The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Scientific certainty in an uncertain world > Comments

Scientific certainty in an uncertain world : Comments

By Kellie Tranter, published 24/3/2010

Scientists aren’t scare-mongering when, almost unanimously, they describe the challenges we face with climate change.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. All
Kellie
Since science does not supply value judgments, and since policy requires them, therefore climate science provides no justification whatsoever for any policy measure on climate change. The scientistic fallacy is to think that positive science gives normative conclusions; that facts supply values.

It is true that the climate science has been affected by manipulation, suppression, and falsification of data at the highest levels. But still, some warmists say, the substantive conclusions remain unaffected. However until all data and algorithms become freely available to all, we need to exercise a precautionary principle before we conclude that there are not still more, and still worse corruption that is still being suppressed from public knowledge.

There are also much deeper problems involved. Policy means control. The question involved by necessary implication in all policy issues on global warming is: who should be forced to forego which resource, for whose benefit, when, where, why; and how we are to know that the decision-makers have the necessary disinterestedness, knowledge and capacity? Already people in the poorest countries are facing food shortages owing to the diversion of resources on a massive scale out of food production by the best-fed but most fretful people, worrying about what the weather is going to be like in a hundred years time.

Even if the entire population of Australia were exterminated, and all the cows shot (they fart too much), the growth of China alone, in coal-fired power stations alone, would make up the difference in 16 weeks.

Considering the fatal defects in global warming policies as a matter of epistemology, ethics, economics and politics, the defects as a matter of climatology are the least of the warmists’ problems.

The government can’t even perform the simple task of installing pink batts without killing people, burning down houses, increasing carbon emissions, and wasting billions of dollars in corruption. What makes anyone think they can fine-tune the weather of the whole world – without the co-operation of China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, etc.?

The precautionary principle is the opposite of the principle of liberty.
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 24 March 2010 8:59:09 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Peter Hume, that is just a cop-out and a miserable excuse for doing nothing. Shame on you.

Kellie, that is an excellent article, probably wasted on those to whom it was intended, but full marks for trying.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Wednesday, 24 March 2010 9:52:47 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"almost unanimously"?

Science is not a guessing game. It is not about consensus and agreement. It's about proof.

The climate change alarmists have not been able to provide that proof, and we know that the IPPC, at the very least, has mis-represented too much material for them to be trusted.
Posted by Leigh, Wednesday, 24 March 2010 10:18:38 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Really, scientists aren't scaremongering - you don't have to look far for examples, here's one from OLO, "Carbon dioxide, mass extinction of species and climate change" by Andrew Glikson, http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10104

Which part of that is not exagerating and scaremongering .. or do we have a new definition of scaremongering?

I think we have to have a good look at the motives of posters on AGW, are they concerned about AGW itself, or are they just eco activists using AGW as a rallying topic?

I expect all the genuine climate scientists now to stand up for their claims of scientific accuracy and principle and put this article in its place.

After all, they don't want more bad publicity and articles that gild the lily so to speak, or indeed exagerate and cherry pick data.

Now if a lawyer posted on skepticism of AGW, by now we would have had the usual suspects posting what rubbish it is, ow disgusting it is and how dare a non climate scientist post on the subject of climate change. The warmists all display the same eco hypocrisy and penchant to selective outrage.

As an example of half truths I like this one "C02 levels have risen since the industrial revolution and are now rising rapidly" so what, has temperature risen? NO! But is that mentioned, NO! - so this is what .. scaremongering, YES!
Posted by odo, Wednesday, 24 March 2010 10:34:25 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The author is unwittingly using the priesthood arguement. Scientists say it is so, therefore it is so. But she is not aware that the priesthood is divided. There is a very substantial scientific opposition to this supposed consensus. The more prominent critics of the IPCC line include Richard Lindzen, a professor of Meteorology at Massachusetts in the US; William Gray, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Colorado State University; Roger Pielke Jr, a professor in the environmental studies program at the University of Colorado; and Roy W. Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a formerly a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA. And those are just the more prominent. I haven't bothered to list to Ausralian critics.
There are many others who can be classified as agnostic such as Carl Wunch, a profossor of Oceonography at MIT.
The author's claim to consensus is simply wrong, but it is also irrelevent. In fact, the scientists could be in complete agreement and still be proven disastrously wrong. Unless there is an established track record of forecasting in the area, counting up the number of scientists for and against a particular proposition is a waste of time, breath and energy. Nor can public policy be based on any supposed consensus. There is no established track record is climate. In fact, there is just the opposite. The British Met office makes seasonal forecasts which have been proved wrong the last nine times out of 10, the last one disastrously so.
If these guys weren't asking us to spend billions of dollars on solutions that won't work, their forecasts of the supposed problem would be laughable.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Wednesday, 24 March 2010 10:41:07 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Kellie, I think you need to review your comment “almost unanimously” because it demonstrates just how ill informed you really are.

Forget or ignore for a moment, the opposing scientific views, just take what the IPCC and Prof. Phil Jones have to say as gospel, especially since you would know what legal advice Jones has been offered for his presence at the UK Parliamentary Hearings.

“Prof. Jones produces a key trend figure of 0.161C (increase) per decade.”

“The IPCC accepts that even the most modern gridded readings contain errors of +/- 0.17.”

“That leaves the “proposed” anthropogenic or “unexplained” warming of 0.051C per decade over 35 years.”

“Jones says a trend of “0.12C per decade is not significant at the 95% significance level”.

“Jones - The 1860-1880 period is only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different.”

This “means the “extraordinary” recent warming that calls for explanation is the balance of 0.051C per decade”.

So “with the imprimatur of Phil Jones to the key fact that recent warming is not unusual, the debate will never be the same.”

How can you possibly ignore such well respected science? Or, do you have access to an even more eminent peer reviewed source?

Sourced from “The end-phase of the Climate Wars?
by Barry Brill
March 22, 2010
Posted by spindoc, Wednesday, 24 March 2010 12:13:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy