global warming denial

[Luke T.]

The problem with the global warming theories floating around is the predictions for the future. They make it sound like the world will end in a sudden onrush of disasters in a brief period. And it is pure guesswork. This makes them sound like every other doomsday scenario the human race has been subjected to forever.

 

[Kodiak]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

Oh, piffle. Surely you've read SA long eough to know that that's quite common.

It is a common fallacy used tactically to convince the ignorant and uneducated.

The fact that it is common does not excuse him.

 

[Sundog]

And it is pure guesswork.

Science is "guesswork"?

We're lost. Shut the forum down. It's a lost cause...

You guys believe in Science as long as it's busy disproving faith healers... and then get suspicious of it when it suggests the world is in desperate trouble? How on Earth can you call that a skeptical attitude?

 

[RandFan]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

Yup. Read it.

Could you post any relevant data?

 

[Luke T.]

Science is "guesswork"?

We're lost. Shut the forum down. It's a lost cause...

You guys believe in Science as long as it's busy disproving faith healers... and then get suspicious of it when it suggests the world is in desperate trouble? How on Earth can you call that a skeptical attitude?

The measurements which show global warming occuring are not guesswork. The prognostications of what this will do to the planet are.

 

[Sundog]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

It is a common fallacy used tactically to convince the ignorant and uneducated.

The fact that it is common does not excuse him.

Well, if we're to the point where we dismiss a scientific article because the author opens with an anecdote, I have no idea how to respond to such a silly point.

 

[Jocko]

Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

Read this month's Scientific American. It'll scare the you-know-what out of you.

Read NEXT month's, and it will probably contradict everything.

Honestly, there's no consensus. Just a boatload of opinions and varying degrees (no pun intended) of adherence to scientific standards.

Lest we forget that not even 10 years ago, it was all about global cooling. For every oil man who says global warming doesn't exist, there's an Al Gore who would have you believe that next year Chicago won't drop below 85 in January.

The jury is still out. Listening at the keyhole won't tell you anything useful.

 

[Sundog]

The measurements which show global warming occuring are not guesswork. The prognostications of what this will do to the planet are.

Says who? You?

You'll have to back that up.

You guys are hilarious. You believe in Science as long as it supports what you WANT to be true.

 

[Tony]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

"My ilk"? Ouch.

No offense.

By "your ilk" I mean rabidly anti GWBush.

 

[Kodiak]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

Do you honestly ascribe such motives to me?

I don't know your personal views well enough to make that charge.

However, the modern environmentalist movement is the "last bastion of socialism" and their motives are clear, as I and others have shown in related threads in the past.

Whether you agree with them or not is for you to decide.

 

[Sundog]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

Could you post any relevant data?

Buy the magazine, cheapskate.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

However, the modern environmentalist movement is the "last bastion of socialism" and their motives are clear, as I and others have shown in related threads in the past.

Yes, all those activists claiming to be concerned about lead contamination were just trying to shut down profitable industry, right?

 

[Sundog]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

I don't know your personal views well enough to make that charge.

However, the modern environmentalist movement is the "last bastion of socialism" and their motives are clear, as I and others have shown in related threads in the past.

Whether you agree with them or not is for you to decide.

You guys think like you're squashing play-doh together. The Left = enviromentalists = socialism = bad science = evil.

 

[Kodiak]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

Well, if we're to the point where we dismiss a scientific article because the author opens with an anecdote, I have no idea how to respond to such a silly point.

Who said I "dismissed" it?!?

What is silly is the way you jump to conclusions.

I was critical of the fact that he started his article with a fallacy - a reasonable cause for skepticism.

What I want to know is why it failed to trigger any sense of skepticism in you?

 

[shanek]

The denial of global warming, and the denial that burning fossil fuels contributes, has about the same intellectual honesty as holocaust denial.

Yeah, right.

Inaction is unacceptable when when best science indicates that disaster of biblical proportion looms as a real possibility.

