Climate change (again!)

[Dr Mordrid]

Try reading Aaron Wildavsky's book "Yes, but is it true?" on how science gets hijacked by politics. You won't like it.

Meanwhile myopic people on Earth will pursue anthropomorphic reasons for warming when there are other stronger causes including cosmic ray cycles which match historic warming periods, solar magnetic field strengthening over the last 150 years etc. etc.

Unfortunately much of the climate community, and the body politic, have a case of 'Catholic guilt'; "something seems wrong so it must be my fault"

Alston Chase once said: "when the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power."

I agree.

Forget Wildavsky; try reading Chrichton's "State of Fear".

This excerpt should be a cautionary tale, if only some were listening;

http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/index.html

[cjolley]

Jeeze Doc, you say some won't like the way science is getting hijacked by politics and then quote two political scientists and a novelist.

I've got an idea. Let's just go with the people who actually study climate to get our information about climate. They study all this stuff about the atmosphere from satellites and weather balloons. They model using computers and pencil and paper. They do this stuff all day long at work. it's not a sideline or an after thought.
Maybe they are wrong. How would I know, I'm not a climatologist. But just going with whatever random a**hat that comes along with a different idea just because you don't like what the climatologist have to say is irrational.

[Dr Mordrid]

Poolitical scientists know politics and much of this is politics, from both sides.

As for Chrichton, his CV is a bit more complex than that. He's a physician who did his post-doc at the Salk Institute and was Visiting Writer at MIT. He knows the difference between scientific method and BS, and has laid out a good case in State of Fear.

What bothers the anti human-gw crowd more than a little is that even the IPCC reports are loaded with equivocation. That sets off a lot of BS detectors, like it or not.

Another bother is how strongly the pro man-caused gw crowd reacts to what in any other disagreement would be an expression of reasonable doubt. They move at warp speed from disagreement straight to suggesting that their contrary peers be stripped of their certs or totally shunned.

IMO that is anything but the reaction of a group totally certain of their arguments. That or they're just plain afraid of losing their more than lucrative grant structure.

The same thing hs been going on in fusion research with the reliance of the Tokamak design which has big problems. Another bottomless pit elevated to grant machine status.

It was also the reaction of the pro-eugenics crowd 100 years ago.

[cjolley]

Well, the similarities of the doubters arguments, personnel, and organizations to the anti-evolution crowd set off MY BS detector.

1, Any theory, no matter how weak, that conflicts with the one they are fighting is positive positive proof that the majority theory is wrong.

2, They rarely if ever study the subject at hand professionally. They might know a thing or two about science (or not), but if so it is in some other subject. Then they say that it's just because people in the discipline are just toeing the establishment line. But, even if that is true, is it worse than not really knowing the subject at all?

3, They are supported financially by organizations that call themselves research centers that are really little more than PR agencies for third parties. But the "research organization" imprimatur makes it sound like they don't have a stake in the fight and are just trying to help. How is that better than competing for grants with others who actually study the subject?

The other side seems content with what might be called meta-researchers, meta-research, and meta-research institutions.

Why would that mess be given more credence than the normal scientific research structure that has developed all the fantastic results that we see around us every day?


PS You didn't say the politics of this was getting hijacked by politics, you particularly said "how science gets hijacked by politics". Oddly, I agree with you, but not about the problem's source.

[Dr Mordrid]

Then the problem becomes one of 'religion', not real science.

What bugs me: the ignoring of what's happening in astroophysics.

It's shown that the cosmic ray flux fluctuates regularly and that this strongly affects cloud seeding and climate, but we don't hear a rebutt of this.

It's shown that the solar magnetic field has increased in strength over the same time frame as the current warming trend, about 150 years, but we don't hear an analysis of that either.

Information from Mars indicates it's also been going through a 'global warming', though a lesser one, that could well be tied to the above effects but it's absent human induced CO2.

And on and on....

[Brian Ellis]

Doc, have you even read the report I cited, that you are so keen to rebutt? I'm not going to argue the science with you, until the full report is published in April. But I will say that the full report was written by about 2500 of the most eminent scientists in the world, in tens of disciplines from 130 countries. Even the summary report, just published, has some of the best scientists in its authoring list, including Nobel laureates.

If you study the wording, there is no equivocation and they state very carefully - and very conservatively - the probability of each and every phenomenon associated with the problem. What you do not seem to be aware of is that, this time, they did not use one model to come up with their answers. They used six totally different models developed by six teams in different countries. And they all agreed within small margins of error. I cannot see how their methodology could be faulted, not even by someone as expert as you.

BTW, if you had read the report, you would know that cloud seeding has been included. And if cloud seeding were increased by extraterrestial events, you do realise that it would have a negative temperature forcing not a positive one, don't you? And don't come up with the notion that seeded clouds have a positive forcing, because they don't. Water vapour forcing is positive only when it is not in the form of clouds!

I hope you feel great being one of the last bastions of climate change denial, seeded by your political views and not from science.

[Brian Ellis]

I find this article interesting as it shows the Bible belt is changing its views. It suggests that religion and science together could make a more powerful impression than science alone.

[schmosef]

Penn and Teller on Environmentalism... I bet Brian doesn't watch this one all the way through either

[Dr Mordrid]

No doubt

[Brian Ellis]

Penn and Teller on Environmentalism... I bet Brian doesn't watch this one all the way through either

Too right!