Greenhouse effect is a myth, scientists say

[buffycat]

Greenhouse effect is a myth, scientists say

excerpt:

"Their argument will be outlined on Channel 4 this Thursday in a programme called The Great Global Warming Swindle raising major questions about some of the evidence used for global warming."

I would love to see this, too bad I don't get Brit TV.

While I do certainly agree that our environment and OUR impact on it is of prime importance, I have severe reservations about the whole 'Global Warming' hysteria. That is not to say that we shouldn't decrease our reliance of fossil fuels - but IMO this gorilla in the room is simply distracting from the even larger dinosaur already present in the form of far worse pollutants. It is misguided to say the least and damaging to other environmental concerns (water contamination being one).

I wonder if this will be available online.

[cybercoma]

A scientist on malaria and a scientist on biogeography vs hundreds of environmental scientists. I'm going to guess that the scientists who strictly study the environment are probably right.

However, whose to say that it isn't a combination of the two ideas? It's like I said in the other thread

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Human activity is increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide. So, we are raising the global mean temperature by some amount. The earth may have been warming already, but there's no doubt we're speeding that up.

[sharkman]

Here's an atmospheric physicist by the name of Richard Lindzen

Here's some of his thoughts on the warmng issue:

He frequently speaks out against the IPCC position that significant global warming is caused by humans although he accepts that the warming has occurred, saying global mean temperature is about 0.6 degrees Celsius higher than it was a century ago.[6]

His position with regard to the IPCC can be summed up with this quotation: "Picking holes in the IPCC is crucial. The notion that if you’re ignorant of something and somebody comes up with a wrong answer, and you have to accept that because you don’t have another wrong answer to offer is like faith healing, it’s like quackery in medicine – if somebody says you should take jelly beans for cancer and you say that’s stupid, and he says, well can you suggest something else and you say, no, does that mean you have to go with jelly beans?"

And why are there fewer scientists who disagree with the Global warming?:

He has been a critic of some anthropogenic global warming theories and the political pressures surrounding climate scientists. He wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in April, 2006, in which he wrote: "In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions."

So, when you have a movement that shuts up scientists who disagree with it, is it any wonder there are fewer speaking out?

[ScottSA]

The Great Global Warming Swindle

[B. Max]

Even before Al Gore's traveling circus they new the man made global warming was a hoax.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5949034802461518010

[ScottSA]

Before we have someone trot in and announce that all these respected scientists are paid by the fossil fuel industry, watch the GGWS and you'll see them on record denying it.

[sharkman]

What's happening is scientists who disagree with the Global Warming theory are bullied into changing their views, while anyone questioning pro Global Warming research is labelled a witch hunter:

Excerpt

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism.

[ScottSA]

What's happening is scientists who disagree with the Global Warming theory are bullied into changing their views, while anyone questioning pro Global Warming research is labelled a witch hunter:

Excerpt

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism.

Just as a postscript, Mann's "hockey stick" graph has since been discredited, and is one of the biggest embarrassments of the Church of GW. Even the IPCC dropped it in the last report.

[JerrySeinfeld]

"People whose missino it is to save the world always want the world to seem much worse off than it is so that their mission will seem more important" - PJ OROURKE

That about sums up the massive amounts of research money sloshing around the IPCC scientists' pockets.

[shoggoth]

Yea all those climate scientists driving around in Ferraris..

As for scientists losing positions over alternative views sometimes that's justified. For example if a geology professor at a university started claiming the earth was only 6000 years old, then who could argue that they shouldn't lose their position? That goes double for directors, spokespeople or heads of departments, because they should reflect the underlying views of scientists in their administration. It's no use having 10 scientists in a physics department accepting the big bang yet the head of that department derides it publically all the time and claims the steady state model is true. It makes sense that spokespeople will lose positions if their views start becoming at odds of those they are supposed to be speaking for.

[ScottSA]

Yea all those climate scientists driving around in Ferraris..

