, and even if AGW is horseshit, they're still going to run out.
We're using them, because we don't have an alternative that carries the same combination of energy density, ease of energy release for work, ease of storage and processing, and expense of extraction and deployment.
The technological problem, which, frankly, is what AGW is, will not be solved by low-efficiency ('cause they are) wind turbines. Forget the politics, the machinery's complex, you need a lot of it, and that's going to burn all kinds of fossil fuels to make it, maintain it, and establish it.
Fossil fuels provide us dirty peasants out here with the means to do something our serf ancestors couldn't dream of-we can travel where we will, when we will, live away from urban hubs, and grow lots of food with very little hand labour across tracts of land that our ancestors couldn't dream of-resulting in better nutrition and fewer famines than at any time in history.
THIS is what your solutions have to replace-prior to the adoption of the Internal Combustion Engine and its application to agriculture, famine wasn't something isolated to the third world.
THIS is the technology you have to either do without, or replace, to get your 'green' utopia. More than likely, you're expecting to be among the 'elect' whom won't have to give anything up in a regime capable of enforcing AGW policies-after all, you're supporters, right? No revolution's EVER ganked its supporters after taking power, just ask the Russians, or the French about it...
102 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 1:32 am
Here's what amazes me:
How can people who were intelligent enough to recognize SOPA and PIPA as what they are, who're smart enough to recognize the danger of NDAA and the Patriot Act, be so easily convinced to believe, without any questioning or skepticism, or even thought, in an apocalypse scenario based on studies that predict a temperature variation less than those studies' OWN error ratio-and push a regime of change that REQUIRES a level of control so far beyond SOPA, PIPA and the Patriot Act, without bothering to question it.
103 -
Zingzing
Feb 06, 2012 at 7:55 am
what control, cannonshop? stopping you from pumping so many noxious chemicals into the air? I'm sure you whip out the constitution every time your girlfriend tells you to stop farting so much. you're getting a bit ridiuclous. I've never seen someone so busy bitching about their liberty they forgot to just be free.
IMO Cannon wastes his liberty belting out the fantasies and dreams and nightmares he has about things like science. IMO he's loud but not informative. Much sound and fury, signifying nothing.
106 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 10:58 am
#103 Zing, what's your limit on what you'd support to save the world? Frightened people will do the damnedest things if they believe, without question.
#105 Igor, I don't have a problem with science, I have a problem with PSEUDO Science, I have a problem (as in, I take issue) with masking up political activism as research. YOU never bothered to ASK before you bought in, because the results fit YOUR preconcieved notions-I didn't approach the Climate Change debates with pre-concieved ideas of what "Should Be" in terms of the results.
I looked at the claims, I examined counter-claims, I grabbed every piece of open-to-the-public research I could find, I read through the slogging mess of those E-mails that were leaked, and came to the conclusion that the research isn't complete, it's not a "Theory" just because it's been sold and packaged, it's a HYPOTHESIS with political backing.
AGW is "Science" the way "Intelligent Design Creationism" is "Science". All trappings, no substance.
107 -
Zingzing
Feb 06, 2012 at 11:05 am
cannonshop, how long would you stand in a room while I pumped a shitload of chemicals inside? the whole time I'll yell "don't worry, it's totally natural! You'll be fine!" I'll be lying, of course, but whatever makes you feel better.
108 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 11:20 am
#107 Zing, you seem to be under the false impression that being skeptical of your pet apocalyptic scenario means being in favour of pollution.
which is idiotic.
109 -
Zingzing
Feb 06, 2012 at 11:23 am
never said that, now did I?
110 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 11:35 am
#109 You've implied it several times in this very thread, Zing-the comment I was responding to practically screamed (with spittle and bile) it. I'd suspect that deep down inside, that's exactly what you believe, even if you're not comfortable with admitting it.
Cannon, it's not compulsory for a scientific hypothesis to overcome vigorous academic opposition in order for it to be true.
Just because the heliocentric theory, evolution and plate tectonics were originally scorned doesn't automatically validate them.
There are plenty of groundbreaking scientific theories that were, by and large, non-controversial: atomic theory, cell theory and gravity, to name a few. Should we stop believing in them?
Besides which, your charge against AGW theory only works if somebody suddenly invented it out of whole cloth in the 1980s and other scientists (who were of course all long-haired, bearded, Subaru-driving, tofu-munching peaceniks) promptly jumped on the bandwagon.
In actual fact, the idea that human activities could have a warming effect on the atmosphere was first proposed over 100 years ago by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius. His ideas weren't accepted for many decades, because the prevailing scientific view was that the atmosphere was too large and complex a system for human actions to have any measurable effect on it. It wasn't until the 1950s that the idea of a human-induced greenhouse effect started to gain traction.
Notice that emphasis? Science has been taking this seriously since the conservative, baby-boom, McCarthy-era fifties, not the MAD-threatened, eco-conscious eighties.
And for all your accusations of pseudoscience, Cannon, you've offered nothing whatsoever to support your charges except a shipload of innuendo and bad analogy.
112 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 12:03 pm
#111 Doc, I'm not the one with something TO prove, my whole schtick is that yer not asking questions, just accepting recieved wisdom from "above", and that acceptance is fundamentally counter-scientific.
I'm also looking at the situation like a mechanic- first, determine IF something is wrong, second, determine WHAT is wrong, Third is determine what's causing what's wrong, then start looking into options to fix what is wrong. I don't think that we've adequately determined THAT something is wrong, much less what, or what's causing it, without those, any proposed fixes are just "part swapping".