Except that the best science DOESN'T show that. Every real scientist I've cornered on the subject, as well as an answer given by one at TAM2 in the panel by a participant (not me), has said that the conclusions are: 1) The Earth is getting warmer (for certain definitions of "warmer," meaning global average surface temperatures, but not in other aspects like maximum temperature or troposphere temperatures), and 2) Humans may be contrubuting to it.

That's a LONG was from the gloom-and-doom scenario of the GW politicos. All other objections aside, there is one aspect that the politicos completely neglect: that while there are arguably negative aspects to GW, there are positive aspects as well: foliation growing more densely, foliation growing in places where it hasn't for centuries (both of which have a counteracting effect on CO₂ concentrations), greater productivity (several scientists have pointed out the correlation between warmer periods and the more productive periods such as the Renaissance and the Greek civilization), on and on and on. So, the first question is, are we better of on the balance? Once we ask that question, if it turns out we aren't, then the next question is, is the net detrimental effects of GW greater than the clearly detrimental effects of "solutions" such as Kyoto, which will have a devastating effect on the global economy?

These are just a couple of the numerous questions that I haven't been able to get a single GW advocate to even acknowledge, let alone answer. In my experience, the GW politicos are the ones who are the woo-woos.

Not to mention that reducing fuel consuption would be an important "weapon" in the war on terror.

Irrelevant even if true.

 

[shanek]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

So Scientific American is now a left-wing publication?

How did you get that from what he said? Thank you for admitting that your viewpoint is politically motivated, not scientifically motivated.

 

[Sundog]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

How did you get that from what he said? Thank you for admitting that your viewpoint is politically motivated, not scientifically motivated.

Shanek, hush honey, go play. We're busy here.

 

[shanek]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

Yup. Read it.

"Yup"? So it IS the end of the discussion? It's a foregone, 100% conclusion? Based on ONE ARTICLE in a journal? How is this viewpoint good science?

 

[RandFan]

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Do you honestly ascribe such motives to me?

I don't but I do ascribe them to many in the evironmental movement. Such tactics have been documented by a number of skeptics not the least of which is the late great Julian Simon.

Steven Milloy Junk Science
Houghton’s assertion that the 1990s was the warmest decade in the last 1,000 years (search) draws out the question, “Why was it so warm 1,000 years ago?”

Since there were no power plants, factories or automobiles back then, that warm period was obviously natural climate change (search). So why should we leap to the conclusion that any 1990s warming is definitely manmade?

Of course, it’s not even clear that any measurable “global warming” has really occurred, much less that it’s human-induced.

Satellite and weather balloon measurements of atmospheric temperatures since the 1970s actually indicate slight cooling to no change. To the extent any significant warming may have occurred during the 20th century, most occurred before 1940, while most greenhouse gas emissions (search) occurred after 1940 -- so there’s no apparent cause-and-effect relationship.

While it’s possible that some human-induced warming may be occurring, Virginia state climatologist Pat Michaels (search) once pointed out in a television debate with Clinton administration eco-czarina Carol Browner: “The fact of the matter is if you look at those temperature records that you keep on citing, you will see that almost all of the warming takes place in the absolute coldest, most miserable air masses in Siberia and northwestern North America … Great. We've warmed Siberia from minus 40 to minus 38. Big deal.”

If the 1990s were unusually warm, we don’t know why. Neither do the global-warming pushers.

 

[Kodiak]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: global warming denial

You guys think like you're squashing play-doh together. The Left = enviromentalists = socialism = bad science = evil.

Sorry but you are obviously unfamiliar with the modern environmentalist movement. The average teen-age "tree-hugger" or soccer mom who recycles and plants trees on Arbor Day is not who we are describing. I myself am a life member of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs . I'm all for scientific, means-tested conservation of our resources and ecosystems.

The socialists dominate the leadership of the largest "environmentalist" organizations:

The Seirra Club
The WWF
PETA
Greenpeace
ELF
ALF
EarthFirst!