"Climategate"

Started by consortium11, December 05, 2009, 07:18:26 PM

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Revolverman

Quote from: Jude on January 01, 2010, 07:17:48 PM

Those might be a valid problem as well, but that doesn't diminish carbon as a serious issue.

I beleve it does. those chemicals are far more directly toxic, and damaging to plant and animal life then Carbon dioxide, its all swept under the table because carbon is the environmental flavor of the month.

Jude

Flavor of the month?  They've been studying the effects of CO2 on Climate for a good 30 years if not longer.  This is nothing new.  It's just the most serious threat that we're facing from environmental pollution according to scientists.  Since you're claiming that's not the case, lets see some evidence to back up this opinion of yours.

Schwarzepard

Speaking of scientists...

Here are some scientists debunking the human caused global warming in a Finnish documentary.

Part 1climategate on finnish television 1/3
Part 2climategate on finnish television 2/3
Part 3climategate on finnish television 3/3

Speaking of attacking messengers, you just said you didn't like the "rhetoric" instead of providing any argument about how his statements were wrong.  Anyone who's interested should watch part 2, starting at 9:00 then continue to part 3, especially at 1:15.

Part 2  starting at 9:00...
Climate-Gate. Michael Coren with Lord Christopher Monckton - Part 2 of 5

Part 3 on to 1:15...
Climate-Gate - Michael Coren with Lord Christopher Monckton part 3 of 5

I'm interested in your argument about how his conclusions are wrong.


Jude

I don't have the scientific background or knowledge to do a point by point rebuttal of everything he says.  I hinted at the factual inaccuracies I was aware of, but here's a short list of the errors in logic he makes.

- He compares the climate of the planet to the internal thermodynamics of the human body; there's no way that's a valid comparison.
- He claims that 99% of funding for science is public.  That's absolutely preposterous and it's a key component of his claims.
- He states that there are "two dozen politically motivated scientists."  Two dozen scientists don't have enough influence to railroad all of mainstream science.  He also refuses to name anyone.  How convenient.
- My discussion of his rhetoric was not intended to insult him, but discredit him as a source.  He's clearly shown himself to be politically motivated (has a history of being a conservative, etc.).  Why should anyone trust what he says?  He didn't cite any organization or agency, only dropped a few names left and right.

And he did it on a talk show that was clearly supportive of his agenda.  The host was not at all skeptical towards his claims.  They both basically took a moment to talk about how you become a social pariah if you talk down climate change, which is ridiculous because we have an entire political movement in the U.S. that does it.  He likes to make it sound like a global conspiracy which is absolutely ridiculous.

As for the Finnish documentary, it basically recaps stuff that was already discussed earlier in the thread.

RubySlippers

On the topic Climategate forme is a non-issue. But what is the odds of us stopping and reversing Global Warming in my lifetime using draconian methods, unlikely. The US cannot survive economically unless we protect ourselves with China and India not on board. And for me population growth is a far greater threat than anything else as I see it. The population if going up massively in poor nations and that will cause for more harm than Global Warming. Diseases will increase far faster and many deadly diseases are becoming resistant to the drugs that can fight them including a real threat Malaria.

I just think that money could be spent better culling the herd of humanity with birth control, economic aid for the poor like microloans so women can be important and that does reduce larger families and researching drugs that can help people. We should work on green tech and when its cost effective to use over what we have now we will use it, in fifty years a century. Then Global Warming gases will decrease.

Schwarzepard

Quote from: Jude on January 02, 2010, 05:01:00 AM
I don't have the scientific background or knowledge to do a point by point rebuttal of everything he says.  I hinted at the factual inaccuracies I was aware of, but here's a short list of the errors in logic he makes.

- He compares the climate of the planet to the internal thermodynamics of the human body; there's no way that's a valid comparison.
- He claims that 99% of funding for science is public.  That's absolutely preposterous and it's a key component of his claims.
- He states that there are "two dozen politically motivated scientists."  Two dozen scientists don't have enough influence to railroad all of mainstream science.  He also refuses to name anyone.  How convenient.
- My discussion of his rhetoric was not intended to insult him, but discredit him as a source.  He's clearly shown himself to be politically motivated (has a history of being a conservative, etc.).  Why should anyone trust what he says?  He didn't cite any organization or agency, only dropped a few names left and right.

And he did it on a talk show that was clearly supportive of his agenda.  The host was not at all skeptical towards his claims.  They both basically took a moment to talk about how you become a social pariah if you talk down climate change, which is ridiculous because we have an entire political movement in the U.S. that does it.  He likes to make it sound like a global conspiracy which is absolutely ridiculous.

As for the Finnish documentary, it basically recaps stuff that was already discussed earlier in the thread.


So the satellite measuring the Earth's emission of heat back into space doesn't count, because he used the analogy of the human body emitting heat to help explain the concept?

Please provide support for your claim that his statement about research funding is preposterous.

