USA Today: Could we be wrong about global warming?

To me, he's saying that he (and the experts he's quoting) are Galileo to Al Gore's Pope.

 

That doesn't make much sense. Al Gore isn't trying to maintain the traditional order of things. He's trying to change it.

barfo

 

I think you totally missed the point. I was told I believe in some conspiracy theory, but it isn't any sort of conspiracy. It was a gradual evolution.

The scientists have a conscience and a morality they want to enforce. They weren't evil, nor are their intentions. They built the Bomb, and it has terrible consequences for society. Einstein (and his contemporaries) felt an incredible guilt over it. Now they may well have a guilty conscience about more modern things, like using mercury in children's vaccines, or making fossil fuel so efficient.

In the process, they've gone from providing enhanced (fill in the blank, war, living, understanding) to being a substitute for religion. Replace "in the beginning, god made the heaven and the earth" with "in the beginning, there was a big bang." Science gives us flood stories in ancient times. You name it (from the bible) and there's a close (enough) scientific alternative. Al Gore would be your messiah or pope.

I don't see that wrongheaded science is any better than wrongheaded religion. And I concede they're both wrongheaded.

 

Al Gore is trying to maintain the traditional order of things in the same sense that religion does/did. The world isn't (in Reality) the way the Church wants it, and never was. People committed adultery all along, and so forth. What they have in common is the one True way, toe the line or else.

Nobody expects the scientific inquisition.

 

Still sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. You've said that thousands of scientists are lying. How is that not a conspiracy?

That's kind of hilarious. You think rationality and irrationality are the same thing? Really?

Wrongheaded science eventually gets replaced by better understanding. That's the whole thing about science. If you happen to be right about global warming, eventually science will agree with you. If it was religion it never would.

barfo

 

Really? I'd like to hear more about the scientists who have been destroyed. What are their names?

barfo

 

People believe they see flying saucers and some even believe they've been abducted. I don't see a conspiracy there, either.

No, I think Science isn't being rational. It's not scientific to take a vote (consensus) on whether some perceived (flying saucers, man made global warming) thing is true. It's not rational to squash credible scientists who dissent from the vote.

"Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time." - Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo. Brekke has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the sun and solar interaction with the Earth.

 

And what did you mean?

barfo

 

Why all the focus on climate models?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090714124956.htm

Global Warming: Scientists' Best Predictions May Be Wrong


No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect. (Credit: Image courtesy of Rice University)

ScienceDaily (July 15, 2009) — No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect.

The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth's ancient past. The study, which was published online July 13, contains an analysis of published records from a period of rapid climatic warming about 55 million years ago known as the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM.

"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models."

During the PETM, for reasons that are still unknown, the amount of carbon in Earth's atmosphere rose rapidly. For this reason, the PETM, which has been identified in hundreds of sediment core samples worldwide, is probably the best ancient climate analogue for present-day Earth.

In addition to rapidly rising levels of atmospheric carbon, global surface temperatures rose dramatically during the PETM. Average temperatures worldwide rose by about 7 degrees Celsius -- about 13 degrees Fahrenheit -- in the relatively short geological span of about 10,000 years.

Many of the findings come from studies of core samples drilled from the deep seafloor over the past two decades. When oceanographers study these samples, they can see changes in the carbon cycle during the PETM.

"You go along a core and everything's the same, the same, the same, and then suddenly you pass this time line and the carbon chemistry is completely different," Dickens said. "This has been documented time and again at sites all over the world."

Based on findings related to oceanic acidity levels during the PETM and on calculations about the cycling of carbon among the oceans, air, plants and soil, Dickens and co-authors Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii and James Zachos of the University of California-Santa Cruz determined that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by about 70 percent during the PETM.

That's significant because it does not represent a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Since the start of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels are believed to have risen by about one-third, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels. If present rates of fossil-fuel consumption continue, the doubling of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels will occur sometime within the next century or two.

Doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide is an oft-talked-about threshold, and today's climate models include accepted values for the climate's sensitivity to doubling. Using these accepted values and the PETM carbon data, the researchers found that the models could only explain about half of the warming that Earth experienced 55 million years ago.

The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the PETM. "Some feedback loop or other processes that aren't accounted for in these models -- the same ones used by the IPCC for current best estimates of 21st Century warming -- caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM."

Journal reference:

• Zeebe et al. Carbon dioxide forcing alone insufficient to explain Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum warming. Nature Geoscience, 2009; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo578

Adapted from materials provided by Rice University.

 

What about these hacks? (BTW< Gore was a C- student and is no expert on anything, really)

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_columnist_mikethomas/2009/07/global-warming.html

I took my annual trip to the Wisconsin cabin of my in-laws and spent half the time shivering. There has been record low temperatures up there. In fact, according to one weather site, there were 800 record low temperatures set across the US in mid July.