I'm not the guy who cooked his data to sell a hypothesis, I'm not the researcher who's worried his methodology would get out and be challenged, and I'm not the guy who'd have to give his Nobel back if it turns out his movie "Earth in the Balance" is a load of crap propoganda...and I'm not the guy trying to sell a load of legislative makework to promote a system that, like Communism, only works in theory, and fails in practice.
I'm just the guy saying "Don't buy it if you don't know what's in it."
I don't have any investment in being right-or being percieved as right, I am not selling you something or demanding you change your ways, and I'm not the guy proclaiming the end of the world is coming through the sins of man, and everyone needs to repent and buy indulgences.
113 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Doc, we've been roundabouts on this before, and on related issues-you know damn well I'm a proponent of alternative energy and favour 'clean' solutions-for reasons that MAKE SENSE.
I have a big issue in compelling people to do things on shaky or false pretense. It's dishonest and it's destructive in the long run, I'd as soon NOT see baked science get traction, then be unmasked and in the process see science take a beating because people were bamboozled. Trust lost is almost NEVER regained.
114 -
Zingzing
Feb 06, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Cannonshop, I said nothing of the sort, so don't be trying to put words in my mouth. That said, in effect, you might as well love pollution... but I don't see how anyone really could. It's ugly stuff, and I don't think you dumb enough not to realize that. So why don't you deal with things people actually say rather than things you imagine they're thinking in their evil, evil soul. Reality is a much less frightening place. Thanks.
115 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 12:35 pm
#114 Words and Grammar carry meaning, Zing. If you don't care for the meaning I drew off your statement in #107, it's either because you didn't communicate clearly (which has never been a problem of yours in the past), or you only "didn't mean it" in retrospect.
I'm willing to accept the former option, but I'm also willing to accept the latter-the whole argument is emotionally charged and it's easy to lose control and say things that, after thinking about it, you didn't mean, or to imply things you didn't mean to imply.
But your comment #107 fits your other comments on this thread-so don't pretend you weren't implying it there.
Cannon, you make a big assumption that I'm not asking questions, and (my main point) a spectacularly massive one that questions HAVEN'T been asked.
I've no interest in repenting, or "selling indulgences": in fact, charges like that are seriously in the running for the biggest piles of bullcrap I've seen shoveled around during this whole furore.
IMO you're suffering from deep confirmation bias: for example, your conviction that the "Climategate" emails betray a conspiracy on the part of climatologists to hide data, rather than an unwillingness to share it with a bunch of pests who are just going to use it to defame them.
I'm looking for weaknesses in the theory just like you. Unfortunately, while there are things that need to be clarified, I'm just not seeing anything that shows me it's wrong. As Glenn keeps pointing out (but you never acknowledge), those of us who believe it's happening are HOPING climatologists ARE barking up the wrong tree.
If I, in my Dr Dreadful character, have tied the heroine to a railway track, she can hope that the loose rivet on the 3:30 express will cause the whole train to disintegrate before it runs her over, but realistically it will probably just result in a window falling out.
The "anti" crowd just aren't convincing with their science. They don't understand that one isolated error, misapplication of data or poorly-understood phenomenon doesn't invalidate the whole theory.
Likewise from you: all I see are accusations of misconduct. I don't see any science.
I have an experiment for you. Take one of your lengthier comments, substitute the climate change references with buzz phrases from, say, the "vaccines cause autism" crowd, and see how it reads.
(Now there's a real crackpot theory, and one that's supported by many on the left, moreover.)
117 -
Zingzing
Feb 06, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Cannonshop, ok... I firmly believe that you wrap yourself up in a blanket of smog every night, put your head under and Dutch oven yourself to noxious vapor heaven. I think you are deeply in love with pollution, because you see the bright side of pollution, whatever that may be. (this is called sarcasm, in case you really believe that...)
You go on believing whatever you want, but it's better to know your enemy. My #107 had nothing to do with you loving pollution or whatever. you wouldn't stand in a room as I pumped untold amounts of chemicals into it, would you? I certainly hope not
118 -
Cannonshop
Feb 06, 2012 at 1:01 pm
#116: Unwillingness to face criticism is unwillingness to face criticism doc. Closing the doors (even to pests that want to defame you) is more or less DEMONSTRATING shaky work-if it's good science, then the pests are the ones shown to be teh fool, not hte researcher. If the researcher is afraid of being shown as a fool, then maybe their research has fundamental issues and isn't ready for the prime time, much less to be used as a tool of policy.
If Evolutionary or Geological researchers had had the same mindset, Doc, we'd be living on a 4,000 year old world created by some kind of god, not a four billion year old world that evolved from spacial debris and star dust.
Let me put it another way: a person with MY thinking, but without my ethics, would be pushing HARD for acceptance of AGW theory-because the remedies fit with much of what I'd like to see done for OTHER reasons-the development of clean, non-fossil-fuel energy, some remediation of problems in the Third World, and reduction in pollution here at home.
But...I have this sticky ethics thing going-I value Science as an approach to problem solving, I value scientific ethics including the intellectual courage to face criticism, and I value Skeptical, as opposed to Faith Based, approaches to facing and solving problems.
but it's not just hte East Anglia memos. Professor Mann, of the Mann Hockeystick Graph paraded about at Kyoto as 'proof' of the danger, stopped publishing his formulae after a couple canadian math-scholars (amatuers, at that) proved you could get the "Hockeystick" using random numbers in place of the recorded temperature and climate data. THEIRS was repeatable. Secrecy in Science, an unwillingness to just let the pests do their thing because they'll inevitably prove themselves wrong, is counter to scientific ethics AND the scientific method-makes it not science, see? all the trappings-all the degrees, the big budgets, the labs, that's just stuff. If you can't put your experiment in the hands of the public for fear that some amatuer will make you look like an idiot, then you're not doing science.