The politically motivated scientists didn't railroad all of mainstream science.  They falsified data, they abused the peer review process to suppress dissenting scientific studies, and they did a host of other things intended to promote human caused global warming as a crisis while admitting among themselves that the evidence didn't show any human caused global warming.  They knew the planet wasn't warming, so they falsified their reports to support their political convictions.  They've been named repeatedly in many media sources.

The Finnish documentary supports the above paragraph, regardless of whether or not it has been already covered in this thread.

Your attempt to discredit him instead of disprove his points was entirely clear, especially after you mentioned the shooting of messengers previously.

Human caused global warming is a fraud, but you want to believe in it, so go ahead.  Have a good time paying taxes to solve a crisis that doesn't exist.

Jude

#31
Quote from: HeretiKat on January 02, 2010, 05:21:39 PMSo the satellite measuring the Earth's emission of heat back into space doesn't count, because he used the analogy of the human body emitting heat to help explain the concept?
He wasn't just using an analogy; he was drawing a direct comparison between the two phenomenon as if they had something in common.  The thermodynamics of a living organism and an entire planet are not similar enough that you can draw comparisons between them in order to make points.  That's not legitimate.
Quote from: HeretiKat on January 02, 2010, 05:21:39 PMPlease provide support for your claim that his statement about research funding is preposterous.
I don't have to provide statistics to prove he's wrong, the person making the claim is the one who the burden of proof is on, which I suppose in this case is you.  He is not a reliable source to cite clearly, as he's shown that he's biased on the subject by political affiliations and other loaded statements.  He provided absolutely no evidence at all to back it up, started delving into conspiracy theories afterward, and it seems highly unlikely, why should I believe him?  Do you have any evidence or are you just taking his point of view and parroting it back?  Did you not read some of the insane thing he's said, namely the communist conspiracy one related to Obama?
Quote from: HeretiKat on January 02, 2010, 05:21:39 PMThe politically motivated scientists didn't railroad all of mainstream science.  They falsified data, they abused the peer review process to suppress dissenting scientific studies, and they did a host of other things intended to promote human caused global warming as a crisis while admitting among themselves that the evidence didn't show any human caused global warming.  They knew the planet wasn't warming, so they falsified their reports to support their political convictions.  They've been named repeatedly in many media sources.
Quote from: wikipediaGlobal warming is the increase in the average temperature of the planet Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) between the start and the end of the 20th century.[1][A] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century was caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation.[1] The IPCC also concludes that variations in natural phenomena such as solar radiation and volcanism produced most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a small cooling effect afterward.[2][3] These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.[4]
So you're basically saying all of those scientific institutions and academies of science are wrong?  Even if the group that was hacked that provided data for the IPCC did falsify data (and the evidence is no where near as clear as you're making it sound, it's still unclear if anything bad has happened, the jury is still out) many of the other academies and institutions ran independent studies and came up with the same conclusion.  You make it sound as if all of modern science hinges on a few people's beliefs.

There's a reason people who have attempted scientific opposition to global warming have failed.  It's because their conclusions were less supported.  That's how science works; people who have better papers win out, it's a very simple marketplace of ideas.  Anyone can public a scientific paper and only their methodology can be scrutinized, not the conclusions.  The reason why Global Warming is believed to be a well-supported fact is because the majority of scientific institutions have agreed with the research done establishing it and disagreed with the skeptical research; it's not a conspiracy, it's a matter of evidence.  Granted, if you only look at biased evidence as it seems you have and never familiarize yourself with the original information and rebuttals it's easy to become a hardline denier (and there is a difference between a denier and a skeptic).
Quote from: HeretiKat on January 02, 2010, 05:21:39 PMThe Finnish documentary supports the above paragraph, regardless of whether or not it has been already covered in this thread.
The Finnish documentary only covers climategate, which only involves one institution.  If you want to discredit global warming, there's a lot more studies and groups to slander.
Quote from: HeretiKat on January 02, 2010, 05:21:39 PMYour attempt to discredit him instead of disprove his points was entirely clear, especially after you mentioned the shooting of messengers previously.
There's a difference between attacking the messenger and discrediting someone who is making statements as a reliable witness.  Attacking the messenger is equating a person with a message they're delivering, i.e. making Al Gore into Global Warming, and taking potshots at him in order to attack Global Warming indirectly.  The problem with this is, Al Gore is merely transmitting information that other people have established.  You can stop believing what Al Gore says and just go directly to his resources; you don't have to trust Al Gore to believe his claims.

Discrediting this guy, however, is far more valid because he doesn't cite his resources in most instances.  He applies a good deal of subjective judgment and brushes over the information he does cite without getting into the detail that's necessary to really assess whether he's being fully honest or not.  There's no reason to trust him as a reliable witness and plenty of reasons not to.