As for scientists losing positions over alternative views sometimes that's justified. For example if a geology professor at a university started claiming the earth was only 6000 years old, then who could argue that they shouldn't lose their position? That goes double for directors, spokespeople or heads of departments, because they should reflect the underlying views of scientists in their administration. It's no use having 10 scientists in a physics department accepting the big bang yet the head of that department derides it publically all the time and claims the steady state model is true. It makes sense that spokespeople will lose positions if their views start becoming at odds of those they are supposed to be speaking for.

What asinine logic. In effect you're saying that all scientists should agree to the same thing regardless of scientific enquiry. Your analogy is even sillier, since it posits the growing number of sceptics as fools, when in fact they are doing their job.

[buffycat]

Thank you ScottSA, it is really well done!

Reminded me of my fav. prof back in my uni days.

Highly recommended for all to see!

[JerrySeinfeld]

Yea all those climate scientists driving around in Ferraris..

As for scientists losing positions over alternative views sometimes that's justified. For example if a geology professor at a university started claiming the earth was only 6000 years old, then who could argue that they shouldn't lose their position? That goes double for directors, spokespeople or heads of departments, because they should reflect the underlying views of scientists in their administration. It's no use having 10 scientists in a physics department accepting the big bang yet the head of that department derides it publically all the time and claims the steady state model is true. It makes sense that spokespeople will lose positions if their views start becoming at odds of those they are supposed to be speaking for.

I'm not sure Galileo would agree.

This whole climate change thing is eerily like the flat earth people - refusing to accept that the consensus could in fact be WRONG - and completely shutting down scientific debate from credible scientists in the process.

I mean, really: if the flat-earth consensus tried to discredit Galileo for being funded by shipmakers, would that make the earth any less round?

BTW Ferrari's aren't the point. But scarce research dollars go to the crisis crowd -no doubt about it.

[B. Max]

It makes sense that spokespeople will lose positions if their views start becoming at odds of those they are supposed to be speaking for.

It makes no sense at all unless you are trying to suppress something and call consensus science, for if it were Louis Pasteur would still be wrong.

[shoggoth]

Yea all those climate scientists driving around in Ferraris..

As for scientists losing positions over alternative views sometimes that's justified. For example if a geology professor at a university started claiming the earth was only 6000 years old, then who could argue that they shouldn't lose their position? That goes double for directors, spokespeople or heads of departments, because they should reflect the underlying views of scientists in their administration. It's no use having 10 scientists in a physics department accepting the big bang yet the head of that department derides it publically all the time and claims the steady state model is true. It makes sense that spokespeople will lose positions if their views start becoming at odds of those they are supposed to be speaking for.

What asinine logic. In effect you're saying that all scientists should agree to the same thing regardless of scientific enquiry. Your analogy is even sillier, since it posits the growing number of sceptics as fools, when in fact they are doing their job.

No im definitely not saying they should all agree to the same thing. I am saying there are limits. You call my analogy silly, but surely you agree that a geologist who believes the earth was only 6000 years old should not be employed in positions of scientific representation. So when a scientist is kicked out of a position for their viewpoint, it might not necessarily be unjustified.

[shoggoth]

I'm not sure Galileo would agree.

What's the alternative? Allow an ideas free-for-all without any limit? I imagine if NASA were interviewing for a research director position they would turn down any candidate who claimed the big bang didn't happen, and that would be totally justified.

Paradigm shifts are difficult to achieve in science, but in time if such a shift is justified it will happen regardless. Galileo is a prime example of this.

[ScottSA]

I'm not sure Galileo would agree.

What's the alternative? Allow an ideas free-for-all without any limit? I imagine if NASA were interviewing for a research director position they would turn down any candidate who claimed the big bang didn't happen, and that would be totally justified.

Paradigm shifts are difficult to achieve in science, but in time if such a shift is justified it will happen regardless. Galileo is a prime example of this.

This is a bit weird. On one hand you argue that there ought to be limits to ideation, enforced by job loss and presumably other forms of coercion, and on the other that somehow science will just "happen" if it's justified. How is it supposed to happen if it's not allowed? Sure, Galileo eventually won out, 150 years after he made his discovery, but why in God's name would we want to shove truth back in the closet for 150 years just because it will "happen" eventually?

