ClimateGate and the Climatati

[Riverwind]

talks about some of the emails.

An extremely biased analysis that misses the entire point.

One of the problems with people like potholer54 is they think they can analyze the emails without looking at the public statements of these same scientists as well as the claims of that sceptics have made over the years.

For example, in the early emails Briffa does basically agree that the Hockey Stick was junk but when McIntrye&McKitrick appeared on the scene he closed ranks with his buddies and refused to acknowledge that they were right for fear of hurting the IPCC political agenda. The refusal to stand up for science when he had the chance is what the scandal is.

The issue with Briffa 'hiding the decline' is something SteveMc has been complaining about for years. In fact, as an expert reveiwer for the IPCC report, SteveMc submitted a comment saying it was misleading to leave the data out but Briffa (the lead author) brushed him off. The emails also reveal that David Mitchell - the guy who was supposed to make sure the lead authors addressed reviewer comments - agreed with Steve but some how the IPCC report was released with the 'decline hidden'.

The Trenbreth comments have been picked up because the alarmists have been publically screaming at 'deniers' who point out the decline in temperatures. So while it may be trivially true that Trenbreth did put his opinions in a public paper the emails demonstrate that alarmists lie when then say there is a 'consensus' among scientists.

Of course, he completely ignored the emails showing the attempts to blackmail journals and have editors fire for accepting sceptical papers. He completely ignored the conspiracy to deny people access to data that they are entitled to have access to under the FOI. Which is ironic since it is these points that the serious sceptics and journalists have picked up on.

Edited December 5, 2009 by Riverwind

[Guest TrueMetis]

An extremely biased analysis that misses the entire point.

Except for he was right about the emails he was talking about. The two used the most by people against global warming.

One of the problems with people like potholer54 is they think they can analyze the emails without looking at the public statements of these same scientists as well as the claims of that sceptics have made over the years.

Which Email did that? Because he pointed out that in the Statement made in one of the emails was the same statment he made in a peer-review paper.

For example, in the early emails Briffa does basically agree that the Hockey Stick was junk but when McIntrye&McKitrick appeared on the scene he closed ranks with his buddies and refused to acknowledge that they were right for fear of hurting the IPCC political agenda. The refusal to stand up for science when he had the chance is what the scandal is.

I'll be honest I don't know what that is.

The issue with Briffa 'hiding the decline' is something SteveMc has been complaining about for years. In fact, as an expert reveiwer for the IPCC report, SteveMc submitted a comment saying it was misleading to leave the data out but Briffa (the lead author) brushed him off. The emails also reveal that David Mitchell - the guy who was supposed to make sure the lead authors addressed reviewer comments - agreed with Steve but some how the IPCC report was released with the 'decline hidden'.

One of the emails potholer talks about the "trick" that hides the decline. Did you watch the video?

The Trenbreth comments have been picked up because the alarmists have been publically screaming at 'deniers' who point out the decline in temperatures. So while it may be trivially true that Trenbreth did put his opinions in a public paper the emails demonstrate that alarmists lie when then say there is a 'consensus' among scientists.

Consensus: firstly, general agreement and, secondly, group solidarity of belief or sentiment.

Since 97% of Climatologists agree their is a consensus.

Of course, he completely ignored the emails showing the attempts to blackmail journals and have editors fire for accepting sceptical papers. He completely ignored the conspiracy to deny people access to data that they are entitled to have access to under the FOI. Which is ironic since it is these points that the serious sceptics and journalists have picked up on.

Want to direct me to the emails your talking about because I don't feel like searching through hundreds to find them.

Edited December 5, 2009 by TrueMetis

[Riverwind]

Which Email did that?

Did what?

Want to direct me to the emails your talking about because I don't feel like searching through hundreds to find them.

I don't feel like chasing down stuff you could find out if you read the sceptical scientific blogs like climate audit or the air vent.

Since 97& of Climatologists agree their is a consensus.