I don't trust Al Gore either, listening to any one person, especially people who are ideologically or politically motivated is ridiculous.  I think Global Warming has validity because the majority of scientists support it.  If you don't support it knowing that, then you believe in a conspiracy or lack faith in science, either of which is fine, but at least admit you're anti-intellectual if that's the case so that the argument can shift to something more honest.
Quote from: HeretiKat on January 02, 2010, 05:21:39 PMHuman caused global warming is a fraud, but you want to believe in it, so go ahead.  Have a good time paying taxes to solve a crisis that doesn't exist.
I don't know that man-made global warming is real.  In science nothing is ever known.  They make gambles based on careful research and put stock in ideas based on this.  Global Warming is not a fact; it's a scientific fact, and a scientific fact is not absolute truth.  Science deals in statistical probabilities, you never "know" anything perfectly, it's just a matter of likelihood.

But in your final message there you exposed a few holes in your way of thinking:

1)  You're treating this as a matter of certainty and fact, which means you're not thinking scientifically or even being skeptical.  It's skeptical to ask for explanations, justifications, and try and poke holes through things rationally.  Words like fraud are not skeptical or reasonable, but are extremist statements.

2)  The tax comment exposes a political ideology.

So whatever, we're going to argue in circles here and it won't matter, because it seems like you've taken an evangelical position on the matter.

Arix

Quote from: Revolverman on January 01, 2010, 07:20:26 PM
I beleve it does. those chemicals are far more directly toxic, and damaging to plant and animal life then Carbon dioxide, its all swept under the table because carbon is the environmental flavor of the month.

No offense but I don't think  you understand the greenhouse effect of the effect of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.  I do not feel like explaining the greenhouse effect unless I am forced to but it would be in your best interest to go look it up.  As for what increased CO2 does, well it does only very harmful thing that is never talked about.  It causes the ocean to acidify.  The ocean absorbs CO2 at a rate that is proportional to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.  As in if there is more CO2 up there, more CO2 will be absorbed by the ocean.  H20 and CO2 react with each other to form Carbonic Acid, H2CO3.  An influx in this acid causes the ocean to acidify.  This acidification makes it so that marine life that create calcium based shells, as in lobsters, shrimp, clams etc, cannot form their shells.  This will cause them to be easier prey and my even just kill them outright.  In other words they will die out.  I think that is very damaging to animal life.  Don't you agree?

Hayley

#33
Quote from: Jude on January 03, 2010, 04:39:56 AM
... many of the other academies and institutions ran independent studies and came up with the same conclusion.  You make it sound as if all of modern science hinges on a few people's beliefs.
<snip>
That's how science works; people who have better papers win out, it's a very simple marketplace of ideas.  Anyone can public a scientific paper and only their methodology can be scrutinized, not the conclusions. 

I'm afraid I have to disagree, in part..  Lets imagine I'm a maths genius, right?  Full on Beautiful Mind.  But I didn't go to uni and get a doctorate for whatever reason.  So Im sat doing some sums one day and suddenly, holy crap, i realise x=y (or whatever. The more astute of you may have spotted I'm not a maths genius).  I write a paper and send it off to Maths Monthly.  Now, there is very little chance that this paper from a nobody is going to be sent out for peer review.

While Peer Review may mean that the best papers are rigourously checked, the fact remains that not all papers are peer reviewed.  There is a political screening process before that that some papers fail, based on name (not in a racist way I mean in the kudos you have within the field), where your qualification is earned, and so forth.

I'm not claiming global warming skeptics are genii.  I dont understand the science and dont really have the inclination to learn it.  What I am claiming is that if people are being refused the peer review system before they reach it then no claims whatsoever can be made about the validity of their argument.  And if scientists want to work, they need funding.  To get funding they need journal articles.  IF there is a bias in the pre-peer review process against global warming sceptics then any comments about the peer review are redundant.

EDIT: Jude, hope you don't think Im quote mining by snipping and ellipsis-ing.  'Twas just to save space.

Jude

#34
Quote from: Hayley on January 05, 2010, 03:34:15 PMI'm afraid I have to disagree, in part..  Lets imagine I'm a maths genius, right?  Full on Beautiful Mind.  But I didn't go to uni and get a doctorate for whatever reason.  So Im sat doing some sums one day and suddenly, holy crap, i realise x=y (or whatever. The more astute of you may have spotted I'm not a maths genius).  I write a paper and send it off to Maths Monthly.  Now, there is very little chance that this paper from a nobody is going to be sent out for peer review.
There are actually stories of mathematicians who make such breakthroughs that are told by teachers in college.  It all happened a long time ago however, the chances of someone who is untrained and a layman developing something new or useful now are abysmal.  As science and mathematics have become more sophisticated, it's become harder to make new discoveries.  There are still people who are relatively untrained who manage to do.  In fact several years ago a schoolgirl got a study published in a peer review journal against therapeutic touch.  Then there's the Millennium Math Contest, which offers a 1,000,000 dollars to anyone who can prove a couple of unresolved theorems/ideas in mathematics.

