“give me RATIONAL reasons for believing that you are right and most of the world's best scientists are wrong about a SCIENTIFIC issue.”

Well for starters what you’ve given is an appeal to absent authority, which was known as a fallacy as far back as the ancient Greeks. By itself, it’s not only *not* a scientific argument, it’s not even rational. Please admit that an appeal to absent authority is a logical fallacy.

Secondly you haven’t defined the case we are to answer. So there’s an intellectual incoherence, and an assumption of what is in issue, right from the start.

Thirdly the distinction between amateur and professional is not a scientific distinction. Darwin was an amateur. Banks was an amateur. Galileo was an amateur astronomer. As a methodology of knowledge, it is invalid to simply look and see whether the speaker is amateur or professional, without defining it.

Fourthly, to say that some climate scientists have behaved badly is to personalize the issue. The problem, as a matter of *social science* is whether government, in its capacity as the provider of all the billions that fund this inquiry, is affecting the production of knowledge in its own favour. It would be enough to find against the orthodoxy if they had done no more than use the same intellectual methodology as you have used. And guess what? They do. The objection to their scientific method is that they assume what is in issue.

Data do not interpret themselves. That requires theory, and theory requires value judgments. All the positive data in the world would only amount to a massive wodge of temperature measurements. Of themselves, they wouldn’t tell us anything. The problem is that the process of analysis and interpretation is riddled with value judgements at every turn. These are *not* science, and when we examine the publications, case by case, we overwhelmingly find that they are riddled with fallacies such as non sequiturs, assuming what is in issue, and other malfeasance.

However even if we were faced with global warming as significant as defined, there would still be a need to know whether the downsides were greater than the upsides.

This would require knowledge, not just of climate, but of the distribution and abundance of species throughout the whole world now, and in the supposed changed conditions. Please admit that this is the knowledge base assumed by the advocates of policy action on global warming.

It would also require knowledge of the *subjective* value judgments of all people affected, as to the upsides and downsides of the status quo, versus the supposed changed conditions. This knowledge is dispersed among seven billion people. It is universally discounted for futurity.

Please admit that you do not and cannot have this knowledge, and neither can any person or committee whatsoever.

And finally, even if all this were knowable, which it’s not, for any conclusions of climate science to be relevant to public policy, we would need to know that government, by way of policy, can produce an outcome that
a) is ethical in the first place, and
b) would produce results that are better rather than worse.

Again the necessary data set to make that call would be the subjective value judgments of dispersed billions – unknowable – set against another unknowable counterfactual.

Thus there is simply no rational or scientific ground for believing that government is able, by central planning, taxation and bureaucracy, to manipulate the climate so as to produce better than worse outcomes, when all relevant data are taken into account, which in any case, government is incapable of doing.

And thus even if all that climate scientists claim were conceded, which it’s not, you still would be multiple complete refutations away from even beginning to establish a case for policy action based on any alleged climatic problem.

A very erudite challenge to the 'sceptics' indeed, but not much of a challenge to common sense. Your contributor seems to find a trace gas guilty of the most heinous of crimes, that of being a greenhouse gas and that mankind's contribution to this trace gas is capable of influencing climate. Well let's suppose planet Earth is not a greenhouse. Let's suppose it is a big ball of minerals and energy with a hot core overlain with a thin blanket of mixed gases of which the most influential is water vapour with clouds capable of reflection and with all of the energy powerplays involved with latent heat of evaporation and Henry's Law (whoops, what's that? Oh just something to do with temperature and dissolved gases and partial pressures) and thermodynamics and heat transmission. Scientists are not within cooee of even knowing how many sub-sea vents are active due to solar electromagnetic and gravity stresses on the Earth's crust, let alone knowing what ejecta goes into the oceans and the air with every burp. The sooner they stop persecuting life-friendly, trace gas carbon dioxide and pursue real pollution (particulate matter from burning camel dung, plastic bags and heavy metals in the waterways) the sooner we can stop chasing shadows and get on with doing real things to make this a better world.

I'd say that was a fail Mr Hume.

Easily summed up by saying that you are arguing about policy action, where Steven is asking about the scientific issue. BTW Darwin was not an amateur, nor was Banks. In fact, Banks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. But I guess you are right in that Steven should probably define what he means by 'amateur', as he has used it. It doesn't change his point though.

A couple of other glaring things: you say "Data do not interpret themselves. That requires theory, and theory requires value judgments. All the positive data in the world would only amount to a massive wodge of temperature measurements. Of themselves, they wouldn’t tell us anything. The problem is that the process of analysis and interpretation is riddled with value judgements at every turn. These are *not* science, and when we examine the publications, case by case, we overwhelmingly find that they are riddled with fallacies such as non sequiturs, assuming what is in issue, and other malfeasance."

Well, actually this IS science, because as you say, the data do not interpret themselves. What science does though is test he interpretations after they are made.

As for having to 'know' the value judgements of several billion people, what rot. You have obviously never heard of opinion surveys. You can get a pretty good idea of what the overall picture of the distribution of opinion (i.e. 'value judgements') if your sample size id good enough. There's a whole branch of mathematics they use to estimate these, it's called statistics. You should look it up.

Anyway, one thing you said is true:"Thus there is simply no rational or scientific ground for believing that government is able, by central planning, taxation and bureaucracy, to manipulate the climate so as to produce better than worse outcomes, when all relevant data are taken into account, which in any case, government is incapable of doing. "

But this is not even related to the question. I think it is you who has assumed what is in issue.

climate 'science'is about idiotic as the theory of evolution. It changes every second day with people interpreting data to fit their faith.

Sorry Steven that's a pretty poor effort.

First your appeal to authority, when that authority has proven that it can't lie straight in bed. If authority had any proof of their theory, it would be everywhere, not hidden away inaccessibly in some institutes vault.

There are far too many new red herrings dragged across the media, by these people, only to disappear, once intelligent people shoot them down, for them to have anything worth showing.

When the leading exponents glory in a trick to "hide the decline", the truth is, they have nothing real to support their claims.

Then the trumped up inquiries into climate gate. No authority worth having could have done such a white wash job. They proven themselves liars, with far too much to hide, at every turn.

Then you tell us, nicely, that we are too dumb to understand the physics behind our climate scientists theory. Wrong!. They have shown themselves to be very lacking in the basics they should have to be believable.

Then a little defense of the indefensible, that hockey stick. Mate there is more than enough agricultural [as well as proxy] evidence to prove the medieval warm period existed. Hell, even the early IPCC had it in black & white, until the rest of their case started falling apart, & they needed another red herring. Every twist has only got them more mired in the mess they have created.

Then we have the money. Far too many of our institutions are spendthrifts. They have become totally dependent on government funding of global warming, under what ever name it's masquerading today, to be able to get out.

I no longer believe anything coming out of academia, until I have checked it out thoroughly. As I have only so much time, this means I believe very little. AGW has destroyed their place in society, & they deserve every bit of the flack they are getting.

The author is, by his own terms, in no position to criticise Professor Plimer because the author is merely a 'dissenting amateur' in relation to Prof Plimer's work and not qualified in the field.

It should also be pointed out that dissenting amateurs are in no worse position than supporting amateurs as neither has any intimate knowledge of the field.

The author has given himself over to the 'climate experts' despite the fact that Climate Science is more a corrupt business than a Science.

Rational reasons for dissent? OK.. what about...
1. Manipulation of data. e.g.The great Hockey Stick con where data was deliberately tainted to give a hockey stick graph no matter what figures were put in.
2. Deliberate exclusion of dissenting Scientists from peer reviewed journals.
3. Climate Science is dictated to by the IPCC which has been inflitrated by Environmental activist groups and whose former chief climate scientist was a Railway Engineer Rajendra Pachauri with no Climate quals at all.
4. One third of Copenhagen report reference were not peer reviewed and contributed by green 'activist' students.
5. Multiple failed predictions including mild winters for UK and no snow on Austrlaina snowfields and 50 million climate refugees by year 2010.

These are simply what comes to mind in 2 mins. I could find more than 50 without any trouble at all.

It would help if Steven Meyer would bring himself up to speed with the basic arguments already kicked around for many years before launching into this long appeal to authority, most of which is irrelevant.

The study of the use and abuse of experts and how much they can be trusted to get the answer right, particularly when it coems to forecasting, is in fact a field all in its own right. The trouble is its in business, specifically in marketing, grouped along with the study of forecasting systems.

One of the key points about the use of experts is that there forecasts are of no more value than layman in their own field, unless they are using theories with established track records. Thus you pay attention to a heart specialist as there are extensive studies on disease prognosis and heart treatments with established track records and so on. Same thing for astronomy and quantum mechanics. Those theories have established track records. Most of Meyer's examples fall into that category.

There is nothing in climate science that establishes any such confidence. Seasonal forecasting is now getting better, sort of, albeit by using climate cycles. But it is still far from clear even what effect humans have had on climate in the past few decades (although there is room for human influence in what is known to date), let alone what effect it might have.

The field is still far too young for the confident predictions we have seen. Meyer should re-examine what he thinks he knows about the history of science to ask himself why an undoubted majority of scientists are supporting the forecasts that are being forced on us, when the field has no track record.

The corollary to that curmudgeon is of course that most of the alternative theories that 'skeptics' like to hang their hat on as being a more probable explanation of the data (in their view) have even LESS of a 'track record'.

Cosmic rays anyone?

Do catch up Bugsy.

I'm happy to admit that my first thought at the suggestion of cosmic rays was "Oh my god".

However experiments have proved they do have an effect in the formation of cloud.

They may still be a bit fat fetched, but their effect are more provable than CO2, & that's with some billions less funding for research.

And thus your faith is exposed Hasbeen.

I didn't they they were bunk, I said they had less of a 'track record' than the established one, as do most of the alternative theories that you prefer.

Do catch up.

"What a load of codswallop!"

Well, there speaks an open mind... Nice to know that Steven hasn't sullied his impartial assessment with any preconceived ideas or received wisdom from the warmistas.

Just to make it clear what these respected 'climate scientists' have been up to:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/14/why-i-want-mike-manns-emails/

Steven as you see climate science is a hard topic to sell, Hasbeen is sort of a skeptic, and probably a good informant to Mr Abbott, he says it is crap. Some will not get the consequences until it is all too late. When there is no more polar ice left and see level rise chase people from their beach side resorts, there will still be a logical explanation for the happening. A day in the life of earth is probably one million years, but for some reason we can have a whole range of occurrences, within 2 minutes of earth time. Science will always be changing on this subject, which is fodder for skepticism.

The solution to HUMAN caused Global warming is CLEARLY to reduce the number of humans.

There is NOT ONE AGW adherent looking at that ONLY solution.

The reason? All peer reviewed AGW scientists are nerds. They are sexually dissatisfied LOSERS who believe that by increasing human populations they increase their "chances". All that testosterone, all that oestrogen raging is why THEY use more OIL and COAL and personally do more damage to the biosphere than people who actually BREED.

The point is that until laws are passed to make women truly EQUAL: To restrict women's breeding rights to one to two children per lifetime, its resource shortages, global wars with WMD's, all fueled by sex-hormones, that will destroy humankind.

Equal rights & Global warming are JOKES. Its just another failed NERD's revenge!

And another thing. REAL SCIENCE, you know the one that makes progress and things happen. Specifically the SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS, says that if you reduce energy use you reduce order, approach thermal-equilibrium and destroy life by wars of boring sameness.

Further, no SOLAR renewable or any wind/wave derivitive can replace baseload energy. Essentially the cost of collecting sufficient low density energy over vast distances yields less baseload energy than the collective manufacture & collection costs.

That means only Hot Rock GEOTHERMAL can replace dwindling OIL or COAL which is too dirty to support pre 1900, sub 2 billion populations.

No AGW scientist is serious about GEOTHERMAL because they all have vested interests (grants, shares etc) in scientifically impossible renewables.

Think of all the AGW science $billions and endeavour going to population control, Geothermal and REAL progress in Solar system exploration if we could invent a germ to eradicate AGW scientists and their dysfunctional psyches.

A measured argument, Steven, and thanks for not simplistically dividing the world into ‘deniers’ and ‘believers’.

I’ll accept your major premises. The world is warming, yes. Climate scientists know a good deal more about that than the rest of us, yes. By and large, public opinion should defer to those who’ve done the hard yards to become ‘expert’ in their field, yes.

All within limits, of course. We have three problems to deal with.

First, science is about confirming or denying a hypothesis. It’s easy to confirm the hypothesis that CO2 is a ‘greenhouse’ gas. Thus far, however, climate scientists produce climate models, not testable hypotheses. Models consistent with AGW tenets prove nothing: GIGO. You can’t confirm AGW in the same way you establish a hypothesis within QED.

Still, models are useful; we rely on them all the time, if they’ve got ‘skill’. QED makes very precise predictions, hence we conditionally accept the underlying hypotheses as true, even before the theory’s complete. Is there any climate change model that DOES show ‘skill’? Temperature change over the last 15 years, f’rinstance? The last 2000 years? Nothing’s even close yet, and that’s problem #2.

But I don’t want to wait until Bangladesh is underwater to confirm or deny the AGW hypothesis. Whose ‘expert’ opinion can I trust? I’m most likely to accept the arguments of those whose respect for the scientific method is beyond question. How do I find her, or him? I’m looking for the climate scientists (or senior practitioners in related disciplines) who acknowledge that Al Gore is guilty of hyperbole. I’m looking for the dedicated researchers who were first to denounce gross perversion of science at UEA. I’m looking for the senior experts who slammed the IPCC for including WWF propaganda in their ‘peer-reviewed’ summary. Etc, etc, etc. Where do I find them?

On the list of so-called ‘deniers’, almost every one.

There’s water aplenty in the climate science well ... but it’s poisoned by some very bad actors, by institutions which prefer grants to ethics, lazy media, and green fanatics. Methinks we’re stuffed.

Steven,

The reason that I remain a sceptic is that it is very clear that very much remains to be learned about the complex climate system.

First, is it even warming? It is very clear that there are many problems with the data. And why are all the "adjustments" (eg NZ, Darwin) in the direction of increased warming??

Second, if it is warming, are we talking about local, regional or global warming? People experiencing local desertification for example, might be inclined to blame that on global warming, but is it really?

Third, if is warming, what is causing it? Clearly there are natural cycles. Also, as intimated above, there are regional and local effects arising from land-use factors - deforestation, interference with natural hydrological systems etc. Maybe anthropogenic CO2 is having some impact, but how much compared with the other factors?

Fourth, the big question is what is the climate sensitivity to increasing CO2? You may not be aware, but a vigorous controversy goes on, with some arguing that the feedbacks are neutral or even negative, whereas the IPCC crew ASSUMES that it is strongly positive. The case has not been made.

When the beneficiaries of the global warming funding bandwagon start answering these questions, then maybe we sceptics will start to listen. Until then.......

whats new.

Scientist's at the cutting edge of new research and climate change often get nasty with one another.

The level of uncertainty is high. The potential of climate change with many other important environmental disasters, peak oil and population growth are collectively going to contribute the culling of the human population and that is he is the only certainty. The dice of human ignorance is still rolling and we still ignore the complexity of the disaster ahead of us when the lights of our planet will no longer be seen from outer space.
RIP.

Bye Alan.

Bugsy
good, you're getting it. Quite right. There is no track record for solar activity either. Although there is a lot of evidence of a link between climate and solar activity up to 1985, this has not been use to forecast so still counts as tentative. The link breaks down after 1985, as far as anyone knows, leaving some room for human influence on climate but what's the mechanism by which the sun influences climate? Three have been suggested that I know of.

However, its not an either or.. If neither of two theories have any track record to speak of you rule both out, or treat both with the same degree of contempt, if you like. The number of scientists exrpessing support for or against either has no relevence.

Well, Steven, thank you for asking.

Your appeals to authority already noted.

I'll appeal to authority, too - you.

YOU said:

* Climate systems are several orders of magnitude more complex than the systems that physicists consider when they study QED.
* We do not know all the parameters. Most likely we do not yet know all the important ones.
* We cannot quantify the interactions of even the known parameters with precision.
* There is no compact set of equations that enable you to predict with precision the way climate will behave as parameters are changed. Climate science will never achieve the predictive precision of QED.
* Climategate demonstrated that a number of scientists were behaving badly. That, by itself, is not surprising. It has happened throughout history and will happen again. In that respect scientists are no different to any other group – e.g. Wall Street Bankers. What is shocking is that, like Wall Street Bankers, the misbehaving scientists were not sacked. Phil Jones should not have been allowed to remain on as head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia
* Some climate scientists appear to have an exaggerated notion of their ability to forecast the future.
* Some of the policy responses to AGW are nothing short of lunatic. The only thing that I can think of that would be worse than the Gillard Government's go-it-alone carbon tax would be to emulate Europe's carbon trading scheme.
* People most of us would prefer not to be associated with have taken on climate change as a political cause. I really do not like the thought of being on the same side as that recycled Stalinist and anti-Semite, Lee Rhiannon, in any debate.

In addition, no doubt there are things we don't know we don't know.

So, given as little certainty as you describe, why spend a cent, let alone destroy the economy, on that basis?

PS: The CRU lot ARE charlatans.

Peter Hume and others

As BUGSY has noted:

I am NOT appealing authority.

If I had said "Adding CO2 to the atmosphere poses grave risks because scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say so," that would be an appeal to authority.

But I am not saying anything of the sort.

I am saying on the one side I have a group consisting of climate scientists and members of peak scientific bodies. Call this group the "Science Group." The climate scientists know more about climate than you or I and the members of the peak scientific body are certainly smarter than me and, I daresay, than you.

It is the considered judgement of the Science Group that continuing to pump CO2 into the atmosphere poses a risk of severe negative consequences. Call this proposition A (propA)

On the other side I have a group made up of people who for most part are NOT working climate scientists, are NOT members of a peak scientific body, most of whom are NOT scientists at all, who claim the opposite. Call this group the Peter Hume Group.

