Warming's impacts sped up, worsened since Kyoto

[TomCADem]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then.

As the world has talked for a dozen years about what to do next, new ship passages opened through the once frozen summer sea ice of the Arctic. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice sheets have lost trillions of tons of ice. Mountain glaciers in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa are shrinking faster than before.

***
Even the gloomiest climate models back in the 1990s didn't forecast results quite this bad so fast. "The latest science is telling us we are in more trouble than we thought," said Janos Pasztor, climate adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

And here's why: Since an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas pollution was signed in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, the level of carbon dioxide in the air has increased 6.5 percent. Officials from across the world will convene in Copenhagen next month to seek a follow-up pact, one that President Barack Obama says "has immediate operational effect ... an important step forward in the effort to rally the world around a solution."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/sci_climate_09_post_kyoto

---

While the U.S. media dwells on a couple of hacked e-mails taken out of context, climate change continues to accelerate. You have to be amazed with our corporate media.

[salguine]

1. What do you wanna bet we respond by ten more years of fucking around and doing nothing?

[karynnj]

65. I certainly hope we don't - but was disheartened to see that on DU

much support was given to the unacceptable position of 14 Democratic coal state Senators. ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=433&topic_id=222 )

To me the unwillingness to press Senators, like Franken, Harken, and Feingold on this indicates that on the left there is real weakness at the grassroots level. The real question to people is - "Do you believe the science?" If you do, this has to be an issue where friendly Senators are politely pressed to reconsider their positions.

The fact is that Senator Kerry has managed to get support from some military people and some important business people. He seems to be doing as much as could be expected. If this fails, it will be because other Senators are too myopic to see what has to be done or because they place their own job security above the planet -- or they are hoping the science is wrong.

[rayofreason]

2. I call bullshit...

...on one part of this story. Antarctic ice is growing, not shrinking.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25348657-401,00.html

And some original literature for those into that. Just google the DOI to see the abstract. You'll need access to GRL to read the whole thing.

Tedesco, M., and A. J. Monaghan (2009), An updated Antarctic melt record through 2009 and its linkages to high-latitude and tropical climate variability, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L18502, doi:10.1029/2009GL039186.

Now there is an AGW view of the Antarctic results:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16988-why-antarctic-ice-is-growing-despite-global-warming.html

Note what J. Turner of the BAS has to say:

"By the end of the century we expect one third of Antarctic sea ice to disappear," says Turner. "So we're trying to understand why it's increasing now, at a time of global warming."

Maybe they will figure it out. Maybe not.


Regarding the hacked emails, there is troubling stuff there regardless of your position on AGW. Why would any scientist email colleagues and ask them to delete emails in a message where the subject is "FOI"? And why would any scientist be unwilling to allow access to non-commercial data for critical scrutiny by outsiders (or anyone for that matter)?

[notesdev]

5. It's a lot worse than that

If you have a torrent program (I use utorrent, http://utorrent.com) you can download the entire ZIP file of the documents taken from Hadley CRU.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5171206/Hadley_CRU_Files_%28FOI2009.zip%29

I've been reading through them since I found this and some of the comments are amazing. They are unambiguously more concerned with managing perceptions and altering data to fit into their theories than they are with figuring out what the truth is.

I found the emails from Oct 14 of this year to be particularly startling - two of them threatening to quit membership in the UK's most prestigious scientific organization if they are forced to release their calculations. Not very scientist-like behavior!

They keep complaining about a guy named Steve McIntyre, so I looked him up and found his website at

http://climateaudit.org

Looking through that stuff he is absolutely ripping them to shreds. Seems he's been onto them for a while trying to audit their stuff, and they aren't happy about it at all. Normally a scientist should welcome confirmation and criticism, that's how you get better results.

[gristy]

8. Does the alleged behavior of these particular scientists influence your belief as to whether

global warming is happening or not?

If so, why?

[The Night Owl]

11. Since you're so interested in Steve McIntyre, I thought you might want to read...

...the Source Watch entry on him.

From SourceWatch.com:

Biography

McIntyre is, according to the Wall Street Journal, a "semiretired Toronto minerals consultant" who has spent "two years and about $5,000 of his own money trying to double-check the influential graphic" known as the "hockey stick" that illustrates a reconstruction of average surface temperatures in the Northern hemisphere, created by University of Virginia climatologist Michael Mann. He does not have an advanced degree and has published two articles in the journal Energy and Environment, which has become a venue for skeptics and is not carried in the ISI listing of peer-reviewed journals.<1>

McIntyre was also exposed for having unreported ties to CGX Energy, Inc., an oil and gas exploration company, which listed McIntyre as a "strategic advisor." <1> He is the former President of Dumont Nickel Inc., and was President of Northwest Exploration Company Limited, the predecessor company to CGX Energy Inc. As of 2003, he was the strategic advisor of CGX Energy Inc. He has also been a policy analyst at both the governments of Ontario and of Canada. <1>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Stephen_McIntyre

Do the scientists whose illegally obtained private emails you're enjoying reading have any unreported ties to financial interests?

[notesdev]

13. Yep, check the documents

You can see they put in quite a bit of work into getting cash from private interests, companies that are heavily invested in "green" industry.

Anyway, the guy puts his work out in the public for the world to see and comment on, unlike the people who are claiming we're all doomed unless their research is adequately funded and we all submit to a rigorous control regime right out of 1984.

Only the people who tell you what you want to hear are pure of motive ;)

[The Night Owl]

20. Try answering the question I asked you.

I didn't ask you if you know of climate scientists trying to get money from private interests. I asked you if you know of climate scientists having undisclosed ties to private interests. If you do, name the scientists and the interests and I'll see what I can find out.

[Bjorn Against]

23. Nobody wants to hear that global warming is happening...

But we want to hear scientific evidence even if it is bad news or it threatens the financial interests of the oil industry shills that you like to cite.