It may be harder for a layman who isn't trained or educated to get their theory/theorem/idea published, but it's not impossible if they go through the right channels.  The best way is to find someone who has the credentials and get them to page through your work.
Quote from: Hayley on January 05, 2010, 03:34:15 PMWhile Peer Review may mean that the best papers are rigourously checked, the fact remains that not all papers are peer reviewed.  There is a political screening process before that that some papers fail, based on name (not in a racist way I mean in the kudos you have within the field), where your qualification is earned, and so forth.
If you throw your paper out there haphazardly you might have trouble getting people to review it, that's true.  But if you shop it around enough and work hard, get an individual scientist at a local university, etc. to sponsor it essentially, then it it will get the attention it deserves.  Can't expect scientists to examine every paper that someone wants them to do, they simply don't have the time.  Which is why it's important to work hard if you have something worth their attention.  I've seen too many examples of people who have been published without the proper training and education to really believe it's impossible though.
Quote from: Hayley on January 05, 2010, 03:34:15 PMI'm not claiming global warming skeptics are genii.  I dont understand the science and dont really have the inclination to learn it.  What I am claiming is that if people are being refused the peer review system before they reach it then no claims whatsoever can be made about the validity of their argument.  And if scientists want to work, they need funding.  To get funding they need journal articles.  IF there is a bias in the pre-peer review process against global warming sceptics then any comments about the peer review are redundant.
As for whether or not the peer review process has been tainted, that's an extremely narrow reading of the situation.  Climate Review is one peer reviewed journal, and the point of the scientists in climate gate more or less was that Climate Review was no longer objective.  They saw the publication of a few articles which they personally felt were lacking in scientific merit and skeptical of global warming that gave them cause to doubt the objectivity of Climate Review.  All of their discussion after that was aimed at minimizing the effects Climate Review could have on their research's fair publication, not because they wanted to hide the truth from a journal they believed would poke holes in their ideas, but because they believed Climate Review was tainted.  They have solid, factual reasons to believe this as well.  Do I think they were right?  I don't know, but as mentioned earlier in the thread some people in Climate Review resigned over it.

What bothers me about this is that people aren't putting themselves into the place of the scientists and trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.  Yes the emails look ugly, yes some of what they say is very petty, and yes a lot of this looks bad on the surface from an uneducated layman's point of view.  But "hide the decline" for example referred to a statistical technique they employed which was perfectly valid in order to get a better regression for their graphs.  A lot of the reason they came off as so petty is because of how global warming has been treated by skeptics.

A lot of them like to say Global Warming is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated by men; that's not skepticism, there's too much certainty in it.  Skepticism is doubt, not thinking that you know something you couldn't possible know.  The polarization of "skeptics" has put many scientists into a position where they feel cornered and behave sort of catty as a result.  They have every reason to feel beleaguered however, look at climate gate itself, a significant portion of their emails were stolen and published throughout the world yet no one's decrying the breach of their privacy.
Quote from: Hayley on January 05, 2010, 03:34:15 PMEDIT: Jude, hope you don't think Im quote mining by snipping and ellipsis-ing.  'Twas just to save space.
Nah, I don't mind at all, it's cool.

EDIT:  Sidenote, it's easier to break into the field of Climate Change denial than anywhere else.  There's a bunch of private funding for anyone who tries to publish papers skeptical of climate change from oil companies, free-market think tanks, etc.  For more information:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial

BCdan

I think the lobbying, propaganda and political tricks the heavily polluting oil and coal industries have performed far outshines a few emails amongst a very few scientists. 


~I enjoy random PM's~

RubySlippers

All I want is proof, beyond a reasonable dought and then some, that spending all this money and placing burdens on US industry and citizens that will result will stop and reduce global warming.

What if this is a climate shift they have happened naturally before many times it may not even matter then and might hurt a response to adapt to that?

Can you or the scientific community say with 80% or more assurity what is being proposed will work?

consortium11

Quote from: BCdan on January 05, 2010, 07:22:35 PM
I think the lobbying, propaganda and political tricks the heavily polluting oil and coal industries have performed far outshines a few emails amongst a very few scientists.

The oil, coal and steel industries donate and sponsor virtually all the scientists involved in Climategate. A decent number of the climategate emails are about the scientists getting funding from the likes of Shell and BP. BP especially is in a position where a halt in caron trading would do serious damage to the company... and the same goes for nearlly all the major oil/steel/coal groups.

The head of the IPCC has a (very) lucrative job with TATA Steel and was a non-executive director of an Indian Oil company and currently his foundation (the one related to TATA Steel) owns 47% of a joint venture with the oil company.

Quietly, the industries that are the "bad guys" have been working their way into the Climate Change camp... Shell sponsors the environmental pages in the Guardian for example as well as their eco-conferences.

Jude

#38
Not only can I not say with 80% certainty that what is being proposed will work, I can't even say with 80% certainty that Global Warming is as much of a threat as it is described in popular media.  Thanks to poor journalism, a few loudmouthed idiots (of the Al Gore variety), and the extremist environmentalist movement it's incredibly difficult to separate sensationalist reporting from what the truth is.  The same can be said of almost all scientific coverage today.