Now I have to make up my mind whom I am inclined to believe. Who do I bet on?

The Science Group?

Or the Peter Hume Group?

Based on the form book for outside amateurs successfully challenging the scientific consensus the only rational strategy would be to bet on the Science Group. The odds are heavily in favour of them turning out to be MORE NEARLY CORRECT than the Peter Hume Group.

That doesn't mean the Science Group will ultimately be proved right. Against the odds it may turn out that the Peter Human Group have it right. Sometimes the 20-1 outsider does win the big race.

But I suggest that to a dispassionate observer, one who does not allow ideology or wishful thinking to cloud his judgement, the Science Group must be considered the odds-on favourite.

But perhaps you can give me a RATIONAL reason for revising my estimate of the ODDS.

Bugsy,

Yes, I should define what I mean by amateur.

In the 21st century a person who meets the following criteria is NOT an amateur.

He or she:

--Devotes at least half his working time to active research

--Is in regular communication with other researchers. THIS IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE! Solitary researchers are usually cranks. Perhaps it is possible to be a brilliant scientist in isolation but I've not heard of any such case. Certainly not in the past 200 years. Science is a social activity. It is also a BLOOD SPORT. A lot of excellent research has resulted from the researcher's desire to demolish a rival's pet theory.

--Occasionally publishes papers, books or monographs that are of interest to other researchers and are an attempt at an original contribution to knowledge

--Submits his or her work to peer review

Note I have made no mention of payment. Peter Mitchell*, one of the most outstanding scientists of the twentieth century, was a wealthy man who largely funded his lab from his own pocket. He won a Nobel Prize in 1978.

I would not have considered either Darwin or Banks to be amateurs.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell

Atman wrote:

>>The author is, by his own terms, in no position to criticise Professor Plimer because the author is merely a 'dissenting amateur' in relation to Prof Plimer's work and not qualified in the field.>>

I called Plimer up on points of fact. If Albert Einstein were to say "the rest mass of the electron is 4 tons" anyone would be within their rights in saying "Errh, Al, I think you'll find that that the real number is closer to 9.1 X 10^-31 Kg"

However, Atman, if it makes you feel better, professional scientists, including some of his colleagues in Adelaide, have been far more thorough in pointing out the manifold errors in Plimer's book than my poor efforts.

Tell me, Atman, what do you think of a professor who knowingly disseminates false information?

Bugsy
Neither Banks nor Darwin made their income from biology, so they were not professionals in that sense.

Neither were they professional in the sense of nine-to-five type full-time occupation. But even if that definition described them, it would equally describe many educated skeptical bloggers who patiently devote their time to analyzing the work, and exposing the fallacies, of the mainstream. One might say such skeptics have far too much time on their hands but of course that’s what Darwin’s father said about his bent for natural history. And it is indeed what I say about the entire climate establishment!

So this point only goes to Steven’s failure to provide any relevant definition for a criterion on which his entire argument depends. His definition of “professionals” is apparently: “vested interests funded by coercion”.

At best, the professional/amateur distinction would only be a *surrogate* measure of reliability of knowledge, which we can gauge better and more directly by identifying and dismissing illogical methods of argumentation – such as Steven’s, and the fallacies with which the establishment case is riddled.

Remember, *one* fallacy is enough to disprove an argument using a *rational* method.

“Well, actually this IS science…”

It isn’t just because you say so. For example, one of the common ploys I have seen over and over again in the so-called professional science is, faced with a data set in the shape of a cloud, to draw a regression line through it, trending *up*. The same degree of arbitrary licence could obviously produce a line trending down. It is nonsense to rest your case on the assertion that such facile and biased INTERPRETATIONS are “science”, and to ignore even considering the possibility that the interpretive discretion is being affected by *non*-scientific orthodoxy and vested interests.

The most parsimonious explanation is obvious, and it’s not catastrophic man-made global warming.

“What rot.”
That is not a rational argument.

There is a need to come to terms with the human values in issue because without that, the positive science has no significance, either as a matter of public policy, or anything else.

(cont.)

Furthermore, the method of taking account of the human values in issue must be rational and scientific for Steven to satisfy his own standard.

Thus the climatology is necessary but not sufficient. If policy action is “not even related to the question”, then kindly concede that climate science provides no ground whatsoever for policy action on global warming, and we can all stop talking about global warming.

Now the alarmist case is that we are faced with catastrophic man-made global warming, such that “the planet” won’t be safe for “our children”. (But if not, then what is it? Neither you nor Steven have stated your case.)

So what is in issue, is *all* actions of *all* human beings who use carbon, *now and in the future*. Why? Because it is such carbon use which provides the proof that people prefer their voluntary actions to policy action – otherwise policy would not be necessary to override their demonstrated preferences.

Thus in order to justify policy action, the knowledge set you would need, is to compare the (subjective) value that people get from the status quo, now compared to the future, with the value set that people would get from policy action, now compared with the future.

It is nonsense to attempt to deal with this gaping abyss in the warmist argument, by airily referring to the absent authority of unspecified “opinion surveys”, as if that disposes of all issues in your favour. Firstly no opinion survey of anywhere near the relevant data set exists. But even if it did, it would already be out of date before it could be brought to bear. And any *statistical interpretations* as to a sample, i.e. *a sub-set*, would not be competent to disprove the *demonstrated preference* of the population, i.e. *the whole set*.

Thus we find, again and again, that the entire global warming belief system, far from being based on “science”, is resilient in the face of multiple complete and total refutations. It is actively irrational.

Hi Steven,

I think a logical problem with your piece is that you say that you need to be really smart to follow climate science, and if you're not that smart then you aren't entitled to make a judgement (hope I am not misrepresenting you).

But you don't have to be very smart at all to know whether climate science is right or wrong. Science proceeds on the basis of falsifiability. If you make a prediction based on your theory and it proves to be wrong, then your theory is wrong. This is not a logical test, but an observational test, and doesn't require great intelligence.

The climate models predict that the troposphere will warm much faster than surface atmosphere, but that is not happening.

Not for me to work out where they have made the mistake, but they have made a mistake. I do have enough intelligence to know where the mistake is most likely to be happening, which is on the question of forcings, or what I would call amplifications as I think forcings is not an accurate description of what they do.

What do you reckon?

Steven

Why is that “NOT” an appeal to authority?

Why is it true that saying
“continuing to pump CO2 into the atmosphere poses a risk of severe negative consequences because the Science group says so”

is “not saying anything of the sort”

“Adding CO2 to the atmosphere poses grave risks because scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say so”?

They seem to me to be identical in their methodology.

What do you say is the difference?

Actually Mr Hume, I think Steven defined what he meant by amateur pretty well in the post above yours. The scientists you listed may not have received pay, as many scientists in those days were men of leisure and most in those days did not make money from their pursuits, although they were professionally trained at universities. Galileo was not an amateur astronomer, he was actually a professional scientist and taught astronomy among other things.

But this doesn't matter, if all we can do is argue over the definition of 'amateur' in Steven's piece, then that's pretty weak.

But yes, you are correct: science does not make the value judgments needed for policy action, that's politics. This is not a concession, it's always been my position. It's also why I don't generally comment on policy. But it's also a reason why I think it's irrational for complete amateurs (in Stevens and common usage of the word) to argue that the science is false and that nothing bad is happening.

Well, actually it isn't completely irrational, if you want to undermine the fact that the science says that something probably bad actually is and you don't want to give up your stuff to prevent it.

Hi Graham

Realistically, I think you do need a certain level of smarts to get to grips with a complicated scientific issue. That doesn't mean you have to be a genius. Most OLO posters could do it.

Anyone can comment on anything. But should uninformed pundits expect to be taken seriously.

How to become informed?

PASSION. Without passion you cannot do the hard yards needed to gain understanding of something this complicated.

I would guess I have devoted 400 hours to studying climate science over the past three years while holding down a full time job. I have been fortunate in that I've had friends in the climate science community who have responded with saintly generosity to all my pestering.

I've put in the hours because I find this such an intriguing issue.

But there is a difference between understanding a scientific issue and being able to make a useful contribution. I understand the theory. I have a reasonable knowledge and understanding of the major issues. I can write about climate science in the same way that a good journalist can explain economic issues without claiming to be an economist.

But I'm not a climate scientist. Someone who works with climate ten hours a day five days a week would find any attempt on my part to instruct him risible.

And this brings me to another point. Some posters here seem to have the view that the whole climate science enterprise is made up of fools, charlatans and villains who plot daily to deceive humanity. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of climate scientists work in the field because it is their passion. They are as anxious as anybody to learn the truth.

Perhaps they're right when they warn of impending calamity. Perhaps they're wrong. But few are engaging in deliberate deception. And none I've met are fools. All the issues I've ever seen raised on OLO have already been considered by professionals in the field.

Respond in more detail after 24 hours.

Why not submit your question to a working climate scientist?

Steven your post makes it even worse.

You tell us that the so called climate scientists are professional, & god knows, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on them, & by them, they damn well aught to be.

But this is where it all unravels. The IPCC report was authored & prepared by the select few of your professionals. It was put together at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. It was the very best tax payer money could buy.

Then the rot sets in. Those enthusiastic amateurs derided by you, working in their on time, with no funds, find so much wrong with it, that it could not have earned a pass in a high school test.

They find so many errors of fact, misinformation, & damn right fraud that I am surprised someone like you could ever defend the thing.

Every time your "professionals" come up with a new line of argument, at huge cost to us, those pesky amateurs tear it apart, in their own time, & for free.

I am surprised you can side with these shysters. I am afraid it is this solidarity among academics which is protecting a bunch of half baked con men who are doing more damage than has ever been done before, in the name of science.

Until they can produce something that is not easily destroyed by these amateurs, they are not worth the time of day. Please do some of the math yourself, without reference to hypothetical tipping points, & without multiplication by extremely doubtful feedback.

Without these very doubtful assumptions, the thing doesn't hold water, & sinks like a stone.

Steven,

"Some posters here seem to have the view that the whole climate science enterprise is made up of fools, charlatans and villains who plot daily to deceive humanity. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of climate scientists work in the field because it is their passion. They are as anxious as anybody to learn the truth."

Hear, hear. Whatever we may think of their theories, I agree entirely that the attacks on climatologists as being part of some Masonic-style plot to deceive the Western world are completely without merit, and serve only to discredit the skeptic's position. Most scientific researchers do not enter their profession to win prestige or earn lots of money (they certainly don't do it to pick up chicks) - they do so because they have a passion and an aptitude for their job.

And I agree that they're probably right - but only for a very limited value of right. A theory in which:
"* We do not know all the parameters. Most likely we do not yet know all the important ones.
* We cannot quantify the interactions of even the known parameters with precision.
* There is no compact set of equations that enable you to predict with precision the way climate will behave as parameters are changed. Climate science will never achieve the predictive precision of QED."

Seems of limited value to me. Mind you, it's certainly better than no theory. And it should be noted many of the predictions of "grave dangers" do not come from climatologists at all - they come from economists, and I personally regard economics not so much as a science as a black art. You might as well read entrails to divine the consequences of climate change as trust the word of economists.

TBC

continued:

Of course, it is quite possible that current climatological theories will go the way of phlogiston - that whilst there might be good scientific reasons for accepting them at the time, they will be later found to be bunk. Although if/when this happens, it will almost certainly not be the work of amateurs - it will be the work of those nasty climatologists, and the theories will have been submitted for peer review.

GrahamY,

"But you don't have to be very smart at all to know whether climate science is right or wrong. Science proceeds on the basis of falsifiability. If you make a prediction based on your theory and it proves to be wrong, then your theory is wrong. This is not a logical test, but an observational test, and doesn't require great intelligence."

Theories are rarely discredited on the basis of one falsifying observation. For example, Newton's laws of motion were not immediately discredited by their erroneous prediction of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit. A number of dissatisfying ad hoc fixes were proposed, but the problem wasn't resolved until classical mechanics was superseded by Einstein's theory of general relativity.

A few comments:

HOBBY SCIENTISTS

I don't want to give the impression that amateurs can never make a contribution to science. This is plainly not true. See for example:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=problem-solved-lol

Amateurs who make a contribution are generally, to coin a phrase, "HOBBY SCIENTISTS." Some aspect of scientific endeavour is their hobby.

Hobby scientists are characterised by the following:

--They devote a lot of TIME and PASSION to their hobby.

--They do the HARD YARDS, they take the time to master the subject matter.

I think hobby scientists are somewhere between the professionals and the outright amateurs.

In my experience hobby scientists generally do not subscribe to conspiracy theories. The self-proclaimed experts on the physics of collapsing buildings are not hobby scientists; they're cranks.

Ditto all those folks who have "discovered" that evolution is some sort of conspiracy on the part of evil atheist-scientists who have sold their souls to Satan.

I suppose there are also hobby anti-scientists. Rather than grapple seriously with the issues they surf the internet looking for websites that confirm their biases.

I am not a hobby scientist. I suppose you could call me a hobby science writer.

THE IPCC REPORT

The IPCC report is a flawed document – to put it mildly.

For the life of me I cannot understand how that bit about the glaciers melting in 30 years got in. It took this amateur five minutes of calculation using only high school physics to determine that what was being claimed was physically impossible.

Does that mean that all climate science is junk?

No it doesn't. It means that like ALL HUMAN ENDEAVOURS climate science is imperfect.

I would like to think that the next IPCC report will be an improvement but I am not hopeful. Production of the report is in the hands of a UN bureaucracy. Can’t remember when last a UN bureaucracy produced anything useful.

GrahamY,
"Falsifiability" might work early in a theories 'life', yet a theory can become unfalsifiable eg helicoentrism - the "theory" the earth rotates around the sun.

Regarding "If you make a prediction based on your theory and it proves to be wrong, then your theory is wrong" ...

Hypotheses and alternate hypotheses are formulated for testing. They are often derived form a broader theory. Sometimes the alternative hypothesis is tested (eg for reason of cost, logisitics, etc. The outcomes can ve either
a. "accepting the hypothesis"
b. "failure to reject" the hypothesis (not 'reject the hypothesis')

A rough climate example is the prediction of droughts based on aGW. The problem is testing that. Moreover, global warming is likely to increase the water cycle thus, overall, increase evaporation and increase precipitation (rain).
.

Stephen, you say: "I would guess I have devoted 400 hours to studying climate science over the past three years while holding down a full time job. I have been fortunate in that I've had friends in the climate science community who have responded with saintly generosity to all my pestering."

Given that you have done so much work, presumably you have satisfied yourself (as opposed to trusting the assertions of others) in relation to the following questions.

1. You trust the temperature record that purports to show warming. You have investigated the many "adjustments" made to the record, and the elimination of many station records(many cooler ones), and found that they are not a problem. You are sure that the coverage is meaningful. You are sure that the delta UHI effect has been dealt with properly?

2. You have investigated the issue and have satisfied yourself that there is strong evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been the major cause of observed warming over the past (50?) years, and natural factors and land-use factors (as argued by Dr Roger Pielke Sr) are minor.

3. You have satisfied yourself that the arguments advanced by certain skeptics (Dr Roy Spencer, Dr Lindzen and others) that the sensitivity of the global mean temperature to anthropogenic CO2 emissions is around 1 deg C per doubling (as they show evidence for) are not valid. Instead you accept the 3.5 deg C per doubling which the IPCC advances based on ASSUMPTIONS included in MODELS.

It would help us skeptics if you were able to show the evidence that convinced you of these key points. Presumably you have done the work to answer these questions and haven't relied on your chosen "experts".

Steven,

I agree with Graham. And it seems you've avoided answering the thrust of his enquiry.

If the predictions that have been made have proven to be inaccurate, surely the models used to make those predictions are at the very least suspect.

Do you agree with this proposition?

Can you exlpain the current peer reviewed literature that shows a deceleration in the rising sea levels?

Can you explain why the results of experiments at the Hedron Super Collider tend to support the hypothesis in relation to cosmic rays affecting cloud formation?

Bugsy
If an amateur points out a logical fallacy, the fact that he is an amateur cannot save the original proposition – obviously.

The significance of the distinction between amateur and professional is only material if we accept the fallacious appeal to absent authority that it is based on.

I have seen these kinds of errors over and over and over and over again, coming from the “professional”, *peer-reviewed*, so-called scientists, and pointed out by amateurs:
- assuming warming in the premises of their models
- simple linear extrapolation
- conclusions unsupported by the data referred to
- interpretations *up*, when the same interpretation *down* was equally open, without explanation.

We are looking at a “professional scientific” culture characterized by these blatantly unscientific methods. Why?

The arrogance of answering “Well you’re all too stupid to question your intellectual superiors”, which is essentially Steven’s argument, just defies belief.

That’s as to the positive science.

As to the normative conclusions, of course science doesn’t supply value judgments. So sorry, but it’s rubbish to maintain that scientists, in their capacity as scientists, are telling us that “something bad” is going to happen. You can’t have it both ways. Either all the science is telling us, at most, is that temperatures might be going up, and *nothing* follows from that as a matter of values or policy action. Or science supplies value judgments, and the argument is based on a fallacy.

Steven asks for a rational argument, and when he is given numerous refutations, does he do the rational thing, acknowledge them, and re-think his claims? No! He *ignores* the refutations, and *persists* in all the fallacies that have just been identified.

It's demonstrably not about rationality, nor therefore science.

It seems credulous to regard as entirely unproblematic - beneath notice - the fact that on the one hand the knowledge-claims produced are virtually exclusively funded by government, and on the other that there just happens to be a culture of unexplained *unscientific* bias in favour of government.

stevenlmeyer

sorry but you've completely missed the point with earlier posts. The sort of reasoning you use is common in the Australian skeptics, of which I am a member, but its known to be false. The number of scientists for or against a particular proposition, their qualifications, degree of professionalism and degree of passion is completely irrelevent.

