Escape clause from global warming law

dblboggie wrote:You just aren't getting it. Scientists, like politicians, are only people. They are not superhuman entities immune to the forces of human nature or the baser instincts of man.

The scientific method minimises these flaws through sheer mass of numbers. The scientific method is a meritocracy. When papers are published they are critiqued, analysed and counterargued. Seriously, some of the arguments I have had with 1oldminer next door pale in comparison to the heated debates I have seen in many journals.

dblboggie wrote:Just because a scientist says a thing is so does not make it so. Just because a peer review board says a thing is so, does not make it so. Each of these are quite capable of falling prey to all the vices any human is heir to.

So much better to listen to Rush Limbaugh who has no scientific training?

dblboggie wrote:And when governments provide the vast bulk of the funding for a given enterprise such as AGW research

Climate research is funded in the same way that all other scientific research is. A combination of public money, private donation and commercial enterprise.

dblboggie wrote:Throughout history it has usually been the lone dissenters of the orthodoxy that are defamed or attacked because their views did not hew to the generally accepted views of the consensus. Right now, AGW is that orthodoxy. There are a few voices out there who would challenge the orthodoxy (an orthodoxy largely funded and directed by governments for governments); they are scientists too.

3% of active researchers.

dblboggie wrote:And yet they are defamed and dismissed out of hand because science (or its spokespersons) has become so arrogant that any challenge to this orthodoxy is seen as a threat to their carefully constructed reality and thus has no place in "proper science." Heaven forbid that it turn out that it is not the back of a turtle upon which the world rests.

Now you sound like a creationist. This "orthodoxy" exists because that is where the evidence leads us. If you have something better then publish or be damned.

dblboggie wrote:Human nature has much to hang its hat on in this turbulent mess that is AGW.

Once again, a vague and unsatisfactory answer that is not supported.

TexasBlue wrote:

i_luv_miley wrote:It sounds like you're saying that the Constitution trumps science. Sorry, but that's ludicrous. It's also dangerous.

That statement is as ludicrous as someone coming in here saying that religion trumps the constitution.

You may feel at way till something you disagree with takes away your constitutional rights.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face Tex. You are playing a very dangerous game in putting such human constructs above the forces of nature. We keep repeating this mistake and often civilisations collapse through failing to act. Instead we prefer to build more churches, sacrifice a few goats or kill some non-conformists. It is a lesson we will always choose to learn the hard way... and we never learn.

I cannot recommend Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Complex Societies Choose to Fail or Survive enough in this instance.

dblboggie wrote:It is my assertion that even if we halted ALL activity that produces CO2, short of holding our breath until we expire, it would still have a negligible impact on said alleged warming. But what this would do is throw the entire world into a massive and enormously destructive economic depression that would kill many more millions than the alleged global warming would.

And that belief... by your own admission... is based on science you do not understand.

dblboggie wrote:I would also like to know where this 97% figure comes from. It seems this is being bandied about without reference to its source.

Go back to the other thread. I posted TWO separate studies, the entire paper in each case.

dblboggie wrote:Another argument both of you make to support AGW is the moral superiority of scientists and the peer review process.

Who is saying anything about morals? The scientific method works through its application. If you have something to say, say it. The journal will publish and it is open to critique.

dblboggie wrote:I would submit that you place an awful lot of faith in a process that is, after all, administered by mere humans; humans with all the foibles and flaws of character that any human is heir to.

Considering we know how it works, this claim is baseless. This is even more ludicrous to me because I have a qualification in an environmental science. By your own admission you do not understand the science that you read.

dblboggie wrote:There have been entire books dedicated to the subject of government funded science and the negative impacts on that science and the peer review process.

Yeah so? There have been entire books dedicated to the notion that aliens seeded life from space, that the Great Pyramid of Giza is a hydroelectric power station used as a runway for alien spacecraft.

dblboggie wrote:My objective, when examining the AGW issue, is to look at ALL the possible factors that might come into play on the issue.

But you don't seeing as you ignore the science because... and I paraphrase "I'm just an old fart who doesn't understand long words". You are too influenced by media figures because they speak your language and appeal to your prejudices.

dblboggie wrote:You two seem enmeshed on the inside of this movement; focused on the nuts and bolts of the science,

Because if you cannot handle the science of this problem, you don't have an argument. Despite the pleading of the right wing press in your country, there is no parity in the debate. There is no deciding the value of the issue through public consensus. It doesn't matter what average people think, it only matters what the evidence says and I have read probably in excess of 200 papers on climate science and perhaps 2-4 critiques of each of those papers. I am satisfied that there is a compelling scientific case to be answered. I am satisfied that science - and not Sarah Palin - will answer these questions. I am satisfied that we are damaging our environment through our continued pollution.

dblboggie wrote:But then I left school, got a job, traveled around the country, learned as I went along, began to devour books on history and politics, and worked in politics. I worked with clients who had to go through the peer review process to get published. I’ve held an amazing variety of jobs, and spent a long life being a student of mankind and human nature. This is what I brought to my examination of the AGW issue. One can never look at the science alone,

But it must be the first issue. Denialists are using the same tactics that creationists use.
i) Appealing to conspiracy
ii) Turning it into a political issue and sidestepping the science
iii) Appealing to public consensus

dblboggie wrote:It is why you selectively respond to only those issues I raise in my responses that have scientific explanations while ignoring the much more troubling political issues.

