Institute of Physics memo to Parliament blasts AGW "science"

[DarrinS]

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm





Memorandum submitted by the Institute of Physics (CRU 39)


The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia



The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.



The Institute is pleased to submit its views to inform the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee's inquiry, 'The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia'.



The submission details our response to the questions listed in the call for evidence, which was prepared with input from the Institute's Science Board, and its Energy Sub-group.





What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?



1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.



2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change.



3. It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:



· those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and

· historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of 'proxies', for example, tree-rings.



4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.



5. The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.



6. There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific 'self correction', which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.



7. Fundamentally, we consider it should be inappropriate for the verification of the integrity of the scientific process to depend on appeals to Freedom of Information legislation. Nevertheless, the right to such appeals has been shown to be necessary. The e-mails illustrate the possibility of networks of like-minded researchers effectively excluding newcomers. Requiring data to be electronically accessible to all, at the time of publication, would remove this possibility.



8. As a step towards restoring confidence in the scientific process and to provide greater transparency in future, the editorial boards of scientific journals should work towards setting down requirements for open electronic data archiving by authors, to coincide with publication. Expert input (from journal boards) would be needed to determine the category of data that would be archived. Much 'raw' data requires calibration and processing through interpretive codes at various levels.



9. Where the nature of the study precludes direct replication by experiment, as in the case of time-dependent field measurements, it is important that the requirements include access to all the original raw data and its provenance, together with the criteria used for, and effects of, any subsequent selections, omissions or adjustments. The details of any statistical procedures, necessary for the independent testing and replication, should also be included. In parallel, consideration should be given to the requirements for minimum disclosure in relation to computer modelling.





Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate?



10. The scope of the UEA review is, not inappropriately, restricted to the allegations of scientific malpractice and evasion of the Freedom of Information Act at the CRU. However, most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other leading institutions involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change. In so far as those scientists were complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices, there is need for a wider inquiry into the integrity of the scientific process in this field.



11. The first of the review's terms of reference is limited to: "...manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice..." The term 'acceptable' is not defined and might better be replaced with 'objective'.



12. The second of the review's terms of reference should extend beyond reviewing the CRU's policies and practices to whether these have been breached by individuals, particularly in respect of other kinds of departure from objective scientific practice, for example, manipulation of the publication and peer review system or allowing pre-formed conclusions to override scientific objectivity.





How independent are the other two international data sets?



13. Published data sets are compiled from a range of sources and are subject to processing and adjustments of various kinds. Differences in judgements and methodologies used in such processing may result in different final data sets even if they are based on the same raw data. Apart from any communality of sources, account must be taken of differences in processing between the published data sets and any data sets on which they draw.




The Institute of Physics
February 2010

[mogrovejo]

1. From now on, we hereby declare that the Institute of Physics isn't part of the scientific community.

2. There's an overwhelming consensus on the scientific community about MMGW!!!

3. Problem solved. Been doing this for 2 decades and it keeps working.

[Wild Cobra]

Wow...

I'm amazed they are admitting scientific malpractices. I guess they are smart enough to remove themselves from the propaganda artists.

[Winehole23]

Why not? Straight up warmists like George Monbiot were flabbergasted by the way they fudged the data...

[Wild Cobra]

Why not? Straight up warmists like George Monbiot were flabbergasted by the way they fudged the data...
I'll bet. It must be a sobering experience to see your belief in a particular Dogma, destroyed by the truth, and realizing you had faith in lies.

[boutons_deux]

fucktard climate deniers find a couple of bad straws in the global warming haystack and claim the entire haystack is invalid, because they're ideological/partisan assholes.

In logic, it's a common error for extrapolating from the specific to the general.

Meanwhile, there's not a glacier on the planet that's not seriously retreating, and accelerating, etc, etc, etc.

[Wild Cobra]

fucktard climate deniers find a couple of bad straws in the global warming haystack and claim the entire haystack is invalid, because they're ideological/partisan assholes.

In logic, it's a common error for extrapolating from the specific to the general.

Meanwhile, there's not a glacier on the planet that's not seriously retreating, and accelerating, etc, etc, etc.
What's the highest level of science you ever took?

Do you even understand the implications of the IOP making such a statement?

