Q&A twists words around again and again, I'm not saying you're a mealy mouthed tricky wing bolt, dumb nut pathological lying whacko - sometimes you even sound reasonable.

Horus did not say that science is a faith based religion - you fall into the same hysterical intolerant mode every time you feel threatened, you must be a challenge to your management.

Divergence got caught out doing the snake oil cherry picking act - plain fact mate, your defence is just as bereft of credibility.

Now, that just gives even more credibility to the article doesn't it - you wonder why some people are skeptical when the AGW scientology types have to resort to this sort of behaviour?

Bottom line, is that scientists will have less to do with anything once taxes start to roll into governments, certainly only a fraction will go to any kind of CO2 reduction. Does that make the scientists fell threatened and emasculated, it should.

Trying to win the debating point that the world is actually warming, seems to be a pastime of many on this forum - you can't see that regardless of being right or wrong, it won't stop or change anything - that's what the article is about isn't it. These fora always fall back into hysterical flaming of anyone who might be a "denier", feel better now Q&A?

Even if we agreed that CO2 is warming the world, so what? Do you really think renewable energy or anything else is going to stop or reverse it- when we get talk of tipping points being passed already.

Taking out your anger locally will not change the world, but I must admit it's fun watching some of you turn inside out trying to prove everyone else is stupid except you.

rpg
whatever

rpg and Horus,

Where exactly is the snake oil?

No one has disputed that climate can and has changed naturally.

When scientists use the term "significant" without qualification, they mean a 95% confidence level. (James Hansen has put his confidence level at 99%.)

What is interesting about the survey is that the degree of agreement went up with the background in science. There is enormous literature on the degree of consensus among climatologists. The academies of science in every major industrialised country have endorsed AGW, etc. See the Wikipedia article on Global Warming Controversy for links to sources on this. Are you disputing that there is a consensus? Why would people who disagree with AGW be less likely to reply to the survey?

If you think that the climatologists are wrong about AGW, then they must be either mistaken or lying. There is no third possibility.

Divergence,
Re: “When scientists use the term "significant" without qualification, they mean a 95% confidence level. (James Hansen has put his confidence level at 99%.)”

Sorry Divergence, I must have missed that bit –for I don’t recall seeing it in the article.

The word “significant” related to the second question which was:
“2) Do you think human activity is a significant contributory factor in rising mean temperatures?”

Show me --IN THIS SURVEY -- (not some other survey/study) where it was explained/understood that to answer in the affirmative to question two, indicated the respondent had 95% certainty.

I have an inkling that making up such figure to bolster an argument is something a shyster like a snake oil salesman might do,
but you’ve implied you definitely ain’t one of them – so show us where you derived your 95% figure from?

Is this the beginning of the end of the carbon hype?

"Latif, top climate scientist and author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is facing reality, he is capable of learning, and seems to realise it is not much use to further deny what is happening in the real world as opposed to unreliable computer models.

"Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter."

"However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it."

"Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, he said NAO cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades."

Article link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Well, if that is not remarkable.

So I guess we all will now forget about the climate hype and get back to what is really important, the energy crisis on our doorsteps.

Horus,

This source explains significance level, or you can do a search on "significance level" to find many sources, including a long article in Wikipedia. There is a long and clear explanation in Walpole, Myers, and Myers' book "Probability and Statistics for Engineers and Scientists".

http://www.surveysystem.com/signif.htm

A 0.05 significance level is the same as 95% confidence. This source makes it clear that the 0.05 significance level is the one mostly commonly used by scientists, the one that I or other scientists would think of if asked if the probability that something is true is significant

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/significance.htm

As the question is worded in the survey, it appears to be asking whether a scientist thinks AGW has real effects. (How important they are is another question.) Even if you want to quibble about this particular survey, Q&A has repeatedly posted lists of academies of science and other learned societies that support AGW. You can find much the same material if you follow the links from "Global Warming Controversy" in Wikipedia. Are you seriously disputing that a consensus exists?

Although I am not a climate scientist, I find the idea that experienced scientists are less able to evaluate the evidence in their own field than the general public frankly incredible, and the idea of a conspiracy is downright lunatic. You seem to think that the climatologists are mistaken, not because they are stupid, but because they are under some quasi-religious delusion. Even if this were so in the West, why would the Russians, Indians, Chinese, etc. buy into it, instead of puncturing it in their leading journals? Lysenkoism was laughed at beyond the old Soviet Union. Is it legitimate to refuse to believe the majority of experts when they tell you that there is a risk (not a certainty), simply because you don't like the policy implications?