What matters is does the theory, or set of theories plus assumptions, they are using have a track record in successful forecasts? The calculations used in astronomy have a track record. Therefore you pay attention if an astronomer tells you a planet will be at a certain place at a certain time. In climate science there is no such track record - in fact its just the opposite.

The earliest IPCC forecasts from 1990 can be shown to be wrong - yet the scientists are refusing to change the computer models used. In particular, they are refusing to change crucial assumptions that would greatly reduce the expected warming. (Most of the forecast warming is not the result of any scientific theory as such, but the result of assumptions about the behaviour of natural systems.) Why are they refusing to change?

Now this has all been kicked around many, many times. This isn't even really a matter of science but a gigantic forecasting exercise that has gone completely off the rails. Time to update yourself.

Geez you tie yourself up in knots trying to prove whatever you don't like is irrational Hume. Following the most likely interpretation of data is not irrational.

I would like to address one statement of yours because it's been niggling at me and you repeated the example it in your last post:
"For example, one of the common ploys I have seen over and over again in the so-called professional science is, faced with a data set in the shape of a cloud, to draw a regression line through it, trending *up*. The same degree of arbitrary licence could obviously produce a line trending down. It is nonsense to rest your case on the assertion that such facile and biased INTERPRETATIONS are “science”, and to ignore even considering the possibility that the interpretive discretion is being affected by *non*-scientific orthodoxy and vested interests. "

This is complete BS, as an example I would agree, but I don't see anything like this in the reviewed literature. They even have a well established method of statistics dealing with this sort of data interpretation and how confident one can be with any sort of 'trend line' drawn through it. I would like to see an actual example of what you are talking about here. That is, arbitrary trend lines in 'clouds' of data points. Please post some links, you state that this is a common occurrence, so it shouldn't be too difficult for you.

Steven, you put in a lot of work to give a backdrop to your criticism of Ian Plimer, who has done so much to expose the truth about AGW.

I saw the program where he was ambushed on the volcano question.

When assertions were made about glaciers, by the IPCC, it turned out, after investigation, that there was not sufficient known about glaciers to make the assertion that they were retreating. Many, in fact, are advancing, and there are thousands of which we know nothing.

When sufficient examination of volcanoes has been made, we will see whether Plimer is right. It is a minor point in any event. The main points, which no one in their criticism of Plimer has addressed, are that CO2 has not been shown to cause warming, and human emissions have not been shown to have any measurable effect on climate.

Harold Lewis was a respected member of the American Physical Society, which, like the Royal Society and other prestigious bodies, made statements about AGW which are not backed by science. In his resignation, from the APS, he said, of the current problem with science:

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

We need to know why there is such support for dishonesty in the AGW camp, and why they accept the lead of the IPCC, its refusal to follow proper scientific procedures, and its constant dishonesty.

Steven Meyer

Re Plimer. In a book of thousands of facts some AGW proponents have disputed a small number of Plimer's assertions. The one you mention is about CO2 and volcanoes. Plimer, from memory, is making the point that over time, volcanoes have contributed far more CO2 than humans. Many 'experts' misinterpreted his statement as meaning CO2 per year at present.

It is obvious that volcanoes have put far more CO2 into the atmosphere over millions of years than humans have in the last 150 years. I think its clear some have misinterpreted this statement of Plimers and I think you have simply repeated their words.

No, it doesn't make me 'feel better' as you put it that some unnamed collaegues of his didn't like the book either. It would put my mind to rest though, if scientists dropped the idea of chasing funding by supporting current ideology and used dispassionate logic like they were required to in the past.

I provided you with a list of logical reasons why I doubt the validity and integrity of AGW science as you requested in your article.

Bugsy

“you tie yourself up in knots trying to prove whatever you don't like is irrational Hume.”

Ad hominem, evasion, mind-reading.

“Following the most likely interpretation of data is not irrational.”

That assumes that the most likely interpretation of data is that it shows warming. But that’s what’s in issue. So you’ve assumed what’s in issue, which is circular, which is fallacious, which is irrational.

So I’m not going to wade through a tide of evasions, ad hominem, and circular argument in order to continue the discussion, showing you rational refutations, and receiving only fallacies in reply.

The very fact that you rely on these invalid forms of argument, means you’ve lost the argument.

For us to have a rational discussion, you either need to concede what you can’t defend, or defend it.

Please admit that:
1. You just assumed what is in issue and that this is irrational and unscientific
2. Appeal to absent authority is a fallacy
3. Steven’s argument as to the distinction between professional/amateur involves that fallacy
4. A valid disproof by an amateur is no less a disproof for it being done by an amateur
5. Science does not supply value judgments
6. Even if there were no issue as to climate science, it would not provide justification for policy action on global warming
7. For policy action on global warming to be justified requires knowledge of the upsides and downsides and that government is incapable of such knowledge
8. Government is also incapable of taking into account all relevant values in deciding on policy action and is therefore incapable of justifying policy action.

When you’ve done what you should have done already to show that are not careless of the principles of reason, I’ll go to the trouble of looking up the later and subsidiary point about statistics that you are attempting to divert the discussion to.

No links, no surprise.

No rational argument, no surprise.

If you won't join issue on my earlier questions which go to the essence of the entire matter, and which don't require you to chase down anything but only answer, why should I be bothered chasing down your later query on a subsidiary point which of itself is not capable either of proving or disproving what you or I are contending for.

Thus Bugsy's argument only resolves to ad hominem, ho hum.

No, Hume.

It was an example that you said happens all the time. In fact it seems as if a lot of what you reckon is going on depends on it. You said you have seen it time after time, so it shouldn't be difficult to remember at least one of them, I didn't think you had to go to a lot of trouble to find one.

You want me to admit that I'm irrational because you like to argue per fallaciam? It ain't gonna happen.

Cough up the links or admit you don't have any.

Err... Steven. I have the impression that this exercise isn't quite working out as you expected. No? It couldn't be the case that us sceptics have raised questions that your buddies can't really answer?

“You want me to admit that I'm irrational because you like to argue per fallaciam?”

Misrepresentation; non sequitur.

I want you to admit that you’re irrational for the numerous reasons I have given which disprove your entire argument and which you have not answered; not because I can’t be bothered chasing down a subsidiary reference which can neither prove your case nor disprove mine.

“In fact it seems as if a lot of what you reckon is going on depends on it.”

On the contrary, I have shown why the climate science of itself is necessary but not sufficient to any question of human values and public policy. Therefore my argument doesn’t depend on it because even without such a link, you can’t establish the relevance of global warming to anything and remain mired in logical fallacies that you can’t defend and won’t admit.

I’ll admit I can’t be bothered looking up the link. That still doesn't save you or Steven or AGW from my unanswered, and unanswerable critique of your irrational belief system.

Same crap, different day.

You're making up stories again. Stick to the politics Hume, leave the science alone. They like your kind in politics.

Atman,

Sorry but the assertion that volcanoes contribute more CO2 than the burning of fossil fuels is patently wrong.

Vocanoes primarily emit dust and up to around 320 million tonnes of greenhouses gasses per year. Human activity contributes around 30 billion tonnes per year - about 100 times as much.

Where volcanoes influence the global climate over time periods (of a few years) is due to the injection of sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere.

This happens during those very large volcanic eruptions that occur sporadically each century.

More than "a few" of Plimer's assertions have been proven to be false and I think if you want to nominate an anti-AGW champion, it should not be one who is actually being funded by one of the industries with a vested interest in the outcome of any debate.

A really good article Steven, very well thought out and presented, and I think you have the sceptics scratching around for any poxy piece of flotsam they can find in an ultimately vain attempt to counter your logic and clarity. Your challenge of course, for someone to come up with some actual credible science capable of poking a hole in the fundamental AGW proposition, was never going to produce the goods, for, as you have so clearly pointed out, the science is far too complex for any but the dedicated professional to come to grips with in anything but the broadest terms. (Irrespective of the protestations to the contrary by some.)

It is of course unfortunate that some credible scientists have gone a step too far and fudged the books here and there, albeit their intentions may have been honourable and in the global interest. Such transgressions have both muddied the waters and unwittingly given ammunition to the perennial conspiracy peddlers and those who may always be counted upon to swim against the tide - whether counterintuitive, headline seekers, or just plain stirrers, I cannot fathom; though some are probably genuinely acting as devil's advocate in what they perceive to be to test the rigour of the hypothesis.

When first evaluating the AGW possibility some 20 years ago, based on the greenhouse phenomenon and the noted consequences of damage to the ozone layer from cfc's, I made no attempt to unravel the science, but took a broad view that the massive consumption of fossil fuels from the beginning of the industrial age could not avoid consequences for the global environment. I have spent no dollars in my quest for understanding, and have only had confirmation since of my conclusion back then that there necessarily had to be a shift in the natural balance, and that this would ultimately produce global warming. I have no way of confirming the projections of a possible freeze, but also have no reason to reject it as a consequential possibility. Why some or many are still sceptical is the real imponderable.

Herbert Stencil,

As I have made clear I am an amateur. I am not in a position to evaluate the significance of much of the research you mention. I suspect neither are you.

However I'll try and address some of your concerns.

I do know that calibration of weather station temperature readings to account for changing conditions is an ongoing process. Are you implying there is fraud involved?

Land use and its impact on climate is an area of intense research. If you're truly interested – as opposed to merely trying to make debating points – there was a fascinating piece on this topic in the March 2005 issue of Scientific American.

How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate? By William F. Ruddiman

http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=F9374686-2B35-221B-635B1D2A02A8B6D5

(Subscription required)

The sensitivity of the Earth to CO2 changes is also a topic of intense research.

If CO2 were the only factor temperature rises would not be an issue. The rise in average temperature for a doubling from present already elevated levels would be less than one degree Kelvin. (Ocean acidification might however be a problem if CO2 levels doubled)

The 3.5 degree "assumption" to which you refer is based on estimates of likely positive feedback loops. These appear to magnify the effect of the rather small temperature rise due to CO2 alone.

Whether 3.5 degrees for the effects of positive feedback loops will turn out to be correct I cannot say. It is probably a reasonable estimate given what was known at the time of publication.

Imajulianutter

As I stated in my article, a critique I have levelled against climate scientists is that they an exaggerated opinion of their ability to forecast the future.

My personal, AMATEUR opinion is that climate is too complex to be modelled in detail. The best you can is estimate general trends. Based on the laws of physics the trend points to a hotter world. But don’t expect a smooth trend. In the real world no trend is ever smooth.

LEO LANE, ATMAN

As WOBBLES has pointed out, Plimer's book is riddled with lies. Not errors, but outright lies. Ian Enting, a researcher at the University of Melbourne has exposed many of Plimer's tricks and deceptions.

One of the most common frauds Plimer practises is footnotes that do not support his statement. When Enting followed up on the footnoted references in many cases he found articles that either did not support Plimer's statement or sometimes even contradicted it.

Here is a link to Ian Enting's home page.

http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~enting/

Compared to Plimer's compendium of codswallop even the IPCC report is a model of scientific reporting.'

And here is one important difference between the IPCC and Plimer.

--When errors are exposed in the IPCC report a retraction is issued.

--Plimer has, so far as I know, NEVER addresses the manifold untruths in his book. (Why do you think that is?)

If you choose to believe in Plimer well and good. But you're going against the teeth of the evidence.

SALTPETRE

Glad you like i

THE DOG THAT DOESN'T BARK

A CONUNDRUM

Inspector Gregory: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

From "The Adventure of Silver Blaze" by Arthur Conan Doyle

I'm planning another piece on the way the pharmaceutical industry corrupts the scientific process. Here is how Richard Horton, then editor of The Lancet, put it in 2004:

>>Journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry>>

See: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138

The Lancet is one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world.

The pharmaceutical industry is a dog that barks loudly indeed.

There is another industry whose resources exceed that of the pharmaceutical industry, who are able to hire the best scientists, have access to the best lobbyists and have a strong interest in falsifying the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). That is the fossil fuel industry.

If they had found a SMOKING GUN that definitively falsified AGW we may be sure it would be published in the most prestigious peer reviewed journals and would be hyped across the media.

The fossil fuel industry certainly does its best to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about AGW. But it has never found a smoking gun that stands up to peer review.

If you want to make a few (million) bucks and you believe you've found the smoking gun get in touch with Exxon-Mobil. I think you'll find they'll be generous.

The fact that such a powerful industry with such a strong motivation to falsify AGW has yet to come up with a SMOKING GUN that passes peer review should give posters pause for thought when they believe they've found one. Why isn't the fossil fuel industry hyping it across the media.

Why isn't the dog barking in the peer reveiwed literature?

"Why isn't the dog barking in the peer reviewed literature?"

Because the ones doing the reviews
1. do not want to alienate mates, who might be right
2. do not want to alienate an industry responsible for paying their mortgages and continuing to help get grants
3. may not be any more knowledgeable about climate science than the paper writers.

If you surmise that climate scientists know everything there is to know about climate, viewed through your angry rose tinted glasses, and you seem to be, then you're right there is hardly reason for skepticism.

However, if they do not know as much as is possible to know, and that certainly seems the case in reality. No climate scientist, without hindsight of course (sarcasm), picked the current plateauing of temperatures in the face of soaring CO2

If they actually understood climate better, their models would reflect it, the IPCC would have real scientists instead of politically appointed scientists and lots of activists.

This all makes people suspicious and skeptical .. you're attacks on skeptics is unreasonable, because we do not all subscribe to the infinite wisdom of climate science today. It clearly makes you angry and you should do something about that, since it's not the skeptics problem that climate science is immature.

" .. climate is too complex to be modelled in detail. The best you can is estimate general trends. Based on the laws of physics the trend points to a hotter world. But don’t expect a smooth trend. In the real world no [climate] trend is ever smooth."
stevenlmeyer, Thursday, 17 Nov, 6:48:18am

Good summary.

"If CO2 were the only factor temperature rises would not be an issue."

CO2 is as much an indicator - water vapour is likely more important (as a greenhouse gas), yet is harder to quantify.
.

You are ahead of yourself, Steven. It is not up to the realists to disprove AGW, it is up to the proponents of AGW to produce proof that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate, which so far they have failed to do.

Certainly they have engineered statements from prestigious bodies to the effect that human emissions affect climate, but these statements are unsupported by science.

We need a Royal Commission into how this travesty is brought about. How does it come about that reputable entities issue statements, unsupported by science, and against the wishes of their scientist members?

Remember when the mendacious IPCC announced that AGW was “very likely”, and that this would be borne out when the “hotspot” in the troposphere was demonstrated, which would be the “signature” for AGW?

Of course there has been no “hotspot” shown to exist, no “signature” of the effect of human emissions, and no retraction from the IPCC, whose estimates were obviously far too high, and thus not borne out by the real world.

Everyone knows that, Steven, even you, but it is not sufficient to prevent you from diversions and obfuscations to hide the truth. There is no scientific proof for the assertion that human emissions have an effect on climate which is other than negligible. You are also aware that the onus of proof is on the alarmists who put forward the proposition.

It has been shown, in peer reviewed papers, that climate including current climate, conforms to established natural cycles. This leaves little room for the assertion that human emissions have any measurable effect, and attempts to back the assertion on any scientific basis have failed.

Human emissions of carbon dioxide comprise 3% of the natural CO2 cycle. The CO2 cycle has a 10% natural variation. It is little wonder that the alarmists are unable to demonstrate any effect from the contribution of human emissions, and their dishonest attempts are less than admirable.

" .. the proponents of AGW ... have engineered statements from prestigious bodies to the effect that human emissions affect climate, but these statements are unsupported by science."

Leo Lane, Thursday, 17 Nov, 11:16:52am

"engineered"?? Conspiracy?? Seems paranoid. You might do better to go beyond bare assertions.

This seems realistic - "Human emissions of carbon dioxide comprise 3% of the natural CO2 cycle. The CO2 cycle has a 10% natural variation."

I have seen a good argument that about 28% of human CO2 emissions accumulate each year - on average ~ 0.9% (~1%) of CO2 production per annum.

That is quite a lot over 50-100 yrs - 50-100%.

A key issue is the rate atmospheric CO2 is rising: beyond what has happened naturally in the past.

And CO2 is mainly a marker; water vapour is more significant as a greenhouse gas.

Steven,

"The rise in average temperature for a doubling from present already elevated levels would be less than one degree Kelvin."

No, it wouldn't. It may well be less than one degree Celsius, but it CANNOT be less than one degree Kelvin, and as a physicist you should know that. Whatever happened to the good old days when physics nerds were all anal retentive?

This message has been brought to you by Apostrophe Man's loyal sidekick, Correct Units Boy.

Leo Lane,

"You are ahead of yourself, Steven. It is not up to the realists to disprove AGW, it is up to the proponents of AGW to produce proof that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate, which so far they have failed to do."

You've got your burden of proof all arse about there, champ. Science works by falsification - by attempting to disprove theories rather than prove them (which is impossible).

Stephen you've got to remove that rose coloured filter from your glasses mate.

The fact that some of those arguing prow AGW are respected friends must make it harder, but it does not make them right.

Sure it is only a small percentage of these people that are actually con men, but you can't read any of the climate gate stuff without seeing. Still many others are guilty of group think, & like a hungry dog, just can not drop the bone.

Yes many actually believe, as Leo's reference to their prediction of a troposphere hot spot, but when it was found this did not exist, one wrote a pile of rubbish about wind patterns proving it did, even if it can't be measured. Didn't some question the behaviour of thermometers at altitude too?

Then we have the heat hidden in the deep. They must have believed it, or they wouldn't have spent a fortune of our money on the Argo buoys.
Now they want to apply a pile of corrections to the negative results they have produced.