[Yonivore]

What's the highest level of science you ever took?

Do you even understand the implications of the IOP making such a statement?

Both of these are rhetorical, right?

[ElNono]

Am I technically a 'climate denier' if I don't believe the weatherman?

[Wild Cobra]

Both of these are rhetorical, right?
Considering I think both went over his head, yes.

[Wild Cobra]

Am I technically a 'climate denier' if I don't believe the weatherman?
At least a step in the right direction.

Did you know that at many major universities, once you have a BS in meteorology, it only takes one more class to get a BS in Climatology?

weatherman = meteorology...

[DarrinS]

Another American Media Failure

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/02/another-american-media-failure/




In the years after the the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent failure to find WMD, the American media flagellated itself publicly over its lack of skepticism of Bush administration cassus belli claims. We endured reams of essays about the supine nature of the corporate-owned media, the supposed disinformation campaign of the White House, the “lies” on WMD claims (that had also been made by Democrats in Congress from 1998 until the invasion), and so on. To this day, the American media still considers their self-described blind acceptance of claims about intelligence without sufficient investigation as an indictment on their industry — and a consequence of the Internet-driven changes to the media market.

After wearing sackcloth and ashes for so long, one might believe that the American national media would leap at the chance to show its newfound mission of skepticism and challenge to authority. Unfortunately, US journalists have missed a grand opportunity to demonstrate that it learned a lesson about swallowing a story from the government without question, if indeed that is what happened in 2002 on Iraq. We know this because their colleagues across the pond in the United Kingdom have not missed the chance to speak a little truth to power, both in their own government and to multilateral organizations that issued faulty analyses, false data, bad research, and hysterical demands for action.

Do I refer to our military efforts in Afghanistan? In Pakistan? Fiscal policy among the G-20? No. The Australian and British press have eaten the American media’s lunch on the collapse of credibility at the IPCC and in the anthropogenic global-warming (AGW) movement. In the past four months, media outlets like the Times of London, the Telegraph, the Australian Herald-Sun, and even the Left-leaning paper The Guardian have broken important stories (along with bloggers) exposing the fraud, mismanagement, and unscientific behavior of the core group of AGW advocates, such as:

•University of East Anglia e-mails that exposed data destruction, attempts to hide contradictory data, and conspiracies to sabotage the work of skeptical scientists

•The East Anglia CRU threw out their raw data, undermining any effort to check their work

•NOAA/GHCN “homogenization” falsified climate declines into increases

•East Anglia CRU’s below-standard computer modeling

•No rise in atmospheric carbon fraction over the last 150 years: University of Bristol

•IPCC withdraws claim that AGW will wipe out Himalayan glaciers by 2035

•IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri knew Himalayan claim was bogus for months before exposure

•Amazonian rainforest conclusions not based on scientific research but on advocacy group claims

•Mountain glacier claims based on unsubstantiated student theses and anecdotes from climber magazine

•Search of IPCC report footnotes exposes ten more student dissertations presented as peer-reviewed research

•Medieval Warming Period temperatures may have been global, undermining entire AGW case

•Measurements used for AGW case were influenced by urbanization, poor location, bad data sets

•African-crop claims exposed as false

•IPCC researchers excluded Southern Hemisphere data to exaggerate effects of warming on hurricanes

•Hurricane claims further exposed as false by actual peer-reviewed research — including by some AGW researchers

•Major scientific group concludes IPCC-linked researchers “complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices“

None of these — none — were exposed by a major American media outlet. The efforts of the American press, with a couple of rare exceptions such as the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal, have mainly been to play down the significance of every revelation and to emphasize their view of scientific AGW “consensus.” When the Washington Post finally got around to reporting on the East Anglia scandal, it provided only a straightforward but superficial recounting of the journalism done in the UK and Australia. The New York Times didn’t even bother to do that much, saying that the collapse of the basis of Obama administration policy didn’t amount to a “three-alarm story.”

To this day, the American media has had almost nothing to add to the growing list of exposés accomplished by their Anglospheric cousins. Bear in mind that our current government plans an unprecedented intrusion into the energy sector, entirely on the basis of the IPCC report that has been systematically dismantled by bastions of journalistic accomplishment like the Times of London, who got many of the above scoops. Such a policy would give the federal government vast power over the economy and allow it to accrue massive amounts of fees and taxes, while dictating the rationing of both retail energy use and the means of producing it.