If you think scientists are proposing a "rigorous control regime right out of 1984" I would like you to cite specifics of this rigorous control regime they have supposedly proposed. I want links to scientists speaking like Orwell, don't give me links to some oil industry hack who claims that scientists are proposing this control regime give me links to the scientists' own words.

[karynnj]

67. Are you seriously claiming that the scientists do not put their work out in public?

Unlike a person with an internet site?

the scientists publish results in scholarly, peer reviewed journals and their expertise is in the fields they write in.

[The Night Owl]

69. Welcome to the weird world of Notesdev, a place where evil scientists are able to...

...hide their work in plain sight.

Surface temperature record: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp
Model E: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE
Raw temperature data: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2

[karynnj]

73. I've seen him before, often on the economic forum, where he has been as alarmist as the GOP and

the media. He has ignored that, while the economy is in terrible shape, the Obama administration has pulled us back from the abyss that scared everyone I trust late last year and early this year.

I linked to his prediction of a 30% stock market decline by last week made in August. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4157067&mesg_id=4157535

[The Night Owl]

74. Heh. The only thing missing is the frenzied recommendation to buy gold.

Once that comes in we will have our very own Glenn Beck in Notesdev. Everyone wave to DU Glenn Beck in the making.

[Bjorn Against]

12. I looked up Steve McIntyre as well and found a piece of information not advertised on his web site

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Toronto. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford before graduating in 1971.<1>

McIntyre worked for 30 years in the mineral business,<1> the last part of these in the hard-rock mineral exploration as an officer or director of several public mineral exploration companies.<2> He has also been a policy analyst at both the governments of Ontario and of Canada.<3> He was the president and founder of Northwest Exploration Company Limited and a director of its parent company, Northwest Explorations Inc. When Northwest Explorations Inc. was taken over in 1998 by CGX Resources Inc. to form the oil and gas exploration company CGX Energy Inc., McIntyre ceased being a director. McIntyre was a strategic advisor for CGX in 2000 through 2003.<4>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McIntyre

It looks like he has ties to the oil industry, funny how so many of these people working to discredit global warming research have a financial interest in discrediting real science.
Prior to 2003 he was an officer or director of several small public mineral exploration companies.

[notesdev]

14. Even the people being criticized

find that insufficient reason to reject his findings.

[Bjorn Against]

18. What findings?

Can you cite me a peer reviewed article that he has written? If not then his findings are not science.

[notesdev]

21. Why the focus on peer review?

Is it because you know the climate science peer review system is compromised with interested insiders?

The Mann 'hockey stick' fraud passed peer review, which goes to show how much that is worth.

Here's evidence that the Hadley CRU team was deliberately picking and choosing peer review based on whether they would accept the findings without the supporting data:

---

From: Phil Jones <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: See the link below
Date: Thu Mar 19 17:02:53 2009

Ben,
I don't know whether they even had a meeting yet - but I did say I would
send something to their Chief Exec.
In my 2 slides worth at Bethesda I will be showing London's UHI
and the effect that it hasn't got any bigger since 1900. It's easy
to do with 3 long time series. It is only one urban site (St James Park),
but that is where the measurements are from. Heathrow has a bit
of a UHI and it has go bigger.
I'm having a dispute with the new editor of Weather. I've complained
about him to the RMS Chief Exec. If I don't get him to back down, I won't
be sending any more papers to any RMS journals and I'll be resigning from the RMS.
The paper is about London and its UHI!
Cheers
Phil
At 16:48 19/03/2009, you wrote:

Thanks, Phil. The stuff on the website is awful. I'm really sorry you have to deal with
that kind of crap.
If the RMS is going to require authors to make ALL data available - raw data PLUS
results from all intermediate calculations - I will not submit any further papers to RMS
journals.
Cheers,
Ben

---

Peer review in this case has failed.

[The Night Owl]

24. Yes! Let's throw Chris Monckton into the mix! With his diploma in journalism...

...he is very qualified to evaluate climate change science.

[Bjorn Against]

25. There are thousands of peer reviewed articles out there...

Even if you believe that peer review failed in this instance, how do you explain why there is not a single peer reviewed article anywhere that backs up the position of your oil industry shills?

Peer review is essential to science, if something is not peer reviewed it is not science. That is why there is a focus on peer reviewed articles, because science is not opinion and there is a requirement that people either put their work up for scrutiny or they don't get it recognized as science.

If you don't think peer review is important because of an e-mail between two scientists who do not represent the entire scientific community then it is pretty clear that you have no interest in science, you only want to believe what the oil industry shills want you to believe.

[notesdev]

26. Ah we have an area of agreement

You wrote:
"because science is not opinion and there is a requirement that people either put their work up for scrutiny or they don't get it recognized as science.

Why then do you accept the validity of those who have refused to put up their work for scrutiny, yet reject out of hand those who do so freely?

I have given you direct evidence that the AGW camp practices the former (as well as outright fraud), and their most prominent critic has put his work out for anyone in the world to see.

I am glad you agree that the fundamental AGW papers - where the work was not put up for scrutiny - is not science.

[Bjorn Against]

29. Putting up a blog post is not the same as submitting to scrutiny by a panel of scientists

Anyone can write a blog post, that is not even close to the same as putting your work up for scrutiny in the way peer review is. You are obsessed with a single case in which you think that the peer review was not up to par, well I have some good news for you. Did you know that if you believe a piece of science is wrong you can challenge it by presenting data before a peer review panel to disprove any theory that you think is flawed? You can even try and disprove the law of gravity, all science is up for review and scientists do everything they possibly can to try to disprove a theory. So please gather up a team of scientists and go challenge global warming, if you have better evidence than these scientists presented then bring your evidence to a scientific panel for their consideration.

