dogstarr, you can't be sirius!

(I'll just go and lie down ...)

FYI:

"What's Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing)"

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate.htm

"the current minimum is not abnormally low or long" [NASA solar physicist David Hathaway]

'Crock' mentions "appeal to authority". He confuses a fallacy of formal mathematical logic with legitimate construction of practical knowledge. i.e. the old "you can't prove anything" line.

To illustrate this:

The framework of science is one continuous "appeal to authority". The speed of light is 299792458 metres per second. How do I know that? Not because I personally have measured it, but because other people that I trust have. I trust their authority of knowledge enough to rely on this value.

Another example: Suppose you suddenly feel very ill. You collapse. There are two people present, a doctor and a 10 year old kid. If the doctor tells you to take medicine A or you will have a cardiac arrest within 30 seconds, but the kid says no don't it looks 'icky', I expect you would take the medicine. I'd trust the doctor's authority of knowledge over the kid in this situation.

Both examples illustrate the practicalities of knowledge. In the first case, I don't want to have to prove every single scientific fact that I need to use in my work. It would take me a thousand lifetimes, so I would never actually get anything new done. In the second case, I don't have time to mess around, so I'll use what I consider to be the best source of knowledge. Note that in both cases I haven't formally 'proven' each key fact. This is what I mean by 'practical knowledge'.

In the case of climate change, I trust the national science acadamies of the G8+5 nations plus a host of other key science organisation over the theories of a handful of cranks who are mstly funded by fossil fuel companies. We don't have time to mess around.

By the way, Crock and dogstarr are both aliases set up purely to disagree with me - see their user profiles which list all of their posts. OLO clearly needs some tools to deal with astroturfing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

I've got the likes of Sams stumped.Yes Sams we accept that the speed of light is 300,000 kms per sec,but also the amount of co2 added by man is 107ppm or one part in ten thousand of our atmosphere.For the umteenth time,how is CO2,10,000 times per molecule more absorbent of the sun's energy than all the other molecules in our atmosphere?

We have a dumb silence from both our true believers and a poor analogy equating facts like the speed of light and the interaction of the laws of physics.What we have is not a chemical reaction but the absorbtion of energy by atoms/molecules that have similar atomic masses.Oxygen for eg has an equivalent atomic mass of 15 to carbon,yet we are led to believe that it is 10,000 times more powerful is retaining the Sun's energy?

The reality is this,CO2 is just guilt by association.The ice core data prior 2005 assumed that CO2 caused heating,new data reveals that heating causes CO2 to be released from the oceans some 800 yrs later.

No one on this site can contradict logically in their own words,the assertions which I've made.I rest my case.

Sams, you have outdone yourself. I just checked my own user profile. If you care to do so again .. just make sure you get the spelling right .. you will find that was my first contribution to the forum, and this is my second. Please explain to me how that make me an astroturfer .. whatever that is. This is the first time I have contributed to any forum on climate change EVER under any name. Furthermore I am a genuine agnostic when it comes to climate change .. and I use the word "agnostic" advisedly, given the fundamentalist tendancies your contributions display. Your zealotry is a poor advertisement for your cause. Your attacks on people who disagree with you are reprehensible. An apology would be appropriate, but given your tactics so far, I am not holding my breath.
As for your defence of your arguing tactics, put yourslef in my position. If you were undecided about a particular issue, had read arguments on both sides and were still unconvinced, would it be a list of names that finally persuaded you, or a logical presentaTion of facts?

"No one on this site can contradict logically in their own words,the assertions which I've made.I rest my case."

No one needs to. You need to have a logical question first, not a bunch of incoherent mumbo jumbo. Besides, this is a policy discussion, not a science forum.

If you want to look up the science of CO2 and its interaction with EM radiation, its not hard to find it. Here's a clue: you prattle on about atomic weight: the way atoms interact with infrared radiation has nothing to do with the weight of their nucleus and everything to do with the configuration of their electrons. You prove once and for all you haven't a clue about basic physics concepts.

...and once again the discussion descends into nasty abuse and mud-slinging. It would be nice if such childish behaviour were left where it belongs. In parliament.