The politics only becomes troubling if the science is false. If the science is right (and all the evidence suggests it is) then we are quibbling over politics while we damage our environment for our children and their children.

dblboggie wrote:And I have no reason to doubt your sincere belief (for lack of a better word) in the science behind AGW. And you, Matt, have been more than patient in trying to convince me of the infallibility of the science. I can appreciate the frustration such an endeavor entails.

Not infallible but the way the scientific method works is that it can easily dig out the bad science. The MMR scare over here showed that. Andrew Wakefield took a bribe and falsified his data. Other medical researchers published their critiques stating their serious misgivings about his research and even suggested that he had falsified his data. But did any of this get into the media that held him up as a hero and a champion of children's health? No. They smothered him with riches for "sticking it to the establishment", they claimed there was a conspiracy against him and the more they tried to tackle him in the public sphere the more airtime he got. He was later struck off (as they say) and can no longer practice medicine. So forgive me if I ignore the media for both the pro and con media outlets in this debate are as damaging as each other. The media likes to pretend there is parity in a lot of these debates in the interest of some bizarre notion of teaching the controvery... even where there is none. You have fallen into that same trap.

dblboggie wrote:A very thorough, well constructed and well written response Bec.

Yes it is. And Unfortunately there is nothing in there I haven't said to you before.

BecMacFeegle wrote:There's no point in discussing solutions if many people still refuse to acknowledge that climate change is happening, that it is being caused by human activity and that it is a serious problem which needs to be tackled.

Trying to get him to address the issues is like trying to nail custard to a wall.

BecMacFeegle wrote:Certainly! Though I'm surprised you don't already know all about this statistic, Matt has indicated to me that he has already provided you with this information, and it can be found on even the most basic climate change resources, including wikipedia, here's a link:

Surveys of scientists and scientific literature

Various surveys have been conducted to evaluate scientific opinion on global warming.

Anderegg, Prall, Harold, and Schneider, 2010

A 2010 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers and resulted in the following two conclusions:
(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.[94]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

There is also a 2009 study by different people, different institution, different method that came up with the same answer. A link to it is posted in the "dblboggie answers some climate questions".

dblboggie wrote:bec and matt raise some compelling points regarding the science, but these all ignore the political agenda and the one body that is deciding who's science is included and and who's is not... i just cannot look past the ipcc's blatant political biases..

What on earth is this supposed to mean? How exactly are the IPCC suppressing science? How are they deciding what is and isn't included? And where is it included or not included? That doesn't make any sense.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:

i_luv_miley wrote:It sounds like you're saying that the Constitution trumps science. Sorry, but that's ludicrous. It's also dangerous.

That statement is as ludicrous as someone coming in here saying that religion trumps the constitution.

You may feel at way till something you disagree with takes away your constitutional rights.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face Tex. You are playing a very dangerous game in putting such human constructs above the forces of nature. We keep repeating this mistake and often civilisations collapse through failing to act. Instead we prefer to build more churches, sacrifice a few goats or kill some non-conformists. It is a lesson we will always choose to learn the hard way... and we never learn.

I cannot recommend Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Complex Societies Choose to Fail or Survive enough in this instance.

I don't quite mean it as you think i do. What i was trying convey is that any country that has a constitution (which is rule of law in the said country), then it should be followed. To ignore it is blasphemous to me. I totally understand where you coming from. I'm not the total denialist that you think i am. I just don't believe that we are at fault for it. Of course, i'm not as well-versed in AGW as you are. This is why i don't argue it with you.

Well let me invent a scenario that we can all relate to.

Imagine we are six weeks away from an asteroid strike. It will hit your state and all life in the northern hemisphere will be killed.

President Obama is presented with only 1 option. A superweapon will be constructed that will obliterate this asteroid. One part will be built in Florida, one part in Alaska and the other in Arizona.

Now, would you want this decision to build the weapon made quickly with government seizure of land to make it happen or would you rather a slow meticulous process happened with every step of the way making sure the Constitution was followed.

Imagine if Florida refused and said "We don't want it here. Build it in Virginia" and it was their constitutional right to do so. Would you support the President or the state of Florida? In that fictional scenario Florida is cutting off its nose to spite its face, putting the Constitution over the sensible thing. Your principles will mean nothing when you are dead.

The problem with that scenario is that the gov't already has thousands of acres of land to do something in that regard. Plus, it would be an immediate emergency.