I listen to Science podcasts, watch University lectures on the subject, and generally pay attention to science news and I'm confused as hell on the issue.  From my research I'm quite certain that the data shows a trend of warming and that for 30 years or more there's been significant research proving a link between Greenhouses Gases and increase in temperature.  I don't even know if I'm willing to say outright that Global Warming is entirely man made.  I think solar variation might also play a role, but I think it's difficult to argue that mankind's industrial ambitions aren't having an impact on our climate, and that cutting back on CO2 emissions wouldn't mitigate the negative effects we're experiencing.

The bottom line is, there's a great deal of misinformation out there on both sides of the aisle.  Global Warming Skeptics aren't actually skeptics on the whole, they're extremists who have selected their point of view based on the consequences of the ideas they choose to believe and not on the plausibility of said ideas.  Skepticism is questioning and asking for evidence, I'm a skeptic, I read up on the subject and wonder if things are being overblown and try my best to understand what's going on.  Anyone who calls Global Warming a fraud and a hoax perpetrated on mankind, etc. has literally zero credibility.  They're just trying to oversimplify a complicated issue to save themselves cognitive dissonance.

The bottom line is that the evidence for Global Warming needs to be laid out for the public in a reasonable fashion.  The closest we got to that was an Inconvenient Truth, which was laden with Al Gore's personal bullshit story no one wanted to hear about.  He's partly responsible for the politicization of this issue by lumping himself in with it.  He's basically cement shoes attached to the feet of any policy initiative to do something about global warming.

The case for Cap and Trade hasn't been laid out very effectively.  People essentially believe or disbelieve climate change right now on the whole based on what they've been told by people they trust.  Very few people in the public have actually done the research to formulate an opinion, and even fewer people than that have gotten that information from a reliable source, but this is really just the underlying symptom of the real problem:  Americans are largely uninformed and uneducated when it comes to science.

Global Warming is simply one example.  There are widespread misunderstandings about vaccination, evolution, western medicine, and many other scientific topics.  Science education is poor, I think that's part of the problem, but there's more to it than that.  Just imagine the depth of arrogance it takes to proudly proclaim Global Warming is a fraud like many people do, when the researchers working on analyzing and understanding it on the other side of the aisle are literally devoting their lives to gaining knowledge about the matter.

It's their job.  I wouldn't walk into a small business owner's office and start questioning how they run their company without looking over their balance sheets, so why do so many people feel it's OK to read a few links on the web, listen to a talk radio host, or watch a video on youtube, then take from that that scientists are liars?

Things're pretty messed up.  I for one don't think we, as a country, respect the right qualities anymore.  There's too much populist rage, we the people rhetoric, and obsession with traditional values.  Somewhere along the line we forgot that ingenuity and intellectualism were the basis of our country.  We were founded on ideas, not ideologies.

BCdan

Quote from: consortium11 on January 06, 2010, 10:11:23 AM
The oil, coal and steel industries donate and sponsor virtually all the scientists involved in Climategate. A decent number of the climategate emails are about the scientists getting funding from the likes of Shell and BP. BP especially is in a position where a halt in caron trading would do serious damage to the company... and the same goes for nearlly all the major oil/steel/coal groups.

The head of the IPCC has a (very) lucrative job with TATA Steel and was a non-executive director of an Indian Oil company and currently his foundation (the one related to TATA Steel) owns 47% of a joint venture with the oil company.

Quietly, the industries that are the "bad guys" have been working their way into the Climate Change camp... Shell sponsors the environmental pages in the Guardian for example as well as their eco-conferences.

Then why the smear campaign?  Most of these emails were taken wildly out of context.  The scientists weren't making false information, just trying to make people realize the ramifications of the information. 

I just see the oil and coal industries as being the main agitators simply because they have the most to gain by discrediting global warming science. 



~I enjoy random PM's~

consortium11

Quote from: BCdan on January 06, 2010, 12:52:36 PM
Then why the smear campaign?  Most of these emails were taken wildly out of context.  The scientists weren't making false information, just trying to make people realize the ramifications of the information. 

I just see the oil and coal industries as being the main agitators simply because they have the most to gain by discrediting global warming science.

The "smear" campaign hasn't exactly been well-funded... there's a reason it's mainly taken place on blogs and online. If they were receiving real funding from big oil you'd expect it to be much more cohesive and well organised. In addition Oil companies have een diversifying their interest for decades... never more so then now. They fund nearly all of the "green energy" initiatives and they also run several of the major carbon trading desks. Paradoxicly a move away from oil  isn't that bad for nearly all the major companies... in the long run it may even benifit them to get away from something as volatile as oil. If these oil companies were the agitators then they wouldn't fund the scientiests who ended up implicated in climategate... scientists who for a long time have een on the forefront of arguing in support of man-made climate change.

Also, it's worth noting that some of the infomation from the leaked files does indicate that the scientists played pretty fast and loose with the data... or at least the way they interpret and present it. This isn't unprecedented... the infamous hockey stick graph that often seems to appear was discredited... and discredited comprehensively enough that Hans von Storch also dismisses it... von Storch was mentioned earlier in the thread as the editor who resigned from a peer-reviewed journal after it pulished sceptic pieces that weren't up to the standards that should be required. The hockey stick was done by Michael Mann btw... one of the central figures in the emails.