Unwillingness to face criticism is unwillingness to face criticism doc. Closing the doors (even to pests that want to defame you) is more or less DEMONSTRATING shaky work-if it's good science, then the pests are the ones shown to be teh fool, not hte researcher.
Hate to break it to you, Cannon, but climatologists are human. There are also only 24 hours in the day. This was in many cases data that had been requested by and given to the same "skeptics" many times before. It was pretty clear that what was going on was not an honest request for information, but a calculated campaign of harassment, so persistent that if all of the requests had been responded to, there would have been little time left to do any actual science - which, I suspect, was the entire object.
Again, there have been about a dozen separate inquiries into the matter, all of which have exonerated those concerned of anything much worse than poor customer service.
but it's not just hte East Anglia memos. Professor Mann, of the Mann Hockeystick Graph paraded about at Kyoto as 'proof' of the danger, stopped publishing his formulae after a couple canadian math-scholars (amatuers, at that) proved you could get the "Hockeystick" using random numbers in place of the recorded temperature and climate data.
I addressed McIntyre and McKittrick's work in comment 36 of this thread, with a citation. Your failure to respond, and your repeating of the same claim in 118 (did you hope everyone had forgotten?) is, I'm afraid, quite typical of the "skeptic" lobby.
120 -
Glenn Contrarian
Feb 06, 2012 at 7:19 pm
Cannonshop #112 -
You're saying that the climatologists haven't provided real proof. Problem is, no one can prove anything to someone who refuses to accept proof for what it is, no matter how strong that proof may be. You've got the same problem as Clavos - you're unwilling to apply the same cynicism to the AGW deniers (and yourself) as to AGW supporters...
...and you've concreted yourself into the mindset that if liberals say something, then it must be wrong and it's your duty to oppose it. And you know what? I can understand that to an extent, because that's how I felt back in the 1980's before I began seeing things a bit more clearly.
Problem is, no one can prove anything to someone who refuses to accept proof for what it is, no matter how strong that proof may be.
QFT.
Case in point: the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study, an independent "audit" of measurements led by skeptical scientist Dr Richard Muller (who is a physicist, not a climatologist).
Article comments
76 - Zingzing
clavos has also said that the science means nothing to him, as it's a political issue and nothing else.
77 - Jordan Richardson
No conspiracy has been assumed, let alone proven it's been assumed. No fraud has been implied either.
So in your opinion, what is Cannonshop implying when he says puts climatologists in quotation marks? Or when he says that scientists are doing this for "Prestige?" Or when he says "it's easy to sell Apocalypse predictions?" Or when he talks about "the fix" as "selling indulgences?"
If "no conspiracy has been assumed," what other explanation is there?
Cannon has the mind of an engineer, and engineers don't disdain science.
Anyone can disdain science, so I have no idea where you go this from. A high school biology teacher with a penchant for sneaking in creationism can disdain science, for instance. Cannonshop may not disdain ALL science, I'll grant, but he sure is being curiously selective in this instance.
78 - Cannonshop
#77 Jordan, I'll tell you what I'm implying with the quotes, so you don't have to speculate.
Guys like the East Anglia people whose E-mail got hacked and published, Prof. Mann whose "Hockeystick" graph served as the starting point for my skeptical reactions, and the legions of supporters whose argument is based on polling data and what they've been told to believe because it fits the agenda of their political leadership.
In pure science, secrecy is a problem, so is faith-you can't have either one and produce good results. Prominent researchers who refuse to release their data and methodology openly for fear of it being challenged, Supporters and Believers who grasp uncritically to whatever they're told, belong in sneering quotation marks. People who reject experimental data because it doesn't fit the hypothesis (see: the oceanic probe experiment a few years ago) and make excuses belong it that group. Anyone that refuses to re-examine or even to first-examine the data and methodology-not because it's unavailable, but because they've been told and they merely believe.
I didn't say the climate wasn't changing-that's Warren's game, not mine. I said I don't fully and faithfully accept without question that it is Anthropogencially generated, Nor do I buy into the idea that, barring killing a LOT of people, an AGW scenario can be stopped if it is, indeed, occurring.
Population density is rising-we're at over six billion when we were at a mere four billion only a few years ago. It's rising fastest in the Third World, where strip-mining, slash-and-burn agriculture, and high-pollution industry and power generation are the Paradigm, not the exception.
IOW countries that HVE NO ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS are both growing in population, and pollution output-this is VERY different from the sulfur-dioxide situation of the seventies and eighties when it was mainly a first-world situation and governmental,and public, influence could be brought to bear with some hope of it actually working.
Which is one of the reasons several early-adopters in Europe have outright ABANDONED cap-and-trade schemes, and others are discussing doing so.
Further, the problem is, in my opinion, NOT PROPERLY DEFINED. As a species, we have very little experience in measurement of atmospheric and environmental conditions on a global scale, and as sophisticated as our instrumentalities are, I doubt we know nearly as much as we'd collectively like to think we know about how the whole mechanism works, much less where our place IN that mechanism really is.
bEfore you start making policy, you need to know WHAT you're doing, WHY you're doing it, and HOW it works. IPCC can't answer that yet, but as an NGO affiliated with the United Nations, they're certainly game to help the UN soak the rich countries to provide benefit to the leaders of the poor ones, while doing nothing about the lack of environmental controls, human rights, or worker's rights, in those countries. I find this suspect, both from a method, and motive, perspective.
Further, I question the polling data about "98% of all scientists" and "100% of all Climatologists" Glenn Contrarian always trots out in these conversations-Anyone who's taken a basic high-school class on propoganda or advertising knows you can slant results by selecting your polling sample, or by writing your questions to generate specific responses-it's a common advertiser's tactic, and it's deceptive. WHO was polled, who did the polling, what were the questions? How were the signatures obtained, how many responses were by assistants/grad-students/other staff?
We don't know the answers to these. which makes the Bandwagon appeal less appealing, and still leaves the doubt in place.
Finally, there's the "Learning to deal with Millenialists" experience. When someone starts ranting the coming Apocalypse, I grab my wallet with one hand and look for a safe exit with one eye. It's a habit I learned dealing with religious fundamentalist nutters in the Bible Belt, and when it's someone NOT overtly religious, I'm JUST as skeptical, exp. when their answer is to move money around under their direction. MORESO when it's a former Politician, and given the Nobel Committee's recent (last thirty years) behaviours, that Nobel Prize is an incentive to be even MORE suspicious.
Especially if said Nobel winner isn't living the dream he has for me and mine.
79 - Igor
Despite Warrens and Cannons repeated demands that AGW people absolutely and convincingly prove their case, it seems to me that it is up to potential polluters to prove THEIR case.
Doesn't the "Precautionary Rule" apply here? Before we proceed with hydraulic fractionating, fracking, shouldn't we be sure that it does no harm? Isn't it the responsibility of the proponents to prove their project harmless?
80 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
Further, I question the polling data about "98% of all scientists" and "100% of all Climatologists" Glenn Contrarian always trots out in these conversations
I suggest you refrain from ADDING 2% to what I've repeatedly said, that it's 98% of all climatologists and 96% of all scientists.
And you STILL haven't addressed my questions. YOU claimed:
"Climatologists" have yet to build a model that is accurate going both directions without adjusting the inputs DURING the experiment-i.e. they have yet to build an accurate model without cooking their data
Reference, please. And make it a good one.
And while you're at it, could you please point out to me any organization that knows more about planets and atmospheric chemistry than NASA? Oh, silly me, I forgot! They're all in on this vast left-wing conspiracy, too!
And you still didn't answer as to the wisdom of betting the planet that you're right and that 98% of the world's climatologists and 96% of the world's scientists are wrong.
========
AND you didn't address Jordan's observation that:
For starters, [Cannonshop] condescendingly puts climatologists in quotation marks. He assumes there's a conspiracy to fudge or at least inflate the data because it's "fashionable." And he assumes, without evidence, that AGW is a case of scientific fraud that has somehow suckered in the scientific community the world over.
How is that not disdain for science?
81 - Cannonshop
Okay, Glenn...Here's a little something about your "betting" comment:
You're betting you can do something about a phenomena you don't even UNDERSTAND. Action-plans implemented off bad, incomplete, or misunderstood data aren't generally successful-they usually end up doing more damage than good.
Flatly, if you don't know, you need to find out, and that task is not assisted by disingenuousness, faith, blind obedience, or panicked "Do Something" mentalities.
If you're RIGHT, then you need to know WHY you're right before you know WHAT to do...and if you're wrong, it's better not to act until you uncover what IS going on, and what options you actually HAVE.
Wasting resources and time just "doing something" might look REAL good, but it's not the same thing as using time and resources to do THE RIGHT THING (or, at very base minimum, the thing that WILL work.)
That all assumes you're on the right side this time. If the AGW hypothesis is WRONG, then those resources you're keen to redirect "Doing Something" won't be available to handle ACTUAL problems-such as how to adapt to a climate change you can't influence before the environment kills you.
82 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
Your first error is that you're assuming that I don't understand the phenomenon. I do understand it. I may not know all the scientific minutiae, but I do understand the overall phenomenon...just like one doesn't have to understand every single tree to comprehend the forest as a whole.
=========
Your second error is that AGW is a hypothesis. In the eyes of the vast majority of scientists - and almost all the climatologists - ALL of whom have significantly more education than you or I when it comes to science, AGW is not at all a hypothesis, but a fact.
========
Your third error is your continuing assumption that because there is not a 100% consensus among climatologists about AGW (since it's 'only' 98%), that there's still doubt. Cannonshop, any scientist of note will tell you that in any scientific profession - or any other profession, for that matter - there's ALWAYS a few crackpots. ALWAYS. Just because there's a few who disagree with the 98% does NOT mean that there's actual reason for doubt. It simply menas that YOU are giving equal weight to the remaining 2% (which is largely comprised of crackpots and those who are falling seriously afoul of conflict-of-interest violations).
After all, do you REALLY think it's merely a coincidence that most of those climatologists who disagree with AGW work for or are funded wholly or in part by Big Oil? Do you really think that's just a coincidence?
========
Your fourth error is in assuming that the 98% of climatologists who know that AGW is real, somehow WANT it to be real. Here's a clue, Cannonshop - they DON'T. They - like most sensible people (and just like YOU) - really, truly WANT AGW to be wrong. They would much rather be wrong about the whole global warming schmiel. But that's not what their observations and studies show. I would much rather they be wrong, too!
And that brings us back to the wager, Cannonshop. Climatologists WANT to be wrong on this, because they know where this leads - famine, greatly-increased weather-related disasters, water wars, and so forth. They WANT you to be right...but that's simply not where their observations lead.
You, on the other hand, want to be RIGHT, just like all other AGW-deniers. You are willing to bet the planet that 98% of climatologists are wrong, just so you can score a few political points and maybe save some oh-so-precious taxpayer dollars.
They want to save lives all over the planet, even if it costs a few oh-so-precious taxpayer dollars. You want to save oh-so-precious taxpayer dollars, and you're willing to ignore the warnings of 98% of the world's climatologists in order to do so. That's what it all boils down to.
83 - Cannonshop
The issue, Glenn, is that you want to re-tool your civilization based on a phenomena you yourself don't fully understand, using tools you don't understand, methods you don't understand, based on what amounts to blind faith and advertising using SOME science.
