No, Mr Brincat, you don't have it straight.

It's not that other scientists shouldn't comment - it's that they should jump through the same hoops as one another to have their views on any particular subject given the appropriate gravitas.

For those that want a climate science evaluation of climate warming try

http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

It's a long but rewarding read, a little science is explained and it talks to plebs, like me, and some who post on this site, will want to read his qualifications to write as he does.
fluff

Understandably there is significant debate on this issue. Whilst I respect the right of individual or small groups of scientists to hold dissenting opinions, I do wish that people recognise the degree that the deniers (every scientist is a skeptic) are in the minority.

As per the creationist debate a challenge exists to see if those who oppose claims of anthropogenic climate change are greater in number than the number of climate scientists named "Steve" who support the mainstream claim.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/steve/

You must admit, it's an interesting test.

Like gravity, there is probably very few scientists of any ilk who deny that surface temperatures have increased dramatically over the past 100 years or so. Perhaps more importantly, and often misunderstood, is that these increases are more substantial that the natural phenomenon of the medieval warm period or the "little Ice Age". The following is a reconstruction from multiple data sets of surface temperature for the past 2000 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

The same follows for temperatures over the past 12,000 years as well. Note the inset for recent changes. Global temperatures are higher increasing at a rate which should be cause for concern.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

Now how much of this is due to human activity? Well, we can ask the scientists - not individual 'blogs or oddities, but en masse.

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

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

The Earth's atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the planet and retained by its gravity. It contains roughly (by molar content/volume) 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, trace amounts of other gases, and a variable amount (average around 1%) of water vapor. This mixture of gases is commonly known as air.

Gravity draws three quarters of all the air (75%) into a skin only 11 Km thick -

- and half of the air (50%) into a skin merely 5 Km thick.

Compress the atmosphere into liquid - it would have only 1/500th the mass and volume of the Earth's oceans.

- the atmosphere is a very small thing indeed and I, like most other clever, conceited hairless apes, have spent almost my entire life NOT thinking about that cardinal fact. What do I tell my grandchildren? Should I plead insanity?

*

As the Solar System goes, the Earth's poles are very warm places. By the Solar System's standards, the Sahara is very cool. We exist within a very narrow band of temperatures.

Every interaction, be it organic or inorganic, behaves predictably only because we exist on this tiny familiar temperate "island" of warm / cool. The world apart from the island is beyond the abilty of hairless apes to conceive - so they choose to ignore it when it encroaches.

*

Long before the Internet or mobile phones. Long before hubris had been invented, living creatures conspired to make the planet a more hospitable place. How they managed it without loans, interest, the stock exchange or insurance premiums will always remain a mystery to yer average hairless ape.

I feel like I'm chasing my own tail. I think I'll scamper to the top of the tree and have a good shriek -

- aaaaaarghhhhhh!

Let us be quite clear: it does not matter a brass razoo how many scientists say something if that something is demonstrably false. Global warming theory predicts that global temperatures will rise steadily with increasing CO2 levels. But CO2 levels have been increasingly steadily for the last ten years and and the global temperature has remained steady. Therefore the theory as it stands is wrong. And even if all the scientists in the world get together and sing it in chorus to the tune of Handel's Messiah, it will still be wrong.

The 'global consensus' has been wrong many times before: about the proper status of women; about the intelligence of 'savage' (i.e. non-white) races; and about the sun circling the earth, to name a few. None of these issues were resolved by a vote: they were resolved by bright determined individuals who were more concerned with establishing the truth than with getting research grants or cushy jobs in the scientific establishment. So will global warming be, eventually.

Consensus is a way to do politics. It is not a way to do science.

Fluff4,

Thanks for that link, most interesting!

I did indeed want to read the ‘bio’ of the author and editor (better known as Jim or “Dad”) of the Middlebury Community Network blog site.

His “qualifications to write as he does” is very impressive!

Quote:
“Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere.

As a student, he was elected to both the National Physics Honor Society and the National Mathematics Honor Fraternity, and was President of the Student Section of the American Institute of Physics.

He was a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

His thesis on charge transfer reactions in the upper atmosphere was co-published in part in the prestigious Journal of Chemical Physics. The results obtained by himself and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh remain today as the gold standard in the AstroChemistry Database.

He was a co-developer of the Modulated Beam Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, declared one of the "100 Most Significant Technical Developments of the Year" and displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.” End quote.

I wanted to know more about this scholar, this exemplary luminary!

But, try as I may and searching “Google Scholar” … I couldn’t find him; and/or any of his papers, history, affiliations … anything. This was perplexing … what was I doing wrong?

Exasperated, I tried the less exacting ‘Google search’ … Eureka, I found him!

On various so called “global warming denial” websites … including, you guessed it … Jennifer Marohasy’s and the Institute of Public Affair’s, of which Bob Carter is their own luminary committee member.

Now, why do you think this is so?