With all of that at stake, shouldn’t the American media have deployed its storied skepticism to some use on the AGW movement and the IPCC? After all, it was only a few years ago — after the invasion over which the media wailed and self-criticized its credulousness — that we discovered that the UN had conducted the largest fraud in human history, the Oil-for-Food program that put billions of dollars into the pockets of Saddam Hussein while impoverishing the Iraqis the program was designed to protect. Shouldn’t the American media have been even more skeptical, given the track record of accountability at Turtle Bay over the last decade?

Indeed it should — and indeed it didn’t, and still hasn’t. Curiously, the American media has been almost entirely AWOL on the collapse of the IPCC and anthropogenic global-warming hysteria as its intelligence has been proven not just wrong, as the WMD intel from multiple Western nations was in Iraq, but blatantly fraudulent. It has been exposed as mainly comprised of bad anecdotal recording, biased manipulations of data, and collations of hysterical claims by environmental extremists.

Forget learning “the lessons of Iraq.” When will the American media take a cue from its colleagues in Britain and Australia and start learning the lessons of the IPCC and of Oil-for-Food?

[mogrovejo]

At least a step in the right direction.

Did you know that at many major universities, once you have a BS in meteorology, it only takes one more class to get a BS in Climatology?

weatherman = meteorology...

I heard that it then takes another additional class to get a BS in Astrology and if you're a really good student a couple more to get a PhD in Quackery.

[baseline bum]

I heard that it then takes another additional class to get a BS in Astrology and if you're a really good student a couple more to get a PhD in Quackery.

Is that how they do things in your school? It would explain a lot with regard to your posts here.

[ElNono]

Is that how they do things in your school? It would explain a lot with regard to your posts here.

He definitely has a lot of BS...

[RandomGuy]

Wow...

I'm amazed they are admitting scientific malpractices. I guess they are smart enough to remove themselves from the propaganda artists.

They are rightfully calling for more transparancy of the process.

The problem you have is that transparancy will happen, and that the level of scientific rigor involved will get better.

What happens when it does, and the weight of evidence debunks your conspiracy theory?

[mogrovejo]

Is that how they do things in your school? It would explain a lot with regard to your posts here.

Ah, someone adds nothing but an ad hominem argument and a personal insult. Surprising. :sleep

[mogrovejo]

They are rightfully calling for more transparancy of the process.

The problem you have is that transparancy will happen, and that the level of scientific rigor involved will get better.

What happens when it does, and the weight of evidence debunks your conspiracy theory?

Why hasn't transparency happened so far? Why do you think that will happen in the future?

[George Gervin's Afro]

Why hasn't transparency happened so far? Why do you think that will happen in the future?

Why don't you answer your own rhetorical questions yourself? You know that no one can answer these questions so it's apparent that intellectual honesty isn't one of your strong suits.

[Wild Cobra]

He definitely has a lot of BS...
LOL...

I always found it ironic that Bachelor of Science is the uses the same abbreviation.

[Wild Cobra]

What happens when it does, and the weight of evidence debunks your conspiracy theory?
I doubt that day will come, but if so. I will accept it.

You see, I do understand enough of the geosciences to see the AGW crowd if flat out wrong. How many times have I said you must understand most of the earth sciences to understand Global Warming?

[mogrovejo]

Why don't you answer your own rhetorical questions yourself?

They're not rhetorical questions.



You know that no one can answer these questions so it's apparent that intellectual honesty isn't one of your strong suits.

Uh? Why can't those questions be answered?! I think they can; he stated that transparency has been lacking but that in the future it will happen. I just want to know why does he think so - why he's optimistic for the future and what, in his opinion, has been screwing up the scientific process in this particular field. No one can answer? Not sure what you mean.

[boutons_deux]

"I will accept it."

no, you won't. There are tons of evidence now, not in dispute except by oil/gas/coal-financed, duped deniers like yourself.

You Lie when you say the tons of scientific evidence on global warming is not transparent, not corroborated by multiple studies, and all the other You Lies you spew.

you ideological ignorance is not amenable to scientific evidence.