Mate even you have to start to ask why. Why are they always wrong, & why are their corrections always up on current readings, & down on historical records. Do think about it.

Have you ever thought about civil law cases. Every one in court believes they are right. They have probably spent much money confirming they are. But, half of them are wrong. They loose the case. Your mates are in that misguided group. Many probably want to get off the bus, but severe career injury awaits if they jump.

I find that it is usually those with least invested who are the clearest thinkers, & those who are insulted by being fed bullsh1t, who are most strident in their disagreement. Sorry I'm insulted. I took their rubbish as gospel for years, then I looked at it.

A recent OLO article (by a "professional" who is also a sceptic) was compelling and I commend it to you Stephen. One thing it spoke of and which I (admittedly an amateur sceptic) find evidence of in your piece is "confirmation bias". That said I think your article is a decent attempt at achieving what is missing in the AGW/CO2/GlobalArmageddon debate - i.e. an actual debate.

But what I would find most compelling (and as a voter I would have thought Governments would want me to be involved in some small way in determining what is a reasonable response based on actual evidence) would be a professionally moderated debate of professionals, sans mud and insult.

Some sort of forum where all the most compelling arguments either way could be discussed and debated in a way that most punters could understand.

Is that too much to ask?

rpg

I think you have a poor understanding of scientific publishing. It's a competitive business. So is science itself but that's another matter.

A paper that provided the magic bullet that killed AGW would be the paper of the year, perhaps even the decade. Any editor worth his salt would drool at the prospect. His journal's ranking in the Science Citation Index would skyrocket.

In the exremely unlikely event that all scientific journals rejected a solid paper of that nature the fossil fuel industry's PR machine would swing into action and we'd know all about it.

Know, that's not why the dog is not barking.

Bitey,

I also wish we could have a civilsed discussion and I do wish sceptics would stop already with the aspersions of bad faith unless they have solid evidence - as in the cases of Phil Jones of the CLU and the mendacious Ian Plimer.

Most climatologists are not like Phil Jones. Most sceptics are not like Ian Plimer.

I'm out of words and my day job beckons. I shall try to reply to others in more detail over the weekend.

Acolyte, how often does it have to be falsified? I thought it should be once, but obviously that is not enough. Should it be monthly, weekly, daily or hourly?

I think we are, conservatively, up to weekly falsification of AGW, but Steven tries to give the impression that AGW has not been shown to be without a scientific base.

A hypothesis which would stand up far better than AGW, is that our warming is halted, and we now face cooling. We may be able to avert it if we output enough CO2, and we need to encourage its production.

A silly theory, having the virtue only of making more sense than the AGW hypothesis, and having more science to back it.

If we had 12,500 people attend a lie fest in Bali, to be addressed only by those who backed the theory it would run better than the tattered old AGW scam, which had that advantage and a lot more. Some of the lie fests did not go so well because they were frozen out, or at Copenhagen, those who did not leave promptly were iced in.

It is settled science that climate follows natural cycles. There has been no change demonstrated which is attributable to human emissions. That would come within my definition of a smoking gun. It does not seem to come within Steven's definition, or perhaps he is so ill informed that he is unaware of it.

Human emissions have not been shown to have any measurable effect on climate. How about asking for a smoking gun which would show otherwise, Steven? You would make more sense if you did, but you are well aware that there is no scientific basis for AGW.

If Julia Gillard were seen to urinate in the Harbour at Kirribilli, all those who observed it could say that she had polluted the Harbour. The effect, however, would not be scientifically measurable. Human emissions are observed going into the atmosphere. Their effect is not measurable, and in regard to climate, their effect is negligible. No action on human emissions is justified.

"I think you have a poor understanding of scientific publishing"

There's scientific publishing, then there climate science publishing, which tends to be a little dramatic and leans toward the alarmist side, for the benefit of those journalists I'm sure who just need a little teeny bit of guidance on how to absorb the message Drowning polar bears anyone, rising sea level on Tuvalu with pics of natives up to the knees in water .. please, give us a break, no scientists of the climate variety called BS on any of that, so are complicit)

I read the climategate emails, I reckon I have a pretty good handle on how it works in climate science.

If climate science publishing was the same as the rest of scientific publishing, then why have the CRU people, through various set piece reviews, been "exonerated", by people who all have vested interests no less?

Climate science appears to be very shallow and there seems to be the overwhelming stench of corruption in the sector, and how did the IPCC end up with so many activists on their panels? Are they climate scientists now, because they worked on the IPCC?

how terribly grubby .. climate scientists must be so proud of their "colleagues".

I remain, skeptical .. regardless of what you think

From the link to Enting's critcism of Plimer it seems that while his analysis appears like a scholarly rebuttal of Plimer a lot of his statements are nit picky, pedantic and just plain wrong. For example, he defends the Hockey stick graph which is a well known manipulated piece of pseudomathematics. We now know tree ring growth is affected by many things other than temperature, a fact which Mann either didn't know or simply left out deliberately. Enting fails to take this simple but salient fact into account while supporting Mann.

I shall now deal with the "hotspot issue." I had forgotten about that episode.

Around 2008 Douglass et al published a paper in International Journal of Climatology (IJOC) in which they claimed the "hotspot" did not exist. Websites frequented by sceptics hyped their findings.

Douglass et al used radiosonde data which meteorologists use for weather forecasting. The data is in a sense "smoothed out" for weather forecasting. The "homogenised" data serves the purposes of short term weather forecasting.

However in the "homogenization" process the fine structure of the data is lost. As I always point out a poor statistician is someone who would drown in a lake with an average depth of six inches.

The Douglass' paper's critics point that the author's did not use the raw radiosonde data, they used the homogenised data.

Here is a link to one paper that addresses these issues.

Assessing Bias and Uncertainty in the HadAT-Adjusted Radiosonde Climate Record

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2007JCLI1733.1

Here is the point.

I know I am not in a position to decide whether Douglass et al or their critics are correct. And, putting bluntly, I don't think any OLO poster is either.

Under these circumstances a rational person says, "I don't know. I'll have to await further developments."

Other people choose to believe the papers that suit their point of view. It's called "confirmation bias."

rpg

IJOC is a peer reviewed journal about climatology. It published a paper that attacks an aspect of climate science. That rather gives the lie to your theory that climate journals will not publish contrarian papers.

The Acolyte Rizla

A RISE of 1 degree Kelvin is the same as a RISE of 1 degree Celsius. However I should have typed Celsius rather than Kelvin. It was a slip of the (word processor) pen.

A lot of the scepticism here seems to be based on the belief that all climatologists are ratbags and scientists in the world's peak scientific bodies are easily fooled.

Perhaps instead of browsing your favourite websites you should all get out and meet actual climatologists.

Steven,

"A RISE of 1 degree Kelvin is the same as a RISE of 1 degree Celsius."

No, it isn't. A rise of 1 Kelvin is the same as a rise of of 1 degree Celsius. There is no such thing "1 degree Kelvin".

Steven would you please answer my question: why is your methodology not one of appeal to absent authority? What you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, is that AGW must be right, otherwise why would so many professional scientists be saying it?

Bugsy
Wow - bitter personal insult. We are amazed at the rationality of your argument.

Steven
Let's suppose, very much in your favour, that there is a tendency to temperature increases that is whatever the IPCC or the AGW establishment says it is. And let's say that, as a matter of natural science, a group of professional entomologists has found that there is a tendency for butterflies' wings to grow larger.

Okay. So what? At best, all you've established is a tendency of temperature increases. If you agree that you are unable to establish that it has any further significance to public policy, please say so, and we can all agree that it's irrelevant except as a speculation on a matter of natural science, like the butterflies' wings.

But if you say it is significant as a matter of public policy please say so and address the following.

Firstly, you need to establish that the downsides are worse than the upsides. Prove it. If your proof involves ecological or economic consequences, please admit that, in your own terms, climatologists are not competent to pronounce on that, or no more than anyone else.

What do you say will be the ecological difference? And how do you know?

And what do you say will be the economic or human welfare difference? To whom? When? And how do you know? What discount have you applied for futurity? Why?

Secondly, if policy action is intended to improve the situation, what reason is there to think that it can do that? What data are you using to account for the human values involved both now and in the future? Why is that better than the data set being used in the absence of policy?

Otherwise it seems you have mistakenly adopted the following non sequitur: "*Because* temperatures might be showing a tendency to rise *therefore* government should do something" in an attempt to stop it, even though you have shown no reason why temperatures shouldn't rise, and no reason to think government can do better rather than worse.

Yet another attempt at diversion, by you, Steven. There is no demonstration of the “hotspot”, whether or not there is a dispute over a proof that it does not exist. There is no proof that it does exist, simply an assertion that if it does exist, it will be the “signature”, for AGW.

The only reasonable explanation for the inability to show a “hotspot” is that the IPCC used estimates which were far too high.

Fancy you forgetting that, Steven. Perhaps your ability to forget all the factors mitigating against the fragile AGW hypothesis is the basis of your strange request for a “smoking gun”, when there are so many of them, if only you could remember them.

There is no scientific basis for the assertion that human emissions have any but a negligible effect on climate. I consider that sufficient reason to put any action on hold, while we investigate why there is a constant baseless assertion that human emissions have an effect worth addressing.

We need a Royal Commission to ascertain this.

Graham pointed me to an interesting report on a not yet published paper.

A NEW, LOWER ESTIMATE OF CLIMATE SENSITIVITY

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/11/08/a-new-lower-estimate-of-climate-sensitivity/

The author is Andreas Schmittner at the University of Oregon.

See: http://mgg.coas.oregonstate.edu/~andreas/

>>There is word circulating that a paper soon to appear in Science magazine concludes that the climate sensitivity—how much the earth’s average temperature will rise as a result of a doubling of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide—likely (that is, with a 66% probability) lies in the range 1.7°C to 2.6°C, with a median value of 2.3°C. This is a sizeable contraction and reduction from the estimates of the climate sensitivity given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), in which the likely range is given as 2.0°C to 4.5°C, with a best estimate of 3.0°C>>

Well that's good news if correct. It buys us a few more decades.

Although in a way, for me it's bad news. I've always said nothing is gong to curb emissions so if I'm still alive and compos mentis in the 2030s I'll have the answer. I thought I had a fair chance of making it.

However if Schmittner is correct we won't know until the 2050s and I don't think I'm going to make it. (I'm 67).

I look forward to reading the paper and the responses.

The Acolyte Rizla

Technically I think you're correct. The actual unit is the "kelvin."

In conformance with modern terminology I should have written:

>>The rise in average temperature for a doubling from present already elevated levels would be less than one kelvin>>

(Without the "degree")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin

However, in future, to avoid all confusion I shall refer to a degree Celsius.

rpg

Note that Science, one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals, is quite happy to publish a paper that challenges the consensus view.

I don't think your allegations about peer review have any basis in fact.

Leo Lane wrote:

>>There is no demonstration of the “hotspot”, …There is no proof that it does exist, …>>

Actually Leo Lane, that is not quite accurate. Here is a link to a paper on the question.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n6/abs/ngeo208.html

Neither you nor I are in a position to judge whether Douglass et al, or the paper I linked by Allen and Sherwood is correct. So the only rational position is to say "I don't know, I'll have to await further developments."

Unless, of course, you're succumbing to confirmation bias in which case you'll simply choose the paper that conforms to your predilections.

The sceptics here seem to be convinced that climate scientists are a bunch of scumbags and charlatans engaged in some sort of fraud and they have somehow managed to deceive scientists from all the world's peak scientific bodies.

Or maybe you think that scientists in the world's peak scientific bodies, for some unfathomable reason, are in on the scam.

I have received no reply to the question of the absent barking dog.

Matt L

Answered in my post of: Tuesday, 15 November 2011 6:46:36 PM

See also Bugsy's comments.

Anyway, back on Monday.

So have a good weekend everyone

Ok Peter Hume, I'm sorry. Insults per se aren't irrational, but if being used as a basis for an argument they are.

So, in the interest of moving forward, you would like me to admit that:
You just assumed what is in issue and that this is irrational and unscientific
2. Appeal to absent authority is a fallacy
3. Steven’s argument as to the distinction between professional/amateur involves that fallacy
4. A valid disproof by an amateur is no less a disproof for it being done by an amateur
5. Science does not supply value judgments
6. Even if there were no issue as to climate science, it would not provide justification for policy action on global warming
7. For policy action on global warming to be justified requires knowledge of the upsides and downsides and that government is incapable of such knowledge
8. Government is also incapable of taking into account all relevant values in deciding on policy action and is therefore incapable of justifying policy action.

Ok, consider it done.

Links please.

Steven
“Answered in my post of: Tuesday, 15 November 2011 6:46:36 PM”

No you didn’t answer why you are not making an appeal to authority in that post. You merely stated that you aren’t, without giving any reason, even though your whole argument is that it must be true because so many professional scientists say it is.

When I asked you why saying this:
“continuing to pump CO2 into the atmosphere poses a risk of severe negative consequences because the Science group says so”
is, to quote you, “not saying anything of the sort” as this
“Adding CO2 to the atmosphere poses grave risks because scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say so”?
you DIDN’T ANSWER me.

Then when I asked you again, you DIDN’T ANSWER me again and referred me back to your original unsupported assertion which I'm saying is wrong.

So I’m asking you *again*. Why is it *not* an appeal to absent authority, to argue as you are doing, that continuing to pump CO2 into the atmosphere poses a risk of severe negative consequences because the Science group says so?

Steven you've got that back to front too mate.

The change in the sensitivity doesn't & never was meant to buy us anything, we all ready have any number of decades.

What it is meant to do is buy "them" another decade or two. Their previously wild claims have proved so far wrong, they were frightened the backlash would eliminate them. They could not sit on such garbage any longer.

If you are still around in those decades, it won't be the warming that has changed, it will be their claims of sensitivity. Another couple of decades, if the IPCC, & their fellow travelers at East Anglia & the rest are still around, it will be 0.23, not 2.3 that they'll be touting, & you can bet your boots that even that will have some new & equally dire consequence that must be researched.

It would almost be worth living that long, just to throw the egg.

Steven, Hasbeen,

I'm not yet 30, so I should still be around in 2050. I'll hold a seance to let you know how things are going. Unless, of course, the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse has starved me to death in a drought-induced famine, burnt me to death in an immense firestorm, killed me with some dreaded tropical plague or drowned me as our once fair nation sinks, Atlantis like, 'neath the rising seas.

This seems unlikely.

A little more, Steven, about the “hot spot” which escaped your memory, might assist our consideration of the AGW fiasco.

There is a site called Skeptical Science, a name designed to support a pretence that it is not for the purpose of backing the IPCC, which it does by attempting to mislead us on the science. Strangely it contains the following statement:

“The hot spot is not a unique greenhouse signature and finding the hot spot doesn't prove that humans are causing global warming.”

So the IPCC, if its lackey is correct, had no basis whatsoever for its statement that it is “very likely”, that human emissions cause global warming. He says the opposite to what the IPCC said, when it released its baseless statement.

The governing bodies of the prestigious scientific entities, not the scientists comprising the membership, many of whom have voiced their concern at these statements issued without basis, have relied on the statement by the IPCC

Our hero at Skeptical Science goes on to say:

“You first need to understand what's causing the hot spot. "Changes in the lapse rate" is not as sexy or intuitive as a greenhouse signature but that's the physical reality.”

On this basis, the IPCC purporting to predict a “proof” of AGW was completely misleading.

We might reach a starting point Steven, by agreeing that, notwithstanding baseless representations by many in support of the tenuous assertion of AGW, there is no scientific basis for any assertion that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate. .

Of course, if, unlike the IPCC, you are able to refer us to any science which backs the proposition that human emissions have any detectable effect on climate then please do so.

You will be the first, if you do, since I have seen this invitation issued many times without response. There is no such science.

Do not ask again why the top scientific bodies issue statements supporting AGW when there is no scientific basis. We need a Royal Commission to ascertain that.

Thank TAR, I'll keep my ghostly ear pricked for your call.

Meanwhile, Steven have you read the Australian article of the leaked IPCC draft report? Even the BBC, normally about as much use as the ABC if truthful reporting is desired, has reported it.

Apparently at the IPCC they are getting their running shoes oiled & greased, ready to run like hell from their previous garbage.

Perhaps you should get your mates into a new line of study. I've got a strong feeling that Climate Science is not going to be the golden goose for much longer.

nice one stevelmeyer, like all AGW proponents, you are a cherry picker

Now, show me where I said science journals do not print contrary papers on climate science. It's not what I said, it's probably, with a dose of confirmation bias, what you expect me to say.

I suggest you read what I said, not make up things you think I said

Dear me, I follow several climate scientists and they get published, (e.g. Judith Curry) what I disagree with is the proprietary nature of many who suppress papers, willingly, to limit dissent .. that's not science .. or is that what you mean, that you think non believers, skeptical papers should be suppressed .. do tell?

Have you actually read the climate gate emails, not read the various fluff about it .. actually READ them?

I'll bet you didn't .. and if you did, and still support that all climate science papers are honest, you could be easily mistaken by some people, to be a fool.

The hotspot is significant not because it is unique to CO2 amplification, but because it is a test of the models. Most of us are happy with a relatively simple mathematical model of the effect of CO2 on temperature which shows a much lower level of warming than the IPCC scenarios because it doesn't assume any other forcings.

This mathematical model has been around for somewhere close to 100 years and has been developed into current climate models, which is where the problems start.

The climate models being used today generally project warming higher than the simple model by assuming various forcings of which water vapour is the dominant one. The tropospheric hotspot is supposed to be caused by the adibiatic lapse rate, which refers to the water cycle.

That no-one can find the hotspot means that the models are not dealing with the water cycle properly. And as it is the water cycle where most of the real dispute lies, not the relationship between CO2 and infra-red radiation, it is a serious problem.

