Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Fox, if you consider it mean-spirited to say that you are a religionist about it, then you started the mean-spiritedness by applying the term to people that disagree with you. I've told you repeatedly that your characterizations of people you disagree with are pejorative and do not in fact represent our motivations or ends, but rather your (and your side) unsupported suppositions, yet you persist. And in spite of the fact that the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly on our side, you refuse to consider any of the multiple lines of evidence presented. You've said you don't understand most of the research. You're accepting your side on faith and ideology. I do understand more of the science and the evidence, and it does not agree with you or your side. You are polite about it, to be sure, but you are in fact being, in your own terms, a religionist. You've vilified us, unjustly. It really seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

No you're wrong. I apply the term 'religionist' to those who preach the same rites, rituals, dogmas over and over and ignore or dismiss anything inconvenient to or counter to their doctrine. They are fanatical about ordering other people to conform to their world view and condemn as heretic any dissenting scientists and as greedy, selfish, uncaring all others who do not toe the doctrinal line. They are unwilling to consider or even discuss any different perspective or point of view. They are unwilling, for instance, to see an explosion of population growth among poor people as a far more grave problem for the world than is a few degrees higher average temperatures. They refuse to consider that those scientists preaching doom and gloom could possibly have any motive other than a desire to save the world from doom.

There are many members who have posted on this thread who hold a different point of view than mine, but they are in no way religionists because a) they obviously are keeping an open mind and are looking at both sides of the debate; and b) they do not insult or try to shout down those with a different opinion.

I am firmly on the record here as one who does not know, and I am prepared to be persuaded either way. I am looking at much information presented by both sides, but yes, I do ignore the same charts and graphs from highly biased sites that are posted again and again and again and I take a dubious view of information that is obviously politically motivated. And I take a very dubious view of those who presume to judge or insult me rather than present a coherent argument supporting a different point of view.

So far, the skeptics have provided the far more compelling case for their skepticism than have the AGW proponents.

Source: dpa via EarthTimes

Consensus is not science. Consensus is based on verifiable opinions. Science is based on verifiable data. So far, the verifiable data cannot be rationally denied. CAD (i.e.,CO2 Aatmospheric Density) has been increasing for a couple of centuries. Over those same centuries SI (i.e., Solar Irradiation) and AAGT (i.e., Average Annual Global Temperature) have been fluctuating. AAGT over those same centuries has been correlating well with SI and correlating poorly, if at all, with CAD.l

Still wrong, ican. When multiple lines of research, coming from many different directions, examining different data, with different means of analysis, come to the same conclusion, that IS science, and that is consensus, and that is where anthropogenic global warming is at. Which is why the researchers ignore you, because your analyses are laughable.

You cherry pick your data. You cherry pick your time periods. You ignore most of the data if it doesn't suit you. You ignore variables that are known to affect the effect you purport to explain. You have this ridiculous insistence on trying to make every relationship a linear one, when they very obviously are not, ignoring the fact that some are cyclic, and most only exhibit the behavioir you claim if you ignore what they are doing in the interim and look at the arbitrary endpoints you've chosen. You insist on making a chaotic non-linear, multi-variate system an unrecognizable 9th grade algebra one. And you ignore magnitudes. I suggest you look at the Max Planck Institute cite above, which parados cited, which directly contradicts your inane SI thesis, which you repost over and over and over and over, without in fact even looking at the graphs you post over and over and over, and dealing with the conclusions of those who actually created them, which show irrefutably that rising temps are much more being driven by CO2 and not SI (and that you are ignoring the other major variable that affects temp, which is to say ElNino-ENSO, which does NOT follow SI, which has no periodicitiy in common with SI, which you have not shown is influenced either by the 11 year (nominally) solar cycle, which changes by a factor of only about 1 part in 1000 over the 11 years and which cancels itself out over the cycle, or by the possible change in SI over the long term, which is, if it exists, on the order of one part in 10,000 and which, by evidence of the most recntly completed solar cycle, is in fact decreasing by that very small amount at the same time global temperature was rising. Which invalidates your whole SI argument, if the simplistic math hadn't done that anyway.

Though, Fox, I think there's probably at least one thing we can agree on: the car they're testing now that runs on chocolate is probably not going to be the solution to global warming, even if it does go 145 mph.
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=291330&src=143

That would seem to describe your actions quite well Fox.

You are unable or unwilling to discuss the science. You claim you aren't a scientist. You claim you don't understand the science. You claim the scientists are political. You refuse to consider that the scientists could possibly have a motive other than politics and funding for their projects.

There is the problem Fox. You can't show it is politically motivated but because you disagree with it you claim it is.

The skeptics arguments can't answer these simple questions.
Is CO2 increase the result of humans?
If CO2 increase is NOT the result of humans then why has CO2 not increased every year since the end of the little ice age?
Why has CO2 only increased since the start of the industrial revolution?
Why does CO2 absorb IR in the laboratory but not in nature in the skeptics scenarios?

The science you reject Fox answers all those questions. The skeptics can't answer them without undermining other parts of their arguments.

