One poster has asked about alterior motives of the Global Warming lobby. The answer, anti-capitalism. China and India are exempt from the Kyoto protocols and they are the largest contributors of green house gasses. If you check the political leanings of Al Gore et al and most environmentalists you will find that they are socialists. As far as climate change is concerned, it happens. However the most quoted study that is used to prove that humans are responsible for recent climate change is the one that is called "The Hockey Stick". According to that study, there has been no significant change in climate for the last 2000 years until the 20th century where a drastic rise in temperature (about 2C) has occured. So there is one large camp of scientists that deny natural climate change cycles exist (modern flat earth scientists) in the face of what is obvious to most; climate changes. The best solution to all this was proposed in a US Senate hearing by Dr. Richard Alley of Penn State University. His reccommendations can be found in detail at http://commerce.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=750&wit_id=2028. Dr. Alley has extensively researched climate change over a 2 million year period of earth's history and has concluded that yes, the earth's climate changes drastically over time. Rather than trying to stop it from changing which is impossible, the sensible thing to do is spend time and resources on mitigating the consequences of climate change on at risk populations; a sensible no-regrets policy. So rather than spending time and resources on drastically changing the way modern societies generate power which won't stop climate change, let's work on solutions that will have a positive impact on global society.

Do I care about halting global warming? No.

Do I care about reducing pollution? Yes.

Good science is based solely on reason and evidence not authority or affiliation. When Einstein published his theory of relativity he was a junior clark in a patent office with a high school degree. Darwin was a retired country gentleman when he published On the Origin of Species. Neither appeared in a peer reviewed journal. All of which is irrelevant to the fact that they proved to be right.

By the criteria offered by critics in the present discussion it would appear they must also reject both relativity and evolution. Critics should address the substance of Professor Carter's article. Attacking the credentials of the author or the CEI reference and who they are, or who is alleged to have paid them is irrelevant. The only important issue is "are their scientific arguments correct"?

Similarly, dismissing the Lamb quote because it was written in 1982 is fatuous. Again, do we also dismiss Einstein and Darwin because they were published even earlier? The question is not "when was it written" but "is it true"?

Skeptics are not arguing that CO2 does not absorb IR or that burning fossil fuel does not add CO2 to the atmosphere. In essence the AGW debate is about whether increasing CO2 by a few hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere will have catastrophic consequences on global climate. AGW proponents claim scientific certainty that it will and cite as proof a 0.6 degree C increase in average global temperature over the past century, a putative increase in extreme weather events and predictions of ongoing future warming based on computer models. Skeptics find significant uncertainty in the amount, causes and consequences of any warming and in the accuracy of the models. They point to major doubts regarding the amount and cause of recent warming, past extremes that equal or exceed recent ones, benefits of CO2 enrichment, plus numerous simplifications, guesses and omissions in the models as well as wide discrepancies between them.

Anyone who claims this issue is scientifically settled is either in denial or simply ignorant of the amount of uncertainty and conflicting evidence involved.

Spot on, Walter. So many of the posts above demonstrate that these people are in the habit of running facts through a political filter before they actually assess those facts. Now that process may be appropriate for processing perceptions and political spin, but to do the same with facts is strong evidence that they do not distinguish between perceptions and facts. To them, they are all just grist for a political mill.

And once they have crossed that threshold, as Al Gore clearly has, there is no prospect of them dealing with issues in an honest and open manner. Once their minds have switched to a framework of "our facts" and "their facts", it is only a very small step indeed to the deception of them witholding facts that may not support their position and over emphasising facts that do support their position.

It is the hard evidence of their contempt for our right to make informed decisions that may not agree with their preference.

And that, folks, is the definition of the common liar. The guy who competes for social standing with the village idiot.

Lets face it, Gore almost made it to the very top of the US political heap, and people seriously expect us to believe he is an honest man? Give us a break.

Perseus said, “Spot on, Walter. So many of the posts above demonstrate that these people are in the habit of running facts through a political filter before they actually assess those facts. Now that process may be appropriate for processing perceptions and political spin, but to do the same with facts is strong evidence that they do not distinguish between perceptions and facts. To them, they are all just grist for a political mill.”

It sounds to me as though you are advocating that we should just take for gospel whatever “facts” are dished up to us.

I may only be a lowly Bachelor degree student, but one of the cardinal rules of critical thinking is to query who is saying “the fact”, and what reasons they may have for interpreting and presenting “the fact” in that particular way. In short, to examine the presentation for any bias.

Also, should any bias be present, it should be stated up front so that the author’s motivation can be taken into account.

I was simply pointing out that the paper referred to by Bob (in criticism of “An Inconvenient Truth”) did not make clear that bias could be present given the fact that the institute, and people who assisted create the paper, had financial links to a major oil company who stand to lose money if people are inclined to agree with AIT.

As NicM pointed out above, “cherrypicking” can work for any argument. “Facts” can be a little like statistics – depending on the context, they can mean whatever you want them to.

Given the lack of upfrontness about the paper’s potential bias, and the cherrypicking, it is reasonable for the writer’s and supporter’s motives to be questioned when the connection to a multinational oil company is discovered.

Isky,

Please read Jennifer and Walter's comments again.

We are dealing here with matters of science.

Your subjective opinions about CEI, and where it gets its money from have nothing to do with it. Either their arguments are valid or they are not.

I suggest that you discuss one or more of the main science points, and desist from pointless maundering about other person's motives.

Cathy