I think you know however that your evidence is not solid enough to get through a scientific panel, so you will continue to spread your conspiracy theory that all scientists are engaged in some massive cover up of scientific data.

[notesdev]

33. There is MORE scrutiny on a public blog post than there is with climate science peer review

The peer review is all done by the same small crowd of people who affirm each other's work without even checking the data. There is NO legitimacy to that process regardless of the lofty name it may be given.

That blog post is open to anyone - the peer review process is closed. If you have an objection to the data or conclusions of a blog post, you can go post your objection and get a response. The same is not true of peer review as it is conducted today in climate science.

There is no doubt in my mind which provides a greater level of scrutiny. Our very conversation right now is demonstrating it - you're giving my arguments here more scrutiny than a paper published in a climate science journal. Passing peer review in climate science at this point in time is more about who you are and who you know than the validity of what you are publishing. Google the phrase "climate science peer review fraud" - are all those testaments to the broken nature of the system as is the word of industry-funded hypocrites?

My comments and your comments here are open for the world to see and opine on. This exchange is far more open and transparent than the peer review system is at this time.

If you have any remaining doubts as to the validity of peer review, go check to see how Galileo fared in his peer review when he dared suggest that the earth revolves around the sun.

[Bjorn Against]

45. You are no Galileo, and the Catholic Church is no peer review panel

For your information peer review panels do look at the data presented, in fact it is a very rigorous process to get something through peer review. Have you gone to a college and asked the professors about their experiences submitting articles for peer review? Even the most brilliant professors are fortunate if they can get one article through the process, and that is only after it has been sent back to them multiple times for revisions. It is extremely rare for anything to be accepted in its first draft, the scientists on these panels go through the data very extensively. That does not mean that all peer review panels are perfect and no bad data ever gets through, but I can assure you that it goes through far more scrutiny than any blog post does.

By your logic a post on Free Republic is more reliable than a peer reviewed journal article because people can comment on it. Sorry, but simply being open for public comment does not make bad information more reliable.

[sudopod]

63. There's something to be said about the quality of the peers though.

I may be an engineer, but I'm sure as hell not qualified to peer review a neuroscience paper.

Likewise, five hundred guys who listen to Alex Jones on the internets might not be adequately prepared to, say, discuss the concentration of greenhouse gasses found in ice cores from Greenland or consider the finer points of a high resolution solar and atmospheric simulation.

There are also varying levels of journal quality. You can get a joke paper by the reviewers at a third class journal like Social Text but those shenanigans won't get by Physical Review in any of it's multitude of forms.

[karynnj]

68. Does the blog allow comments and if so can the owner erase them?

The fact is that anyone can create a blog and put stuff on it. They can even allow comments. They also control the mic as completely as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do.

[notesdev]

27. More on peer review

From someone who has actually done quite a bit of it:

---

Peer review, on which lay people place great weight, varies from important, where the editors and the referees are competent and responsible, to a complete farce, where they are not. As a rule, not surprisingly, the process operates somewhere in the middle, being more than a joke but less than the nearly flawless system of Olympian scrutiny that outsiders imagine it to be. Any journal editor who desires, for whatever reason, to knock down a submission can easily do so by choosing referees he knows full well will knock it down; likewise, he can easily obtain favorable referee reports. As I have always counseled young people whose work was rejected, seemingly on improper or insufficient grounds, the system is a crap shoot. Personal vendettas, ideological conflicts, professional jealousies, methodological disagreements, sheer self-promotion and a great deal of plain incompetence and irresponsibility are no strangers to the scientific world; indeed, that world is rife with these all-too-human attributes. In no event can peer review ensure that research is correct in its procedures or its conclusions. The history of every science is a chronicle of one mistake after another. In some sciences these mistakes are largely weeded out in the course of time; in others they persist for extended periods; and in some sciences, such as economics, actual scientific retrogression may continue for generations under the misguided belief that it is really progress.

---

source:
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/38532.html

Ultimately, an emphasis on peer review rather than an emphasis on truth is nothing more than a logical fallacy of claim to authority.

[The Night Owl]

28. Okay, so the peer review process is neither perfect nor fatally flawed. We know this.

If you know of an evaluation tool superior to the peer review process then lay it on us.

[Bjorn Against]

30. Don't you know that you don't need peer review, all you need is a blog from an oil industry shill.

No need to pay attention to peer review when you can focus on truthiness.

[The Night Owl]

59. Don't forget British royalty! Lord Monckton has spoken! {EOM}

[notesdev]

32. Scientific method is the superior tool

Peer review in climate science is not rigorous and data is not reviewed; what's more, the reviewers all know each other and review each other's work, so it is an incestuous relationship that does not fulfill the function that it does in other fields, e.g. physics or mathematics.

What we need from the AGW crowd is a testable hypothesis in order to take it credibly as science. When they make claims that cannot be tested, such as "human activity is causing global warming" that is not science, that is speculation.

For the hypothesis to be worth anything, it needs to be able to predict future events. I am unaware of any such hypothesis put forward by AGW. What we do have in its stead is a steady stream of TEOTWAWKI claims, none of which have come to pass. When asked to show their work, they refuse until legally compelled to do so by FOI requests.

Here's the contents of a document from the Hadley CRU files, filename 'jones-foiathoughts.doc'

---

Options appear to be:

1. Send them the data
2. Send them a subset removing station data from some of the countries who made us pay in the normals papers of Hulme et al. (1990s) and also any number that David can remember. This should also omit some other countries like (Australia, NZ, Canada, Antarctica). Also could extract some of the sources that Anders added in (31-38 source codes in J&M 2003). Also should remove many of the early stations that we coded up in the 1980s.
3. Send them the raw data as is, by reconstructing it from GHCN. How could this be done? Replace all stations where the WMO ID agrees with what is in GHCN. This would be the raw data, but it would annoy them.