Arguing that Global Warming is not manmade is hardly out in left field. Arguing that there is nothing to panic about is not beyond the pale. Even if it were, under your conception, Einstein would have been out of a job. So would half of the physicists out there.

[sharkman]

Yea all those climate scientists driving around in Ferraris..

As for scientists losing positions over alternative views sometimes that's justified. For example if a geology professor at a university started claiming the earth was only 6000 years old, then who could argue that they shouldn't lose their position? That goes double for directors, spokespeople or heads of departments, because they should reflect the underlying views of scientists in their administration. It's no use having 10 scientists in a physics department accepting the big bang yet the head of that department derides it publically all the time and claims the steady state model is true. It makes sense that spokespeople will lose positions if their views start becoming at odds of those they are supposed to be speaking for.

What asinine logic. In effect you're saying that all scientists should agree to the same thing regardless of scientific enquiry. Your analogy is even sillier, since it posits the growing number of sceptics as fools, when in fact they are doing their job.

No im definitely not saying they should all agree to the same thing. I am saying there are limits. You call my analogy silly, but surely you agree that a geologist who believes the earth was only 6000 years old should not be employed in positions of scientific representation. So when a scientist is kicked out of a position for their viewpoint, it might not necessarily be unjustified.

But what of the Global Warming debate. It's a brand new debate that's only been around for about 25 years or so, unllike the age of the earth debate. Yet back in 1992, scientists were being pressured to accept it without study. This is uncomparable to old squabbles scientists have had on the age of the earth.

The scientist I referenced, Richard Lindzen, states that the mean temperature of the earth has been stable for about 6 years now which is what it always does before it starts to cycle downward. You can bet the Global Alarmists will be shrieking about this new trend as if it's a dangerous new development. Maybe even another mockery of science coming from a new Gore 'documentary'.

[shoggoth]

This is a bit weird. On one hand you argue that there ought to be limits to ideation, enforced by job loss and presumably other forms of coercion, and on the other that somehow science will just "happen" if it's justified. How is it supposed to happen if it's not allowed? Sure, Galileo eventually won out, 150 years after he made his discovery, but why in God's name would we want to shove truth back in the closet for 150 years just because it will "happen" eventually?

Arguing that Global Warming is not manmade is hardly out in left field. Arguing that there is nothing to panic about is not beyond the pale. Even if it were, under your conception, Einstein would have been out of a job. So would half of the physicists out there.

It's no more discrimatory than peer review itself. Some ideas won't get published, and that's not always unjustified. The sole fact that someone lost their job because of a view they held is not alone unjustified, anymore than someone not getting a paper published is unjustified. If there weren't so many new ideas floating around all the time, most of them wrong, then it would be a lot easier for the genuine ones to get through.

[shoggoth]

But what of the Global Warming debate. It's a brand new debate that's only been around for about 25 years or so, unllike the age of the earth debate.

Some people would argue that the age of the earth is not settled and the scientific community is currently discriminating against anyone who suggests it is under one million years old. And that would be true. Any geology professor who claimed the Earth was under one million years old would probably lose thier job. Any senior geologist doing the same would probably lose their job. Any scientist submitting that idea to peer review would not get published, and their credibility may be questioned. But it's discriminating against the idea because the evidence presented for the idea, and the arguments against the consensus are flimsy. And the people who primarily decide whether the evidence and arguments are flimsy are other scientists. All this is justified.

But a person on the outside who had no idea about geology and the quality of the arguments and evidence either way might conclude that one minority idea is being unfairly discriminated against by the majority of scientists. They might further conclude that the majority of scientists are simply trying to oppress alternative theories to defend the consensus. They might ask how science is supposed to proceed if minority ideas are being outcast? How will the next galileo get through?

Sometimes discrimination in science is not justified, but my point is that the mere existance of an example of discrimination does not imply something wrong is going on. It has to be taken on a case by case basis.

Yet back in 1992, scientists were being pressured to accept it without study. This is uncomparable to old squabbles scientists have had on the age of the earth.

There are geologists who still argue the earth is young. The reason they are biased against in terms of having work on the topic published and getting certain positions is because their peers do not find their arguments credible.