The trouble is there is no evidence for that claim and even if there was it is a lie to claim the cooling is a 'myth'. It is not a myth - it is a matter of scientific dispute. Edited December 5, 2009 by Riverwind

[Guest TrueMetis]

I don't feel like chasing down stuff you could find out if you read the sceptical scientific blogs like climate audit or the air vent.

I've read plenty of them, all of them have been about emails being deleted, them not wanting to have to give up their data, (which could be simply because they do not want other scientist using their data to make discoveries), simlpe chats with offhand comments used a "evidence" of the conspiricy, or completely misunderstood or lied about what they ment. Not one has had anything to do with blackmail.

ETA is this the blackmail you were talking about?

By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication. My area of research happens to be the climate of the past millennia, where I think I am appreciated by other climate-research ‘soldiers’....

I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files. They depict a realistic, I would say even harmless, picture of what the real research in the area of the climate of the past millennium has been in the last years. The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas.

These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations,even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the ‘politically correct picture’. Some, or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties under a unified picture. I had the ‘pleasure’ to experience all this in my area of research. Eduardo Zorita

Because he talks about blackmail but even he doesn't deny that climate change is happening.

He is saying that there is an incentive to tweak work to cover up what we don't know.

Edited December 5, 2009 by TrueMetis

[Pliny]

Alarmism abounds in all areas of life, and in all pathways of politics.

Unfortunately for your philosophy, private individuals and their companies can't be relied on to solve problesm. This is a truism that caused the establishment of the welfare state in the first place.

If companies and individuals voluntarily took steps to address perceived problems, then it would be a much better world.

Is it a truism or is it the attempt to centralize power?

Problems will always exist. The welfare state has promised to resolve the problems that weren't being resolved by individuals and their companies, has welfare done so and have the problems disappeared? I would say they have exacerbated the problem.

The truth is that you cannot resolve other people's problems for them. They must resolve them themselves. Try and resolve their problems for them and other problems are invented - for YOU to resolve for them.

[Pliny]

interesting tact - even the deniers are accepting to the ludicrousness of their much touted (but failed) conspiracy theory of world-wide collaborating scientists. They want a do-over to now (also) include, as described, "NGOs, environmental groups, bankers and industrial giants". But, damnit... it can't be referred to as a conspiracy (that's just so deflecting, ya know). So... it's all about aligning towards a common goal that perpetuates varying self interests (but whatever you do, just don't call it a conspiracy). Apparently, no one... anywhere... actually accepts the overwhelming state of the science, and no one... anywhere... actually wants mitigation/adaptation for other than "varying self interests".

There is no conspiracy theory. There are special interests opportunely jumping on the bandwagon. You are finally getting the point. There is a common interest in a healthy planet, Waldo but let's not try and politically capitalize on it at the expense of some to make a million out of it for others while accomplishing nothing for the planet and serving the selfishness of the global power-brokers.

We're(humans)here! We're queer(not in the gay sense)! Get used to it!

[Riverwind]

Because he talks about blackmail but even he doesn't deny that climate change is happening.

I have explained this so many times that I and getting pissed off. Excuse the all caps but:

ALMOST ALL SCIENTIFIC CLIMATE SKEPTICS AGREE THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING AND CO2 IS CAUSING THE TEMPERATURE TO RISE.

The debate about how MUCH rise will occur. The IPCC position 1.5-4.5 degC. The wacko alarmists claim >5 degC. Scientific sceptics say <1.5 degC. This distinction is important because if we are only facing another 1.0-1.5 degC rise then it makes no sense to pay trillions to reduce CO2 emissions today. We would be better off worryig about real pollution.

The CRU emails reveal repeated attempts to suppress dissenting views in order to create the illusion that the IPCC position is the only valid scientific position. The tactics includes a boycott of a journal that published sceptical papers. This boycott is what I am calling blackmail because small specialized journals could be put out of business by such a boycott.