Evidently, this has something to do with something called the Arctic Oscillation.

Meanwhile members of the American Chemical Society are revolting agains the editor of their news letter, Rudy Baum, for saying that the debate over man-made climate change is over and we are to blame. Anyone who disputes that is a denier.

Here are some of the responses (thanks to climatedepot.com). This gets to what I've been writing about. Climate change is an inexact science, and to shut the door on debate runs against the very mission of science. It turns a theory into into a belief system into which all must adhere or be cast out as deniers. I can't think of anything more unscientific, as some of the writers below point out.

Geochemist R. Everett Langford wrote: “I am appalled at the condescending attitude of Rudy Baum, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, et al., who essentially tell us that there is no need for further research—that the matter is solved.”

ACS scientist Dennis Malpass wrote: “Your editorial was a disgrace. It was filled with misinformation, half-truths, and ad hominem attacks on those who dare disagree with you. Shameful!”

ACS member scientist Dr. Howard Hayden, a Physics Professor Emeritus from the University of Connecticut: “Baum's remarks are particularly disquieting because of his hostility toward skepticism, which is part of every scientist's soul. Let's cut to the chase with some questions for Baum: Which of the 20-odd major climate models has settled the science, such that all of the rest are now discarded? [...] Do you refer to 'climate change' instead of 'global warming' because the claim of anthropogenic global warming has become increasingly contrary to fact?"

Edward H. Gleason wrote: “Baum's attempt to close out debate goes against all my scientific training, and to hear this from my ACS is certainly alarming to me...his use of 'climate-change deniers' to pillory scientists who do not believe climate change is a crisis is disingenuous and unscientific.”

Atmospheric Chemist Roger L. Tanner: "I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other 'free-market fanatics,' and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose."

 

Another article from Science Daily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090528203745.htm

How Many Scientists Fabricate And Falsify Research?

ScienceDaily (May 29, 2009) — It's a long-standing and crucial question that, as yet, remains unanswered: just how common is scientific misconduct? In the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, Daniele Fanelli of the University of Edinburgh reports the first meta-analysis of surveys questioning scientists about their misbehaviours. The results suggest that altering or making up data is more frequent than previously estimated and might be particularly high in medical research.

Recent scandals like Hwang Woo-Suk's fake stem-cell lines or Jon Sudbø's made-up cancer trials have dramatically demonstrated that fraudulent research is very easy to publish, even in the most prestigious journals. The media and many scientists tend to explain away these cases as pathological deviations of a few "bad apples." Common sense and increasing evidence, however, suggest that these could be just the tip of the iceberg, because fraud and other more subtle forms of misconduct might be relatively frequent. The actual numbers, however, are a matter of great controversy.
Estimates based on indirect data (for example, official retractions of scientific papers or random data audits) have produced largely discrepant results. Therefore, many researchers have asked scientists directly, with surveys conducted in different countries and disciplines. However, they have used different methods and asked different questions, so their results also appeared inconclusive.

To make these surveys comparable, the meta-analysis focused on behaviours that actually distort scientific knowledge (excluding data on plagiarism and other kinds of malpractice) and extracted the frequency of scientists who recalled having committed a particular behaviour at least once, or who knew a colleague who did.

On average, across the surveys, around 2% of scientists admitted they had "fabricated" (made up), "falsified" or "altered" data to "improve the outcome" at least once, and up to 34% admitted to other questionable research practices including "failing to present data that contradict one's own previous research" and "dropping observations or data points from analyses based on a gut feeling that they were inaccurate."

In surveys that asked about the behaviour of colleagues, 14% knew someone who had fabricated, falsified or altered data, and up to 72% knew someone who had committed other questionable research practices.

In both kinds of surveys, misconduct was reported most frequently by medical and pharmacological researchers. This suggests that either the latter are more open and honest in their answers, or that frauds and bias are more frequent in their fields. The latter interpretation would support growing fears that industrial sponsorship is severely distorting scientific evidence to promote commercial treatments and drugs.

As in all surveys asking sensitive questions, it is likely that some respondents did not reply honestly, especially when asked about their own behaviour. Therefore, a frequency of 2% is probably a conservative estimate, while it remains unclear how the figure of 14% should be interpreted.

Journal reference:

• Fanelli D. How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data. PLoS ONE, 2009; 4(5): e5738 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005738

Adapted from materials provided by Public Library of Science, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

 

Atmospheric Chemist Roger L. Tanner: "I have very little in common with the philosophy of the Heartland Institute and other 'free-market fanatics,' and I consider myself a progressive Democrat. Nevertheless, we scientists should know better than to propound scientific truth by consensus and to excoriate skeptics with purple prose."

 

I see. Basically, you were posting nonsense.

barfo