[RandomGuy]

Why hasn't transparency happened so far? Why do you think that will happen in the future?

Transparency has happened to a degree.

I think it will happen because people of good faith in science will ask for it, and generally, scientists tend to take this sort of things very seriously.

[DarrinS]

And now, a terrifying message from AGW cult leader, Al Gore:

The Al Gore Op Ed:

We're all going to die if you don't invest in my carbon trading ponzi scheme and climate change deniers are all Big Oil shills. (I paraphrase)


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html?hp





It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands. We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted in proving that every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change had simply made a huge mistake.

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.

It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.

But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged. It is also worth noting that the panel’s scientists — acting in good faith on the best information then available to them — probably underestimated the range of sea-level rise in this century, the speed with which the Arctic ice cap is disappearing and the speed with which some of the large glacial flows in Antarctica and Greenland are melting and racing to the sea.

Because these and other effects of global warming are distributed globally, they are difficult to identify and interpret in any particular location. For example, January was seen as unusually cold in much of the United States. Yet from a global perspective, it was the second-hottest January since surface temperatures were first measured 130 years ago.

Similarly, even though climate deniers have speciously argued for several years that there has been no warming in the last decade, scientists confirmed last month that the last 10 years were the hottest decade since modern records have been kept.

The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.

Here is what scientists have found is happening to our climate: man-made global-warming pollution traps heat from the sun and increases atmospheric temperatures. These pollutants — especially carbon dioxide — have been increasing rapidly with the growth in the burning of coal, oil, natural gas and forests, and temperatures have increased over the same period. Almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are melting — and seas are rising. Hurricanes are predicted to grow stronger and more destructive, though their number is expected to decrease. Droughts are getting longer and deeper in many mid-continent regions, even as the severity of flooding increases. The seasonal predictability of rainfall and temperatures is being disrupted, posing serious threats to agriculture. The rate of species extinction is accelerating to dangerous levels.

Though there have been impressive efforts by many business leaders, hundreds of millions of individuals and families throughout the world and many national, regional and local governments, our civilization is still failing miserably to slow the rate at which these emissions are increasing — much less reduce them.

And in spite of President Obama’s efforts at the Copenhagen climate summit meeting in December, global leaders failed to muster anything more than a decision to “take note” of an intention to act.


Because the world still relies on leadership from the United States, the failure by the Senate to pass legislation intended to cap American emissions before the Copenhagen meeting guaranteed that the outcome would fall far short of even the minimum needed to build momentum toward a meaningful solution.

The political paralysis that is now so painfully evident in Washington has thus far prevented action by the Senate — not only on climate and energy legislation, but also on health care reform, financial regulatory reform and a host of other pressing issues.

This comes with painful costs. China, now the world’s largest and fastest-growing source of global-warming pollution, had privately signaled early last year that if the United States passed meaningful legislation, it would join in serious efforts to produce an effective treaty. When the Senate failed to follow the lead of the House of Representatives, forcing the president to go to Copenhagen without a new law in hand, the Chinese balked. With the two largest polluters refusing to act, the world community was paralyzed.

Some analysts attribute the failure to an inherent flaw in the design of the chosen solution — arguing that a cap-and-trade approach is too unwieldy and difficult to put in place. Moreover, these critics add, the financial crisis that began in 2008 shook the world’s confidence in the use of any market-based solution.

But there are two big problems with this critique: First, there is no readily apparent alternative that would be any easier politically. It is difficult to imagine a globally harmonized carbon tax or a coordinated multilateral regulatory effort. The flexibility of a global market-based policy — supplemented by regulation and revenue-neutral tax policies — is the option that has by far the best chance of success. The fact that it is extremely difficult does not mean that we should simply give up.

Second, we should have no illusions about the difficulty and the time needed to convince the rest of the world to adopt a completely new approach. The lags in the global climate system, including the buildup of heat in the oceans from which it is slowly reintroduced into the atmosphere, means that we can create conditions that make large and destructive consequences inevitable long before their awful manifestations become apparent: the displacement of hundreds of millions of climate refugees, civil unrest, chaos and the collapse of governance in many developing countries, large-scale crop failures and the spread of deadly diseases.

It’s important to point out that the United States is not alone in its inaction. Global political paralysis has thus far stymied work not only on climate, but on trade and other pressing issues that require coordinated international action.

