Link to story.
I think this is significant, but will not change much. I'd rather focus on several points I raised years ago:
There is clearly an enormous investment in brainpower behind the notion that CO2 causes warming.
Here is how I distill the problem(s) confronting us:
1) How, if incorrect about CO2, could the scientific consensus be so wrong?
(a) Is the notion CO2 causes warming now too big to fail?
(b) Can the credibility of American (and world) science recover if wrong?
2) If they are right about CO2 causing warming, what would it take to convince the American people that they are correct?
(a) Clearly something has gone wrong with the PR-people are not convinced.
(b) The present [Obama] administration appears to say: fuck 'em- they (the people) don't believe us? We're gonna force them. The possible tachniques available to enforce compliance are downright un-American.
3) What really bothers me as a sceptic of the CO2 causes warming is that if the Copenhagen treaty is ratified and enforced, and warming does not occur, credit will be taken regardless of the true cause. To me this is a heads I win tails you lose proposition for the CO2 causes warming folks. But more insidiously, it is the exact mechanism by which Science could ascend to the status of a quasi-religion: give the people "miracle, mystery and authority" and they will follow. Link to original
12 comments:
I wouldn't worry about credit being taken. After all, what was faked here was the argument that the Pause never occurred. They didn't actually prove it didn't, they just fudged the data so they could claim it didn't. So you see, even if nothing happens; then they, the perpetual agitators and hand wringers, will still want to claim something did happen. And they'll fake it to make it happen.
Michael Crichton had it figured out when he wrote State of Fear.
CO2 has some warming effect, if you have enough of it. Methane even more so. So while I can't dismiss that some man made warming is real, the impacts, effects and extent of it does not match the computer models and data. There is a serious disconnect.
If they really thought this was real, the emphasis would be on non fossil fuel alternatives. It isn't. This is about using climate change to grab control of economic and political power. There is also a hellava lot of money to be made, if you are connected and in the right spot to take advantage of all of this.
The overarching problem is that how do you stop anything from producing CO2? Not that CO2 is really a culprit since water vapor is truly the real culprit, but that's nature. Also, not to mention that why are the chicken littles so worried about it? It's a global phenomenon that is fueled by the sun and that's not going away soon.
Patriots super bowl win more evidence of climate change.
AGW is just another name for global wealth redistribution, with a big chunk of graft on the side to pay off the enablers.
To me, there's no question that humans impact the environment. My issue is two fold:
1) The Sun has a much greater impact and most models ignore solar cycles which fluctuate Earth's temperature so much so that human activity is comparative noise. A realistic modeler would note something like, "of course there was a pause, because of a the recent solar minimum, but shouldn't we take action before the next solar maximum", but instead of that argument, they rather show a constant temperature increase which is the tale in their lie.
2) The Earth is still larger than humans and is complex enough to respond to human activity. One need only look at abandoned human settlements to see how quickly the Earth can recover from humans. Plants like CO2. Malthusians don't seem to understand the Earth has many organisms that outnumber humans.
Whatever happened to ozone hole?
@fruitbat: Nobody's plugging it?
Leland beat me to it: sunspot frequency (or infrequency) and solar wind are the prime drivers of climate change. There's a sunspot cycle the Sun goes through every eleven years. Though a great deal is still to be learned the scientists studying it agree that the sunspot cycle is a greater factor by far than anything humans do in determining climate fluctuations.
Right. A whistleblower. People looked at all those melted glaciers and mauna loa readings with defective eyes!
ricpic will one day fly to Venus and erect a plaque there that says the sunspots made that planet hotter than Mercury, not CO2, and that in 11 years it will all change back.
The amount of stupid in some of this is incredible. Just admit that you guys will believe whatever corporate America tells you -- I mean, sells you.
To me, there's no question that humans impact the environment.
Wow, really. You think?
My issue is --
That corporate propaganda is powerful? Mine, too.
The Earth is still larger than humans and is complex enough to respond to human activity.
What dogma. I think I heard this when the congressman said that after Noah's flood, no more disasters. In any event, you seem to have very little faith in the power of what human industry can accomplish. Apparently it can transform our earth and our society, but not the face of the planet - let alone its natural cycles. I guess no more species will ever go extinct. Or if they do, somehow their role in the ecosystem will always be irrelevant. I think that's how ecosystems work, right?
Plants like CO2.
Hmmm. Compelling. Sophisticated stuff, there. I guess we'll just tell them to consume more of it. That's how it works, right? The plants take in as much as we ask them to. That's why there's never any such thing as overwatering.
Malthusians don't seem to understand the Earth has many organisms that outnumber humans.
Corporatist denialists don't seem to understand how extinction or ecosystems work.
We're currently on target to create the planet's 6th great extinction. That means up to 90% of species at risk. Human activity has been wiping out species for some time; I find it astounding that people reject that unregulated industrialization drastically increases the pace of that. It does. I also find it astounding that people point to geological epochs hundreds of millions of years ago as evidence for what human civilization can withstand, even though human civilization is only ten thousand years old at most, and came about in no small part due to climatological conditions.
You guys were more fun when you were creationists. It's baffling how many facts you'll make up or remain ignorant of or deny though with the help of marginal scientific and historical literacy to basically come to creationist positions. As Miyagi said, know karate so-so, squash like grape. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing - at least, it is if one is ideologically crazed/complacent enough.
You have invoked the wrath of the great and powerful Oz.
Do you presume to criticize the great and powerful Oz?
You ungrateful creatures!!
The great Oz has spoken!!!
Erm
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
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