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The Forum > Article Comments > The science of reporting climate change > Comments

The science of reporting climate change : Comments

By Brian McNair, published 8/4/2011

Indeed, there’s a problem with media coverage of science in general, which arises from the very nature of news, and the heightened obligation on all public actors, including scientists, to manage news.

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Oh dear, Peter Hume ... such hypocrisy as I have come to expect from you.

So it's ok for people of your ilk to "name call" Mark Lawson, Bob Carter, Garth Paltridge, Aynsley Kellow, et al?

And it's not ok for me to take them to task when they (in)conveniently leave out their newfound 'messiah'.

I understand why you bait and switch, Peter ... it's a common tactic you employ here.

However, you already have my views on YOUR "catastrophic man-made global warming" meme.

As to logical fallacies, yes ... you are.
Posted by bonmot, Saturday, 9 April 2011 1:01:23 PM
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Peter Hume,

I really hope you can go and live on another planet - because your kind of logic we can well do without.

"Give is the proof, give us the proof!" Do you expect us to believe that you could understand the proof it was presented to you on a silver platter? Get Real.

You fall into the category of a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic - of anything and everything! Flat Earth, creation 6,000 years ago, moon-landing's a myth - you probably believe it all. (Or, take the counter-view when it suits you.) Next, you'll be asking us to prove God exists!

Undoubtedly the science of climate, and any change therein, is complex. There are competing views - understandably so!

But, it is up to policy makers to seek properly informed advice, both on the nature of an impending or potential problem, and on possible action to avert or minimise potential impacts. The question we face is i) whether our pollies are getting the best possible advice, ii) whether they would listen to that advice or just go on following faceless ignoramuses, iii) whether the public is being correctly and adequately informed - so they may support the correct advice on both problem and solution.

Prof McNair is right, because the 'real' science says so - not the spin-doctors, not the counter-skeptics, not the BS artists.

Curmudgeon,
"This sort of science is about politics after all..."

For you, maybe. Not it at all! This is all about science, environment, and life as we know it. So, don't demean it, please.

runner,

Haven't you realised Ms G is all about votes, by whatever it takes.
She and her panel wouldn't know science if it bit them.
Posted by Saltpetre, Saturday, 9 April 2011 1:35:40 PM
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Bonmot
More name-calling, ho hum.

In years of this debate, I haven’t yet seen any real-world evidence of the problem, nor have I seen any justification of policy. All I’ve seen is what you have just displayed: a starting position assuming the problem and solution without real-world evidence, relying on authority, orthodoxy and groupthink, and meeting any question with more of the same, plus furious abuse.

Hypocrisy means not practising what you preach. But since you haven’t yet got to the stage of establishing a problem, or a solution, therefore I’m not preaching anything except that those asserting should prove it without reliance on logical fallacies like begging the question.

By contrast, my asking for real-world evidence is not any kind of "logical fallacy".

For all I know there may be good evidence of AGW. Mine is skepticism - the REAL scientific approach. Yours is credulity - the religious approach.

So prove it. No assuming it, no statistical manipulations that assume it, no link wars, no appeal to absent authority, no guesses, no personal abuse, no attribution of bad faith. Just prove it with real-world evidence.

Whereas my argument doesn’t depend on name-calling, ultimately all objections to AGW policy resolve to name-calling. It's the actual foundation of your entire argument. The difference between your and my personal argumentation is this: any name-calling *I* do is *decoration* – *yours* is your *structural members*!

Saltpetre
Your last post proves only that the case for AGW boils down to:
1. “It must be so, because the government tells me so.”
2. “It is not for mere mundanes to question the superior wisdom of their overlords who do and should decide whose property, freedom, livelihood, or life to destroy”.

And you’re telling me to get real?

Come on, seriously, you guys.

PROVE IT.

Either supply real-world evidence of catastrophic global warming justifying policy action, including an account of the lives and property destroyed, or do the intellectually honest thing, and either admit you don’t have a case.

Enough evasion. Any reply other than proving it = total and utter admission of defeat.
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 9 April 2011 6:02:00 PM
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New developments: after having their 'gatekeepers' sacked from Wikipedia, the alarmists are going after WattsUpWithThat and (unsuccessfully) attacking James Delingpole. Having failed to win the debate, they are trying to stifle it:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/15/another-wikipedia-editor-has-been-climate-topic-banned/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/09/facebook-treating-skeptic-blog-articles-as-abusive/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/09/james-delingpole-beats-a-press-complaint-from-uea/
Posted by Jon J, Sunday, 10 April 2011 7:56:36 AM
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[Deleted. Excessive use of capitals.]
Posted by TRUEEE, Sunday, 10 April 2011 11:12:36 AM
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Truee
(No need to shout.)

Half of that was well said. The other half was precisely back-to-front.

"Firstly with privatisation of our utilities make them truely privatised by allowing the end users to seperate from the grid to become self sufficent this will see the growth in green energy 10 fold solar the power and water cartels would hate that."

Well said. For example, where I live it would never have been economical to connect to mains power in the first place. In the absence of public subsidisation, alternative forms of energy would have become more economical and would now be available. What stopped them? The idea that everyone has a "right" to receive electricity, no matter how uneconomical it was to supply it. This idea is what killed the development of alternatives energy, including low-carbon, solar, wind and all the rest of it, that were all made non-viable, suffocated under subsidisation, because how can people compete with freebies handed out by politicians backed up by police to kill any competition?

But it is not correct that the problem was the almighty dollar. Providing energy at a loss, in other words, using more resources per unit of output, is *not* better for the environment, it's worse. If all energy was supplied by way of nationalisation, the result would be less energy at a greater cost to the environment and society.

Only the instruments of profit and loss can tell which is the more economical way of doing things.

The problem was precisely that the instruments of profit and loss were forcibly displaced by government monopolies. Instead, governments, following the socialist fashion of the early 20th century, decided that only they had the wisdom and capacity to provide electricity, even though
a) there was no reason why this should have been a public, rather than a private problem in the first place, and
b) governments now are agreed that their choice of energy was the worst mistake in the history of the whole world.
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 10 April 2011 12:05:28 PM
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