Shut down the emotions, and address the situation like an engineer. How much do you REALLY know about the climate, how it works, how the pieces fit together, and what the dominant conditions are when there were NO people about.
Best hypothesis on that last bit, incidentally, was that the earth was a pretty cold place for most of the history of life on it, cycling from frozen ice-age to warmer-than-today interglacials.
Hell, in the AD1000 era (okay, 1000 C.E.) Greenland was Wheat country-it's why the Vikings settled there. a little bit later, still in human history, we had both the "little ice age" and the "Year without a summer".
going back to about where we start seeing Cro Magnon man, most of Canada and a good bit of the U.S. were buried under ice-sheets.
There are significant arguments going on about whether or not those ice-age conditions appeared gradually, or suddenly (in geological terms, a difference between centuries and mere decades).
Without knowing for certain what the real climate cycle actually IS, we can't ascertain what's changing it, without that, we don't know if we CAN do anything to influence it enough to matter.
we COULD end up, after taking your actions, with the same outcomes your AGW folks are pushing-but with additional burdens imposed on us in emergency fashion based on half-baked policies that are, in the end, more destructive than adopting NO policies...or we could end up looking at an advancing wall of ice coming from Canada, and no resources to keep the remains of our civilization operating.
best guesses so far are that temperature 'Peaks" right before the onset of ice-age conditions-that's common between both gradualist and catastrophic onset backers.
ALL of which just means we don't know enough about the phenomena, to base policy and adopt measures to deal with it-and there's enough evidence that adopting the wrong measures CAN be worse than doing nothing-and on a system as complex and poorly understood as "This little planet", the odds are better than even that doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing.
84 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
And there's another one of your errors - "Without knowing for certain what the real climate cycle actually IS, we can't ascertain what's changing it, without that, we don't know if we CAN do anything to influence it enough to matter."
"We just don't know what's causing it!" That's the new excuse among conservatives, now that GW is so obvious. As if with all the scientific observation on a global basis we have on hand is of no use at all.
And THEN you say that 'half-baked policies' (like what, cutting pollution is a 'half-baked policy'?) is worse than NO policy at all????
Have you ZERO clue about where AGW leads? Have you not done any REAL research showing the degree of sea-level rise, the increase of moisture in the atmosphere, the changes in climate worldwide?
Ah, but I forget - it's better to let the climate go straight to hell than it is to do anything about it, just like it would have been better to let GM crash and burn and all its employees be fired than it was to give them a freaking loan so they could get back on their feet and retake their place as the world's largest automaker.
"Throw the baby out with the bathwater" - that's the Republican way!
85 - Igor
83-Cannon displays some wisdom:
...we don't know enough about the phenomena, to base policy and adopt measures to deal with it-and there's enough evidence that adopting the wrong measures CAN be worse than doing nothing-and on a system as complex and poorly understood as "This little planet", the odds are better than even that doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing.
Exactly my point.
Before we bet the entire planet environment (a big valuable irreplaceable resource) on propping up oil use for A Few Dollars More in the pockets of oil magnates, we must use the Precautionary Principle and FIRST determine safety, cost and ROI. And we can't used politicians and whored-out consultants for advice.
Even the most intemperate gambler doesn't bet the farm for just a couple bucks in the pot.
86 - Clavos
In the eyes of the vast majority of scientists - and almost all the climatologists - ALL of whom have significantly more education than you or I when it comes to science, AGW is not at all a hypothesis, but a fact.
True it is not a hypothesis, it is a theory, like Einstein's "theory" of relativity, or the "theory" of evolution; it is not, however a "fact," and I doubt even the most ardent scientist supporting the "theory" would argue it's a "fact."
87 - Dan(Miller)
Clav, that's mere anti-semantic drivel. Words must have whatever meaning the user desires. I think it's called freedom of choice. Or something. I'm at a loss for words, doubtless a good thing because otherwise I'd spout some stuff from Humpty Dumpty.
88 - Dr Hussein Dreadful
Here, gents, this may help.
It refers to the distinction between fact and theory in evolution, but, especially since the tactics used to attack AGW theory are often identical to those used by creationists, it is apt.
89 - roger nowosielski
@87
Humpty Dumpty is precisely what's going on in here. You're showing your legal education.
@88
Dreadful, convincing as the article you linked to may be, it's still blurring a crucial conceptual distinction. And the distinction can't be bridged by approaching the level of certainly as though a limit. Facts and theories do not form a spectrum.
90 - Jordan Richardson
So Cannonshop, the basic thrust of your argument is that we don't know enough to know that pumping noxious chemicals into our environment is probably not the best thing to do. Is that "thinking like an engineer?"
And how exactly is cutting down on pollution and being more responsible with our resources a "wrong measure?"
91 - Jordan Richardson
Cannonshop,
You're betting you can do something about a phenomena you don't even UNDERSTAND.
Speaking for myself, I'm betting it's better to try to do something (by doing less of the destructive things we know are doing harm) than it is to sit around and do nothing.
This isn't about "re-tooling" a civilization (although we may be in need of a little tinkering); it's about living smartly and frugally without needing to cave to the modern standards of excess, greed and destruction we've decided are "normal." It's about not dumping chemicals in our water, not cranking toxic smoke into our air, not poisoning our soil, not settling for shit that is so genetically altered that it doesn't even resemble food anymore (see Monsanto's menu of genetically engineered organisms, for instance).
If I look at the simple risk vs. reward equation, it seems stupid to refuse to act when so much is potentially at stake. The downside of doing the "wrong thing" is much less significant/frightening than the upside of doing the "right thing."