The reasons for this are primarily economic. The globalization of the economy, coupled with the outsourcing of jobs from industrial countries, has simultaneously heightened fears of further job losses in the industrial world and encouraged rising expectations in emerging economies. The result? Heightened opposition, in both the industrial and developing worlds, to any constraints on the use of carbon-based fuels, which remain our principal source of energy.

The decisive victory of democratic capitalism over communism in the 1990s led to a period of philosophical dominance for market economics worldwide and the illusion of a unipolar world. It also led, in the United States, to a hubristic “bubble” of market fundamentalism that encouraged opponents of regulatory constraints to mount an aggressive effort to shift the internal boundary between the democracy sphere and the market sphere. Over time, markets would most efficiently solve most problems, they argued. Laws and regulations interfering with the operations of the market carried a faint odor of the discredited statist adversary we had just defeated.

This period of market triumphalism coincided with confirmation by scientists that earlier fears about global warming had been grossly understated. But by then, the political context in which this debate took form was tilted heavily toward the views of market fundamentalists, who fought to weaken existing constraints and scoffed at the possibility that global constraints would be needed to halt the dangerous dumping of global-warming pollution into the atmosphere.

Over the years, as the science has become clearer and clearer, some industries and companies whose business plans are dependent on unrestrained pollution of the atmospheric commons have become ever more entrenched. They are ferociously fighting against the mildest regulation — just as tobacco companies blocked constraints on the marketing of cigarettes for four decades after science confirmed the link of cigarettes to diseases of the lung and the heart.

Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace.

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.

The pathway to success is still open, though it tracks the outer boundary of what we are capable of doing. It begins with a choice by the United States to pass a law establishing a cost for global warming pollution. The House of Representatives has already passed legislation, with some Republican support, to take the first halting steps for pricing greenhouse gas emissions.

Later this week, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are expected to present for consideration similar cap-and-trade legislation.

I hope that it will place a true cap on carbon emissions and stimulate the rapid development of low-carbon sources of energy.

We have overcome existential threats before. Winston Churchill is widely quoted as having said, “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes, you must do what is required.” Now is that time. Public officials must rise to this challenge by doing what is required; and the public must demand that they do so — or must replace them.

[DarrinS]

"I will accept it."

no, you won't. There are tons of evidence now, not in dispute except by oil/gas/coal-financed, duped deniers like yourself.

You Lie when you say the tons of scientific evidence on global warming is not transparent, not corroborated by multiple studies, and all the other You Lies you spew.

you ideological ignorance is not amenable to scientific evidence.



Is the memo in the OP written by oil/gas/coal-financed duped deniers?

[RandomGuy]

I doubt that day will come, but if so. I will accept it.

You see, I do understand enough of the geosciences to see the AGW crowd if flat out wrong. How many times have I said you must understand most of the earth sciences to understand Global Warming?


Actual scientific writing is very careful to indicate degrees of certainty. The IPCC reports, and scientific publishing in general, use couched terms like "highly likely" or "somewhat likely".

I am rather suspicious of anyone who uses language like "vitually certain" to describe probabilities involved. Although I have faith your ability to understand science, I have little faith in your ability to draw adequate conclusions based on that understanding.

Personally, I would love for you to be thrown into the process of putting together the IPCC reports.

We should have someone deeply skeptical and intellectually dishonest enough to force the IPCC to make its case more transparently and better than it has in the past. It would sharpen the reports and make the rather insular scientists a bit more savvy as to how to present things.

[Wild Cobra]

Transparency has happened to a degree.

I think it will happen because people of good faith in science will ask for it, and generally, scientists tend to take this sort of things very seriously.

Yes, they do. The AGW crowd has been relegating Climate Science to as believable as the paranormal, and it's time that stops.

[Wild Cobra]

Actual scientific writing is very careful to indicate degrees of certainty. The IPCC reports, and scientific publishing in general, use couched terms like "highly likely" or "somewhat likely".

True, then they turn around and lie about better understood factors like solar forcing. They rate that as a Low LOSU. They only rate CO2, CH4, N2O, and halocarbons as a high LOSU, when they are not easy to quantify.