What the complicated models do is "parameterise" forcings, which in effect means assigning them a number which can be plugged into a model on the basis of the best guess of the programmer. They then fiddle around with these "parameters" normalising results against temperature records from the past. When their guesses sum out to being pretty close to what happened, they then declare victory.

You don't need to know a lot of statistics to know that this is nonsense, and until they have some proper hypotheses that are predictive of these forcings, particularly of the water cycle, the only model that should be given any credence is the original simple mathematical one.

Bugsy

“So, in the interest of moving forward…”

Thank you for the intellectual honesty of conceding what cannot rationally be defended. Steven, take note – that’s how it’s done.

With that, we have already moved as far forward as this discussion can go, namely, to resolving that Steven’s argument is fallacious and that climate science provides no rational justification for policy action on alleged catastrophic man-made global warming – and all that without any need for skeptics to place reliance on any of the many legitimate and illegitimate problems with the actual climate science.

The entire debate over what the climate science is telling us, is based on a complete furphy, namely *If* the temperature may be rising, *therefore* government needs to tax and control anything and everything.

* * *

However to move *backward* to what is now redundant, see this article by Dessler 2010 – ftp://ftp.ingv.it/pub/pietropaolo.bertagnolio/climate/dessler10-cloudFeedbacks.pdf .

As you can see, the data pattern – Fig. 2A - looks like it could have been put there with a shotgun.

You don’t have to be a professional scientist to realize that drawing a line through that cloud of data is statistically meaningless.

Dessler himself says “Obviously, the correlation … is weak (r2= 2%)…”
but later *concludes* “My analysis suggests that the short-term cloud feedback is likely positive and that climate
models as a group are doing a reasonable job of simulating this feedback, providing some indication that models successfully simulate the response of clouds to climate variations.”

If a kid in an undergraduate statistics course had tried that, he would have been failed. Yet Dessler is a professor of atmospheric science and this is published in one of the world’s most reputable journals.

This is the kind of “science” that is being used as the basis for decisions that the world is to be taxed, whole industries destroyed, vast rivers of capital diverted into corrupt boondoggles, and agriculture restricted while many people are going hungry.

Steven’s approach is one of invincible credulity.

Peter,

"As you can see, the data pattern – Fig. 2A - looks like it could have been put there with a shotgun"

Nope, all I can see is an error message. Can you try re-posting that link?

Sorry: see the top graph on page 1525

ftp://ftp.ingv.it/pub/pietropaolo.bertagnolio/climate/dessler10-cloudFeedbacks.pdf

While we're at it, can Steven tell us what significance we are supposed to attach to a single measure called "Global Average Surface Temperature"? Just think about it for a minute. Why is that not a senseless boffin-measure? Why should everyone else be disturbed as they go about their business by this kind of idle self-indulgent nonsense?

Peter Hume, I understand the Dessler paper you link to can be difficult to digest - particularly for the those riding this particular hobby horse. However, it does not help to take papers such as Dessler's out of context, or try and spin it with one's own rhetorical and ideological bent - as you clearly do.

To give you the benefit of the doubt, I suspect you are doing this out of ignorance, rather than deliberately distorting or misrepresenting Dessler. Perhaps Steven had this in mind when he said "a lot of the scepticism here (on OLO) seems to be based on the belief that all climatologists are ratbags and scientists in the world's peak scientific bodies are easily fooled. Perhaps instead of browsing your favourite websites you should all get out and meet actual climatologists". There is an element of truth to what he suggests.

For what it's worth; Dessler, Spencer and other scientists working on these very issues are having meaningful dialogue and nuanced discussion over this paper (I suspect there will be numerous citations and further papers published as a result). You on the otherhand want to "argue" it here when you have demonstrated you really don't understand the science (I am not referring to policy). Before you claim the ol' ad hom cannard (as you tend to do) - the facts belie your assertions.

Instead of speculating about our "beliefs" why don't you guys listen to what us sceptics are trying to tell you about what we see of the science.

Actually, overnight, there is an excellent post at Judith Curry's Climate Etc referring to a recent conference of climate scientists in San Francisco.

http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/19/santa-fe-conference-part-ii-2/

http://www.capitolreportnewmexico.com/?p=6848

I think if you were to read both the capitol report on the conference (which purports to be neutral) you will see a relatively nuanced account that recognises the complexities of climate science.

Certainly, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the meme that "the science is settled" is not the current position of respected climate scientists.

qanda
Perhaps you are right that I don’t understand the science. But *nothing* that you have said demonstrates that.

The issue as to the science is whether Dessler was justified in his interpretation of the data. I have shown why he wasn’t, or why if true, it was so weak as to be meaningless and misleading.

But you haven’t shown why he was justified. All the reason you’ve given is an allegation that I am not up to questioning his authority – the same fallacy that Steven has been unable to refute.

“Perhaps Steven had this in mind when he said "a lot of the scepticism here (on OLO) seems to be based on the belief that all climatologists are ratbags and scientists in the world's peak scientific bodies are easily fooled. Perhaps instead of browsing your favourite websites you should all get out and meet actual climatologists". There is an element of truth to what he suggests.”

Steven thus showed that his methodology of knowledge is this: second-guess what he alleges group A are second-guessing about the subjective motivations of group B.

It should be obvious that this is invalid and hopelessly unscientific. Basically Steven’s entire method of dealing with the anti-AGW case is to say “What? You dare to suggest that there might be something wrong with the pronouncements of professional scientists?” That’s it. That’s his argument.

Thus you have not established that there is an element of truth to what he suggests.

“Before you claim the ol' ad hom cannard (as you tend to do) - the facts belie your assertions.”

You have not shown that I have used ad hom, quoted out of context, nor that the facts belie my assertions. None of my argument relies on ad hom. All of Steven’s does - the "you're too stupid" argument.

Let’s cut to the chase. How can anyone justify Dessler’s conclusion given such a weak correlation? (Notice, btw, that he extended the x-axis so as to make the data *appear* to be less of a cloud-shape, and more linear.)

No real scientist says "the science is settled" - it never is.

That is only a "meme" taken out of context by extremists from both sides of the ideological divide.

qanda
What kind of answer is that?

Dessler himself says the correlation is weak. A child can see that *any* line drawn through that cloud of data could have fit as well as Dessler's.

Your technique has been to weigh in with *nothing but* ad hom, and when challenged to show how anyone could justify Dessler's conclusion, you answer with more irrelevance and talking-down, as if the problem is that I don't understand, when it's you who can't provide a rational justification of what you defend.

"I understand the Dessler paper you link to can be difficult to digest"

ad hom - "You're too stupid to understand"

" particularly for the those riding this particular hobby horse"

ad hom - "You are motivated by irrelevance"

"However, it does not help to take papers such as Dessler's out of context"

Misrepresentation - the context is I am evidencing my allegation that climate scientists take a cloud of data and draw a facile line that *just happens* to lend their authority to allegations of global warming - a conclusion not supported by the data

Ad hom - implication of bad faith in taking out of context.

"or try and spin it with one's own rhetorical and ideological bent"

ad hom - allegation of bad faith motivated by irrelevance

"as you clearly do"

no evidence or reason offered for this aspersion.

Okay, let's cut to the chase *again*
-how can you justify Dessler's
a) trend line given the pattern of data, and
b) conclusion given such a weak correlation?

You are only showing, again and again, that AGW is *not* about science, reason, or climate.

qanda "No real scientist says "the science is settled" - it never is"

So why is it only skeptics who say this, never "real" scientists?

If "real" scientists came out and dissed this sort of comment and speculation, you might come a long way to getting skeptics to believe most climate scientists are not driven by selfish agenda.

Is it better for climate scientists to STFU when someone in the media or some flim-flam man says it, because it ultimately is serves their purpose, and supports the AGW cause and at least they do not want to be seen undermining it? (so where is science then? Do these people have "beliefs?)

Until "real" scientists come out and dismiss rubbish like the science is settled, group-think rules, then yes, climate scientists tend to be seen as "tainted" .. why would they not be?

(Dr Judith Curry and a very few others do dismiss this rubbish of course, but are then attacked by "real" climate scientists .. what a surprise.)

Hume: Thanks for the link, but doesn't support your assertion.

"-how can you justify Dessler's
a) trend line given the pattern of data, and
b) conclusion given such a weak correlation?"

Because the conclusion does not rely on the correlation trend. In fact the conclusion is made because the models can faithfully reproduce this weak correlation. You would know this if you read the paper.

As I said, this sort of thing doesn't happen. The conclusions in this paper are sound. Your belief that they are not is the irrational one.

>>Thanks for the link, but doesn't support your assertion.

Yes it does. You don’t say what that assertion was.

It was that I have seen climate scientists
“…faced with a data set in the shape of a cloud, to draw a regression line through it, trending *up*. The same degree of arbitrary licence could obviously produce a line trending down.”

Therefore the link *does* support my assertion, and you have not shown reason why it doesn’t.

I said:
>"-how can you justify Dessler's
>a) trend line given the pattern of data, and
>b) conclusion given such a weak correlation?"

You said:
>>Because the conclusion does not rely on the correlation trend. In fact the >>conclusion is made because the models can faithfully reproduce this weak >>correlation.

The fact that the models faithfully reproduce a weak correlation *up* which is no more justified than other possible weak correlations *down*, is obviously no defence of the models. All that proves is that the models are just as suspect as Dessler’s conclusion that the trend line is up!

I also asserted, which you have not refuted, that the process of interpretation of data involves value judgments which are not themselves scientific. For example Dessler’s choice of regression analysis was “traditional”. Other regression analyses chosen on other criteria would have yielded different correlation results. Why weren’t they chosen?

“As I said, this sort of thing doesn't happen.”

What sort of thing doesn’t happen?

“The conclusions in this paper are sound.”

They are no sounder than the weak correlation on which they rest.

In fact the conclusions are weaker and more partial than the correlation because the correlation stands on its own merit regardless of other possible correlations, while the conclusion is problematic in concluding that the short-term cloud feedback is “likely positive” when the weak correlation left open the obvious possibility that there was as much ground to conclude that it was “likely negative.”

Therefore the link proves my point and you have not shown that my objection is irrational.

I reject the mind-reading and personal argument which comprises the balance of your post.

Just when I was about to go to bed ...

Hume, if one was to say "stick to your day job", that would be ad hom - yes?

You may believe that you have interpreted this paper correctly, but you have not. The conclusion does not rest on the trend line. If the trend line was slightly up or down it wouldn't matter, the conclusion would be the same, because what it showed was that the correlation was weak, which means that the feedback from clouds is complicated by additional factors. The overall conclusion does not rest on the 'trend' (actually correlation, not a 'trend') being positive, it rests on it being WEAK.

I can see that this exchange is not going to be productive.

On the issue of the hot spot, just came across a reference to this paper: Fu, Q., Manabe, S. and Johanson, C.M. 2011. On the warming in the tropical upper troposphere: Models versus observations. Geophysical Research Letters 38: 10.1029/2011GL048101.

Probably as recent as it gets. Finds that models overstate the hotspot by up to 60% and concludes "in view of the importance of the enhanced tropical upper tropospheric warming to the climate sensitivity and to the change of atmospheric circulations, it is critically important to understand the causes responsible for the discrepancy between the models and observations."

A salient point Graham, thanks. Ergo, the hotspot exists - albeit you said on Saturday "no-one can find the hotspot".

Yes, the hotspot is there and is a signature of warming, regardless the cause. May I suggest to everyone to take a closer look at tropospheric warming together with stratospheric cooling.

Graham, I suspect many so called "sceptics" (not all) will use Fu et al to debunk global warming in general and AGW in particular - no surprise there.

Models (even complex ones) are just a tool - and as Fu suggests, more work is required to tweak them. Fortunately, the edifice does not just rely on models, contrary to the assertions of many here.

I too have my views on the coupling of the oceans and atmosphere, energy dynamics and the hydrologic cycle - but that is for another thread. As it is, Steven's is being derailed enough as it is.

Q&A the hot spot refers to the fact that it is supposed to be hotter than it otherwise would be, not that it isn't a bit hotter than other areas. Your misrepresentations from someone who claims to know what they are talking about are tedious. Or perhaps you don't understand. Probably the latter I guess. If you really understood you'd know that it is entirely about the models. They are the only thing that provides any reason for alarm as the simple mathematical model is fairly benign.

Firstly we have already established that the point about Dessler is immaterial to what is in issue here, which is that Steven’s argument is based on a fallacy, and that climate science does not justify the conclusion either that the results of AGW would be worse than better, not that policy action could produce results that would be better than worse.

The fact is, no-one would care about Dessler if AGW were not being used as the pretext for government action to tax and license corruption on a grand scale. So it is nonsense to suggest, as qanda does, that our denying any policy consequences is “derailing” the thread. If qanda concedes that the positive science does not justify policy conclusions, he should explicitly say so. If not, he should show how and why science supplies value judgments.

Secondly, my point with Dessler was only that this was an example of climate scientists displaying a transparently facile and biased use of statistics. Bugsy’s argument as to Dessler’s conclusion about the relation between climate models and his weak correlation does not refute that point, and is irrelevant to what is in issue here.

Fourthly, you guys won’t give away a bad egg. No-one has attempted to justify Dessler’s correlation as anything other than pathetic. And here you are rushing in to defend it. But if you aren’t, then say so and concede!

Fifthly, by itself Dessler’s sleight of hand might signify little enough, but the issue is precisely that this sort of obviously unsound practice is happening at the highest levels of the climate science whose integrity Steven relies on implicitly.

Sixthly, Bugsy is the only one who has come anywhere near joining issue, and he did that by conceding everything but what is irrelevant. Steven hasn’t even got to first base in acknowledging that his entire argument is based on a fallacy, and has not dared to deal with the all-important issues of human values. And qanda’s argument neither defends the defects in the climate science that are in issue, nor explains how they could justify any policy.

GY, you (amongst others) have claimed "no-one can find the hotspot", or it doesn't exist.

Yet Fu et al (your link) shows otherwise, despite not being as pronounced as first predicted. But hey, no model is perfect (not even the simple ones) and as hasbeen said, AGW does not just rely on models. Btw, recent observations are not unexpected given the rate of warming has decreased of late - La Nina anyone?

>> Your misrepresentations from someone who claims to know what they are talking about are tedious. Or perhaps you don't understand. Probably the latter I guess. <<

Yep, ditto ... right back-at-ya.

Point is, many here don't understand that the "hot spot" by and of itself is not a signature of AGW.

Again, the CAGW meme has been done to death (intentionally) by extremists on both sides. That is just silly.
However, the consequences of a warmer and wetter world will be bad enough, all other things considered.

PH, thirdly ... don't bother.

Steven, nice try, bye.

As it seems that some of chief protagonists have run off to lick their wounds. Now might be an opportune time for some audience feedback.

IMHO this has been one of the better OLO threads, with many posts of a high standard, particularly those of David Hume, whose every post reads like a mini-master piece of analysis and logic.

After digesting all that has been said --I can't help but think that even a dispassionate observer (like myself)-- could not but conclude that the AGW case is far from proven--and is in fact full of holes.

Agree entirely.

Herbert, I like and agree with your link:

http://www.capitolreportnewmexico.com/?p=6848

I have issue with SPQR's assessment of David (Peter) Hume, "whose every post reads like a mini-master piece of analysis and logic", but that is SPQR's history (and confirmation bias) at play.

Steven's thread is good ... but my wounds need tendering :)

quanda,

I may cop some flack for saying so, but yours have been the most sane posts on this thread, and the most believable. The lengths to which some others will go in chucking dirt and niggling and wriggling, with or without any foundation, is a real education.

Steven made a good case in his article, and a fair challenge, but as you have rightly observed it was always a lost cause. So many are so set in their ways and in their resistance to any suggestion of AGW that there was never any hope of getting them to appreciate the intricate nature of climate science, or to even consider the prospects and the potentials involved.

If AGW is a non-event, well and good. If taking counteractive measures can be done without significant damage to a "realistic" global economy, well and good, and the world and the environment will be thankful. If the global economy continues with its current progression and with its current disdain for the environment, then it won't matter if AGW is real or not, for the dice will have been cast, and it will only be the last man standing who will be able to review the wreckage.

I can't decide which would be most apt in the circumstances - "none so blind ....", or "to err is human .....", or "look before you leap ..." or "he who hesitates is Lost". Sad that consensus has to be such a challenge.

The quote on this thread which sums it up best I think was posted by Squeers, and, if memory serves, was a response by Mahatma Ghandi "What do I think about western civilization?". "I think it Would be a good thing." Such amazing foresight. It certainly seems that humility and forebearance are now in very short supply amongst the powers that be; and that mankind's arrogance is likely to be the keynote in his eulogy.

Some general comments:

Many sceptics seem to think that climatologists as a group are either stupid or dishonest.

It's a large group and some are both. However those I've encountered, either in person or via email, were neither dishonest nor stupid. They may be mistaken but I do not believe they're acting in bad faith. They've always given reasoned answers to my questions.

Sceptics also seem to think that these fools or charlatans have managed to deceive or manipulate most of the members of the world's peak scientific bodies into going along with a fraud. I suppose it's POSSIBLE but it seems very IMPROBABLE.

To return to the famous hotspot.

We have a paper by Douglass et al claiming the hotspot does not exist.

We have a paper by Santer et al criticising the authors of "Douglass" for, inter alia, their statistical techniques. Santer and his co-authors have also published a "fact sheet " of their critique. I don’t have a link but I have a pdf. If Graham agrees I'll send it to him and he can forward it to whoever is interested.