[Guest TrueMetis]

I have explained this so many times that I and getting pissed off. Excuse the all caps but:

ALMOST ALL SCIENTIFIC CLIMATE SKEPTICS AGREE THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING AND CO2 IS CAUSING THE TEMPERATURE TO RISE.

The debate about how MUCH rise will occur. The IPCC position 1.5-4.5 degC. The wacko alarmists claim >5 degC. Scientific sceptics say <1.5 degC. This distinction is important because if we are only facing another 1.0-1.5 degC rise then it makes no sense to pay trillions to reduce CO2 emissions today. We would be better off worryig about real pollution.

I agree with all that. So than what have we been debating?

The CRU emails reveal repeated attempts to suppress dissenting views in order to create the illusion that the IPCC position is the only valid scientific position. The tactics includes a boycott of a journal that published sceptical papers. This boycott is what I am calling blackmail because small specialized journals could be put out of business by such a boycott.

Same thing could be said about many companies. Do you consider a boycott against a small company blackmail?

[Riverwind]

I agree with all that. So than what have we been debating?

Whether the consensus around the IPCC view is manufactured and whether the science done by sceptics has been unreasonably ignored because it undermines the IPCC political agenda. My position is these emails show that both are very likely possibilities and we need to start having public inquiries to find out for sure.

Same thing could be said about many companies. Do you consider a boycott against a small company blackmail?

Yes.

Peer reviewed journals are held up as impartial judges of science. We are constantly told that if skeptic's scientific claims had any merit they would published in the peer reviewed literature. We now find that the IPCC cabal actively campaigned to keep skeptical papers out of the peer reviewed literature. This means the peer reviewed literature cannot be assumed to be an unbiased assessment of science and we need to hit the reset button, fire the scientists in cabal and take a second look at the skeptical science that has been ignored.

It may end up that nothing changes and the IPCC view hold up to scrutiny but I (and a lot of other people) are not interested in spending trillions to based on science vetted via an obviously corrupt process.

Edited December 5, 2009 by Riverwind

[Guest TrueMetis]

Whether the consensus around the IPCC view is manufactured and whether the science done by sceptics has been unreasonably ignored because it undermines the IPCC political agenda. My position is these emails show that both are very likely possibilities and we need to start having public inquiries to find out for sure.

There is going to be an inquiry not sure if it is public or not, but whether it is public or not doesn't matter, the public doesn't know squat about climate science.

Peer reviewed journals are held up as impartial judges of science. We are constantly told that if skeptic's scientific claims had any merit they would published in the peer reviewed literature. We now find that the IPCC cabal actively campaigned to keep skeptical papers out of the peer reviewed literature. This means the peer reviewed literature cannot be assumed to be an unbiased assessment of science and we need to hit the reset button, fire the scientists in cabal and take a second look at the skeptical science that has been ignored.

There have been plenty of skeptical papers published though, they just tend to get proven wrong. It is like a creationist attempting to get a paper published, no one takes them seriously anymore because all the evidence points in the other dirrection.

It may end up that nothing changes and the IPCC view hold up to scrutiny but I (and a lot of other people) are not interest in spending trillions to solve a problem that may not even exist.

I doubt anyone is. I'm sure as hell not. If worse gets to worse I'll just move north.

Edited December 5, 2009 by TrueMetis

[Riverwind]

There is going to be an inquiry not sure if it is public or not, but whether it is public or not doesn't matter, the public doesn't know squat about climate science.

The public knows squat about policing procedures but we have them when it appears that the police abused the public trust granted to them. A public inquiry is the only way to ensure that IPCC cabal is flushed out.

There have been plenty of skeptical papers published though, they just tend to get proven wrong.

This is where you are wrong. These papers are often not "proven" wrong - they are simply declared to be wrong by the IPCC mafia and ignored. Meanwhile there are plenty of key alarmist papers which have been conclusively shown to be wrong but the IPCC mafia keeps using them as evidence to support their view. Bottom line is the scientific process has been hijacked by a group of influencial scientists and it needs to be fixed. Edited December 5, 2009 by Riverwind

[Guest TrueMetis]

The public knows squat about policing procedures but we have them when it appears that the police abused the public trust granted to them. A public inquiry is the only way to ensure that IPCC cabal is flushed out.

