[induffike]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Arrian: Would you have been among the ones to support the consensus on the theory of spontaneous generation against the work of Friedrich Henle and others? I'm not just trying to be a jackass here. I'm just curious when it became gnerally accepted that consensus = science in the mind of the general public. It clearly doesn't. You are siding with the evolution is just a "theory" crowd, If almost all experts agree on a subject, it means something. Very rarely they are wrong.

[Rememavotscam]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
You are siding with the evolution is just a "theory" crowd, You're bringing up irrelevent points and I don't know why.
If almost all experts agree on a subject, it means something. Very rarely they are wrong. Well answer the question asked in the post you quoted. Hell we can expand it to include the consensus against the work of Alfred Wegener if it makes you feel better. Personally I think the constant claims of consensus only serves to make a claim ring as unsound. How often do you hear someone harp about the consensus of scientists around the fact that E=mc2 and the like?

[Kayacterype]

Ned is Coulter

[Leaters]

"open-ended discussion in which all opinions are treated as equally informed and relevent, forever."

this actually only applies when the party knows they are wrong. its a stalling technique.

[PeterPatrickJohn]

I think it's great that we're getting all that oil out of the earth where it might polute the ground water.

[Hixinfineedom]

Originally posted by VJ

Wow, another anti-Democrat character assassination thread based on nothing but endless ad hominems. Supported by an article from the Drudge Report, oh what a surprise! Hey, remember that Drudge report FLASH NEWS that revealed how Gore had blamed cigarette smoking for global warming in his UN speech, and then when curious minds turned to read the transcript of Gore's speech at UN, turned out he hadn't mentioned neither smoking or cigarettes at all?

Anyway, so the count for pointless smear-threads about Democrats is now... what, two for Gore, one for Hillary, three for Obama before the spring of 2007? VJ, if we were to count Dem-bashing threads and Republican-bashing threads here, which count would be higher in your opinion?

[haudraufwienix]

If I wanted to learn about global warming, I could, I don't know, look at the IPCC report. Why should anyone give milli**** what Gore or Klaus says?

[krasniyluch]

One thing I keep hearing is "THE EVIDENCE IS OVERWHELMING".

Erm, can someone describe to me this overwhelming evidence because I haven't seen it yet.

They almost sound like those dedicated bible-bashers when asked for their proof of God, "look around you, it's EVERYWHERE".

[shiciapsisy]

SPM was drawn together before 2006 data could be included.

Funny but

Study: Glacier melting can be variable

Feb 13 10:13 AM US/Eastern


BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 13 (UPI) -- A U.S. study suggests two of Greenland's largest glaciers are melting at variable rates and not at an increasing trend.

The study, led by Ian Howat, a researcher with the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, shows the glaciers shrank dramatically and dumped twice as much ice into the sea during a period of less than a year between 2004 and 2005.

But then, fewer than two years later, they returned to near their previous rates of discharge.

Howat says such variability during such a short time underlines the problem in assuming glacial melting and sea level rise will necessarily occur at a steady upward trajectory.

"Our main point is that the behavior of these glaciers can change a lot from year to year, so we can't assume to know the future behavior from short records of recent changes," he said. "Future warming may lead to rapid pulses of retreat and increased discharge rather than a long, steady drawdown."

The research is online in the journal Science Express. Again why rush the Summary for Policy Makers report?

[ManHolDenPoker]

Originally posted by Arrian
I did a search on Mr. Ball, and found this dissenting piece:



Now either he's right or they're right. It cannot be both. That's a simple fact-checking thing.

-Arrian This is slander of the worst kind. Oh, hes a PhD (Doctor of Philsophy) not a PhD (Doctor of Science). Well then.

If you got your PhD by studying and doing a thesis on Climatology, and you lecture on Climatology, but like every other University in the world there was no Dept of Climatology, but Climate was (and is) part of the Dept of Geography, does that make you a liar? Or does it make the "journalist" that wrote the slander a mud-slinger slimeweasel?

[SypeKifef]

Originally posted by PuddlewatchHQ
be having a private chat with the good President in the coming days. Assuming this "chat" hasn't already happened. This sort of "tripe" coming from the less diplomatically versed is one thing. Coming from a sitting President this sort of "behaviour" is inexcusable. He'll be redeemed in years to come. Let's start making a list.