The power elites have always wanted us to sit on our asses and do nothing because we don't "UNDERSTAND" anything. They've always wanted our hands off the wheel, so they tell us that we can't really change anything, we can't reverse the "natural" tide of civilization and we damn sure can't change the world. We're just here to be good slaves and good consumers, floating by without noticing the destruction, greed and deceit.
You may be fine with that, Cannonshop, but I'm not.
92 - Igor
#87-Dan: Wittgenstein disagrees. He says that a word means exactly what context suggests that it means. For example, the word 'bad' means something failed or inadequate to many people, but to a jiving inner city kid it means 'good', or even 'cool', which, in this context means something desirable and attractive, not frozen or inert.
Thus the problem of the biblical literalists: we don't have enough context to know what the original words in Aramic (or even Greek) meant.
Words must have whatever meaning the user desires.
93 - Clavos
Aramaic
94 - Igor
#86-clavos demonstrates, conveniently enough, a common problem with the laymans understanding of science and the world.
'Theories' and 'facts' are not commensurate: they cannot be measured on the same scale. A 'theory' does not graduate to a 'fact' in some fashion. They exist orthogonally, in different dimensions, as it were.
If one tries to do that one is driven to the conclusion that theory is more powerful than mere 'fact'. Theory explains known results and predicts the future outcome of experiments. Facts are just datapoints that suggest a theory to an adept observer, and then confirm or deny a theory.
95 - Clavos
I know (and think I demonstrated that), Igor.
But then, as everyone knows, no one on the right has a brain, so I probably didn't.
96 - roger nowosielski
@92
While meaning is use, it doesn't mean either that anything goes. The Humpty Dumpty charge still applies.
97 - Glenn Contrarian
Igor -
Well said on #94.
98 - Cannonshop
Glenn, your "Theory" has too many holes-it's accepted mainly because not accepting it means no funding.
Also, the methods used to DEFEND Anthropogenic Global Warming are identical in tactics to those used to PROMOTE Creationism-the only real difference, is how much official sanction exists between the two.
99 - Cannonshop
Which may have something to do with the way Creationism doesn't empower the State, but AGW most certainly DOES.
100 - Cannonshop
Let me explain the difference for you-
Evolution and Plate Tectonics have both withstood serious academic challenge-repeatedly, this makes them "THEORIES", because at each point where they have faced serious academic challenge, openly, without hiding methodology or faking data, they've passed and the challenges have failed.
AGW has not faced serious academic challenge-far from it, it's gotten the softball right from the start in the eighties when it became clear we weren't going into another ice-age any time soon.
Further, as learned in the leaked E-mail situation, the people whose work formed the core of your "Theory" were quite concerned that their methods would be revealed to the public-secrecy is, put bluntly, counter to good science, esp. when your science is capable of driving policies.
The killer is that they could not get the climate models they were (and are) presenting to the international community to work, without altering the data they were using. This makes the methods highly suspect, and with those methods, the conclusions become highly suspect.
Widespread acceptance of shady methodology almost DEMAND an external, non-scientific, influence to drive it. This does not have to be some kind of 'conspiracy' (as Warren alleges in his article), Laziness and ideology or a desire to 'change the world for the better', or just good old fashioned personal belief that the ends justify the means is enough-the Ends being reducing pollution (a laudable goal) the means being apocalyptic scare tactics (a method borrowed from the Religious Right.)
101 - Cannonshop
Why're we still using fossil fuels?
They're definitely a finite resource, after all, and even if AGW is horseshit, they're still going to run out.
We're using them, because we don't have an alternative that carries the same combination of energy density, ease of energy release for work, ease of storage and processing, and expense of extraction and deployment.
The technological problem, which, frankly, is what AGW is, will not be solved by low-efficiency ('cause they are) wind turbines. Forget the politics, the machinery's complex, you need a lot of it, and that's going to burn all kinds of fossil fuels to make it, maintain it, and establish it.
Fossil fuels provide us dirty peasants out here with the means to do something our serf ancestors couldn't dream of-we can travel where we will, when we will, live away from urban hubs, and grow lots of food with very little hand labour across tracts of land that our ancestors couldn't dream of-resulting in better nutrition and fewer famines than at any time in history.
THIS is what your solutions have to replace-prior to the adoption of the Internal Combustion Engine and its application to agriculture, famine wasn't something isolated to the third world.
THIS is the technology you have to either do without, or replace, to get your 'green' utopia. More than likely, you're expecting to be among the 'elect' whom won't have to give anything up in a regime capable of enforcing AGW policies-after all, you're supporters, right? No revolution's EVER ganked its supporters after taking power, just ask the Russians, or the French about it...
102 - Cannonshop
Here's what amazes me:
How can people who were intelligent enough to recognize SOPA and PIPA as what they are, who're smart enough to recognize the danger of NDAA and the Patriot Act, be so easily convinced to believe, without any questioning or skepticism, or even thought, in an apocalypse scenario based on studies that predict a temperature variation less than those studies' OWN error ratio-and push a regime of change that REQUIRES a level of control so far beyond SOPA, PIPA and the Patriot Act, without bothering to question it.
103 - Zingzing
what control, cannonshop? stopping you from pumping so many noxious chemicals into the air? I'm sure you whip out the constitution every time your girlfriend tells you to stop farting so much. you're getting a bit ridiuclous. I've never seen someone so busy bitching about their liberty they forgot to just be free.
104 - roger nowosielski
A good zinger ...
105 - Igor
IMO Cannon wastes his liberty belting out the fantasies and dreams and nightmares he has about things like science. IMO he's loud but not informative. Much sound and fury, signifying nothing.
106 - Cannonshop
#103 Zing, what's your limit on what you'd support to save the world? Frightened people will do the damnedest things if they believe, without question.