---

Have you ever heard of a scientist who would behave in this manner? Unless they know there is a problem with their work and it cannot be independently verified, there is no reason any legitimate scientist would hesitate to make full disclosure.

I'm not a big expert in climate science, but my interest in economics has given me quite a bit of skill in spotting fraud, and what these people are doing is fraud. What the actual state of the climate is, I cannot say. What I can say is that there is no basis for the claims that human activity is causing global warming. They ALL come down to these same few people - Mann, Jones, Briffa, Overpeck, Petersen, and a handful of others.

What we expect when we give legitimacy to the word 'science' is that a hypothesis is put out there, and tested repeatedly, over and over again, with objective observations made not just by a handful of parties but by many, both believers and skeptics, which refine the original hypothesis into something that matches reality closely enough that it can be used as a reliable predictor of future events. None of that has occurred here.

[The Night Owl]

36. The models are predicting future events.

James Hansen's graph from 1988:



Scenario B turned out to be the most accurate.

[notesdev]

38. Based on what data?

We need to find reliable global temperature data that is NOT based on Mann et al. Hansen is part of that inner circle and his work is based on Mann, which in turn is based on the cherry-picked Yamal data - check his citations and you will find this to be true. Much of the following AGW claims are then based on Hansen - all undermined by the original, fabricated conclusions that invalidate the entire chain of research founded upon it.

All the escalating-temperature predictions are grounded in the Yamal fraud, every last one of them. That is the problem in trying to answer the question of what the real temperature trends are.

[The Night Owl]

64. Hansen's Scenario B matches observational data quite nicely. I suppose you think...

...he got lucky?

[karynnj]

72. Pretty good prediction - Now, let's look at Notedev's prediction of last August

He posts more in the Economy forum than elsewhere, so I assume that is where he has the greatest interest and quite possibly the greatest expertise in that field.

Here is what he posted in August, making a three month prediction. Fortunately, it is now slightly more than 3 months later. Let's look to see if he did as well as Hansen did on a prediction evaluated a decade later, a harder challenge than predicting 3 months ahead.

Notedev posted:

Not alarmist, just cautious

I fully expect the US market to crash (as in 30%+ drop) sometime during the next three months, and with the Asian markets having strong dependence on exports to the U.S., a week of really bad markets could potentially start in Asia, as their week begins and ends half a day before ours.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=114&topic_id=68834&mesg_id=68838

Now, what happened, using the Dow Jones, the most commonly used metric.

August 17 - 9135 Notedev's prediction for November 17 - as low as 6394 (a 30% drop)

November 17 - 10,437 an increase of 14.25%!

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^DJI

Now, had everyone here listened to Notedev and pulled all our money out of the stock market on August 17, on average we would have missed a gain of around 14%!

[Bjorn Against]

39. You don't choose between the scientific method and peer review

The scientific method and peer review are not two different options, they are both essential to the process and if you have one without the other then it is not science.

You did not need to tell us that you are "not a big expert in climate science", your claim that we should reject peer review in favor of the scientific method shows that you really need to take a basic science course because it is not a choice between one or the other.

[notesdev]

44. On the contrary

It is because I understand scientific method that I can see that what passes for 'peer review' in climate science does NOT meet the standards of scientific method. Review in scientific method is open and eternal - if I want to replicate the experiments of, say, Louis Pasteur, to verify the truth of his claims, I can do that today, as can anyone else. His theories and experiments and data are laid out and published for the world to see and independently verify. The bastardized 'peer review' that now exists in climate science is nothing more than a formalized version of the appeal to authority fallacy.

I said I was not a climate specialist, but that does not mean I am not familiar with science. My foundational science education is quite good, thank you - better than yours, since I can spot the method error in climate science peer review and you cannot. If you truly had the understanding of the purpose of review then you would agree that open publication is far superior to closed and incestuous affirmation.

'Peer review' is not part of scientific method at all. It is merely the institutionalization of the publication of results. There is no definition of scientific method that specifically requires the process known as peer review.


edit - The specific manner in which the climate science peer review system fails to meet the requirements of scientific method is that it does not satisfy the requirement to publish, because in climate science you may pass peer review without publishing your data.

I have fallen into your fallacy trap here, since you have successfully diverted this conversation from the original topic - the validity of the wild claims of the article - so I have to give you some kudos for that. However, now that I have become aware of this I will leave this as my last word on this tangent. If you wish to return to the discussion of the actual data and the actual conclusions in dispute, then I will continue this conversation.

[Bjorn Against]

47. Scientific data is published openly, go to any college library and you can see it.

My guess is that you have probably never opened up a scientific journal, but they are very well sourced.

Scientists collect data using the scientific method, but people make mistakes so you can not have the scientific method without any means of reviewing it. If you bring something before a peer review panel that not use the scientific method they will laugh in your face and reject your work. If you use the scientific method but don't submit your work for peer review then your data is not considered credible because it was not subject to scrutiny. Posting on a right-wing blog is not subjecting your work to scrutiny however much you may want to believe otherwise.

[notesdev]

49. Normally yes - but NOT in AGW, that is the difference

I posted to you above the two Hadley CRU researchers who threatened to quit a scientific society over the insistence that their data be published. Briffa (head of Hadley CRU) fought the release of his data for seven years and only released it upon legal compulsion from an FOI request. In addition, I gave you the contents of the document where he considered three options in releasing the data in response to that request, only one of which was honest.

You have all the evidence in your hands right now to see that according to the very requirements of rigorous science that you yourself have insisted upon upthread, AGW does not meet the test.

If you insist on being blind to what is already in front of you, there is nothing more I can do for you.

[The Night Owl]

56. Saying you have a "good foundational science education" could mean...

...just about anything. Unless you're qualified to evaluate climate science your opinion on the science is irrelevant.