The scientist I referenced, Richard Lindzen, states that the mean temperature of the earth has been stable for about 6 years now

That's precisely the kind of argument isn't going to go down well. There is no more indication of temperatures being stable in the last 6 years than at any other point in the last 30 years of temperature rise:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2_lrg.gif

Nor should a 6 year stable period imply anything even if it did exist in the last 6 years, given that the periods 1990-1996 and 1981-1987 were relatively stable.

which is what it always does before it starts to cycle downward. You can bet the Global Alarmists will be shrieking about this new trend as if it's a dangerous new development. Maybe even another mockery of science coming from a new Gore 'documentary'.

If the current warming trend is not primarily anthropogenic then there's no reason to expect it to continue rising. On the otherhand if a cooling trend does occur over the next 10 years it's going to falsify AGW So it's hard to imagine why scientists would put their credibility on the line when the theory faces potential falsification in the very near future.

[ScottSA]

This is a bit weird. On one hand you argue that there ought to be limits to ideation, enforced by job loss and presumably other forms of coercion, and on the other that somehow science will just "happen" if it's justified. How is it supposed to happen if it's not allowed? Sure, Galileo eventually won out, 150 years after he made his discovery, but why in God's name would we want to shove truth back in the closet for 150 years just because it will "happen" eventually?

Arguing that Global Warming is not manmade is hardly out in left field. Arguing that there is nothing to panic about is not beyond the pale. Even if it were, under your conception, Einstein would have been out of a job. So would half of the physicists out there.

It's no more discrimatory than peer review itself. Some ideas won't get published, and that's not always unjustified. The sole fact that someone lost their job because of a view they held is not alone unjustified, anymore than someone not getting a paper published is unjustified. If there weren't so many new ideas floating around all the time, most of them wrong, then it would be a lot easier for the genuine ones to get through.

I just don't get your logic. I think what you're trying to say is that a bit of Occam's Razor needs to be applied, and ideas of the sort which posit the moon being made of green cheese and so on ought to be discarded.

To that I agree, but that has no relevance to the GW debate where two sides with extremely reasonable arguments exist. One side is being attacked and censored, not because it is out in left field, but because the issue has been politicized. It's like the AIDS debate a few years ago, when doctors showed, beyond a statistical shadow of a doubt that in the west, AIDS was being spread overwhelmingly by homosexuality, needle use and blood transfusion, and yet the homosexual lobby screamed and yelled and censored the debate, claiming AIDS was a "heterosexual" desease. It's dishonest crap, and it sure as hell isn't science.

[sharkman]

I'll try again then. The Global warming debate has only been around for about 25 years. This is different than the age of the earth debate which is much older. That is a red herring.

Since the GW debate is quite young, scientists should not have their funding yanked merely because they disagree with GW. That they are shows an effort to shut up scientists. This is not good.

I might be a person on the outside, or I may not be, but Richard Lindzen and many like him are not.

[stignasty]

Arctic sea ice melting faster than most scientists project: study

Last Updated: Tuesday, May 1, 2007 | 6:17 AM ET

The Associated Press

Arctic sea ice is melting three times faster than many scientists have projected, U.S. researchers reported Monday, just days ahead of the next major international report on climate change.

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado in Boulder, using actual measurements, concluded Arctic sea ice has declined at an average rate of about 7.8 per cent a decade between 1953 and 2006.

By contrast, 18 computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations-sponsored climate research group, estimated an average rate of decline of 2.5 per cent a decade over the same period, the researchers said.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/05...ate-arctic.html

[B. Max]

The scientist I referenced, Richard Lindzen, states that the mean temperature of the earth has been stable for about 6 years now

That's precisely the kind of argument isn't going to go down well. There is no more indication of temperatures being stable in the last 6 years than at any other point in the last 30 years of temperature rise:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2_lrg.gif

Nor should a 6 year stable period imply anything even if it did exist in the last 6 years, given that the periods 1990-1996 and 1981-1987 were relatively stable.

There has been no rise in the average temperature since 1998.

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/NCDCanomLand.html

[B. Max]

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/05...ate-arctic.html

All that proves is that the compertors models don't work. Which has been claimed all along.

http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=106708