I doubt that very much.

This is where you are wrong. These papers are often not "proven" wrong - they are simply declared to be wrong by the IPCC mafia and ignored. Meanwhile there are plenty of key alarmist papers which have been conclusively shown to be wrong but the IPCC mafia keeps using them as evidence to support their view. Bottom line is the scientific process has been hijacked by a group of influencial scientists and it needs to be fixed.

I also doubt this very much.

[Riverwind]

Look at what just appeared in the G&M business pages.

This, in effect, is what's happening now: global warming has become a near-religious test of civic virtue, just as being invested in Internet stocks became a test of investment savvy in 2000. Which is why many investors dazedly held on to Nortel all the way down to zero, even after its accounting issues had been revealed. And now, even though you can't trust the climate change data, the Copenhagen conference still goes on and promoters including Al Gore are out begging the public to give the scientists the benefit of the doubt. This is the same Mr. Gore who is profiting from tax credit-based environmental investments.

Edited December 5, 2009 by Riverwind

[Pliny]

There is going to be an inquiry not sure if it is public or not, but whether it is public or not doesn't matter, the public doesn't know squat about climate science.

Then what have we been talking about? Another one who thinks the public is stupid, sheesh! Who in the public will hold anyone to account if you keep insisting the public knows squat? The public knows something about climate science or we wouldn't be having this discussion. The "public" is just a big generality and it includes people who do know a lot about climate science.

Do you think the public is a cancer on the planet? Just a rhetorical question that I think you have already answered.

There have been plenty of skeptical papers published though, they just tend to get proven wrong. It is like a creationist attempting to get a paper published, no one takes them seriously anymore because all the evidence points in the other dirrection.

Funny! Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth turned out to have quite a few errors. I think it still gets support.

Edited December 5, 2009 by Pliny

[Pliny]

Michael Hardner

You see, people reveal themselves in what they say.

What does a person really think when he says something like the public knows squat?

If I am misinterpreting what is being said then it would be better expressed more explicitly such general statements refrained from being used.

I have found over the past decade that people who think in terms of the "collective good", the hard core socialists, have some grand vision of there being a land of plenty if there were not so many people around. In their eyes, the enemy is us. Somehow it escapes them that they are a part of us. But I understand now that they believe that most people are stupid and that is definitely not a part of who they are so they exclude themselves from the concept of the general public. Their world is built on ironies, they must appear compassionate because so many others are so stupid, they must lead because others are such sheep, they must tax because others are so greedy, some must die or we will all die. Somehow they are the compassionate and not the stupid, they are the leaders and not the sheep, they are the taxmen and not the taxpayer, and it is never they but someone else who must die to save us all.

If we listen to them and follow their leadership then I will admit they are right - the public is stupid but it would only be because those who believe in the "collective good" like to keep the public ignorant, and especially ignorant of their opinions of the public.

What do you think of a person who says the public knows squat about climate science? The immediate thought is probably that this person must know something about climate science that the public doesn't know. It may be true but he isn't expressing anything that ameliorates the stupidity of the public, he is just making a blanket statement that improves his position and attempts to limit anyone that may have any feelings of not being fully informed on the subject. It's a kind of bullying tactic. Fortunately, there are members of the public that do know more than squat and are not simply parroting a position without knowing squat.

[eyeball]

I think there are lots of people who know squat about the things they opine about but clearly lots of people also know plenty.

On balance I think the proof that smart people slightly outnumber the stupid people is evident in the progress we've all made together. Canada has become better over time because the smart people outnumber the dumb ones. Our economy has grown because more people make more good economic choices than bad ones. Yes mistakes are always possible but the overall trend has still been positive. Far more of this question and others should be put to the people because doing so more often than not results in positive outcome.