As for the climategate data itself, I'll link you to the best infomation I can;

http://cubeantics.com/2009/12/the-proof-behind-the-cru-climategate-debacle-because-computers-do-lie-when-humans-tell-them-to/

http://cubeantics.com/2009/12/climategate-code-analysis-part-2/

And I assure you, that's not a sceptics blog there... if you look at the other posts the vast majority are about programming and the like. On the other hand, the next two are from an complete and utter sceptics blog... take of them what you will;

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/#more-13939

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/06/american-thinker-understanding-climategates-hidden-decline/#more-13783

As has been said before and will be said again the scientists implicated in Climategate aren't the entire man-made climate change movement... but they are some of the most influential (all of them have major roles in the IPCC) and they have also been the loudest in calling from drastic action and giving doom-laden headlines. What it requires is to perhaps look back at what has been put forward with a more critical eye. The previously mentioned von Storch perhaps put it best when he compared the current situation to hype about the destruction of forrests in Germany... which when it turned out to not be as dramatic as predicted caused a massive loss in confidence in all scientists even vaguely attatched to that area of research. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater... but neither should we simply let it sit there...

Jude

Quote from: consortium11 on January 06, 2010, 06:37:25 PMThe "smear" campaign hasn't exactly been well-funded... there's a reason it's mainly taken place on blogs and online. If they were receiving real funding from big oil you'd expect it to be much more cohesive and well organised. In addition Oil companies have een diversifying their interest for decades... never more so then now. They fund nearly all of the "green energy" initiatives and they also run several of the major carbon trading desks. Paradoxicly a move away from oil  isn't that bad for nearly all the major companies... in the long run it may even benifit them to get away from something as volatile as oil. If these oil companies were the agitators then they wouldn't fund the scientiests who ended up implicated in climategate... scientists who for a long time have een on the forefront of arguing in support of man-made climate change.
Anti-global warming groups have offered upwards of 10,000 dollars to scientists as an incentive to get them to publish papers skeptical of global warming.  It really hasn't taken place online and in blogs; that's only one portion of what's going on.  The same institute that fought against the science that was opposed to Reagan's Missile Defense debacle has been combating global warming as well.  The oil companies have also been doing their thing, they're just rather clever about it.  They try and influence policy via lobbying and commercials which don't directly oppose global warming, but instead offer tempting ideas that encourage people not to buy into it for personal gain.

Quote from: consortium11 on January 06, 2010, 06:37:25 PMAlso, it's worth noting that some of the infomation from the leaked files does indicate that the scientists played pretty fast and loose with the data... or at least the way they interpret and present it. This isn't unprecedented... the infamous hockey stick graph that often seems to appear was discredited... and discredited comprehensively enough that Hans von Storch also dismisses it... von Storch was mentioned earlier in the thread as the editor who resigned from a peer-reviewed journal after it pulished sceptic pieces that weren't up to the standards that should be required. The hockey stick was done by Michael Mann btw... one of the central figures in the emails.

As for the climategate data itself, I'll link you to the best infomation I can;

http://cubeantics.com/2009/12/the-proof-behind-the-cru-climategate-debacle-because-computers-do-lie-when-humans-tell-them-to/

http://cubeantics.com/2009/12/climategate-code-analysis-part-2/
When reading the first link I spent the entire time wondering how he got the source code, and then how he knew they actually used it.  Plus there's the question of understanding why the program was written using the interpolation features involved.  It's entirely possible that there's a perfectly valid reason why that was done.  Pulling out part of a complicated procedure for scrutiny the way he did wasn't fair.  The assessment was completely out of context.

If you find something that you don't understand in the middle of a scientific work the proper response is to ask questions, not to declare falsification of data or throw around terms insulting the integrity of the group you're discussing because you don't grasp what's going on.

Quote from: consortium11 on January 06, 2010, 06:37:25 PMAnd I assure you, that's not a sceptics blog there... if you look at the other posts the vast majority are about programming and the like. On the other hand, the next two are from an complete and utter sceptics blog... take of them what you will;

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/#more-13939

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/06/american-thinker-understanding-climategates-hidden-decline/#more-13783
I'm tired of reading articles that other people put forth on this thread when no one seems to take the time to read the links I give, so I'm not even going to bother scanning anything else until the people I'm arguing with time and time again show me the same courtesy I'm showing them.