I have discussed a lot of science Parados and have posted a lot of scientific opinion. It is true that I don't post a lot of stuff that I wouldn't be able to explain and I depend on experts who don't have an ax to grind re climate change do the technical explanations. It is true that I do express what opinions I have formed, and I appreciate that such opinions are not to your liking. If I was that unhappy with somebody's posts I simply wouldn't read them or bother with them.

At least I don't follow people around and display my immaturity by making ad hominem and personally insulting comments about them every opportunity I get like the numbnuts do. Perhaps you could at least give me credit for that?

Fox, you seem to define anyone who says global warming is real and a problem as automatically someone who is politically motivated and has an ax to grind, while simultaneously believing that the only people who are not politically motivated are people who deny global warming. Which is complete crud. But the antis are the only people you cite. You also show absolutely no evidence of being familiar with any of the mountain of evidence for global warming. I have never seen you attempt to rebut any of that. Have you ever read any of the IPCC reports? Have you read any of the "Summaries for Policymakers", which are sort of like a "Climate Change for Dummies" book? Did you ever go to skepticalscience.com, which has, in one handy spot, just about all the twenty or so arguments that all the denialists recycle, and shows why they don't hold up scientifically?

Further, you maintain that you don't engage in ad hominems, but what you do do is impugn and caricature the motivations of people on the other side, and invent fictitious invidious motivations for them, and call them names. "Them" are us. When you play the name game you do just what you say you don't do.

That's Foxfyre like we know her, MontereyJack.

No. I only define as politically motivated those who say global warming is real whose funding, fame, and/or prestige/glory is dependent on their advocacy for anthropogenic global warming. I have read many thoughtful opinions who came down on the side of AGW that I did not think politically motivated including several A2K members who have posted on this thread. As I have not taken a side on this issue, I have not attempted to prove or rebut anything other than the really stupid stuff like Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth".

I observe those who are the loudest voices saying that we are doomed if we do not alter our lifestyles immediately, but they are not altering their lifestyles in any way. So how frightened could they be?

When you see scientist after scientist admitting that those who do not get on the AGW bandwagon have their funding reduced or it goes away entirely--Ican and I have both posted such testimony over the past couple of years--it becomes obvious that there is a monetary advantage to being an AGW advocate. And that does not seem to me to be a prescription for good science.

Almost all climate scientists I've read whose funding does not depend on AGW advoacy is a skeptic or is unconvinced that whatever affect humankind is having on climate is not a cause for alarm and there could be more benefit than harm from it.

And for myself, I want to know that we're dealing with a real problem based on credible science before I will consent to radically altering my lifestyle and/or having my freedoms, choices, options, and opportunities taken away. And I will not agree to something that is unnecessary that will assign hundreds of millions of people to more generations of crushing poverty.

Oh and of course Walter is an authority on me though he very rarely represents what I say accurately and he makes strong assumptions about my intentions as if he actually knew me or had a clue about what I think, believe, or hold as conviction. He is one of those who follows me around trying to find some way to embarrass me. But hey, everybody needs a hobby.

MJ writes:


Well if the shoe fits I guess. But no, i try very hard not to argue ad hominem with people nor do I follow people around insulting and judging them. But in the case of religion, politics, and climate science, there are broad groups of people who do hold strong convictions. For me to identify the climate religionists is no different than referring to climate deniers or AGW skeptics or the extreme left or the religious right or liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans or any other broad categories that identify specific groups that generally are identified with certain beliefs or characteristics or behaviors.

So if you are an environmental religionist who doesn't like the term, then coin a better one. If you are not an environmental religionist, then the term wouldn't apply to you would it? I have not attempted to assign you to any group and leave that for you to do.

A liitle paranoia creeping in, Fox? For the record, fox, Walter has been here since page 2. You have not been. That's page 2 of whatever it is now 665 or so. That's four years. He was here first. If anything, you're following him around.

And Fox, what you accuse Walter of doing is what you do yourself, making up motivations for people you don't know at all.

Oh, and I've hever heard of your guidelines for policy makers.

That's bull, fox.

Walter made a post that was intentionally judgmental and insulting specifically targeted at me and for the specific purpose of judging and insulting me. I responded to it with an appropriate rebuttal.

You will find me defending Walter now and then when he is unfairly accused--he has never reciprocated I don't believe--but I don't follow him around attempting to judge or embarrass him about anything. And I don't appreciate it when it is done to me. Most who do that regularly, I simply put on ignore so that my enjoyment of participation on the threads I participate on isn't continually interrupted. I haven't felt a need to do that to Walter since he is somewhat less hateful than some, but it is still annoying just the same.

Please give a credible argument for why it is bull.

<sigh> I think you just proved my point, fox. It is, as I said " for Policymakers", not "Guidelines for Policymakers". Every time the IPCC does an assessment report, they produce a much less technical report for non-scientists (i.e. "policymakers"). They've been mentioned repeatedly and cited repeatedly over the course of these discussions on this thread. They are basic documents, accessible even to you. Yet you have not only not read the BASIC material, you've apparently never even heard it, nor attempted to find out about the science that the IPCC summarizes and synthesizes. I think you';ve just shown your own one-sidedness and bias.