[karynnj]

71. What you are speaking of is experimental science

The fact is that we can not do experiments and replicate them on climate change. Pasteur could create an experimental design where he controlled variables, allowing only one to take on different values. He could then definitively say that the change observed was caused by the change in the control variable. There is no way to create an experimental design to test theories on climate change.

The closest you can get is to publicly create models based on your theories and test how well they predict the future. The fact is that no one disputes that science won't test and retest any climate change theories. It will. The point is that everything that Hansen and others predicted is happening and it is happening even faster than they predicted.

People like our Senators, Congressmen and the President need to consider what the scientists are predicting. Kerry referred to a precautionary principle when he spoke of why he had to listen. ( http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/10/kenneth-green-american-enterprise-institute-aei/ )The fact is that he does not have the chutzpah that you do to be willing to bet the world's future on every mainstream scientists being wrong. In this case, it would be even worse as doing what is needed to control carbon emissions will by all accounts lead to cleaner air and water, which will lead to better overall health and we will not be dependent on the Middle East, a political goal for decades. The CBO and EPA cost estimates are far lower than those thrown around by the right, which has been caught lying several times on this. Those costs do not consider any of the costs that would occur if we do nothing and the scientists are right. So, even if the scientists are wrong and we implement measures to reduce carbon, it is not clear that overall we aren't better off anyway.

[notesdev]

80. The point is that the source data is false

People poring through the document dump are finding instance after instance of deliberate alteration of the data to fit AGW theories.

The way a scientist works is that he alters the theory to fit the data, not the other way around.

So comparing Hansen's predictions against a fabricated temperature record is a garbage in, garbage out exercise.

Hadley CRU being the sole custodian of global temperature data, combined with their refusal to show their work, undermines the entire premise of AGW.

What really astonishes me is that there is no independent global temperature record. The only record is the Hadley CRU record, and we have hard evidence that it was specifically altered for political purposes. The entire AGW edifice rests on a claim to authority by Hadley CRU, which has now been shown not to be true data at all.

They also explicitly talk about manipulating the peer review system to exclude those who do not agree with their opinion.

This is a scientific scandal of historic significance. These are the Pentagon Papers of climate science.

Want to know the truth about what was going on there? Look at the documents. They will horrify you, if you have real respect for science, rather than a religious devotion to global warming theory.

[The Night Owl]

82. What astonishes me is that you think you can get away with claiming that the temperature record...

...is fabricated and not provide any evidence to support that claim. You must have contempt for this site if you think people here would be so stupid as to uncritically accept your idiotic and conspiratorial claims on faith.

This is not Free Republic. Provide evidence to back your claims or bow out.

[notesdev]

84. I provided the evidence - it's your problem if you want to deny it

All the raw documents proving fabrication are available to anyone who wants them, bud. I know I've linked you to where you can get them on two different threads already. Now it's up to you to prove that you are something other than a religious cultist by actually downloading them and reading through them yourself.

Or... if you are that lazy (and apparently you are)... then you can find many other people who are doing just that, with the expertise to analyze them, such as this guy is doing. Or you can type "hadley CRU scandal" into your search engine of choice and pick your favorite.

Or, you can continue to put your hands over your ears and sing "lalalalalalala" hoping it goes away. (Hint: it won't.)

Do you understand you're in the position of defending the Nixon Administration over the Pentagon Papers? This is the greatest scientific fraud in modern history blowing up in real time, and your reaction is to dig in and defend... amazing, absolutely amazing.

[The Night Owl]

85. You want me to sift through thousands of illegally obtained emails to prove your claim for you?

KMA, you pompous windbag. Pointing me to a database of emails and saying the truth is in there somewhere is not an argument. It's a concession.

I'll let you try again. Show that the temperature record is fabricated or bow out.

[notesdev]

86. I have shown you already multiple times

On this thread and the other - so man up and read the docs or quit your trolling, child.

[The Night Owl]

87. You're lying through your teeth now. The BS you're trying to float in this thread is the same BS...

...you tried to float in the other thread....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=102&topic_id=4155087&mesg_id=4156797

You can't show that the data sets used by GISS graph are fraudulent and so you claim that James Hansen is "connected" to Hadley CRU and call it a day.

Like I said, you must have contempt for this community if you think DUers so stupid as to take your idiotic claims on faith.

[karynnj]

89. The source data is not false

Have you ever worked on a project using a large amount of data? You are completely distorting that email. Would it have been better not to purchase and add the data from several countries that were not included in the raw data? I have worked with real scientists, with the utmost respect for science and one thing that is consistent is that they all work very work on an initial step to clean the data.

I absolutely do not have a "religious devotion" to climate change - you, however, have pushed one false justification after another. I notice that you completely ignore that you don't have something that can be tested like Pasteur's theories. I actually agree with Senator Kerry' comments on the risks each way. I think that there is no need to prove that the global climate change is 100% certain, even if it had a 1% chance of being accurate, an analysis of the pros and cons would lead me to agree we need to act now. (That's a function of my value system that would assign a very high negative value to the catastrophe that will occur if the theories are right and we pass the tipping point.) NOTE: This is NOT to say I do not find the results compelling, I do.

[Birthmark]

46. You spout even MORE nonsense?

I hope that you're being paid for this! LOL

Here is a list of the most cited scientific authors on climate change:

http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/climate_authors_table.html

You'll note that Mann is 193rd. Phil Jones is 28th. Biffra is 148th. Overpeck is 226th.

The picture you paint is fantasy. I doubt that you'll acknowledge that, but fair-minded readers will spot your fraud immediately.

[notesdev]

51. I didn't say 'climate change', I said 'AGW'

Climate change and AGW are two quite different things.

Nice try, though. Art of Controversy, Strategem III:

Another trick is to take a proposition which is laid down relatively, and in reference to some particular matter, as though it were uttered with a general or absolute application; or, at least, to take it in some quite different sense, and then refute it.