Quote from: consortium11 on January 06, 2010, 06:37:25 PMAs has been said before and will be said again the scientists implicated in Climategate aren't the entire man-made climate change movement... but they are some of the most influential (all of them have major roles in the IPCC) and they have also been the loudest in calling from drastic action and giving doom-laden headlines. What it requires is to perhaps look back at what has been put forward with a more critical eye. The previously mentioned von Storch perhaps put it best when he compared the current situation to hype about the destruction of forrests in Germany... which when it turned out to not be as dramatic as predicted caused a massive loss in confidence in all scientists even vaguely attatched to that area of research. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater... but neither should we simply let it sit there...
We do need to put forth effort to verify the data.  The biggest thing the climategate scientists are guilty of is not following the spirit of science.  Science is about openness, transparency, clear communication of ideas, and reproducibility.  The scientists in climategate did not adhere to those principles.

consortium11

Quote from: Jude on January 06, 2010, 07:40:32 PM
Anti-global warming groups have offered upwards of 10,000 dollars to scientists as an incentive to get them to publish papers skeptical of global warming.  It really hasn't taken place online and in blogs; that's only one portion of what's going on.  The same institute that fought against the science that was opposed to Reagan's Missile Defense debacle has been combating global warming as well.  The oil companies have also been doing their thing, they're just rather clever about it.  They try and influence policy via lobbying and commercials which don't directly oppose global warming, but instead offer tempting ideas that encourage people not to buy into it for personal gain.

So on one hand we have independant groups offering $10,000 a paper and from your own wiki link, Exxon giving $2.9m a year (in total) to sceptic and denial groups.

On the other hand we have Phil Jones alone recieving $22m since 1990 in funding, we have the fact that CRU itself was set up with the help of and still receives funding from British Petroleum and Shell, the leaked emails show they were soliciting further funds (including from Exxon). As mentioned before Shell also sponsors Eco Conferences and the Guardian's environment page (where one of the loudest spoken pro-man made gloal warming journalists writes). And that's not mentioned the large amounts of tax-payer supported funds they get: CRU for example gets the majority of its funding from the EU. The market itself is forcing oil companies away from their classic source of income and into "alternative" fields. It may be a little quicker than some of them like, but in the end they benefit from alternative energy.

And then there's the media aspect of it. While in the US I'm sure FOX News is pretty sceptical, I can't think of another major news source that does the same. The bbc has the odd interview and article but on the whole its coverage is has been so biased that the trust has ordered an internal view into their entire environmental coverage... and let's remember that it took weeks for the mainstream media to report the leaked files and emails as anything other than a hacking story.


Quote from: Jude on January 06, 2010, 07:40:32 PMWhen reading the first link I spent the entire time wondering how he got the source code

Em... Climategate. It wasn't just a set of emails that got leaked...

Quote from: Jude on January 06, 2010, 07:40:32 PM...and then how he knew they actually used it.  Plus there's the question of understanding why the program was written using the interpolation features involved.  It's entirely possible that there's a perfectly valid reason why that was done.  Pulling out part of a complicated procedure for scrutiny the way he did wasn't fair.  The assessment was completely out of context.

He posted the full program code in the second link; is there something there indicating that the part he highlighted is out of context?

And agreed that there's no evidence that it was used. Without the raw climate data we can't verify it. Unfortunately CRU has consistantly blocked and dodged questions on this and requests for that data... to the extent the emails imply people should delete what they could and try to work round FOI requests. The NASA numers have also been near impossile to come by... and at this stage despite the negative reaction neither of those two institutions look likely to release the figures... which is odd... especially looking at the litany of excuses CRU has put forward (from damaging international relations to the fact they misplaced the raw data)

Quote from: Jude on January 06, 2010, 07:40:32 PMIf you find something that you don't understand in the middle of a scientific work the proper response is to ask questions, not to declare falsification of data or throw around terms insulting the integrity of the group you're discussing because you don't grasp what's going on.

Which sounds good... until the fact that the exact same type of program was used to create the Hockey Stick graph... the one thats been pretty much proven false. When a set of code from a group that works closely with the perpertraitor of that seems to give the same results using the same methodoligy, it's not a massive leap to think they may be attempting the same thing.

Quote from: Jude on January 06, 2010, 07:40:32 PMI'm tired of reading articles that other people put forth on this thread when no one seems to take the time to read the links I give, so I'm not even going to bother scanning anything else until the people I'm arguing with time and time again show me the same courtesy I'm showing them.

Perhaps we've crossed wires here... from what I've seen you've posted a couple of wiki links (on denial and its funding and von Storch resigning) and a youtue video... all of which I've read/watched.

Quote from: Jude on January 06, 2010, 07:40:32 PMWe do need to put forth effort to verify the data.  The biggest thing the climategate scientists are guilty of is not following the spirit of science.  Science is about openness, transparency, clear communication of ideas, and reproducibility.  The scientists in climategate did not adhere to those principles.

Agreed. Until the data is verified the 2007 IPCC report (which is based heavily upon it) can't e looked at as a legitimate document... which leaves the 2000 report as probably the most reliale. The 2000 report includes the mwp/little ice age (the contentious areas in both the code and the emails) which in turn means the climate today is neither unprecedented or even particularly high. There also have to be serious questions aout the IPCC as a whole considering that these scientists took leading roles in the 2007 report (as well as the conflicts of interest of the Chairman of the IPCC) as well as the peer review process... as well as the previously mentioned attempts to "blacklist" a journal that may or may not be legitimate other emails make clear the scientists attempted to freeze out von Storch irrespective of whether the science was correct or not... which clearly isn't.