Allen et al published a paper in which they claim to have found evidence for the existence of the hotspot from wind shear data. (I linked it above)

Graham draws out attention to a paper by Fu and others which claims the hotspot exists but is not as intense as climate models claim. Here is a link:

http://europa.agu.org/?view=article&uri=/journals/gl/gl1115/2011GL048101/2011GL048101.xml

This is consistent with a report of another paper Graham pointed me to:

A NEW, LOWER ESTIMATE OF CLIMATE SENSITIVITY

(I linked it above)

Graham,

To me what you appear to be saying is that the substance of global warming is correct but it's not going to happen as fast as some people think. Global temperatures are less sensitive to CO2 increases than was feared a few years ago.

I have no quarrel with that. The expected temperature increase per doubling of CO2 levels is NOT part of the overall scientific consensus to which I referred. It is one of the questions that is being researched.

Have we, in fact, detected the hotspot?

All papers assume on this topic assume we can model certain atmospheric phenomena, such as lapse rates, with sufficient accuracy to "spot a hotspot." In my amateur way I beg leave to doubt that. My own feeling is that for now we do not have the capability of detecting a hotspot even if one exists.

This would not be the first time scientists inferred the existence of something before we had the ability to detect it. Pauli inferred the existence of neutrinos in 1930 but they were not detected experimentally until 1956. Scientists inferred the existence of genes decades before the discovery of their physical manifestation in the form of DNA.

And not all theories turn out to be correct. I for one doubt we shall find the Higgs boson.

So maybe the hotspot exists and maybe it doesn't. The only realistic answer for now is "wait and see."

To quote myself:

>>My personal, AMATEUR opinion is that climate is too complex to be modelled in detail. The best you can is estimate general trends. Based on the laws of physics the trend points to a hotter world. But don’t expect a smooth trend. In the real world no trend is ever smooth.>>

In this global warming is like many other complex phenomena.

Consider for example chemistry. We inferred the existence of chemical bonds and were able to make use of them to practise chemistry long before we understood how they worked.

We were able to predict the trajectories of the planets in their orbits about the sun long before we understood the mechanism involved.

Even today biologists who do not for an instant doubt the reality of evolution argue fiercely about the mechanisms involved.

So it is with something as climate. We may infer the existence of global warming and find some evidence for its existence without knowing in detail how it works.

This is how it has always been in the world of science.

Well, my day job beckons but I'll try to respond to some of the other issues later.

Steven’s challenge was on the criterion of rationality so it is enough to point out rational defects in the AGW argument to dispose of it, which has now been done several layers deep.

Steven originally hitched his wagon to the star of professional science as against its amateur critics. However in the nature of climatology , it is much harder for a professional climatologist to make out a sound theory establishing CAGW, than it is for an amateur to pick logical holes in it and thus rationally refute it.

The very fact that the issue is *anthropogenic* global warming just says it all. For if the problem were *really* global warming, what difference should it make whether or not man had caused it? Thus on critical analysis, the whole hoo-haa is not really about climate, it’s about original sin.

This is also shown by the method of knowledge used by the warmists. It turns out, when we chase all the rabbits down all the burrows, that underlying all their argument is simply this:
“It is because it is because it is.”
– for example see the reasoning in Steven’s and qanda’s last posts.

This blatant circularity is then insulated from the acid of rationality by layers of
“You’re too dumb to question your intellectual superiors”.

Many warmists – for example Saltpetre - start from the conviction that man’s use of carbon simply must be having a negative effect on the climate, and proceed from there. But this is not science, it’s a gut feeling, and gut feelings are often wrong.

The warmists in here, and everywhere, keep displaying the same methodology:
• Assuming it must be true in the first place, as Dessler explicitly did
• Seeking to confirm instead of to falsify it
• Relying for knowledge on the pronouncements of authority and orthodoxy, as Steven does
• Actively fleeing rational disproofs by the method of *repeating* that the premises must be true - as Steven did by way of mind-reading: (skeptics *seem to think* climatologists are *motivated by* fraud, whereas Steven’s *personal impression* is that they aren’t);

(cont.)

(cont.)
and as Bugsy seems to have done, with an argument that Dessler’s conclusion is sound even if his premises are factually false; and
• Personally disparaging detractors as “denialists”, i.e. for lack of *belief*.

But this is not the scientific methodology, it’s the *religious* methodology of knowledge.

There are three distinct categories of problem that the warmists must, but are failing to, deal with.

The first issue is whether, as a matter of climate science, we are faced with a significant warming trend; or whether it’s just normal or cooling.

To attempt to know it by the climate science has the problems
a) that the climatology involves enormous complexities, variables and unknowns, even for professional climatologists – hence most people simply take their word for it and thus fall into fallacy.

b) it is made epistemologically problematic because all the professional climatologists have in common that they have a vested interest – THE ONLY ONE 100 PERCENT CORRELATION IN THE ENTIRE AREA!
c) that the climatologists have been involved in facile, unsound, biased, deceptive and dishonest behaviour at the highest levels.

The second category of problem is, even if any warming trend were significant, whether on balance this would be better or worse for man.

We never even hear about the positive aspects of AGW, because “man-made effects* are simply assumed to equal “bad” – climate change as original sin again. Yet why do we not regard as positive that AGW might, for example, make the whole of northern Eurasia and North America arable? Because the anti-human environmental movement regards an *increase* in human carrying capacity as a nightmare, that’s why!

Even disregarding the positive potential of AGW, it is not obvious that warming of a few degrees must spell catastrophe. Where is there more biodiversity and biomass: at the poles, or at the tropics? Cold, not warmth, is the enemy of life. There is a warming of over 20 degrees in my garden every day – why should a warming of a couple of degrees over a century be feared catastrophic?

To state so positively that warming must necessarily be, on balance, bad presupposes knowledge of the distribution and abundance of species, both now and under the changed conditions for the status quo and for any policy action. Climatologists, in their capacity as climatologists, are not competent to pronounce on this.

And ecologists are so far from any such understanding, even of the real world, let alone of the counter-factuals in speculation, that it’s just not funny for the AGW alarmists to pretend to this knowledge with an airy wave of the hand.

Similarly, whether warming would be better or worse is meaningless without knowing whether *humans* would be better off, *as judged by themselves*. The necessary data set to know this must be all human evaluations of everything that involves carbon, now and in the future. This is simply not knowable to any government ever, full stop.

The warmists have walked right into the economic fallacies underlying the disastrous attempts at governmental management of the economy in the 20th century. Only this time around, in wanting to control all use of carbon, they aim to control not just the whole economy, but the whole world’s ecology as well!

The third problem is that, even if we were definitely faced with catastrophic warming that was worse than better, it would by no means follow that government has the knowledge, capacity and selflessness to produce results that are better than worse.

However one thing we do know, and that is that the *demonstrated preference* of all the people in the world is to use carbon as they are using it now, in preference to all the coerced alternatives that government wants to force on them, OTHERWISE NO POLICY WOULD BE NECESSARY.

For this reason, all alternative energy policies, in the deep structure of their economic logic, are *no different* to the policies which have resulted in people shining fossil-fueled electric lights onto solar panels to collect the government subsidy. Such foolery is all that government has to offer. Even in the warmists’ own terms, such economic illiteracy produces *worse* environmental outcomes.

I don’t know whether it is more tragedy or farce to hear of great droves of these parasitic deluded central planners converging on some luxury resort, pretending to fine-tune the weather in 50 years time by a couple of degrees – (by taxation of course: what else?) – and then scurrying home to record-level freezing conditions.

The whole load of circular statist codswallap is simply a re-run of the fatal conceit that cost over 100 million deaths in the 20th century – the idea that officials have, by virtue of being official, a gods-eye view of moral and intellectual superiority over their subjects, and the capacity to manage society better than society. It is now already costing lives again – human sacrifices to the sky-god of the new religion. “Natural phemonena are not innocent my children, they are caused by man’s evil, but don’t worry, for a (large) extorted consideration, I, the Super-Clever High Priest of Power, will fix it for you – chuck another virgin into the volcano!”

Ultimately it’s not about climate, it’s about power, but even if all the climatological concerns of the warmists were true, freedom would still be ethically and pragmatically better as a solution than coercion.

Their claims are false, and their dreams of dominance must be curtailed.

Peter Hume,

I cannot believe you could be as rash as you make out, as though all that matters is whether mankind may be better or worse off in any new or changed order. And, what could be your definition of worse or better for man - an abundance of crops but a dead or dying ecosystem, with capacity for man to breed in abundance to the absolute destruction of all proclaimed non-useful species; or alternatively for mankind to take a small backward step and contain world population for the benefit of maintaining an abundant ecosystem, enabling man to revel in the diversity, the as yet unknown, and the myriad puzzles and potentials yet to be explored and appreciated.

"The second category of problem is, even if any warming trend were significant, whether on balance this would be better or worse for man."

Is Man the apotheosis, in your ideal world, Peter, proud victor over a benign worldscape? What miraculous victory would it be to knowingly and needlessly put at risk what has taken millions of years of evolution and adaptation to come into being, simply for the glorification of Man? How lonely, how bleek.

"And ecologists are so far from any such understanding,.."

But, you would willingly sacrifice any possibility of understanding, or at least risk this, because you have greater insight than anyone else on the planet? Can they have a say, Peter, all those other, possibly lesser mortals?

A mere two degrees over a century, insignificant, hey Peter, compared to a couple of million years of adaptation. Go figure?

I fear in your zeal to oppose the science, to headline any real, possible or imagined deficienies therein so as to dismiss any justification for caution, you present as reckless in the extreme. Can you be so certain that you would willingly risk sacrificing all, just to be proven right?

"Their claims are false, and their dreams of dominance must be curtailed."

We should just leave it up to you then, Peter? Governments? Why, they're all just ignorant stooges, with no real mandate to govern anyway, hey Pete?

saltpetre, thanks, you underline what Peter says .. so stop playing the man and play the ball. You guys are so predictable since you're so stuck in your ways.

rpg,

Did you not watch "Death of the Oceans" hosted by David Attenborough on SBS the other night? Do you not recall the doco "Silent Sentinels"? Or do you consider TV or such programs as these, or books like "Silent Spring" to be part of some sort of conspiracy of mis-information? For what purpose?

Does Man's interference with and despoiling and killing of the world's ecosystems not concern you, and others, like Peter Hume perhaps? Can you not see that it is Not Just CO2, or peak oil, or Palm Oil, or Capitalism, or any other scapegoat. It Is Man! Species are going extinct every single day, the bees and who knows how many other 'pollinators' are disappearing, being decimated, commiting suicide even. But, this is just nature? Nothing to do with 'The Man'? Do we all have to sit around and debate 'The Science' while everything really worthwhile goes down the drain? Why? Because some don't want their apple pie upset?

What I say to you is, Forget the Science! Just use your eyes, your ears, your brain, and take the blinkers off. You don't have to understand the science to know that fire will burn you, or that aspirin will alleviate the symptoms of the common cold. Man will never know all, you will never know all, but that truth does not change reality.

The Earth is experiencing a fantastic extended inter-glacial, a 'Golden Age of the Ascendance of Man', a rare opportunity to enjoy, but not to exploit to the possible extent of hastening a tipping point, or to the detriment of other species, not through arrogance and/or indifference.

It's not about 'playing the man', it's about 'the bigger picture' and 'not taking your eye off the ball'. It Is about being a mensch. It Is about heeding the word of the wisest among us, of having a little faith in the seers, and of hoping that those in authority may have the courage and the wisdom to seek and act upon the best advice available in the common interest. To live and let live.

Saltpetre,

"What I say to you is, Forget the Science!"

Please, please, whatever you do, DO NOT FORGET THE SCIENCE. The last thing this world is more ignorant hippies who don't have a damn clue what they're talking about because they'd rather trust their so-called common sense and their received wisdom (received from other ignorant hippies).

"The Earth is experiencing a fantastic extended inter-glacial... "

Oh, turns out it's all right after all. Saltpetre doesn't isn't really advocating we turn our backs on science, or he wouldn't have mentioned inter-glacial periods - a phenomenon we are only aware of because of the tireless work of the noble greybeards (scientists).

Either that, or he's the sort of hypocrite who relies on scientific knowledge when it supports his ideological agenda, but ignores or disparages it when it gets in the way of his emotive arguments in support of said agenda. I certainly hope that not's the case, because that sort of hypocrisy would definitely qualify him as an anti-mensch.

oh jeez, I've ended in the weird zone of OLO again.

Saltpetre
You talk about me forgetting science as if you had just refuted my arguments showing that the whole belief system is neither rational nor scientific, and vindicated the case for AGW . But you haven't, have you? But thank you for your candid exhibition of the anti-human elitism that is behind the whole state-worshipping belief system.

The latest revelations of the top climate scientists bodging up their work for "the cause" should sicken any true scientist. That is not science; it is religious fetishism.

Reciting the ecological disasters happening under common ownership of natural resources is an argument against, not in favour of more of the same. All you're proving is that government has no way of managing its resources in a way that is rational from the point of view of the evaluations of the intended consumers of its services.

If you, or anyone, were able to speak for values over and above human values, you might be onto something. But you can't. You're not God's representative on earth. All you can do is speak for your own (anti-human) values. But that doesn't mean you aren't implicated in conflict over resource use.

The issue is not about climate, it's about power in a cause that regards human beings as a plague or a cancer. The real issue cannot be sterilised of its normative content by the captious incantation of "science", as if this talisman magically resolves all issues in favour of the state.

The real issue is whether the conflict of values is to be settled by peaceable and truthful means based on the principles of self-ownership and private property; or by coercive and fraudulent means based on the principles of serfdom and tragedy of the commons.

You and all the state-worshippers just happen to be in favour of the latter, that is all.

AGW is a scam from top to bottom.

New scientist carries a piece on attempts to sue energy companies for events that, so litigants claim, may be attributed to global warming.

Playing the climate blame game 11 November 2011 by Fred Pearce

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228384.200-playing-the-climate-blame-game.html

>>BLAMING climate change for extreme weather events, like the 2010 heatwave that set the Moscow region of Russia alight in 2010 or the floods that have ravaged the UK since the 1970s (see "Atmospheric rivers cause the UK's worst floods"), is one of the hottest topics in climate science. The Russian fires are currently the subject of debate, and the stakes are high. Solving the issue could bring closer the day when disaster victims can successfully sue oil and coal companies.>>

This will be interesting.

From the scientific perspective I doubt it will ever be possible to pin the blame for a specific event on anthropogenic global warming. But, let's face it, judges have been known to use their positions to peddle an ideological agenda. A single win in a significant jurisdiction would be a game changer.

The climate issue has been politicised on BOTH side of the debate with many protagonists relying more on ideology than science. Looks like the lawyers are going to add their tuppeny ha'porth to the mix.

My feeling is this could make a lot of lawyers very rich.

Well Saltpetre, thanks. However, it’s not about the science is it? It’s about money, power and control (FUD if you like). Sheesh, even Sir David Attenborough’s series ‘Frozen Planet’ has been censored – the last episode being gagged in the US.

http://tinyurl.com/6voyze2

Given the state of ideological rhetoric, both here and in the US, I am not surprised with the US reaction – at least we had the chance to make up our own minds when it was aired here last night.

Thing is Saltpetre, over in the States, the Republicans have control of the Lower House and the Democrats have control of the Senate – much different to our state of affairs. President Obama is trying to weave the US between a rock and a hard place – very difficult when the religious right (stirred by an increasingly popular Tea Party) are letting off smoke bombs at every policy making decision that goes through the houses. For example, funding for NASA and NOAA climate research has been drastically cut right at a time when results and observations now coming in are indeed showing the impact humanity is having on the planet.

What is relevant is that continuing research, and dissemination of that research, is essential. What I find repulsive, extremely disturbing and very offensive is that media moguls have decided what is fit and what is not fit for viewing – akin to what a communist or fascist state might do, imho.

I do find it intriguing and of no coincidence that 'climategate 2' (out now in a blog near you) is being 'released' a week before the talks in Durban - not too dissimilar to 'climategate 1' being 'released' before the talks in Copenhagen. Yes, obviously done to ambush and torpedo the next round.

Anyway, censoring science in the way the US media has done is no different to what the Catholic Church did to Galileo 400 years ago. What next, burn all texts that even allude to humanity having an impact on the planet?

Steven, you cannot even post on topic, now. I will attempt to bring you back.
What Michael Ashley says in his disingenuous criticism, of Plimer, to which you refer in your article, is: “If Plimer can do what he claims, and can prove that human emissions of CO2 have no effect on the climate, then he owes it to the scientific community and, in fact, humanity, to publish his arguments in a refereed journal.”
Plimer, of course, claims no such thing.
What Ian Plimer says, on page 12 of my copy of “Heaven and Earth” is:
“To argue that human emissions of CO2 are forcing global warming requires all the known, and possibly chaotic, mechanisms of natural global warming to be critically analysed and dismissed. This has not even been attempted.”
Human emissions cannot be scientifically shown to have any effect on climate. I invited Steven to produce the science which demonstrates otherwise. As I said, I have seen this invitation issued many times, and it has never had a response, because there is no such science. So Steven ignored it.
There is refereed science which shows that climate is governed by established natural cycles. The warmists attempted to show that there was now a difference, attributable to human emissions. This failed attempt caused them then to unsuccessfully attack the established science of natural cycles.
Steven adopted the well worn alarmist ploy of pretending to be open minded, as a basis to appear objective in his unforgiveable sliming of an accomplished scientist, Ian Plimer, whose able exposition of the unsupportable AGW hypothesis is a tangible obstacle to alarmists misinforming the public on the AGW myth.
Plimer’s book is so comprehensive and clear in its presentation, that it is no wonder it is a world wide best seller, and a constant target of the dishonest, frustrated warmists.
It is obvious that neither Steven nor Michael Ashley have read it.
It is encouraging to see a fresh posting of Climategate emails, yesterday, showing that the miscreants have not improved in the slightest. Their dishonest activities in the AGW scam continue unabated.

qanda, please .. stop the whining, Climate Science gets buckets of funding, and entire government media organization at its disposal, the ABC on all its outlets as well as SBS, both of which pump any AGW news breathlessly and call all skeptics "deniers" and continually lambast them

Then there's the government propaganda advertising as well as their "team" led by the Flannery person who can never remember what he said int he past.

