AGW skeptics as smart or smarter as AGW alarmist

[gunsmith]

I want to take the quiz but no link to it
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/05/28/global-warming-skeptics-know-more-about-science-new-study-claims/

[Hawkmoon]

Interesting.

Kahan said that he thought another finding of the study was more important: That people’s cultural views – how much they value things like individualism and equality -- affect their views on global warming much more than actual knowledge about science. Regardless of how much they know about science, individualists were relatively unconcerned about global warming, whereas those who value equality were very concerned.

As if we needed further proof that "global warming" is being advanced by the nanny statists.

"What we need to remember is that we have a number of excellent non-partisan scientific resources… [They] all tell us that human activity is altering the climate in ways that are disruptive to our economy and way of life."

In other words, "Everyone who agrees with me agrees with me. Everyone else doesn't count." What we also need to remember is that we have a number of excellent non-partisan scientific resources who tell us that "global warming" is bunk. As for human activity, I'm far more directly concerned about forms of human activity such as car jackings and home invasions adversely affecting my life than I am about global warming.

But some of the 16 scientists who signed a letter this January titled "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" disagree.

Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, was one skeptical scientist who signed the letter. He said that the finding that skeptics know as much or more about science surprised him "not at all."

"MIT alumni are among my most receptive audiences," he added.

[lee n. field]

Those who know science better are more likely to view science as a human activity, exhibiting all the usual human failings.  Those who know it less well will be more likely to view it as an oracle: capitol-S "Science says ... ".

Those who've been around long enough and paying attention will have seen the "assured results of science" change again and again.  I have here, waiting for me to get to it, Robert Ardrey's Hunting Hypothesis.  I've read at it, enough to note that when it was written, back in the '70s, they were worried about, and had archeological evidence that led them to be worried about, the rapid onset of a new ice age.  "But we know better now."  Yeah, OK, whatever.  I'll wait a decade, and we'll see.

From where I sit, any good science in the global warming climate change panic is masked by a fog of what looks like a bad parody of a religion.  I have actually heard people talk about global warming "unbelievers".

[Hawkmoon]

About a decade ago there was a significant subculture that was predicting the imminent occurrence of a cataclysmic shift in the earth's magnetic poles .. which was supposed to cause a new ice age and untold misery and woe for humanity. I bought and read two major books on the subject. One of the authors recanted a few years ago, the other quietly slipped into oblivion.

The only thing we really know for sure is that the climate will probably change ... unless it doesn't.

Hmmm ... Looks like the pole shift true believers are still around: http://poleshift.ning.com/

[RoadKingLarry]

I have actually heard people talk about global warming "unbelievers".

Burn the heretics! (But do it in a way that doesn't contribute to global warming)

Climate change? Duh, of course it changes.
Is it man made? Nope.

[De Selby]

Wait, does this include climate scientists?  How come so few of them doubt global warming??

[TommyGunn]

Wait, does this include climate scientists?  How come so few of them doubt global warming??

They are hardly going to put themselves out of business, are they?  I mean, if you don't believe it, why "study" or "promote" it? 

[De Selby]

They are hardly going to put themselves out of business, are they?  I mean, if you don't believe it, why "study" or "promote" it? 

Right - that was always the weirdest thing about opposing global warming theories for me.  It requires you to believe that almost all scientists in the field are part of a conspiracy, manufacturing lies for their own unscientific purposes. 

Seems a bit unlikely.

[brimic]

The global cooling warming climate change industry is heavily funded by universities and governments with an agenda. There isn't much counter research being done by private sector scientists because they have better things to do like trying to figure out how make a better product to make money with. That agenda is very much like a watermelon-  red on the inside covered with a thin green veneer on the outside.

[MechAg94]

They are hardly going to put themselves out of business, are they?  I mean, if you don't believe it, why "study" or "promote" it? 

And why threaten your govt funding?

[MechAg94]

Right - that was always the weirdest thing about opposing global warming theories for me.  It requires you to believe that almost all scientists in the field are part of a conspiracy, manufacturing lies for their own unscientific purposes. 

Seems a bit unlikely.

All research scientists are part of a vast conspiracy.  It is a one that encompasses nearly every research scientists in the world.  It is called the Conspiracy to Drum Up More Funding to Do More Research.

