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The Forum > Article Comments > A cool look at Professor Aitkin’s global warming scepticism > Comments

A cool look at Professor Aitkin’s global warming scepticism : Comments

By Geoff Davies, published 16/5/2008

Professor Aitkin laments he has been called a 'denialist', yet labels climate scientists as quasi-religious and says they are protecting their funding and influence.

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Dr. Davies

It was evident even to blind Fredie that you broadened your view since you felt you were “narrow” in your arguments to make your case on the original issue of global warming. It’s rather amusing to hear a scientist say that by broadening his view he was seeking to find “some common ground”. Scientists, as you know better than me, are not interested in seeking a common ground but in seeking the truth. And once they are confident that they are close to finding it they don’t deviate from their path. But you did! Without consciously realizing that by doing so you were weakening your original position.

I ca assure you I am no Hamiltonian “contrarian”. If you had read my first post you would have seen that. You just gave me the strong impression with your “broadening” post that you were no longer arguing like a scientist but like a seer or more precisely like an ideologue. And your current post with its “common ground” substantiates this impression.

I don’t disagree with you that we “CAN endlessly increase our use of Eath’s resources” without endangering our future well being, or that the earth does not show “signs of “stress”. But I thought we were specifically talking about the “stress” of global warming and not the earth’s overall exploitation by man in his foolishness not to use the earth’s resources with Occam’s razor.

http://kotzabasis4.wordpress.com
Posted by Themistocles, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 8:48:53 PM
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Q&A, i feel there is a bit of these Hamiltons and Davies in your beliefism makeup. Such types would want people like me burned as a heretic for breaking their perceived rules. Definitely a clear case of Scientism here. Cripes these people are insecure with their "truth" as revealed from above, rather than observed or discovered. This approach to a maladaptive belief is quite simply the basis of all religious pathology.

Well I need to say this again that you and the alarmist AGWers are denying that natural climate change can produce the slight temperature rise found in the last few decades of the 20thC. The AGW hypothesis seeks to hide/distort/ignore/minimise/disprove at every opportunity natural climate change by trying to oh so zealously slot human CO2 emissions into the data. In their zeal too, it is AGWers that deny human CO2 release as good for people by enhancing the biosphere/environment. As the proposer of this anthropocentric hypothesis it is not non-AGWers' task to prove a negative by offering "anything new" because it is the AGWers that are required to constructively/positively prove it correct. This is pretty simple stuff to comprehend because that is how science works and quite naive of you to ignore.

I suppose what i'm just saying is what Richard Dawkins says ... " Let's now stop being so damned respectful!" i.e Why should people simply allow vested groups to codify their domination and not be somewhat concerned about accountability? Scientists can be just as venal or fool themselves as anyone else in the community. Scientists survive professionally by determining causality else they cease to be scientists and i am certainly not contradicting myself in this respect.
Posted by Keiran, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 8:39:55 AM
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Q&A “Your adhoms are tedious and bullying.”
As the above quote from you suggests, yours are.

“AGW is real, it does not matter to me whether you believe it or not.”

Of course it is real, I have never argued that it does not exist

But

Is it “significant”, relative to other possible causes of "global warming"?

That is what I believe has not been proved but is what you are constantly preaching (replete with ad hominines and bullying).

Plus, attempting to “prove” the ponderable with bodgy models is not the reasoning or testing processes which any responsible scientist would adopt.

“I have always said that our current ‘climate change’ is a symptom of unsustainable human activity, and you know it”

I disagree and suggest your “claim” is unproven.

As for "unsustainable"

"Population Growth" is unsustainable, I see nothing in your posts to support that view.

Cut the population numbers and your reduce the rate of "unsustainable usage".

I am a mere accountant, I understand that, it sticks out like the testicles on a greyhound.

You claim to have something to do with "science", what do you suggest?

btw you might want to wager your future away on an outside bet on AGW but do not ask me to risk my shirt when I think it is devoid of common senses and is likely to fall being finishing.
Posted by Col Rouge, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 3:48:56 PM
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Keiran, and others here who welcome increased A/CO2 levels, claiming they are beneficial, have failed to take into account the impact of other GHGs which are also released with A/carbon emissions.

A recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that increasing levels of ozone due to the growing use of fossil fuels will damage global vegetation, resulting in serious costs to the world's economy.

The analysis, reported in the November issue of Energy Policy, focused on how three environmental changes (increases in temperature, carbon dioxide and ozone) associated with human activity will affect crops, pastures and forests.

Ozone is already responsible for damaging human health, crops and ecosystems.

Ozone is one of several air pollutants regulated in the United States by the USEPA but you guessed it, it’s not regulated in Australia - nor are many other chemical emissions. Just have an early morning peep over the waters in poor old Sydney town.

The net result for business as usual: Regions such as the United States, China and Europe would need to import food, although supplying those imports would be a benefit to tropical countries.

However, the effects of ozone are decidedly different.

Without emissions restrictions, growing fuel combustion worldwide will push global average ozone up 50 percent by 2100. That increase will have a disproportionately large impact on vegetation because ozone concentrations in many locations will rise above the critical level where adverse effects are observed in plants and ecosystems.

Professor Peter Cox of the University of Exeter also warns: "We estimate that ozone effects on plants could double the importance of ozone increases in the lower atmosphere as a driver of climate change, so policies to limit increases in near-surface ozone must be seen as an even higher priority."

The adverse effects of ozone as an air pollutant, have been long established so I don't see a dispute on that one.

Therefore, may we have your strategies for mitigating T/ozone whilst increasing the levels of A/CO2 please Keiran?
Posted by dickie, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 6:29:47 PM
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Col puts the term "global warming" in quotes, I assume questioning whether the phenomenon actually exists.

It seems to me the only way this could be objectively established is to have some kind of temperature audit of the whole planet (assuming this is within the capacity of modern science and technology, that is). This would test the possibility that, while the poles might in fact be heating up, other parts of the planet might be cooling down. It could be that the only thing that is changing is the distribution of heat around the planet.
Posted by RobP, Thursday, 22 May 2008 9:50:06 AM
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RobP: you mean like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Annual_Average_Temperature_Map.jpg
Posted by Chade, Thursday, 22 May 2008 11:12:35 AM
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