March 22, 2007
It's a little bit frustrating because while I would like to see that idea thoroughly debunked, I am open to evidence to the contrary. (Emphasis on evidence.)
Recently, Al Gore took his charts and graphs to Congress and talked to them about man-made global warming. According to SciAm, some of the senators showed their butts.
Scientific American Blog: Gore Returns to Senate to Butt Heads With Climate Change Skeptics, Propose Real Solutions
As soon as the Democrats took both houses of Congress, one thing became inevitable: Gore was coming back to the Senate, if only to address his all-consuming passion, climate change.Today at 2:30 EST, at the behest of Barbara Boxer (D-California), the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Gore got 30 minutes to speak before a packed house. Immediately after, noted climate change skeptic Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), who famously declared that global warming "is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public," got a chance to lay in to the former vice president, at one point even attempting to ambush him by embarrassing him into signing a pledge that he reduce his
emissionsenergy use to that of a typical American household.
I haven't watched the video from CSPAN, but I think I will -- provided I can get my browser to open something with real-time streaming protocol.
According to SciAm, Gore also addresses the argument that solar energy could be responsible for the observed global warming trend, but what frustrates me about these SciAm posts is that they don't explain it, so I really don't know. I guess I should read more than their blog to find out what they think.
They also mention those pesky environmental models. I don't know about any particular models, but I know models depend heavily on the assumptions made and measures given it when they are created and they can be wildly inaccurate.
We've been over this: given the Deep Green's history of lying, no one should be willing to take them at their word.
I have to admit that I've sort of set up an impossible goal for the pro-anthropogenic global warming crowd, though. I am willing to accept evidence for any argument, really, but I'm also not interested in global warming or even climatology beyond the basic, national and local meteorology. I am not willing to actually dig into the available data at this time.
The whole political and commercial (How much money is being made by the environmentalism industry both in terms of environmental consulting, government subsidies, video sales, Oscars, etc?) aspect of this discussion is tiresome and irritating.
How could someone like me ever hope to dispassionately consider all of the evidence and purported evidence? I don't think someone like me can.
Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at
11:36 AM
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Posted by: Michael Caution at March 22, 2007 12:35 PM (mDdOD)
I would be interested to compare how they explain the basic science and then form wider integrations to draw a different conclusion.
Posted by: Trey Givens at March 22, 2007 02:44 PM (rQ+Fh)
Posted by: Michael Caution at March 22, 2007 04:44 PM (mDdOD)
I mentioned the problems with models, and that movie The Great Global Warming Swindle mentioned that some people put in ridiculously high CO2 numbers in their models. While I can see some people doing that, I find it difficult to believe that the majority of the scientific community would be swayed by such an obvious, grotesque assumption.
Posted by: Trey Givens at March 23, 2007 02:58 AM (ErOeR)
The majority of the scientific journalism community... now that's a different story. If you find it difficult to believe that *they* can be swayed by leftist flimflam... well, I've got a certain bridge for sale...
Posted by: Inspector at March 26, 2007 02:01 AM (P9A4m)
As a non-scientist who should I trust? Just those people supporting the position I prefer?
I've recently made the acquaintance of someone working on one of NASA's climatology teams. He and his bosss are both convinced of anthropogenic climate change. I reiterate my lack of scientific understanding and basic ignorance of the relevant facts, so what am I to think when the claims of anthropogenic climate change aren't just being made by the hippies and their paparazzi?
The general mistrust of all sources offering claims against anthropogenic climate change gives the whiff of a conspiracy theory mentality. Indeed, isn't that what we're saying is happening?
To combat it, it would be ideal if everyone could do their own climatology research, but that is not feasible. It's not even feasible to ask everyday people to read even several climatology reports.
I find myself stuck without any reliable sources of information or a means of evaluating the veracity of claims in either direction.
Posted by: Trey Givens at March 26, 2007 03:47 AM (4UkCP)
No, not as such. You don't so much have polls, as you do head counts where the journalists choose to count everyone who believes in AGW, regardless of credentials, as a "scientist," and refuses to count anyone who doesn't.
And if you don't think leftist journalists would lie in such an underhanded manner, then... well, there's that aforementioned bridge.
As for conspiracies, check my earlier post on those. I'm willing to believe a conspiracy exists when the conspirators are shouting from the rooftops exactly what their ill intentions are.
And in this case, that's a big 10-4. The greens will tell you openly that they will lie, cheat, steal, or whatever it takes to implement a green agenda, regardless of the scientific truth. And while every given scientists isn't a green, you had better believe that the academics, media men, and bureaucrats who hold the keys to the funding, sure *are*.
Posted by: Inspector at March 26, 2007 10:47 PM (P9A4m)
I have a bunch of liars on one end of things, a whole lot more people at various places in the middle, and then people at the other end who mistrust everything having to do with the topic at all.
Both sides seems to have evidence that support their argument and all the means I as a non-scientist have at my disposal for making an evaluation on the topic are denounced as unreliable from the opposition.
I really just want the anthropogenic climate change argument boiled down to just the facts that demonstrate a causal link between human activity and climate change to the exclusion of natural climatological activity.
What's worse, because this is an ongoing scientific inquiry, the available evidence is continually changing.
Posted by: Trey Givens at March 27, 2007 03:06 AM (ErOeR)
Posted by: Inspector at March 27, 2007 04:04 AM (8OcvC)
I can understand environmentalists and even scientists who are sympathetic to environmentalism saying foolish things, but the scientific community is generally pretty stodgy and conservative when it comes to announcing definitive conclusions about anything.
For various pro-ACG arguments, I've been reading over at Real Climate.
Posted by: Trey Givens at March 27, 2007 04:53 AM (ErOeR)
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