At some point every decision requires a certain amount of holding one's nose and relying on faith. The faith we're losing in our scientists mirrors the loss of faith we've had in other institutions. We've been here many times before and have had to rely on ourselves.

[Keepitsimple]

I'm reading a Clive Cussler book called Arctic Drift. It's theme deals with Artificial Photosynthesis where Carbon Dioxide is combined with water to form glucose and oxygen....6CO2 + 6H2O = C6H12O6 + 6O2. Sure enough, there are many references to advanced artificial photosynthesis. Imagine a mass scale artificial process that generates an amount of energy while removing CO2 from the atmosphere. If we can put billions upon billions into Climate Change "science", it would seem that some of those dollars should find their way into mitigation projects such as these. I don't trust Wikipedia completely but there's some information for anyone who's interested:

Photoelectrochemical cell

Research is being done into finding catalysts that can convert water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to carbohydrates. For the first type of catalysts, nature usually uses the oxygen evolving complex. Having studied this complex, researchers have made catalysts such as blue dimer to mimic its function, but these catalysts were very inefficient. Another catalyst was engineered by Paul Kögerler, which uses four ruthenium atoms.

The carbohydrate-converting catalysts used in nature are the hydrogenases. Catalysts invented by engineers to mimic the hydrogenases include a catalyst by Cédric Tard,[2] the rhodium atom catalyst from MIT,[3] and the cobalt catalyst from MIT.[4] Dr. Nocera of MIT is receiving funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to help conduct the necessary experiments to push forward in the cobalt catalyst research. The government funding has helped Nocera make the research possible and in turn he is providing them with strong results.[5]

Advantages

Dye-sensitized cells can be made at one-fifth of the price of silicium cells.

The solar energy can be immediately converted and stored, unlike in PV cells, for example, which need to convert the energy and then store it into a battery (both operations implying energy losses). Furthermore, hydrogen as well as carbon-based storage options are quite environmentally friendly.

Renewable, carbon-neutral source of energy, whether it is used for transportation or homes. Also the CO2 emissions that have been distributed from fossil fuels will begin to diminish because of the photosynthetic properties of the reactions.

Disadvantages

Artificial photosynthesis cells (currently) last no longer than a few years (unlike PV and passive solar panels, for example, which last twenty years or longer).

The cost for alteration right now is not advantageous enough to compete with fossil fuels and natural gas as a viable source of mainstream energy.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_photosynthesis

[bush_cheney2004]

....On balance I think the proof that smart people slightly outnumber the stupid people is evident in the progress we've all made together. Canada has become better over time because the smart people outnumber the dumb ones. Our economy has grown because more people make more good economic choices than bad ones...

Hence......NAFTA.

[jbg]

Do you think the public is a cancer on the planet? Just a rhetorical question that I think you have already answered.

You nailed their attitude perfectly.

[Keepitsimple]

Alarmists don't like Richard Lindzen but his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal is one of the best summaries of "settled science".

What does all this have to do with climate catastrophe? The answer brings us to a scandal that is, in my opinion, considerably greater than that implied in the hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit (though perhaps not as bad as their destruction of raw data): namely the suggestion that the very existence of warming or of the greenhouse effect is tantamount to catastrophe. This is the grossest of "bait and switch" scams. It is only such a scam that lends importance to the machinations in the emails designed to nudge temperatures a few tenths of a degree.

The notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are simply a matter of the response of a single number, GATA, to a single forcing, CO2 (or solar forcing for that matter), represents a gigantic step backward in the science of climate. Many disasters associated with warming are simply normal occurrences whose existence is falsely claimed to be evidence of warming. And all these examples involve phenomena that are dependent on the confluence of many factors.

Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

[wyly]

Solar water heating cannot provide 100% of a household's needs year round. The amount available in the winter will be much less that in the summer and there will always need to be a fossil fuel/electric backup system.

YOU didn't know it existed after condeming the idea as impractical, it would never work in Canada's winter...you claim advanced knowledge but don't some very basic stuff, you're a contrarian, it doesn't matter what the facts you oppsose anything purely because if you don't know it then it can't possibly be true...