[TommyGunn]

All research scientists are part of a vast conspiracy.  It is a one that encompasses nearly every research scientists in the world.  It is called the Conspiracy to Drum Up More Funding to Do More Research.

I don't doubt that wanting research grants plays a part in ''science as we know it today".
When I was in high school we were concerned about a coming ice age.  Well, that apparantly never happened.  Or it did and I didn't notice it.  Or, the scientists all figured out it wasn't happening and the real thing was global warming.
I saw a report on the news the other night that oil rigs working in the  arctic are not working because of unusually heavy ice -- too much to allow the safe operation of these rigs.  That does not sound to me like a warming up of the earth's climate, to me.
I don't doubt that the climate changes.  We know why "Greenland" was given that name and it wan't because it was covered by humongous ice & snow fields when the vikings were doing their thing.
I don't doubt some scientists legitimatly believe in man made global warming....and that others don't.
I also think it's become a religion to some people -- and thus we have this observation:

I have actually heard people talk about global warming "unbelievers".

And politicians glom into the theory as a means of both controlling us and sucking more $$$ out of our wallets.

And don't get me wrong; I am not for going back to how things were in 1962, when we were pumping sulfer dioxides out into the air and other gross & toxic stuff, and polluting rivers to the point they caught on fire (!).
We've done a good job of clean-up.  But OTOH many libs want to go overboard and use it to kill off modern technology, the job market, and energy production.  That is where I part company!

[makattak]

Right - that was always the weirdest thing about opposing global warming theories for me.  It requires you to believe that almost all scientists in the field are part of a conspiracy, manufacturing lies for their own unscientific purposes. 

Seems a bit unlikely.

Yes, given the LOOOONG history of the field and the significant amount of other unconnected to global warming research that "climate scientists" do, it must be some vast conspiracy that makes every person who chooses that field somehow correlate to belief in global warming.

Must be the same conspiracy that makes all feminist studies majors raging feminists.

[gunsmith]

 There is GW and AGW

There might be GW, but then again, its awful hard to tell when they purposefully skew data to "prove" AGW.

Like radical liberalism, AGW is a religion, A friend of mine was explaining his doubts to a San Francisco true believer and winning the argument by using facts/logic and was asked "what if it's true?" when he asked the guy if he believed in Jesus and was told "no" my friend asked "what if it's true?" 

http://www.amazon.com/Climategate-Crutape-Letters-Steven-Mosher/dp/1450512437

[roo_ster]

Right - that was always the weirdest thing about opposing global warming theories for me.  It requires you to believe that almost all scientists in the field are part of a conspiracy prone to human foibles like the rest of humanity, manufacturing lies for their own unscientific purposes to stay employed in an academic setting. 

Seems a bit unlikely.

All too likely.  A college buddy of mine was hired on as a full-time grant-application writer after he graduated.  Feeding at the gov't trough is the way academia works.

[Hawkmoon]

Well, here ya go, in today's news: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/story/2012-06-02/cities-flee-ocean/55348992/1?csp=24&kjnd=x0kt2%2FarAMUl7l96rVE1IILcDM%2BnY2IN52gPPqrz6ZuElw0WwWH3q8C%2BGEKnHeIq-ffeb4806-6304-48a8-ae42-959d15733e22_TV%2FMLPy46hTVMGvSUW%2FWjsbCxl%2B40HbyiyGpvxPTDQ%2F2s4bpm83IbNsaLOAbaq95

Surprise, surprise, we're talking about San Francisco, California (where else?), and what do we have here? Why, an environmental consulting firm specializing in planning retreats from the (apparently inevitable) rising oceans carrying away the existing coastline.

But after futile attempts to curb coastal erosion — a problem expected to grow worse with rising seas fueled by global warming — there is growing acknowledgment that the sea is relentless and any line drawn in the sand is likely to eventually wash over.

"I like to think of it as getting out of the way gracefully," said David Revell, a senior coastal scientist at ESA PWA, a San Francisco-based environmental consulting firm involved in Goleta and other planned retreat projects.