I am rather suspicious of anyone who uses language like "vitually certain" to describe probabilities involved. Although I have faith your ability to understand science, I have little faith in your ability to draw adequate conclusions based on that understanding.

If you wish, but I an virtually certain the IPCC is a crock of shit, and politically motivated.


Personally, I would love for you to be thrown into the process of putting together the IPCC reports.

I'd be removed from the process like all the real scientists were.


We should have someone deeply skeptical and intellectually dishonest enough to force the IPCC to make its case more transparently and better than it has in the past. It would sharpen the reports and make the rather insular scientists a bit more savvy as to how to present things.

Except for the intellectually dishonest, thanx.

Example please?

[RandomGuy]

Except for the intellectually dishonest, thanx.

Example please?

Didn't have to look far.


I'd be removed from the process like all the real scientists were.

Defining only those scientists who agree with you are being "real scientists", and assuming that they were removed from the process solely because they were skeptical.

Giving a figure regarding the number of "scientists" who signed that petition about being "doubtful" of AGW without the caveat that the defintion of scientists was broad enough to include dieticians.

Criticising science papers submitted to peer review as being "politically/ideologically motivated" while failing to acknowledge that studies of data you cited in support of your theory were not peer-reviewed, and written by people with very obvious political/ideological agenda of their own.

Being intellectually honest includes behing honest of the shortcomings of your arguments. Something you are patently incapable of.

[101A]

They are rightfully calling for more transparancy of the process.

The problem you have is that transparency will happen, and that the level of scientific rigor involved will get better.

What happens when it does, and the weight of evidence debunks your conspiracy theory?

Yes. We WANT the Earth to Burn; melt - drown, whatever calamity might occur - it is my greatest desire; Wish we could just take a blow-torch to the sumbitch now and get it over with!!!

The point is, if the 'weight of evidence" IS overwhelming? The VAST majority of people will agree to do what it takes, I am sure.

However, I don't believe the evidence will be even suggestive of man made global warming; otherwise, no one would have ever had to lie about it.

[Halberto]

Wow...

I'm amazed they are admitting scientific malpractices. I guess they are smart enough to remove themselves from the propaganda artists.


It shouldn't be surprising. There is no agenda in Science other than discovering factual truths.

EDIT:

My two cents:

Reading this article I feel that they are referring to the short term effects of global warming that had been exaggerated years ago. Today you will be hard pressed to find a Glaciologist tell you that our sea levels will rise by 1 meter by 2100. We've got more data due to GPS satellites and other technologies. Before GPS we relied on simple equations for Conservation of Mass, Conservation of Momentum and relied on a simple flow law for ice. Ice is has VERY complicated flow...

Other than the calving of ice sheets and glaciers, global warming is a real threat in the long term (1,000 to 10,000 years from now) and there is geologic proof of how devastating it can be for life on Earth. The worst extinction event in Earth's history was NOT the dinosaurs, it was before that (the Permian-Triassic extinction event aka the "great dying") where the most prominent cause being greenhouse gases. Even insects died from the atmospheric alteration, and that's a scary thing.

I'll post more about it later if anyone is interested.

[Wild Cobra]

Didn't have to look far.



Defining only those scientists who agree with you are being "real scientists", and assuming that they were removed from the process solely because they were skeptical.

Giving a figure regarding the number of "scientists" who signed that petition about being "doubtful" of AGW without the caveat that the defintion of scientists was broad enough to include dieticians.

Criticising science papers submitted to peer review as being "politically/ideologically motivated" while failing to acknowledge that studies of data you cited in support of your theory were not peer-reviewed, and written by people with very obvious political/ideological agenda of their own.

Being intellectually honest includes behing honest of the shortcomings of your arguments. Something you are patently incapable of.
Oh I see. Your jumping to your own conclusions of my statements...

Lame...

[Wild Cobra]

It shouldn't be surprising. There is no agenda in Science other than discovering factual truths.

EDIT:

My two cents:

Reading this article I feel that they are referring to the short term effects of global warming that had been exaggerated years ago. Today you will be hard pressed to find a Glaciologist tell you that our sea levels will rise by 1 meter by 2100. We've got more data due to GPS satellites and other technologies. Before GPS we relied on simple equations for Conservation of Mass, Conservation of Momentum and relied on a simple flow law for ice. Ice is has VERY complicated flow...