Please explain what sick bulding syndrome has to do with CO2?

if you're going to debate calculus at least know hoe to add 1 + 1...you post like you're the leading authority on CO2 and you claim CO2 is not toxic, not a pollutant that's acceptable and healthy in high levels indoors...you make these claims and have never heard of Sick Building Syndrome nor knew it was caused by CO2, a toxin/pollutant!...if you don't understand domestic problems with CO2 how can you claim any understanding of CO2 on a global scale and refute the knowledge of experts...you can't...

The only reason that In any case, whether you are willing to acknowldge it or not the scientific case for CAGW depends on a set of unproveable assumptions.people think it has merit is they have managed to adjust the climate models, the temperature records and the paleo-studies to provide a semi-consistent picture based on the those assumptions.

as I've shown with your lack of common knowledge they aren't "improvable assumptions" they're just unfathomable to you because you lack the basic science knowledge...(there are proofs in math but not in science)

we have no real evidence that the assumptions are true.

it's not we,it's YOU have no evidence you can comprehend...

More importantly, there are some plausible hypotheses that could invalidate these assumptions if we could collect data over a long enough period of time (30-50 years).

the evidence is in, the potential suspects weeded out the culprit is there for everyone to see,CO2...but you want to look for the 2nd sniper on the grassy knoll, the faked lunar landing, the aliens who built the pyramids anywhere but where the evidence leads...

[Riverwind]

you post like you're the leading authority on CO2 and you claim CO2 is not toxic, not a pollutant that's acceptable and healthy in high levels indoors

I posted a reference to a health&safety regulations document that clearly indicated:

1) Indoor CO2 levels of up to 1000ppm are normal.

2) That CO2 levels higher that 1000ppm are NOT a hazzard.

Yet you ignore that and go on rant about sick building syndrome which has NOTHING to do with CO2.

Your inability to understand or even read arguments that don't match what you want to believe probably explains why your such a fervent believer in this CO2-is-a-catatrophe nonsense.

In any case, you desire to believe that AGW is science is an irrefutable fact does not change the reality: it is nothing but a set of unproveable assumptions built up over time. When new scientists look at the problem they are forced to accept the 'consensus' as a starting point and will tweek/interpret their data/model to conform to that 'consensus'. Failing to do so will have their work dismissed as 'obviously wrong' because it did not reproduce earlier results. The only way to overcome the straightjacket imposed by 'consensus' is to provide irrefutable experimental evidence. Unfortunately, it is not possible to perform experiments in climate science so it is impossible to challenge the 'consensus'.

The oil drop experiment is real example of how confirmation bias infects science and makes it really hard to challenge the 'consensus'.

We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of - this history - because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong - and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease.[5][6]

In climate science CO2 sensitity cannot measured in the lab - it is nothing but a collective opinion. In the future the planet could easily show us that this collective "opinion" completely is wrong. Anyone who claims that this collective opinion is a "fact" does not know what they are talking about. Edited December 5, 2009 by Riverwind

[Keepitsimple]

...you post like you're the leading authority on CO2 and you claim CO2 is not toxic, not a pollutant that's acceptable and healthy in high levels indoors...you make these claims and have never heard of Sick Building Syndrome nor knew it was caused by CO2, a toxin/pollutant!...if you don't understand domestic problems with CO2 how can you claim any understanding of CO2 on a global scale and refute the knowledge of experts...you can't...