Add to that lashings of studies, reviews and grants on top of donations to the likes of the Youth Climate club and you have wall to wall government sponsored climate .. all of it paid for with taxpayer funds.

Aditionally the universities like Melbourne host climate conferences, with believers only agenda.

So your problem is perceived bias in a "mogul" led media .. gosh, who could it be?

Is it the ABC, no they are on board as believers.

Is it Fairfax, no they never mention the "others", but happily print catastrophobia's output.

Is it, is it, News Ltd? Of course it is, they actually report in an unbiased way, giving both sides of things, when you would just prefer censorship.

The Galileo comparison, you have backwards, Galileo railed against the orthodoxy of "accepted science", there was a "consensus" and he went against it .. sound familiar?

Don't try to claim underdog status, it is a tragedy that with so many resources and so much wealth, you cannot convince the climate to change to disaster to suit.

The temperature has changed less than 0.8 degrees in 150 years, outstanding stability, unwelcome of course to alarmists.

Your post and saltpetre's are naturally evangelistic, no surprise, to find you agree it was never about the science and always about the belief.

How are your shares in hot rocks going, is belief sustaining them for you? Hard to pick winners based on hype, isn't it? Or did you think subsidies would "sustain" it for you?

Ok, let's forget what I said about forgetting the science - meaning it's so complex we amateurs might as well forget trying to understand it. The science is not just important, but absolutely essential to our future.

We are in an inter-glacial, with possibility we should already be heading for an ice-age (on normal cycle). If so, something we have been doing (in conjunction with natural Earth systems) may be staving off that predicted (supposedly) ice-age, and that 'something' may be the burning of fossil fuels, etc, adding various 'pollutants' to the atmosphere - CO2, sulphur dioxide, methane, nitric oxide, etc. This might provide an argument for keeping on what we've been doing - in coordination with natural Earth systems, volcanoes, etc - to maintain this inter-glacial. However, we may only be able to confirm this, and have any chance of actually maintaining the status quo, if we have the best and most detailed science available on the many factors involved.

AGW (but without dangerous pollutants) may be a good thing - unless there could be some benefit deriving from the Earth going into an ice-age? Of course there remains possibility we may already have gone a bit too far with our 'climate optimising'.

So, where to from here? Do we have access to all the factors involved? Could some contradictory measurements be possibly due to some Earth factors (as yet unidentified) pushing for an ice-age, against our pushing for maintenance of our inter-glacial? Can we maintain the environment, ecosystems, even humankind, whilst possibly burning more and more coal industrialising the globe?

On a number of bases, human population is at a critical point. If we continue population and industrial growth at current rates - including deforestation and polluting with toxic waste - we may well reach a point where shortage of both oxygen and food will become hyper-critical - since forests, agriculture and the oceans are critical suppliers of both oxygen and food.

Conclusion: Climate science will have to expand to encompass all relevant systems, as Earth BioScience, to provide the necessary answers.

saltpetre "Ok, let's forget what I said about forgetting the science - meaning it's so complex we amateurs might as well forget trying to understand it. The science is not just important, but absolutely essential to our future."

Agreed, but to use AGW as a prop to justify financial redistribution or a pulpit for preaching original sin, is just not acceptable.

I do not have any guilt about where we are or what we do, clearly unlike some others who do. Sure, we could pollute less, and we try to.

Climate is poorly understood, but you wouldn't think so to listen to the spin from climate scientists, who have enjoyed the attention, without the requisite skills to extract them selves when it went too far.

Playing with people's lives, is what we don't like and to wave it off arrogantly dismissing those who disagree, is not forgotten.

Where do we go from here, indeed.

We get climate scientists to apologise for misleading the people of the world, beg their forgiveness and commit to never exaggerating again (hah!)

Then we look at what you need to do without the conflicting interests and excessive funding which has clouded good people's thinking.

The climate will do what it does, and as it goes against all the predictions of the IPCC and scientists, they lose all credibility, which appears to be the way it is going .. what then?

The big gamble that models were useful to predict climate was taken up by activists and scientists went along with it, such is the glamor of attention.

It amazes me that people usually so conservative have bet their careers and an entire area of science, on what they thought was a winner .. fools.

Always remember what has been put at stake through the greed and dishonesty of the AGW backers.

Public Service Superannuation funds have been invested up to the hilt in these pie-in- the- sky projects, which are ultimately dependent on ripping off taxpayers to show a return, as the projects are economically unproductive. The Public Service is locked into supporting the scam, or see its super become worhless.

There is no sound base for the green projects, just a confident anticipation that taxpayers can be looted to make them appear productive.

The Archbishop of Canterbury invested $300 million of Church funds with Al Gore’s companies, so guess which Church supports the global warming scam? They will be very reluctant to see the truth; that they are the victims of the greatest fraud in history,

Gore will be OK. He recently divorced his wife of 40 years, and put their important assets in her name. When the chickens come home to roost, he will remain in comfortable circumstances as a bankrupt. Shame is not within his capacity, so he will be relatively untouched by this disaster which he has done so much to create.

Ian Plimer’s book has been one of the great turning points in this sorry saga, and he has suffered tremendous vitriol from the alarmists, because he has cut through their spin, and exposed the truth. His book covers a huge field, in a clear and concise manner, and is deservedly a best seller in three countries.

Steven’s attack on Plimer is a low level effort, even considering the depths plumbed by some of the warmists we have seen here on OLO.

So rpg is afraid of what NASA and NOAA are turning up, so much so he agrees that their climate research funding be severely curtailed. Rpg also thinks it ok that the US media censor science.

Rpg, you have it backwards … Svante Arrenhius over 100 years ago went against science orthodoxy to advance the idea that increasing GHG’s can impact world temperature. If anyone can be compared to Galileo, it would be he. Nice try at spin though.

Rpg also fails to understand the concept of ‘mean global temperature’. Average temperatures in some regions of the planet have soared to over 10 times the mean global rate. Rpg prefers to bury his head in the sand when it comes to increasing average temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula, or the tundra of Siberia, or to Greenland, or to regions of Australia, or to areas of the US and Africa.

Hard to pick winners rpg? No, not that hard - you're right, some years ago I bought a block of shares in a ‘hot-rock’ company for cents, and sold them later for dollars – ROI near to 10 times the initial cost. Moreover, just before the announcement of the carbon tax, I bought another swathe, again at cents. Who knows, I may even want to hang on to these a while longer for succeeding generations, given there is more certainty in the renewable energy industry now.

Hi Qanda, you're back. Completely shameless aren't you? Now you are claiming to be a gun investor. I guess you have forgotten about your investment in Geodynamics. In a previous post on another thread you claimed to have bought shares every time the share had made a low. That is the statistical fingerprint of someone who is, to use a technical term, gilding the lily.

So what is your position now that they are worth one-third the last dip you claimed to be buying at?

And can you point me to some literature where they have found the tropospheric hotspot? Might be more profitable than your share trading.

Stephen, this is a bit different from not being able to detect neturinos. We do a pretty good job of measuring atmospheric temperature vertically. It's only when it doesn't suit the IPCC political agenda that measurement becomes an issue. It's not there, the models have faulty inputs. End of story.

Graham

We'll just have to agree to differ. The existence or non-existence of the "hotspot" is in any case not the be all and end all of global warming.

You cited two papers, one that claimed the hotspot existed but was not as "hot" as some models predicted and one that claimed global warming was occurring but not as rapidly as earlier models predicted. I have no quarrel with either of these. The scientific consensus does not embrace any particular climate model.

Leo Lane

And others

In my post of Tuesday, 15 November 2011 6:46:36 PM above I defined a "Science Group" (SG) and, somewhat facetiously, a Peter Hume Group (PHG).

I pointed out that SG has usually turned out to be more nearly right than PHG in its various manifestations.

Not always, but usually

Not necessarily precisely right but more nearly right.

Since I freely admit that I, as an amateur, am not in a position to decide between SG and PHG on this topic, which should I bet on? A rational man would bet on the group with the best track record of being correct and that is SG by a long margin. Nobody here has given me a rational reason for changing my mind.

This is not an appeal to authority; it is a decision on which of the conflicting "authorities" – to the extent that PHG can be called an authority – I should trust. If you like, I am in the position of a juror having to decide which witness is the more credible. Both are to some extent tarnished. But SG has the advantage of being approximately right most of the time; PHG, in many ways even more tarnished, has usually turned out to be wrong.

It helps that SG's position is in line with the laws of physics and what we do know about the current weather system. Many protagonists within PHG seem to ignore what we know about physics or weather.

I note that nobody has given me even a half way reasonable explanation of the dog that fails to bark.

Leo Lane,

In quoting Plimer you are yourself APPEALING TO AUTHORITY. Why you choose to believe Plimer against the stated positions of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society and many other elite scientific bodies is itself interesting.

Well let's get on with examining the statement you attribute to Plimer. I am doing this merely for the record. I do not have any hope that anything I say could induce you to change your mind about Plimer's deceitful book.

I no longer have my copy of his book – my wife sold in on eBay – but his book was peppered with statements such as the one you quote so I'll assume it's accurate.

It was in fact statements such as the one you quoted that led me to conclude early on that Plimer had written a polemic rather than a serious book of popular science. Like most polemics it is economical with the truth.

>>To argue that human emissions of CO2 are forcing global warming requires all the known, … mechanisms of natural global warming to be critically analysed and dismissed. This has not even been attempted.”>>

This is a mixture of half truth and outright lie. Do we claim to understand fully "all the known, … mechanisms of natural global warming". Obviously not. In fact that is probably impossible.

But is it true that "This has not even been attempted."

NO!

THIS IS ONE OF PLIMER'S (MANY) OUTRIGHT PORKIES. Scientists are doing their best to track the history of the Earth's climate and relate it to atmospheric CO2 levels. There is abundant lierature on this. It is a difficult task. What scant evidence is available suggests that elevated CO2 levels have led to higher temperatures in the past. However deducing what past temperatures were is fraught. It may not be possible to examine in detail all the vicissitudes of the Earth's climate and their causes.

Let's examine Plimer's use of the word chaotic. Weather systems are chaotic. Chaotic systems have "attractors." What this means is that they cycle irregularly. Extremes occur but there are periodic reversions in the direction of the mean.

However chaotic systems are not immune to the laws of physics. The "attractors" may be moved in a particular direction. To put it in another way, the means may move.

What is more, chaotic systems can be tipped over into a whole different state. In the case of climate this could be a state that is less benign to human civilisation that the one we currently enjoy.

Now the NAS and the Royal Society number among their fellows scientists who are adept at the mathematics of chaotic systems. Do you think they don't know all this?

You may stick with Plimer who continues to disseminate falsehoods and half-truths even when they have been pointed out to him.

I prefer to deal with scientific bodies that, whatever their faults, do respond to critique and do issue corrections when their errors are pointed out to them.

rpg

You need to get your facts right.

Two points about Galileo.

--He was far from an amateur. He practised what we today would call science full time.

--But, most importantly, he did NOT challenge the SCIENTIFIC orthodoxy of the day. He did not even challeng religious dogma. HE DISSED THE POPE

Those scientists who were free to express their opinion without fear of retribution were already largely convinced of the reality of the heliocentric model when Galileo published his classic "Discourse on the two World Systems" that got him placed under house arrest.

Note, it was the Church, not scientists, who confined Galileo to his house. They didn't do it because of his science. In his book he ridiculed a character called Simplicimus which everyone recognised as Pope Urban VIII.

The Catholic Church's anti-science attitude has been exaggerated but you dissed the Pope at your peril.

What had previously convinced scientists of the truth of the heliocentric model was Johannes Kepler's three laws of planetary motion which put the heliocentric theory on a sound mathematical footing. Kepler published his three laws to wide acclaim before Galileo was placed under house arrest.

Galileo's achievement was to explain how the Earth could be moving without anyone noticing. His explanation is still worth reading.

http://www.philosophical-investigations.org/Galileo's_Thought_Experiments

(scroll down "Salvatius Ship". It makes fascinating reading.)

Whatever else you may say about Galileo he was not an AMATEUR challenging the SCIENTIFIC consensus.

And it is not actually true that he was challenging the scientific consensus to the extent that one existed in early seventeenth century Italy.

WHY DOES CLIMATE TRIGGER SUCH STRONG EMOTIONS?

I can understand certain proposed policy responses eliciting a strong, even emotional, response; but not the science itself.

Steven,

"I note that nobody has given me even a half way reasonable explanation of the dog that fails to bark."

It's probably a Basenji.

Steven, I quoted Plimer to show that Michael Ashley, to whom you referred in relation to Plimer, is either incompetent or lying. I compared what Ashley alleged Plimer said, to Plimer’s actual words.

This is another diversion from the fact that you are wrong again, and from the fact that you have produced no science to justify your support for the AGW myth.

You refer to statements by the scientific bodies, which are unsupported by science, as your basis. The fact that the members of these bodies are competent in science does not give authority to the statements, which are unsupported by science. Many members of these previously reputable bodies have spoken out in disagreement with the unjustified statements supporting the AGW scam. Harold Lewis made an apt statement about the global warming fraud in his resignation from the American Physical Society.

What Plimer says is correct. Instead of looking at the natural factors producing global warming, the AGW supporters look for global warming, and attempt to attribute it to human emissions. If the non existent “hot spot” upon which the IPCC relied in making its baseless assertion that AGW is “very likely” were found to exist, it would soon be shown that it did not comprise the “signature” for AGW.

The alarmist trick of pretending that some warming can be somehow separated out as identifiable as AGW has been tried before and found wanting. No wonder you rid yourself of Plimer’s book on e bay. It is outside of your comprehension abilities.

There is plenty of evidence that global warming leads to release of CO2. As you say, there is scant evidence that CO2 leads to warming. Properly examined, I would say none. I have read some of the tortuous efforts to say otherwise, and I would not give them so high a status as “scant” as you attempt to do.

Plimer is right, and the more you attempt to attack his erudite work, the more foolish you look.

Good morning Graham, just passing through. Haven’t forgotten at all - GDY is as ‘hot rocks’ as you can get. I made a bit when I sold (not all) on a high and as mentioned to rpg, I bought more at a low, before the Carbon Tax went through the Senate – you do so seem to have a problem with that.

Whether I’ve thrown perfume on a violet – who is to say? Indeed, I respond as did Chesterton;

“If we are critical of the petty things they do to glorify great things, they would find quite as much to criticise in the great things we do to glorify petty things. And if we wonder at the way in which they seem to gild the lily, they would wonder quite as much at the way we gild the weed.”

Ergo, I would wonder just as much at the way you gild the weed.

Steven (with a ‘v’) and your good self has answered the question on hotspots.

Simon,

This has been a strange experience. You are clearly very worried about anthropogenic CO2 releases causing potentially catastrophic global warming. However, you engagingly admit that you are an amateur, unable to read and assess the science yourself. Instead, you decide to rely on people that you decide you can trust.

Several sceptics here have pointed out that the case that anthropogenic CO2 is a major (and effectively only) cause of observed warming has not, and has never been made. Sceptics acknowledge the physics that show that CO2 has some warming effect - generally acknowledged to be around 1 deg C for a doubling of CO2 in atmosphere - but argue that there is no evidence for positive feedbacks which the IPCC team assume will result in much higher levels of warming. In fact, the sceptics cite credible scientists who argue for neutral or even negative feedbacks. Certainly, the issue is not resolved. The science is not settled.

Further, sceptics have pointed out that it is demonstrated that natural cycles are a signficant, and potentially major, factor in observed warming. They have also pointed out that land-use factors are an acknowledged cause of local and regional warming (US Dust Bowl of the 30s). If natural and land-use factors are significant to major, how then can anthropogenic CO2 be the dominant factor?

Clearly you trust the published temperature series and are not bothered by the considerable evidence for manipulation and "adjustments" that always result in more warming. Sceptics question this information.

Finally, you appeal to authority - the IPCC, the CSIRO, the MSM, the Scientific Societies. Apparently you are totally unaware of the revelations of Climategate and now Climategate II which show some of the political manipulation behind the scenes.

I suggest that those making the claims need to provide the proof. You have not done so. So far as I am concerned, my position remains the same.

steven .. you're a serial cherry picker, to no one's suprise

"You need to get your facts right.

Two points about Galileo.

--He was far from an amateur. He practised what we today would call science full time. "

Show me where I said anything about whether Galileo was an amateur or not .. you're now attributing what you "think" to various posters, this is typical of the AGW breathless hysteria of spraying around assertions of all manner, then accusing skeptics of doing it.

get your facts right, clearly anything anyone says is subject to verballing by yourself.

Moir – Thursday, 24 November 2011 8:55:05 AM
>> censoring science in the way the US media has done is no different to what the Catholic Church did to Galileo 400 years ago. <<

Rpg replies to moir – Thursday, 24 November 2011 1:17:04 PM
>> The Galileo comparison, you have backwards, Galileo railed against the orthodoxy of "accepted science", there was a "consensus" and he went against it .. sound familiar? <<

Moir replies to rpg - Thursday, 24 November 2011 5:00:57 PM
>> Rpg, you have it backwards … Svante Arrenhius over 100 years ago went against science orthodoxy to advance the idea that increasing GHG’s can impact world temperature. If anyone can be compared to Galileo, it would be he. Nice try at spin though. <<

Steven responds to rpg – Friday, 25 November 2011 7:47:57 AM
>> rpg, You need to get your facts right … Two points about Galileo … He was far from an amateur… <<

AMICUS ‘replies’ to Steven – Friday, 25 November 2011 10:33:22 AM
>> "You need to get your facts right … Two points about Galileo … SHOW ME WHERE I SAID (my emphasis) anything about whether Galileo was an amateur or not … <<

Minor nitpick (Graham?)