Other than the calving of ice sheets and glaciers, global warming is a real threat in the long term (1,000 to 10,000 years from now) and there is geologic proof of how devastating it can be for life on Earth. The worst extinction event in Earth's history was NOT the dinosaurs, it was before that (the Permian-Triassic extinction event aka the "great dying") where the most prominent cause being greenhouse gases. Even insects died from the atmospheric alteration, and that's a scary thing.

I'll post more about it later if anyone is interested.
The whole fact that the data is carefully sheltered is the scientific malpractice. The AGW crowd talks about peer review, but only those whop already agree are allowed in the process. That is not true peer reviewing. A true peer review process is where scientists who are skeptical also agree with the end result.

[baseline bum]

Ah, someone adds nothing but an ad hominem argument and a personal insult. Surprising. :sleep

If there was a physical unit for arrogance, it would be mogrovejos.

[baseline bum]

I can see why mogro is such a huge Palin fan. He likes to make little sarcastic remarks and insult everyone else all the time, and then plays the victim card and complains about others dragging the discussion in the dirt.

[EmptyMan]

Step 1. Repeat Overwhelming over and over.

:lmao

[RandomGuy]

Oh I see. Your jumping to your own conclusions of my statements...

Lame...

Erk, the grammatical mis-mash of that sentence makes it hard for me to decipher precisely what it is you meant, but let me take a stab.

Your statement seems to accuse me of some kind of strawman attack wherein I distorted what you said or didn't say in order to make you look like the intellectually dishonest hack that I gererally assert you are, when in fact you are scrupulously honest in all of your assertions.

Let's examine what "jump" to an incorrect conclusion I made here:

RG: Personally, I would love for you to be thrown into the process of putting together the IPCC reports.

WC: I'd be removed from the process like all the real scientists were.

The implication of this sentence is that no "real" scientists remain in the process of issuing the IPCC reports. These reports are put together by a rather lengthy list of people with PhDs of various sorts, and these credits are given in the reports themselves. These people would be regarded by any layman as a "scientist", by any fair definition.

It is also a fair conclusion that your implied definition of "real scientist" was someone who agrees with your position that AGW is virtually non-existant, and would therefore be skeptical of the IPCC's overall conclusion.

I don't regard either statement of implied meaning to be "jumping to a conclusion".

As for the other two remembered instances:
It was not a jump to a conclusion to state that you did not disclose some of the shortfalls to your arguments, such as the fact that dieticians counted as "scientists" when giving a statistic concerning the number of "scientists" who signed a petition skeptical of global warming.

It was not either a jump to a conclusion to state that some of the papers you cited as evidence to support your case turned out to have both not peer-reviewed and produced by people with rather active and strident agendas.

Both cases were instances of my taking an honest look at some of your claims to see if the evidence supported your claims or assertions.

Upon reflection, it may not have been "intellectual dishonesty" on your part. I guess that was jumping to a conclusion. I assumed that you knew about either fact beforehand, and simply omitted it.

I failed to account for the other possibility:
That you are a lazy shit, and didn't bother to look at the facts/papers you put forth in support of your argument, and honestly didn't know.

I would judge it was more of the latter than the former. Perhaps you could clear it up:

Were you committing a lie of omission, or just being a lazy shit?

Even in being a lazy shit when failing to look into the background of a scientific sounding paper and realizing it wasn't peer reviewed contains an element of dishonesty.

If you continually subject opposing science to greater scrutiny than you do science you agree with, that demonstrates an inability or unwillingness to examine underlying assumptions.

If you really put your mind to it, you might be able to identify how your own biases affect your starting assumptions, you are obviously smart enough to do that.

Honest or intellectually rigorous enough is another matter entirely.

[DarrinS]

I like this liberal's take.


Basically, man is arrogant to think he can destroy the planet and arrogant to think he can save it.


7W33HRc1A6c

[RandomGuy]

And now, a terrifying message from AGW cult leader, Al Gore:

The Al Gore Op Ed:

We're all going to die if you don't invest in my carbon trading ponzi scheme and climate change deniers are all Big Oil shills. (I paraphrase)


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html?hp

Actully that is something of a strawman.