MercyfulFate

I'm no climatologist and I'll admit that, but Climate change/global warming has always irked me. I don't doubt that it may be happening, what makes me skeptical is people's reaction to it. It seems too...almost insane. Now I understand if it were happening the way it's described that action is necessary, and perhaps this explains it. However the way opponents criticize it as being a "quasi-religious" movement is absolutely true.

It also seems there are plenty of skeptical scientists, problem is they're laughed at and even barred from their field if they don't agree, which isn't very scientific. There are debates on a lot of scientific issues for and against things without these types of reactions, why for this?

Also the plans many are proposing to "fix" global warming are downright wrong to me. Cap and trade is a joke, it will not stop companies from polluting. In fact those with connections will be able to pollute all they want with no repercussions. Add to this that it will cause energy prices to become more unstable by creating another speculative market for Wall Street to mess with, and do we want that?

Also global warming "reparations", basically giving countries that didn't pollute (not even true anyway) tons and tons of money to build green infrastructure. All of this will raise the costs to American, and European and other families by hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Other proposed thoughts have been controlling people's travel, basically giving you X number of miles you can fly or drive and then you can't after that. Does that seem right? Even population control has been discussed, while these last two may not happen it's disturbing enough that it's even on the table whatsoever.

RubySlippers

I don't see an issue here Eventually fossil fuels will become harder to use cost effectively oil the major one is overits peak and reserves are harder to get at so down theroad we will have to go to other options. This likely 50 to 100 years from now. Then Global Warming will be dealt with by natural market forces gasoline costing say $20 a gallon vs. an electric car most will choose the latter I think at that point.

So dangerous emissions will drop naturally at that point reducing the threat over the next several hundred years.

Why should the US worry we can adapt with hydroponnics, low water irrigation and other technology if we have to in the meantime.

consortium11

Quote from: RubySlippers on January 14, 2010, 02:19:02 AM
I don't see an issue here Eventually fossil fuels will become harder to use cost effectively oil the major one is overits peak and reserves are harder to get at so down theroad we will have to go to other options. This likely 50 to 100 years from now. Then Global Warming will be dealt with by natural market forces gasoline costing say $20 a gallon vs. an electric car most will choose the latter I think at that point.

So dangerous emissions will drop naturally at that point reducing the threat over the next several hundred years.

Why should the US worry we can adapt with hydroponnics, low water irrigation and other technology if we have to in the meantime.

It's perhaps worth noting that in much of Europe we're paying close to $8 a gallon for unleaded with no real impact on traditional petrol car usage. The price may hit a point where it's the "straw that broke the camals back", but that appears to be some way off (although of course the spending habits of Europe and the US are very different)

Taking the debate in a very different direction, many governments get a large amount of their income from petrol taxes... if and when people do move away from it it'll be interesting to see how and where the government picks up the shortfall.

It's also worth noting that the more extreme voices in favour of serious legislation think that 50-100 years is too long to let this lie... they think we need drastic action now or life as we know it will change forever.

Zakharra

 Didn't they just find a possibly huge oil field under 20' of water off the coast of Louisiana?

consortium11

Two more recent findings that put some serious dents in the IPCC 2007 report.

The first got the most coverage... the fact that glaciers would start disappearing from the Himalayas by 2035 has been pretty comprehensibly rebuffed and the IPCC has apologised for putting it in their report. That itself isn't bad... a group should be big enough to admit its mistakes and move on. What's worrying is after the blood and thunder about peer-review and how only peer reviewed materials mattered we find that the 2035 figure came from a 1999 New Scientist article quoting off hand remarks from an Indian scientist that 6 years later was quoted by the WWF and then put into the 2007 report. That's not peer review... its not even basic review. Wikipedia has higher editorial standards then that.

The second was less reported but far more telling. Climategate itself put some serious holes in the reliability of the HadCrut data, but now it appears the reliability of the NASA and NOAA figures may well be distorted as well. Brief telling examples are Bolivia and Canada.

Talia



I like this site, so I thought I would share. There is always great information and stays current.

http://theglobalwarmingtruth.com/
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I'm of the beliefs that anthropogenic, CO2 global warming is real and is happening, but that because dealing with that has become a political issue more than a scientific issue, facts have become very last-place in all of this.

The leading atmospheric scientists have become not just scientists, but political advocates.  This has meant, in my view, that they have decided that alarmist predictions are necessary to scare people into doing things about the issue, so they push worst-possible-case scenarios as if they were most-likely. 

Also, they are not economists and are not qualified to judge that part of things.

One of my worries is that reducing CO2 emissions will make it harder for poor people and poor nations to improve their lot.

Another is that a lot of the governmental initiatives will end up doing very little to make real changes, but will end up being either revenue generating schemes or patronage schemes, as cap and trade systems seem to end up being.  Under pressure to 'do something' against climate change, governments will indeed "do something" -- but not necessarily a smart something.
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