It appears Amicus and rpg are one and the same.

If not, perhaps Amicus could explain (or aplogise to Steven).

If they are, perhaps Amicus, rpg or an OLO administrator could explain.

There was not room in my post above to include a relevant extract from the resignation of Harold Lewis from the American Physical Society, of which he had been a member for 35 years. Dealing with the corruption of science, he says:

“It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.

Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.)

I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist…

The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them.”.

It is worth reading the full text here:
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/harold-lewis-scathing-resignation-letter-from-the-aps/

As to the Royal Society, I like Nigel Calder’s comment regarding the recent confirmation of Svensmark’s work showing that the sun governs warming. If only it had not been delayed 11 years by politics:

“… there would have been less time for so many eminent folk from science, politics, industry, finance, the media and the arts to be taken in by man-made climate catastrophe. (In London, for example, from the Royal Society to the National Theatre.) Sadly for them, in the past ten years they’ve crowded with their warmist badges into a Hall of Shame, like bankers before the crash.”

http://calderup.wordpress.com/

With all this, and now Climategate2, where is a warmist to hide.

CORRECTION:

I wrote:

>>The existence or non-existence of the "hotspot" is in any case not the be all and end all of global warming.>>

I meant to write:

>>The DETECTION OF THE existence or non-existence of the "hotspot" is in any case not the be all and end all of global warming.>>

I shall expand on that (was out of words yesterday)

Detecting the so called "hotspot" – it's not a spot at all – requires more than the ability to measure air temperature. It requires us to measure trends in air and surface temperature over a wide area and at different altitudes over a period of decades. These trends must then be compared against the predictions of various climate models.

Given the noisy and even, to use Plimer's word, chaotic, background I question whether the dataset that allows us to do this with any confidence exists.

As was the case with neutrinos we shall simply have to wait until our capabilities are up to the task. As our datasets improve we should be able to make a definitive finding.

In the mean time progress in physics did not stop because we were unable to detect neutrinos and progress in understanding climate will not stop because, for now, we cannot make a definitive finding on the "hotspot."

What scant evidence there is points to the existence of a "hotspot" though not necessarily one that conforms with the predictions of the most commonly used climate models.

This is how science works in the real world. It's messy and difficult whenver we're operating at the outer limits of our capabilities.

Give it up, Steven, you will not make it to Nigel Calder’s Hall of Shame. You are not even a peripheral player.

Calder outlines the campaign of the alarmists:

“There is no mention that the Danish team in Copenhagen, beat CLOUD to the first results obtained using a particle beam to ionize the air in the experimental chamber

What will historians of science make of this breach of scientific etiquette? That Kirkby was cross because Svensmark, losing patience with the long delay in getting approval and funding for CLOUD, took matters into his own hands? Or because Svensmark’s candour about cosmic rays casting doubt on catastrophic man-made global warming frightened the national funding agencies? Or was Kirkby simply doing his best (despite the results) to obey his Director General by slighting all things Danish?

The High Priests of the Inconvenient Truth – in such temples as NASA-GISS, Penn State and the University of East Anglia – always knew that Svensmark’s cosmic ray hypothesis was the principal threat to their sketchy and poorly modelled notions of self-amplifying action of greenhouse gases.

In telling how the obviously large influences of the Sun in previous centuries and millennia could be explained, and applying the same mechanism to the 20th century warming, Svensmark put the alarmist predictions at risk – and with them the billions of dollars flowing from anxious governments into the global warming enterprise.

Their strategy was to starve Svensmark of funding. Reject his scientific papers but give free rein to anyone who criticizes him. Trivialize the findings in the Holy Writ of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. None of this is paranoia on my part, but a matter of close personal observation since 1996.

Long delays of CLOUD, the experiment to explore the microchemical mechanism of the Svensmark effect became the chief excuse for deferring any re-evaluation of the Sun’s role in climate change”

http://calderup.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-ray-action/

Game over, Steven.

http://tinyurl.com/Leo-Lane

leo lane + climate = troll

Amicus a.k.a. rpg

Missing in action?

Qanda it looks like a prima facie case of sock-puppetry, I'll investigate.

Just as I investigated your claim to be a successful trader in GDY. Posters might wonder why I am interested in your personal claims - an interest that you characterise as ad hominem. It is because you hold yourself out as an expert and belittle others on that basis. But more often than not you aren't an expert at all. If you advance yourself as an argument, expect to be rebutted.

Here's what you said about your portfolio in GDY in March 2010:

"On a personal note (seeing you think I “have done a bit of dough”) ... I bought 2 blocks of GDY in mid ’06 for about 70 cents per share. The 1st block I gifted between my children, the 2nd block ‘willed’ and divided amongst their children (my grandchildren not yet born) turning 21.

As it turned out, one of kids wanted to ‘cash in’ for a substantive house deposit and keep it with the bank for about a year - fortuitous or just astute, you tell me. Anyway, they did and they made a motzza - traded at about $2 per share in ’07 ... almost 300% profit in just over 1 year. Were they to know about the casing collapse last year? No, they were lucky ... but we were aware of the GFC on the horizon - were you?

Nevertheless, I originally bought the shares as a long term ‘blue chip’ investment, primarily for my grandchildren – stipulated in my will not to be traded for at least another 30 years. Time to double up? You betcha!" (cont...)

cont...

In March 2010 GDY were around 60 cents. They're 20 cents now. You didn't sell on a high according to your own account of your share portfolio at a time when the price was a lot higher than it is now. You've changed your story now that the share fall exposes your boasting for what it is.

What you seem to be doing is curve fitting your preferred reality to fit the past. Bad luck for you that you left a trail of evidence as to what actually happened in the past, even if, as I suspect, that was also an exercise in fitting your story to accord with the facts.

Anyone who is interested can see a graph of the share price at http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=ASX:GDY. The company listed in September 2002 and shares originally traded at 40 cents.

Your story is a bit like the way they run those climate models, so it's a good lesson in how those sorts of exercises work.

And on, and on, anon, anon it goes. Anonymity sure ensures the debate will drag on. When can we change the rules to slay the drag-on factor? Let everyone declare who they are and what are their vested interests. Let the games begin anew without the masks of anonymity.

Quite frankly, for all we know, Amicus/rpg could be John McRobert - just kidding John :)

Graham, your apparent fanatical interest in my share dealings is, well … fanatic.
Please excuse me if I don’t divulge all the personal nitty-gritties.

Moving on, the thrust of your fanaticism (metaphorically speaking of course) seems aimed at “those climate models”.

Given that real sceptics (not fake OLO ones) model climate too, your 'argument' is somewhat fallacious.

You are simply gilding the weeds.

Corollary: you are being critical of the petty things I do to glorify great things (you think) you do.

Qanda, when the person you are arguing with resorts to abuse you know you've won. If you keep it up I'm going to have to suspend you. I note you've been getting into a few people on this thread.

It was pretty easy to check the record on your share dealings. Not fanatical at all.

And I agree with John McRobert, I think that the anonymity on the web has become a curse. It gets in the way of sensible and honest conversation.

I think OLO is going to have to change the model in that regard.

Graham Y and John McRobert,

I'm not sure having a name and spits and spats about individuals on this forum would do much in clarification of anyone's potential bias or interests, but would remove the mystique of 'getting to know' people, without ever really being able to get to know them.

As the discussion is the thing, and attempting to digest and understand other people's points of view is the purpose, for building understanding, the forum is something of an online community 'think tank'. In this context, anonymity is probably a good thing - avoiding overt influence of preconceptions or stereotypical bias.

If someone is highly educated, wealthy, or an industrial magnate, does their opinion warrant greater regard than anyone else's? One may have in-depth knowledge on a particular topic, and this would be expected to come through in their posts, but it still behoves them to consider altenative viewpoints. However, once a seed of bias towards, or against, is sown by virtue of a declaration of personal details, both posts and responses are compromised.

Perhaps I make too much of this peripheral issue, but I prefer to consider all posts on their merit, and unencumbered by preconceptions.

On the topic: I am on the side of the environment, believing that every generation should be as caretakers in their use of the bounties of this magnificent planet, and as custodians for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations. A farmer's prayer says 'Live as though you are going to die tomorrow, but farm as though you are going to live forever.' A worthy moral, imho.

Those on the land all too often stand as bystanders, powerless, as the carpet-baggers rape and pillage in short-sighted haste, leaving nothing but hardship and heartache for those left behind and for all who follow. This generation, more than any before, needs to heed the multitudinous signs of a planet in pain. A caution: Empty ivory towers will be a poor bequest for those of the next millenium.

P.S. I am an ex public servant, semi-retired with a few cows and a bit more bush than I can handle. A bit of an environmentalist, in my own way, not much of a reader, hetero, a widow, no children, one dog, one horse, fairly active in the local community, watch too much TV, like SBS and David Attenborough's docos (and quite a bit more - good movies, etc), and am of first generation Greek/Anglo Australian born ethnicity. Also, I'm extremely handsome (not really, and a bit past caring anyway). And, I'm a Liberal voter, and seem to be more than a little opinionated, but generally try my best to keep an open mind, and to give people the benefit of the doubt - until twice bitten.

Now, there's really not much more in there than would have been detected by many of the perceptive followers of OLO from my previous posts on any number of threads.

They would also have surmised that I tend towards caution to a large degree, and believe that unbridled industrialisation is not in the best interests of this or future generations. Hence, I am a warmist. (And, I don't like storms or strong winds.)

Peter.

[Deleted for abuse.]

Some people following this post seem unaware of kwonder’s history on this site.

He originally made statements in support of the AGW hypothesis, and when invited to back his statements with science, failed to do so. It was pointed out to him that he should desist from unsustainable statements, and admit that there was no science to back his assertions.

He came up with the usual assertions about science, in lieu of producing any valid back up, and cornered himself, much as Steven has done.

Rather than admit the truth, that the AGW scam has established no scientific basis, he then said there was such science, but he was not going to produce it, and he did not have to. This made him appear a pusillanimous fool, and for a time he backed off from posting his nonsense.

I think he is best ignored, as his assertions have no substance, and his complete lack of credibility was established years ago when the original batch of AGW supporters went away, from OLO, with their tails between their legs. Kwonder remained, like the mongrel dog that no one wants, but has no home to go to.

I was surprised when Saltpetre perceived some validity in kwonder’s substance deficient ramblings.

His corrupt nonsense is not completely harmless, if he misleads some people. Saltpetre has fallen for the Juliar nonsense that CO2 is pollution, and is under the misapprehension that the scurrilous “carbon” tax will achieve something other than harm to Australia.

Australia absorbs double the amount of CO2 that its population emits. We should be issued with carbon credits, not forced to buy them from the tricksters who produce them under sanction of corrupt legislation.

Added to his already huge mass of misapprehensions, kwonder thinks a troll is someone who continually posts the truth about the AGW scam.

He thinks his name should be spelt “qanda”, but I prefer my spelling. It is clearer and does not give the uncomfortable feeling of a missing “u”.

Leo Lane,

Saltpetre does NOT believe Ms Gillard in much of anything she has to offer, least of all the efficacy or essentiality of the carbon tax, nor its proposed usage, nor the ETS scheme. Saltpetre has in fact made many posts to such effect.

Leo,

On a global basis it appears you may be rejecting any possibility that anthropogenic CO2, and other emissions and human activities, can have any significant effect on climate, on the recession of sea ice, on oceanic acidification, sea level rise, glacial shrinkage, or the extinction of species. You perhaps prefer, or choose, to associate such phenomena solely with land use, deforestation, urban and city development, ruminant burping, and natural climate cycles, volcanic activity, plate tectonics, and solar radiation. All of these and other factors are surely at play, including those of human influence and inducement. My interest and concern is in the effect, and in the possibilities for amelioration, rather than the apportioning of blame for causation.

There is possibility that AGW science has been an attempt to address the evidenced deterioration of life on earth, by pursuing a thrust to adopt a more environmentally responsible approach to continued human development. This would be a meritorious objective, and in my opinion worth shaking a few ivory towers by any reasonable means available to induce an appropriate response.

There is perhaps possibility that some scientists may have been lured to AGW by the opportunity to conduct research, whether for its own sake or for possibility of making a difference, and in any event contributing to human knowledge. This also need not have been a bad thing.

In the end result, I consider the ultimate objectives of AGW science regarding the pursuit of environmental sustainability and the future wellbeing of humankind to be worthy. The fact that the science is far from straightforward should not deter us from pursuit of such worthy objectives.

Though any form of constraint will always be opposed by some, it continues to be essential that means be found to pursue and foster that which is in the long term common interest.

"when the person you are arguing with resorts to abuse you know you've won"

Good point Graham. Thing is, there are many "sceptics" that 'abuse' scientists and to a larger extent, the science itself.

It can equally be said, you know you've won when those who criticise you engage in the very behaviour they accuse you of doing.

Ok, you "think OLO is going to have to change the model in that regard" - anonymity that is. That's fine, and that is obviously your preference - we have crossed swords on this before.

However, I was responding to the thrust of your argument insofar as “those climate models”, not OLO's privacy policy.

Further, whilst I understand why The Acolyte Rizla's comment was deleted, I also understand the point TAR was trying to make. I don't really think any OLO'er really wants know about my share trading details. Besides, you don't know all the convoluted nitty-gritties.

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Leo/Nick/whatever,
You regurgitate the same assertions here and on all the other blogs you frequent. It becomes tiresome and pointless to engage with you - you win :)

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Saltpetre,
Peter, your last 3 posts - well said, and thanks for saying it.

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Steven,
Like I said, nice try.
As said to Graham, I'm just passing through and will bid you, adieu. Appologies that the gist of a very good thread has been skewered, it often happens.

Qanda you made your share trading an issue. Of course you don't want it discussed seeing you appear to have been making it up. It's a pattern that you repeat in areas closer to climate science.

Saltpetre, the issue of anonymity goes to how people conduct themselves, not whether their argument is credible or not. When people are anonymous they feel free to say things that they wouldn't if their real world reputation was on the line.

Qanda claims to be an IPCC reviewer, as well as qualified in various brands of science and engineering, and uses that to browbeat people on the forum. I doubt that would happen if he had to front with a real name and reputation. And things would be pleasanter and more rational as a result.

He's not the only one, and some of his opponents are just as bad. I'm only talking about Qanda because he was at the centre of a discussion where the anonymity issue was raised. He's not necessarily the best example of what I am talking about.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6745#101586

Graham Young, please link to the post where I claimed to be an IPCC reviewer.

I expect an unequivacal apology if you can't.

the lies of peers
selling thier spin
shiould concern us all

its the multihydra beast
destroy one lie
ten come back

why do i bother
cause your my brothers
decieve you
means they think to decieve me

not sure if anyone is watching
the other climate gate topic
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12844&page=0

anyhow im refuting the many lies of science
beginning with evolution

but the format permiting two posts gets awquard..so i post the complete reply here
http://forum.worldfreemansociety.org/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=12018&p=91859#p91859

in time i will try to join the dots to this one
conducted in the bad ol days when it was only 2 posts
to reply an avalanche of attack
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2305&page=0

yep its far easier to believe
have faith in science fraud

than try to correct it

and still the blind lead the blinded over into impossability to see
dont the words of thge emails them, selves refute the theory

if not the theory then the law..and actions done via that lie
if its not the right thing to do
its not the right thing to do

a wall of lies
gets taken down one lie at a time

we trust science peers
we trust religeous peers

but what if they got fet of clay
the blooming lot of em

whats in it for them
exclusive franchise
respect

power?
money?

fear
sex?

small boys and adoring young girls?

who really knows
we all play a game
and in the end..the same 1%..control the rules
with the same peers..getting their acces to powerfull ears

The silence is deafening - no surprise there.

Challenge to any “sceptic” … if you’re going to assert stuff, be prepared to back it up with facts.

kwonder, you want one rule for you and the opposite for Realists.

I outlined, above, your pathetic performance when you were asked to back your assertions on the AGW myth.

Remember, you “did not want to” and considered that you “should not have to”.

Your comment that “Leo, you win” should be qualified to “kwonder lost”, years ago. You put forward assertions which could not be backed by facts or science. Your refusal to acknowledge the truth made you a loser.

You find my repetition of the truth tiresome, and find it pointless to “engage with” me.

You have never “engaged” in the sense of giving any meaningful response to anyone pointing out that your assertions are baseless and without any science to back them.

You now make the assertions by the back door, asserting that Steven’s nonsense was a “nice try”.

A “nice try” at what, kwonder? Trying to put over the unacceptable rubbish that you tried and failed to sustain?

When you demonstrate any ability to conduct a civilised debate, instead of taking shots at people from under your rock, your request might be treated as if you exist.

Until then, you are persona non grata.

If people “do not want to” acknowledge you, they “should not have to”. Your words, kwonder. It is ludicrous for you to purport to make a demand. You have completely negated any status you may have had, by your abysmal behaviour.

If you are looking for assistance in formulating your thoughts about the “science” to which you mindlessly subscribe, kwonder, this may help.

Christopher Booker has a most appropriate comment on the economic damage wrought by the AGW scam, based on the “science” of the Climategate miscreants:

“This is no longer science worthy of the name.

As I wrote when the first Climategate emails appeared in 2009, the global warming scare is far and away the greatest scientific scandal of our generation.

When we then contemplate the insanity of the measures the politicians have imposed on us in consequence, we know we are looking at a collective flight from reality which has no precedent in the history of the world.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8917737/Is-the-global-warming-scare-the-greatest-delusion-in-history.html

LOL OUG

At least you're not accusing me of some nefarious Zionist plot this time. ;-)