#105 Igor, I don't have a problem with science, I have a problem with PSEUDO Science, I have a problem (as in, I take issue) with masking up political activism as research. YOU never bothered to ASK before you bought in, because the results fit YOUR preconcieved notions-I didn't approach the Climate Change debates with pre-concieved ideas of what "Should Be" in terms of the results.
I looked at the claims, I examined counter-claims, I grabbed every piece of open-to-the-public research I could find, I read through the slogging mess of those E-mails that were leaked, and came to the conclusion that the research isn't complete, it's not a "Theory" just because it's been sold and packaged, it's a HYPOTHESIS with political backing.
AGW is "Science" the way "Intelligent Design Creationism" is "Science". All trappings, no substance.
107 - Zingzing
cannonshop, how long would you stand in a room while I pumped a shitload of chemicals inside? the whole time I'll yell "don't worry, it's totally natural! You'll be fine!" I'll be lying, of course, but whatever makes you feel better.
108 - Cannonshop
#107 Zing, you seem to be under the false impression that being skeptical of your pet apocalyptic scenario means being in favour of pollution.
which is idiotic.
109 - Zingzing
never said that, now did I?
110 - Cannonshop
#109 You've implied it several times in this very thread, Zing-the comment I was responding to practically screamed (with spittle and bile) it. I'd suspect that deep down inside, that's exactly what you believe, even if you're not comfortable with admitting it.
111 - Dr Hussein Dreadful
Cannon, it's not compulsory for a scientific hypothesis to overcome vigorous academic opposition in order for it to be true.
Just because the heliocentric theory, evolution and plate tectonics were originally scorned doesn't automatically validate them.
There are plenty of groundbreaking scientific theories that were, by and large, non-controversial: atomic theory, cell theory and gravity, to name a few. Should we stop believing in them?
Besides which, your charge against AGW theory only works if somebody suddenly invented it out of whole cloth in the 1980s and other scientists (who were of course all long-haired, bearded, Subaru-driving, tofu-munching peaceniks) promptly jumped on the bandwagon.
In actual fact, the idea that human activities could have a warming effect on the atmosphere was first proposed over 100 years ago by the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius. His ideas weren't accepted for many decades, because the prevailing scientific view was that the atmosphere was too large and complex a system for human actions to have any measurable effect on it. It wasn't until the 1950s that the idea of a human-induced greenhouse effect started to gain traction.
Notice that emphasis? Science has been taking this seriously since the conservative, baby-boom, McCarthy-era fifties, not the MAD-threatened, eco-conscious eighties.
And for all your accusations of pseudoscience, Cannon, you've offered nothing whatsoever to support your charges except a shipload of innuendo and bad analogy.
112 - Cannonshop
#111 Doc, I'm not the one with something TO prove, my whole schtick is that yer not asking questions, just accepting recieved wisdom from "above", and that acceptance is fundamentally counter-scientific.
I'm also looking at the situation like a mechanic- first, determine IF something is wrong, second, determine WHAT is wrong, Third is determine what's causing what's wrong, then start looking into options to fix what is wrong. I don't think that we've adequately determined THAT something is wrong, much less what, or what's causing it, without those, any proposed fixes are just "part swapping".
I'm not the guy who cooked his data to sell a hypothesis, I'm not the researcher who's worried his methodology would get out and be challenged, and I'm not the guy who'd have to give his Nobel back if it turns out his movie "Earth in the Balance" is a load of crap propoganda...and I'm not the guy trying to sell a load of legislative makework to promote a system that, like Communism, only works in theory, and fails in practice.
I'm just the guy saying "Don't buy it if you don't know what's in it."
I don't have any investment in being right-or being percieved as right, I am not selling you something or demanding you change your ways, and I'm not the guy proclaiming the end of the world is coming through the sins of man, and everyone needs to repent and buy indulgences.
113 - Cannonshop
Doc, we've been roundabouts on this before, and on related issues-you know damn well I'm a proponent of alternative energy and favour 'clean' solutions-for reasons that MAKE SENSE.
I have a big issue in compelling people to do things on shaky or false pretense. It's dishonest and it's destructive in the long run, I'd as soon NOT see baked science get traction, then be unmasked and in the process see science take a beating because people were bamboozled. Trust lost is almost NEVER regained.
114 - Zingzing
Cannonshop, I said nothing of the sort, so don't be trying to put words in my mouth. That said, in effect, you might as well love pollution... but I don't see how anyone really could. It's ugly stuff, and I don't think you dumb enough not to realize that. So why don't you deal with things people actually say rather than things you imagine they're thinking in their evil, evil soul. Reality is a much less frightening place. Thanks.
115 - Cannonshop
#114 Words and Grammar carry meaning, Zing. If you don't care for the meaning I drew off your statement in #107, it's either because you didn't communicate clearly (which has never been a problem of yours in the past), or you only "didn't mean it" in retrospect.
I'm willing to accept the former option, but I'm also willing to accept the latter-the whole argument is emotionally charged and it's easy to lose control and say things that, after thinking about it, you didn't mean, or to imply things you didn't mean to imply.
But your comment #107 fits your other comments on this thread-so don't pretend you weren't implying it there.
116 - Dr Hussein Dreadful
Cannon, you make a big assumption that I'm not asking questions, and (my main point) a spectacularly massive one that questions HAVEN'T been asked.
I've no interest in repenting, or "selling indulgences": in fact, charges like that are seriously in the running for the biggest piles of bullcrap I've seen shoveled around during this whole furore.
IMO you're suffering from deep confirmation bias: for example, your conviction that the "Climategate" emails betray a conspiracy on the part of climatologists to hide data, rather than an unwillingness to share it with a bunch of pests who are just going to use it to defame them.
