Runner! Next time you go fishing and you catch one, Please be nice, and say hello to your cousins.

EVO

Excerpts from David Evans’ address (as chief denialist) to the Lavoisier Club included:

“These jobs (Greenhouse Office) would not exist if we didn’t blame carbon emissions for global warming—I was on the gravy train!

He further boasts of his six figure salary.

Further on:

“Talk about a vested interest! Not many scientists wish to risk the wrath of their peers by pointing out that the evidence for blaming carbon dioxide is now a bit thin. Peer review of scientific papers is nothing compared to this. This is about money and good jobs.

"This is a topic that many scientists don’t want to think about too hard. Don’t go there! No wonder it’s mainly retired or independent scientists who are speaking out—it’s financial and social suicide for most others to speak out.

“By the way, I know a heck of a lot about modelling and computers but I am not a climate modeller.”

And to ensure a bet each way and in true contradictory fashion:

“It is possible that the theoreticians are right or at least partly right. Human carbon dioxide might be causing some or all of the global warming. We can’t rule it out for sure yet.”

Sixty Minutes described Dr Evans as a “mathematician and scientist.” Does that mean we should regard every other electrical engineer as a "mathematician and scientist?"

To Arjay and you other deniers, I googled "ice core data" and the first site listed on the page was this:- http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/en/pres/compress/mist030699.html
You might check out the credentials of the authors, the institutions for which they work and the journal in which their papers were published ie the UK journal "Nature".
If these prove to be unqualified or disreputable sources, then you may add some little weight to your claims.
Of course there are many other researchers and scientists from many different disciplines who have in numerous ways accumulated evidence and applied logic to support the climate change argument. Their research and the conclusions they draw from it are not just assertions (as my post may have been) but are peer reviewed and in most cases published in journals with formidable reputations which they would not want to lose by allowing shonky science to be published.

"The earth is not flat." Now that is both an assertion and a fact.

Powerless: << if Hasbeen is correct that 31072 American scientists have signed the petition denying any real catastrophic warming, how many number the 'most real climate scientists' that you mention >>

Austin yet again tries to make a virtue of his ignorance - there seems to be a pattern here. If you'd bothered to follow the link I provided, you would be aware that the so-called petition is very dodgy indeed.

<< At least you haven't called them 'fruitloops' or boofheads'...yet >>

Yeah well, there weren't any in the thread until you and runner showed up :)

mhaze: << CJ tells us that the Oregon petition is a hoax because it was industry sponsored. >>

No, it's a hoax because it doesn't have the authority it purports to have, and contains many spurious 'signatories'. The fact that it is sponsored by denialist industry sources just explains the motivation for the hoax.

Poor old Arjay, like most denialists, is so desperate to avoid facing grim reality that he will apparently accept any quasi-scientific looking 'evidence' rather than face the overwhelming conclusion based on real evidence that we can't continue to conduct business as usual while destroying the planet.

It's like some little kid putting her hands over ears and saying "la la la I can't hear you".

I think it is about time we invented a name for those who are riding the AGW bandwagon, that is equally as insidiously pejorative as "denialist".

Almost every post that emanates from the scaremongers' camp labels their opposition as "denialist", often as a substitute for proper critical assessment.

Check it out.

"Denialist" is a word most often used in recent years for those who have decided that the Holocaust did not occur, and thus carries some ideological freight that is, frankly, extremely insulting.

To use it against people whose only crime is that they have yet to be convinced that drastic unilateral personal sacrifices need to be made in order to head off some potential future disaster scenario, is vicious and hurtful.

There is no comparison. But the term is used indiscriminately, and deliberately.

Words are powerful. It was certainly a deliberate act to select this particular designation, and purely from a humanitarian angle, it sucks.

To have to stoop to such malevolent ad hominem name-calling does nothing for the cause.

If anything, it will harden resistance, since the adoption of personal attacks is so often a signal that the intellectual argument is lost.

Have a great day, suckers.

Touché Pericles.

This is one reason I usually steer clear of this topic on OLO :)

We’ve heard this complaint before, notably from Graham Y – that the widespread use of the term ‘denialist’ to the business-as-usual crowd is egregious because of its alleged association with Holocaust denialism. I thought then that the offence taken was just a tad precious, as I still do, given the extremely widespread use of the term in AGW discussions everywhere.

Personally, I use the term to describe people who oppose actions that are proposed to mitigate the probable deleterious effects of the climate phenomenon known as Climate Change, which is likely to manifest as significant global warming that is exacerbated by human (anthropogenic) activities. There is absolutely no “ideological freight” involved – rather, I’ve always used the term ‘Holocaust denier’ rather than denialist to refer to the David Irvings of the world.

I distinguish between climate change denialists and sceptics, because true sceptics do not reject evidence and probabilities on the basis of what an undesired outcome might cost. Indeed, I’m sceptical about some of the wilder claims made by some “suckers” from the pro-AGW camp. Greenies are very often their own worst enemies.

On the other hand, I’m generally persuaded by the mountains of evidence suggesting that AGW is real, while I’m simultaneously dismayed by what appears to be a moderately successful organised campaign to delay or hinder any adaptive strategies that are proposed, on the basis that they will have significant economic and social costs – rather than on sincere belief based on the weight of available evidence that AGW is a false hypothesis.

I suggest that those increasingly obdurate souls from the latter camp who take offence at being referred to as “denialist” really need to get over their hypersensitivity in a worldwide debate in which they are seen by the great majority as being wrong. The term has been taken up by global popular discourse about climate change and therefore its meaning has altered. Such is the nature of language.