You are more skilled at dishonest argumentation than your peers, but I am well prepared for all of you.

The ad hominem first line is a bit crude, though, I am sure you can do better.

[Birthmark]

54. Ah, nice.

Play the victim AND bloviate in one post. Well played!

But you aren't thinking. I gave you a list of cited authors in climate change which you apparently didn't read. If you did, you would have noticed this: "none of the 619 contributing authors to AR4 wg1 have signed any of the five public declarations of 'skepticism;'"

WG1 is entitled "The Physical Science Basis." Now to what do you suppose that WG1 largely attributed the warming? If you guessed "human activity" you guessed right.

So you're attempt to hide behind semantics fails.

Now see if you can address the point I made in that post. That your claim about climate science basically being run by a few people is without basis.

[The Night Owl]

58. The quote that comes to mind when reading Notesdev's posts...

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Stephen Hawking

[Birthmark]

61. Generally speaking

...AGW denialists aren't trying to win arguments. They are interested in delaying action to avert catastrophe. They have different reasons for wanting delay, but they already know they aren't going to "win."

Many of them aren't ignorant, either.

[karynnj]

70. Actually what this sounds like to me is far less insidious

It appears that reviewers asked for the raw data. The problem is that no analysis is ever best done on the raw the raw data. The first step in any analysis - and often one of the most arduous - is to clean the data. Here, under option 2, you can see that they added information by buying data, where they didn't have it and coded other data to make the data they would do the anaylsis on more complete.

Here, the options are -
1) Send the data set that they actually used which was created from the raw data and augmented by additional information.
2) Send the part of the data, where the observations came from the original data. (This data would approximate the raw data, but might include some extra information)
3) Reconstruct what their raw data was and send it to them.

One telling comment was that doing exactly what they asked would "annoy them". Why, because they are unlikely to want to go through the same necessary work to create a complete, clean data set.

This is from having worked as a mathematician/statistician for the research arm of a large company in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I did not do anything like this scientific research, but I can assure you that no study we did was not done by first cleaning the data, often getting additional information to best estimate what was missing.

This is also why emails between people with a lot of history between them can be very misleading. Many things are not said, because they are assumed by both.

[Birthmark]

43. You're a treasure trove on nonsense.

Peer-review simply weeds out the non-science. After publication is when a paper is truly analyzed by professionals in the field. Papers that are accurate and useful in describing some aspect of nature get cited by other scientists. Papers that aren't useful or accurate are forgotten.

IOW, peer-review isn't the end of the process. But it's an important first step.

There goes your "logical fallacy" fantasy.

[Bearware]

60. Nice quote from Robert Higgs, an economist of the Austrian School

How about some quotes from the climate scientists who peer review for climatology journals?

Nice, not only did these freaks crash our economy - potentially fatally - but they also want to move up the ante and cause enough doubt to help move forward the greatest calamity that has ever confronted civilization. About the time we start finding methane fed fires on the deep ocean, these same freaks will then blame the climate scientists. :grr:

I have a simple question for you. I am willing to admit it is all bunk if in my lifetime the Arctic Ocean refreezes so the ice is the same area and DEPTH as it was in 1900. Will you admit that Global Warming is real if in your lifetime, anyone can continuously sail a 40,000+ ton cargo ship from the Atlantic Ocean, through the Arctic Ocean and into the Pacific Ocean without contacting any ice. Any reference to some guy with a boat small enough to haul over the ice in 1945 does not count (see 40,000+ tons). Do you agree with this paragraph?

The Arctic Ocean has not been ice-free for many megayears.

I remember when the anti's had a website where you could register your degree(s) and how you felt about Global Warming. I think I signed up as Dr. Rocky Bullwinkle and had about 9 advance degrees in climatology. I have been repeatedly cited along with the tens of thousands of other "scientists" who deny Global Climate Changes is happening. Turns out 1/2 of them seem to be economists or libertarians or teabaggers or whatevers. Actual climate scientists on the site = 0.

Since you are so sure Global Warming is not happening, why don't you buy some cheap land and move to the Maldives. I hear you can get great deals on the beach front real-estate. About the time the deep ocean methane hydrates start blowing out maybe we will round up all of your denier buddies and give them free tickets to your island. You can all spend you time denying you are up to your necks in saltwater. :evilgrin:

[Birthmark]

40. The Mann hockey stick fraud?

LOL! You reveal yourself. No such fraud exists. But tossing around that word probably sounds good, doesn't it?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm

[notesdev]

48. Look up the Yamal scandal

your blog reference is apparently not aware of it, but it undermines entirely the hockey stick and all that derives from it.

[Birthmark]

52. Scandal?

Everything is sinister to you clowns, isn't it? LOL

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/

Reality. It burns, don't it? LOL

[notesdev]

53. Realclimate.org is run by the SAME people

It's like you expect me to take the word of Karl Rove that George Bush was a great President.

Find me an independent source, and I'll take it seriously.

[Birthmark]

55. Got it. You can't refute the science.

So you'll stick with baseless assertions and innuendo, appealing to words like fraud, scandal, etc. You might sway the ignorant with that, but it won't even begin to touch the science.

And there are several good reasons for that.

[Kingofalldems]

93. Didn't you also claim there were a million plus teabaggers

who gathered in September?

[Birthmark]

34. Uh-huh

"I've been reading through them since I found this and some of the comments are amazing. They are unambiguously more concerned with managing perceptions and altering data to fit into their theories than they are with figuring out what the truth is."

Yeah. You just didn't see fit to actually post any such examples, right? I guess innuendo is superior to your out of context quotes in this instance? That alone says something. ;)

"I found the emails from Oct 14 of this year to be particularly startling - two of them threatening to quit membership in the UK's most prestigious scientific organization if they are forced to release their calculations. Not very scientist-like behavior!"