What he said was more along the lines that "Big Oil" has been fighting legislation tooth and nail, and have acted in a manner very similar to Tobacco companies when faced with scientific evidence that their products were dangerous.

Given that companies who benefit most from unrestrained CO2 emissions would have the most economic stake in finding ANYTHING that might poke a hole in AGW, I don't see that as an entirely specious assertion.

I would actually agree with Gore on a number of points that people like you make when you post things about cold weather in winter (gasp!) as if it is somehow proof that overall global temps aren't creeping upwards.

The word for that is "specious".

The fact that you seem to revel in this "because the other side does it" doesn't help your case when it comes to the rest of us trying to objectively weigh arguments in as rational a fashion as we can.

[Wild Cobra]

Your statement seems to accuse me of some kind of strawman attack wherein I distorted what you said or didn't say in order to make you look like the intellectually dishonest hack that I gererally assert you are, when in fact you are scrupulously honest in all of your assertions.

Let's examine what "jump" to an incorrect conclusion I made here:

RG: Personally, I would love for you to be thrown into the process of putting together the IPCC reports.

WC: I'd be removed from the process like all the real scientists were.

The implication of this sentence is that no "real" scientists remain in the process of issuing the IPCC reports. These reports are put together by a rather lengthy list of people with PhDs of various sorts, and these credits are given in the reports themselves. These people would be regarded by any layman as a "scientist", by any fair definition.

It is also a fair conclusion that your implied definition of "real scientist" was someone who agrees with your position that AGW is virtually non-existant, and would therefore be skeptical of the IPCC's overall conclusion.

Science is not by consensus. Any self respecting scientist will not place their reputation on the line with such reports, scorn with problem after problem. There are people who have been kicked off the process because they didn't agree, but then their names remained on the reports. Some have actually sued to get their names off.

The IPCC does not have any real scientists who actually believe their own material regarding AGW. They are all part of a political agenda. Anyone who actually uses the scientific process cannot make the conclusions as stated in the IPCC reports concerning AGW.


I don't regard either statement of implied meaning to be "jumping to a conclusion".

I don't always explain myself. You have often jumped to conclusions of what I meant, and at times, I have not explained myself well.


As for the other two remembered instances:
It was not a jump to a conclusion to state that you did not disclose some of the shortfalls to your arguments, such as the fact that dieticians counted as "scientists" when giving a statistic concerning the number of "scientists" who signed a petition skeptical of global warming.

I have never disagreed with the fact that most were outside of climatology. The fact is, I have responded to this point when we discussed that petition.


It was not either a jump to a conclusion to state that some of the papers you cited as evidence to support your case turned out to have both not peer-reviewed and produced by people with rather active and strident agendas.

And you claim papers advocating AGW have gone though a true peer review process? A peer review process is not proper when you have people who already agree with you review it. It takes skeptics of your position also agreeing with your work.


Upon reflection, it may not have been "intellectual dishonesty" on your part. I guess that was jumping to a conclusion. I assumed that you knew about either fact beforehand, and simply omitted it.

I do sometimes intentionally trap someone with the way I word something, but that's about it. As for your point, it doesn't apply.


I failed to account for the other possibility:
That you are a lazy shit, and didn't bother to look at the facts/papers you put forth in support of your argument, and honestly didn't know.

Just because you don't agree with a link, paper, etc. that I cite, that doesn't mean it's invalid.


I would judge it was more of the latter than the former. Perhaps you could clear it up:

Were you committing a lie of omission, or just being a lazy shit?

I don't know what you are referring to.


Even in being a lazy shit when failing to look into the background of a scientific sounding paper and realizing it wasn't peer reviewed contains an element of dishonesty.

I never claim papers I read are peer reviewed. In fact, I have stated several times, peer reviewing is meaningless on this topic.


If you continually subject opposing science to greater scrutiny than you do science you agree with, that demonstrates an inability or unwillingness to examine underlying assumptions.

Maybe if you understood the sciences better, you would understand why I believe as I do. I have explained things rather well, at least to those who understand the sciences involved.


If you really put your mind to it, you might be able to identify how your own biases affect your starting assumptions, you are obviously smart enough to do that.

It isn't bias. I have studied several aspects of Global Warming. Having collected and understanding the evidence I have, I know for fact, that there is no AGW threat in the form we are told.