I'm looking for weaknesses in the theory just like you. Unfortunately, while there are things that need to be clarified, I'm just not seeing anything that shows me it's wrong. As Glenn keeps pointing out (but you never acknowledge), those of us who believe it's happening are HOPING climatologists ARE barking up the wrong tree.
If I, in my Dr Dreadful character, have tied the heroine to a railway track, she can hope that the loose rivet on the 3:30 express will cause the whole train to disintegrate before it runs her over, but realistically it will probably just result in a window falling out.
The "anti" crowd just aren't convincing with their science. They don't understand that one isolated error, misapplication of data or poorly-understood phenomenon doesn't invalidate the whole theory.
Likewise from you: all I see are accusations of misconduct. I don't see any science.
I have an experiment for you. Take one of your lengthier comments, substitute the climate change references with buzz phrases from, say, the "vaccines cause autism" crowd, and see how it reads.
(Now there's a real crackpot theory, and one that's supported by many on the left, moreover.)
117 - Zingzing
Cannonshop, ok... I firmly believe that you wrap yourself up in a blanket of smog every night, put your head under and Dutch oven yourself to noxious vapor heaven. I think you are deeply in love with pollution, because you see the bright side of pollution, whatever that may be. (this is called sarcasm, in case you really believe that...)
You go on believing whatever you want, but it's better to know your enemy. My #107 had nothing to do with you loving pollution or whatever. you wouldn't stand in a room as I pumped untold amounts of chemicals into it, would you? I certainly hope not
118 - Cannonshop
#116: Unwillingness to face criticism is unwillingness to face criticism doc. Closing the doors (even to pests that want to defame you) is more or less DEMONSTRATING shaky work-if it's good science, then the pests are the ones shown to be teh fool, not hte researcher. If the researcher is afraid of being shown as a fool, then maybe their research has fundamental issues and isn't ready for the prime time, much less to be used as a tool of policy.
If Evolutionary or Geological researchers had had the same mindset, Doc, we'd be living on a 4,000 year old world created by some kind of god, not a four billion year old world that evolved from spacial debris and star dust.
Let me put it another way: a person with MY thinking, but without my ethics, would be pushing HARD for acceptance of AGW theory-because the remedies fit with much of what I'd like to see done for OTHER reasons-the development of clean, non-fossil-fuel energy, some remediation of problems in the Third World, and reduction in pollution here at home.
But...I have this sticky ethics thing going-I value Science as an approach to problem solving, I value scientific ethics including the intellectual courage to face criticism, and I value Skeptical, as opposed to Faith Based, approaches to facing and solving problems.
but it's not just hte East Anglia memos. Professor Mann, of the Mann Hockeystick Graph paraded about at Kyoto as 'proof' of the danger, stopped publishing his formulae after a couple canadian math-scholars (amatuers, at that) proved you could get the "Hockeystick" using random numbers in place of the recorded temperature and climate data. THEIRS was repeatable. Secrecy in Science, an unwillingness to just let the pests do their thing because they'll inevitably prove themselves wrong, is counter to scientific ethics AND the scientific method-makes it not science, see? all the trappings-all the degrees, the big budgets, the labs, that's just stuff. If you can't put your experiment in the hands of the public for fear that some amatuer will make you look like an idiot, then you're not doing science.
119 - Dr Hussein Dreadful
Unwillingness to face criticism is unwillingness to face criticism doc. Closing the doors (even to pests that want to defame you) is more or less DEMONSTRATING shaky work-if it's good science, then the pests are the ones shown to be teh fool, not hte researcher.
Hate to break it to you, Cannon, but climatologists are human. There are also only 24 hours in the day. This was in many cases data that had been requested by and given to the same "skeptics" many times before. It was pretty clear that what was going on was not an honest request for information, but a calculated campaign of harassment, so persistent that if all of the requests had been responded to, there would have been little time left to do any actual science - which, I suspect, was the entire object.
Again, there have been about a dozen separate inquiries into the matter, all of which have exonerated those concerned of anything much worse than poor customer service.
but it's not just hte East Anglia memos. Professor Mann, of the Mann Hockeystick Graph paraded about at Kyoto as 'proof' of the danger, stopped publishing his formulae after a couple canadian math-scholars (amatuers, at that) proved you could get the "Hockeystick" using random numbers in place of the recorded temperature and climate data.
I addressed McIntyre and McKittrick's work in comment 36 of this thread, with a citation. Your failure to respond, and your repeating of the same claim in 118 (did you hope everyone had forgotten?) is, I'm afraid, quite typical of the "skeptic" lobby.
120 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop #112 -
You're saying that the climatologists haven't provided real proof. Problem is, no one can prove anything to someone who refuses to accept proof for what it is, no matter how strong that proof may be. You've got the same problem as Clavos - you're unwilling to apply the same cynicism to the AGW deniers (and yourself) as to AGW supporters...
...and you've concreted yourself into the mindset that if liberals say something, then it must be wrong and it's your duty to oppose it. And you know what? I can understand that to an extent, because that's how I felt back in the 1980's before I began seeing things a bit more clearly.
121 - Igor
77-Jordan: I don't think so.
"Cannon has the mind of an engineer..."
122 - Dr Hussein Dreadful
Problem is, no one can prove anything to someone who refuses to accept proof for what it is, no matter how strong that proof may be.
QFT.
Case in point: the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study, an independent "audit" of measurements led by skeptical scientist Dr Richard Muller (who is a physicist, not a climatologist).
Prominent "anti" blogger Anthony Watts gave his blessing to the study, saying that he would stand by the results even if they proved him wrong.
So did Watts, when the preliminary BEST results unsurprisingly confirmed previous findings, make good on his promise? Did he bollocks.
123 - Glenn Contrarian
Signing off for the next couple days - on the way to the Far East once more -