To whom, and why?

"They keep complaining about a guy named Steve McIntyre..."

As well they should. McIntyre is a denialist extraordinaire and near total waste of any scientists time and effort. Turning things over to him is conceding a ton of misquotes, misrepresentations, and out of context nonsense. IOW, he's a time-eater. McIntyre has been attempting to dethrone AGW for many years...and has abjectly failed. The science isn't on his side, you see. These emails demonstrate some (and it is very few) scientists pique with denialist nonsense.

[notesdev]

41. There's a PDF document that shows the propaganda focus in black and white

You can find it yourself in the Hadley files, the file is in the 'documents' folder and the filename is 'RulesOfTheGame.pdf'

it can also be found here:

http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/RulesOfTheGame.pdf


They are gaming you and manipulating your perceptions by their own admission.

[Birthmark]

50. It is actually counter-manipulation, isn't it?

I mean, there are a LOT of people who spend a LOT of money to argue against the reality of AGW.

You realize of course that you are claiming that the following people have been taken in by a ruse:

1) European Academy of Sciences and Arts- 2007

2) InterAcademy Council- 2007

3) International Council of Academies of Engineering and
Technological Sciences-2007

4) 32 national science academies (Australia, Belgium, Brazil,
Cameroon, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Ghana,
Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, India, Japan, Kenya,
Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, New Zealand, Russia,
Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Tanzania, Uganda,
United Kingdom, United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).-2001

5) The national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued a
joint statement declaring- 2009

6) Network of African Science Academies- (Cameroon, Ghana,
Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan,
Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, as well as the African
Academy of Sciences).- 2007

7) Royal Society of New Zealand- 2008

8) Polish Academy of Sciences- 2007

9) US National Research Council -2001

10) American Association for the Advancement of Science- 2006

11) European Science Foundation- 2007

12) Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological
Societies- 2008

13) American Geophysical Union- 2007

14) European Federation of Geologists- 2008

15) European Geosciences Union- 2005

16) Geological Society of America- 2006

17) Geological Society of Australia- 2009

18) International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics- 2007

19) National Association of Geoscience Teachers- 2009

20) American Meteorological Society- 2003

21) Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society- (As
of 2009)

22) Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric
Sciences- 2005

23) Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society- 2007

24) English Royal Meteorological Society- 2007

25) World Meteorological Organization- 2006

26) American Quaternary Association- (from at least 2009)

27) American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians- (from at
least 2009)

28) American Society for Microbiology- 2003

29) Australian Coral Reef Society- 2006

30) UK’s Institute of Biology- (from at least 2009)

31) Society of American Foresters- 2008

32) American Academy of Pediatrics- 2007

33) American College of Preventive Medicine- 2006

34) American Medical Association- 2008

35) American Public Health Association- 2007

36) Australian Medical Association- 2004

37) World Federation of Public Health Associations- 2001

38) World Health Organization- 2008

39) American Astronomical Society- (from at least 2009)

40) American Chemical Society- (from at least 2009)

41) American Institute of Physics- (from at least 2009)

42) American Physical Society- 2007

43) American Statistical Association- 2007

44) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Are you going to claim that NONE of these bodies looked at the evidence, or if they did they were taken in by tricksters? Every single one?

If so, my only advice is...reality went =====>> that-a-way!! Try to catch up.

But, for a moment, let's say that climate scientists HAVE fooled all these people. Shouldn't they run the planet then? I mean, if they are that smart and capable...

[karynnj]

79. Your conclusion is awsome - But, for a moment, let's say that climate scientists HAVE fooled all the

Thank you for the nice list. This really is a fantastic counter to the climate change deniers. You wonder if the foundations and others who support them really don't believe it. That is kinder than thinking they believe it and realizing they would risk the world for shortsighted reasons. (Ken Green from AEI told the Finance committee that we can become more resilient to deal with climate change - which has to be the dumbest idea I've heard on teh subject.)

[DLnyc]

6. Maybe those emails could be spread over the Arctic tundra in

Canada and Russia to stop the methane from boiling out as it melts?

[rayofreason]

10. Are you referring....

...to methane hydrates, whose sudden release have been invoked in various doomsday scenarios? Those are at the bottoms of the oceans, so spreading emails over Canada and Russia would have no effect.

[Dead_Parrot]

19. There are plenty of methane hydrates in tundra

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7107/abs/nature05040.html

You'll notice they are indeed melting.

[DLnyc]

57. Yes, very wise and perceptive. Spreading emails would have no effect.

But the reference is to melting permafrost, which is not a 'doomsday scenario' but an actual, ongoing reality.

A sampling of easily available information:

============
As the permafrost thaws as a result of global warming caused by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, large quantities of methane are released. When methane gets out it causes more warming in a vicious cycle, and the release of even more methane, and so it goes on. Scientists refer to this as a positive feedback loop.
Siberia is one of the fastest warming regions on Earth - average temperatures have increased 3°C in the last 40 years.

Chris Field, director of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, says "that's the thing that is scary about this whole thing. There are lots of mechanisms that tend to be self-perpetuating and relatively few that tend to shut it off."

Sergei Kirpotin of Tomsk State University describes permafrost melting as an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible". He says the entire western Siberian sub-Arctic region has begun to melt in the last three or four years.
============
http://www.terranature.org/methaneSiberia.htm

--------
Warming is also the triggering variable for the release of methane in the arctic.<51> Methane released from thawing permafrost such as the frozen peat bogs in Siberia, and from methane clathrate on the sea floor, creates a positive feedback.<52>
--------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Feedback

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Nice try, but wrong:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8371773.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/22/east-antarctic-ice-sheet-nasa

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jHCxo-KAg3JKWEAdVC7Qle0ax_Rg

[rayofreason]

9. No, I'm correct.

All the articles you posted refer to the East Antarctic Ice sheet, which is shrinking. But Antarctic ice as a whole is growing, not shrinking. So while you cited sources with correct information, your interpretation of that information is incorrect because you did not have the full story. Not your fault. The media is selective about what they publish.