[brandiweb]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
I really want to know what caused the end of the last ice age. I'm pretty sure this was a prolonged period of melting ice and increasing temperatures, and I know for sure it wasn't anthropogenic.

Why is it not feasible that the same phenomena today are caused by whatever caused the end of the last ice age? (Or the previous ice ages)

Variations in solar radiation? The comings and goings of the Pleistocene ice ages are usually put at the feet of the Milankovic cycles - I haven't read Wiki's article on them but it might be a place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles


Not that the "warm" conditions of the last ~10k years is merely a mild snap in a wintery age - temperatures are still well below the Phanerozoic average.

[wallyfindme]

Odin: What does consensus have to do with science?

[Uplillacype]

Originally posted by Ned


Rufus, do you note any internal inconsistency with saying both that there is a healthy debate and that debate is pretty much over in the scientific community. The reason I post these threads is to show that there is a positive suppression of debate by the activists. They refuse to discuss the issue, claim there is a consensus of opinion and ridicule anyone who does not adopt these views as "nutjobs" or corporate whores.*

Rufus, are you an activist? No contradiction at all. Read what I said. The debate is largely over in the scientific community; it has now moved to the public sphere. So complaints that "there's no debate" are false on their face; the debate's going on right now.

Complaints that scientists aren't debating this issue, on the other hand, ignore the fact that scientists have been debating it, for years, and have now largely settled on a conclusion.

There's an analogy here to what happened with smoking in the 1960s. In the 60s, the surgeon general finally agreed that smoking is deadly, and we have to do something about it. That pronouncement wasn't a bolt from the blue; that was the logical culmination of decades of study and, yes, debate within the scientific community. Subsequent attempts to "debate" the link between smoking and lung cancer -- and there have been many, almost always funded by Big Tobacco -- have been derided and dismissed out of hand by responsible scientists, largely because they've spent decades doing the hard work of coming to a conclusion, have done it out of scientific rather than political interest, and have done it well enough to convince almost all of their colleagues of their position. Faced with contrary points of view from non-scientists and/or paid shills, they reacted much as a cardiologist would while trying to discuss medicine with a Christian Scientist, and rightly.

The debate in the public sphere is a different matter, to be sure. With some notable exceptions (and I count Gore as one of them), it's shrill, dogmatic, and ill-informed, on both sides. But that has nothing to do with the issue, per se; it reflects only the sorry state of public discourse in the US. As Limbaugh/Coulter/Fox News fan, you frankly are part of the problem rather than the solution.

And no, I'm not an activist.

[soSldI4i]

Originally posted by Odin
Give me a recent peer reviewed article saying that global warming is not anthropogenic. Why when almost no one claims such a thing? People do however claim that the anthropogenic component of global warming is overstated. No one really has a clue as to what portion of global warming is manmade vs. natural. Certainly much debate exists as to the rather arbitrary fudge factors for feedback effects considering no one understands whether feedbacks are positive neutral or negative towards global warming.

Oh, and I've noticed that many of the arguments the denialists use to attack the consensus comes dangerously close to sounding like the anti-intellectual rhetoric of post-modernists You mean like adhom attacks on individuals claiming they are not a climatologists, paleoclimatologists, dendrochronologists etc. (despite the fact that they merely are looking at data manipulation not the interpreatationof raw data), or that those scientists in opposition to 'consensus' are labeled as in the pay of big oil, or calls for decertification from American Meterological Society for having the temerity to hold a view contrary to 'consensus'.


Amongst some of these anti-intellectuals one must of course deal with 'light weight' intellectual 'deniers' such as:

Dr. Wegman

Dr. Tol

Dr. Christopher Landsea

Dr. Duncan Wingham

Dr. Richard Lindzen

Dr. Svensmark

Dr. Nigel Weiss

Dr. Henk Tennekes

Dr. Abdussamatov

Dr. Nir Shariv

[TravelMan]

It appears the IPCC (and Gore) is lying about glaciers retreating across the globe as well.

"Some experts have questioned the alarmists theory on global warming leading to shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers. VK Raina, a leading glaciologist and former ADG of GSI is one among them.

....

"His views were echoed by Dr RK Ganjoo, Director, Regional Centre for Field Operations and Research on Himalayan Glaciology, who is supervising study of glaciers in Ladakh region including one in the Siachen area. He also maintained that nothing abnormal has been found in any of the Himalyan glaciers studied so far by him."

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1925164,0008.htm