Anybody watch the movie The 300 about the Persian invasion of Sparta? You know the narrow pass that was defended by the 300 Spartan warriors? I have friends in Greece and in a recent discussion this somehow became a topic. They told me that if you visit that site today, you can't possibly understand what the battle was all about, because at the time the sea came right to the cliffs and the beach was only a narrow strip, exposed at low tide. Today, the beach is several kilometers wide and if the Persians were invading today they wouldn't even consider going through the pass -- they'd simply drive right by on the beach.

So much for rising seas.

[lee n. field]

Right - that was always the weirdest thing about opposing global warming theories for me.  It requires you to believe that almost all scientists in the field are part of a conspiracy, manufacturing lies for their own unscientific purposes. 

Seems a bit unlikely.

Collectively reinforced delusion is unlikely?

[Tallpine]

So much for rising seas.

There is a theory/some evidence that the rocky hilltop of Stirling Castle was once an island in the Forth estuary, circa 500 AD 

[lee n. field]

Nordic Bronze Age

The Nordic Bronze Age was characterized by a warm climate that began with a climate change around 2700 BC (comparable to that of present-day central Germany and northern France). The warm climate permitted a relatively dense population and good farming, for example grapes were grown in Scandinavia at this time. However a small change in climate between 850 BC and 760 BC and a more radical one around 650 BC brought in a deteriorating, wetter and colder climate (sometimes believed to have given rise to the legend of the Fimbulwinter).

[gunsmith]

Right - that was always the weirdest thing about opposing global warming theories for me.  It requires you to believe that almost all scientists in the field are part of a conspiracy, manufacturing lies for their own unscientific purposes. 

Seems a bit unlikely.

Well shootingstudent, have you looked at the journal the article refers to? Nature? its the type of journal academics publish in order to say they're published-& if respectable scientist say we skeptics are smarter then you believers ... who am I to argue?

[MicroBalrog]

The problem with the AGW fan club is not that it argues that climate is changing.

Nor is it even the claim that climate is changing due to human activity.

But what is anti-civilization is the idea that climate is changing AND it is due to human activity AND the only proper response is to cut emissions.

I am not sure that all of  those scientists  who agree with the first two statements necessarily agree with the third.

[Ron]

The problem with the AGW fan club is not that it argues that climate is changing.

Nor is it even the claim that climate is changing due to human activity.

But what is anti-civilization is the idea that climate is changing AND it is due to human activity AND the only proper response is to cut emissions.

I am not sure that all of  those scientists  who agree with the first two statements necessarily agree with the third.

The scientific community has done a poor job of policing its ranks and reeling in those who use their theory to incite panic through hyperbole.

Climate scientists have become the useful idiots of the collectivists.

[De Selby]

So again, most scientists in this field believe that the world is warming, and that this warming is caused by CO2 emissions mainly from humans. 

But that position is a conspiracy.  It's just that the academy is so well policed it controls all of its members to the tune of a 90 plus percentage rate.

Micro, it would seem pretty logical to talk about reducing emissions if you actually believe that they can ruin the climate and make it uninhabitable for billions of people, which is the scenario they seem to envision in the scientific community. 

I don't see how it's an "anti-people" stance at all.  Saying that maybe some people should burn less fuels (and enjoy less comfort) so that the oceans don't stop feeding mankind and eat up all of the current coastal real estate doesn't strike me as insane greenism.

[makattak]

So again, most scientists in this field believe that the world is warming, and that this warming is caused by CO2 emissions mainly from humans. 

But that position is a conspiracy.  It's just that the academy is so well policed it controls all of its members to the tune of a 90 plus percentage rate.

Yes, given the LOOOONG history of the field and the significant amount of other unconnected to global warming research that "climate scientists" do, it must be some vast conspiracy that makes every person who chooses that field somehow correlate to belief in global warming.

Must be the same conspiracy that makes all feminist studies majors raging feminists.

Ever hear of "selection bias"?

[De Selby]

Ever hear of "selection bias"?

Yeah, except that it doesn't explain why no one busts the conspiracy once in, by publishing papers that dispute it and prove how much junk the science is that's behind it.  That could be done in scientific journals, and done in a way that isn't possible in "feminist studies" journals.  

FYI - it's also not true that feminister/gender studies majors toe the party line for their entire lives.  Many of the points they make are hotly disputed in journals where those people would publish, as you'd expect.  Not so when it comes to climate - you can't find much any literature seriously disputing that the world is warming, and that human-made emissions are the cause.