Wyly....I'd like your advice. What would you call someone who accuses somebody (Riverwind) else of ignorance....when it fact it is the accuser (you) who doesn't know what the heck they are talking about? Dumb? An idiot? Please find me a word. Sick Building Syndrome.....here's the causes cited by the EPA - find me where it says it's caused by CO2 being a toxic pollutant:

Causes of Sick Building Syndrome

The following have been cited causes of or contributing factors to sick building syndrome:

Inadequate ventilation: In the early and mid 1900's, building ventilation standards called for approximately 15 cubic feet per minute (cfm) of outside air for each building occupant, primarily to dilute and remove body odors. As a result of the 1973 oil embargo, however, national energy conservation measures called for a reduction in the amount of outdoor air provided for ventilation to 5 cfm per occupant. In many cases these reduced outdoor air ventilation rates were found to be inadequate to maintain the health and comfort of building occupants. Inadequate ventilation, which may also occur if heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems do not effectively distribute air to people in the building, is thought to be an important factor in SBS. In an effort to achieve acceptable IAQ while minimizing energy consumption, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recently revised its ventilation standard to provide a minimum of 15 cfm of outdoor air per person (20 cfm/person in office spaces). Up to 60 cfm/person may be required in some spaces (such as smoking lounges) depending on the activities that normally occur in that space (see ASHRAE Standard 62-1989).

Chemical contaminants from indoor sources: Most indoor air pollution comes from sources inside the building. For example, adhesives, carpeting, upholstery, manufactured wood products, copy machines, pesticides, and cleaning agents may emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including formaldehyde. Environmental tobacco smoke contributes high levels of VOCs, other toxic compounds, and respirable particulate matter. Research shows that some VOCs can cause chronic and acute health effects at high concentrations, and some are known carcinogens. Low to moderate levels of multiple VOCs may also produce acute reactions. Combustion products such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, as well as respirable particles, can come from unvented kerosene and gas space heaters, woodstoves, fireplaces and gas stoves. For more information, see VOCs; Carbon Monoxide; Formaldehyde; Nitrogen Dioxide; Respirable Particles.

Chemical contaminants from outdoor sources: The outdoor air that enters a building can be a source of indoor air pollution. For example, pollutants from motor vehicle exhausts; plumbing vents, and building exhausts (e.g., bathrooms and kitchens) can enter the building through poorly located air intake vents, windows, and other openings. In addition, combustion products can enter a building from a nearby garage.

Biological contaminants: Bacteria, molds, pollen, and viruses are types of biological contaminants. These contaminants may breed in stagnant water that has accumulated in ducts, humidifiers and drain pans, or where water has collected on ceiling tiles, carpeting, or insulation. Sometimes insects or bird droppings can be a source of biological contaminants. Physical symptoms related to biological contamination include cough, chest tightness, fever, chills, muscle aches, and allergic responses such as mucous membrane irritation and upper respiratory congestion. One indoor bacterium, Legionella, has caused both Legionnaire's Disease and Pontiac Fever. For more information, see Biologicals and Mold.

These elements may act in combination, and may supplement other complaints such as inadequate temperature, humidity, or lighting. Even after a building investigation, however, the specific causes of the complaints may remain unknown.

Link: http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/sbs.html

[Guest TrueMetis]

Then what have we been talking about? Another one who thinks the public is stupid, sheesh! Who in the public will hold anyone to account if you keep insisting the public knows squat? The public knows something about climate science or we wouldn't be having this discussion. The "public" is just a big generality and it includes people who do know a lot about climate science.

Do you think the public is a cancer on the planet? Just a rhetorical question that I think you have already answered.

Funny! Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth turned out to have quite a few errors. I think it still gets support.

I think allowing a public inquiry would be like going to the blacksmiths for a toothache, acceptable at one point but not once we gained people who specialize in this.

I'm all for an inquiry, of people with the knowledge to do it.

[Pliny]

I think allowing a public inquiry would be like going to the blacksmiths for a toothache, acceptable at one point but not once we gained people who specialize in this.

I'm all for an inquiry, of people with the knowledge to do it.

Which is why only the police should investigate the police! Scientists should only investigate other scientists, politicians should only investigate other politicians, and robbers should only investigate robbers. What does the public know about thievery after all?

If the public is affected it has the right to question anyone who is purporting to be acting in the public's interest or who affects their general welfare with their activities. The "public" is not stupid as you seem to think. It does contain people capable of understanding very complex concepts - even to the point where they can think with them.