[Dead_Parrot]

22. WAIS is destabilising

see

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL033365.shtml
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL039126.shtml &
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/3/125/2009/tc-3-125-2009.pdf

[Birthmark]

37. No, you're wrong.

Perhaps you are selective in what you read or remember?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm

[Quixote1818]

62. Antarctica is getting more snowfall because warmer air can hold more moisture

Clearly as a whole things are getting worse. NASA is predicting we will break the global record for hottest year in the next year or two because we are coming out of a La Nina and into an El Nino. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwnrpwctIh4

[notesdev]

17. Regarding Richard Black

the released emails show he is quite chummy with the folks he is reporting on. This is from one of the emails:

---

Michael Mann wrote:

extremely disappointing to see something like this appear on BBC. its particularly odd,
since climate is usually Richard Black's beat at BBC (and he does a great job). from
what I can tell, this guy was formerly a weather person at the Met Office.

We may do something about this on RealClimate, but meanwhile it might be appropriate for
the Met Office to have a say about this, I might ask Richard Black what's up here?

mike

---

Seems like everyone involved is playing a double game.

[The Night Owl]

15. On Antarctic ice growth...

Antarctica is Cold? Yeah, We Knew That
Filed under: Arctic and AntarcticClimate Science— group @ 12 February 2008

Guest commentary from Spencer Weart, science historian

Despite the recent announcement that the discharge from some Antarctic glaciers is accelerating, we often hear people remarking that parts of Antarctica are getting colder, and indeed the ice pack in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica has actually been getting bigger. Doesn’t this contradict the calculations that greenhouse gases are warming the globe? Not at all, because a cold Antarctica is just what calculations predict… and have predicted for the past quarter century.

It’s not just that Antarctica is covered with a gazillion tons of ice, although that certainly helps keep it cold. The ocean also plays a role, which is doubly important because of the way it has delayed the world’s recognition of global warming.

When the first rudimentary models of climate change were developed in the early 1970s, some modelers pointed out that as the increase of greenhouse gases added heat to the atmosphere, much of the energy would be absorbed into the upper layer of the oceans. While the water was warming up, the world’s perception of climate change would be delayed. Up to this point most calculations had started with a doubled CO2 level and figured out how the world’s temperature would look in equilibrium. But in the real world, when the rising level of gas reached that point the system would still be a long way from equilibrium. “We may not be given a warning until the CO2 loading is such that an appreciable climate change is inevitable,” a National Academy of Sciences panel warned in 1979.(1)

...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/02/antarctica-is-cold/

[Birthmark]

31. Antarctic sea ice is not equal to "Antarctic Ice"

Overall, Antarctica is losing ice mass, according to GRACE.

The sea ice is increasing due to local events that won't last.

Regarding the hacked emails, there is little there to be concerned about when one realizes that most of the "troubling stuff" is simply human beings expressing human feelings. I wonder how anyone would feel about an "FOI" request made by someone that you *knew* would misrepresent, misuse, misquote, and probably lie about your work? I might be inclined to "not notice" the FOI request myself. Sainthood should probably be granted to anyone who wouldn't at least consider it.

[karynnj]

66. Ray of What? Certainly not reason

What about the Artic? The fact is that 10 or 30 years are too short a time to base a trend on.

Not to mention, you need to look at the downsides of either assumption. Here, listen to Senator Kerry:


(go to a bit past 60 minutes in )

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/288100-1

His points are that if we are wrong, we still get:
cleaner air and water
better health
no more dependence on ME oil
green jobs

If they are wrong, and we do nothing, it is catasrophe.

[Javaman]

76. Pay no attention to the hit and run poster.

this poster does this all the time.

loves to stir the pot with insanity.

[The Night Owl]

78. ...more like flail and run than hit and run. {EOM}

[Psephos]

95. One can measure the height of a sequoia by the length of the shadow it casts.

You shadow creatures sniping away down there in the understory are all sheep for credulity, and wolves for conformity...without an original point of view or argument among you.

[DLnyc]

3. Never underestimate humankind's ability to fuck things up royally.

Without radical change BY humans now, I am afraid we are headed for catastrophic change TO humans and to the entire network of life on earth.

Who wants to try to explain this to our grandchildren?

[notesdev]

4. Yep, total BS

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm

Climate science has lost all integrity since it became a servant to a political agenda.

[Bjorn Against]

16. And Stephen McIntyre and his buddies in the oil industry do not have a political agenda?

The BBC is not peer reviewed, I challenge you to find a single peer reviewed journal article which disproves global warming is happening.

And please don't tell me that there is a massive political conspiracy in the scientific community that has prevented even one skeptic from getting their findings through the peer review process.

[Birthmark]

42. Did you ever think climate science had any integrity?

The nonsense you spout indicates that the answer to that question is "no."

[karynnj]

77. You mean like your August prediction of a 30% market crash within 3 months?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4157067&mesg_id=4157535

Climate Science is a field. How does a field lose its integrity? Should I worry that math and economics will lose their integrity too? After all there are always some economists at any time that are wrong. What would it do if this your major field lost its integrity? Would your degree become invalid?

[The Night Owl]

83. The lack of a response to your question is telling. {EOM}

[Overseas]

88. oh how on earth did climate change ever become politicized?

oh um uh gee, um uh, oil industry subsidies; um uh, war for oil control; um uh, rip out those tram tracks, it's cars all the way; um uh, dependence on foreign oil is fine, as long as the Top Dogs are getting their cut; uh, hmm, gosh, I just can't fathom how the need to curtail fossil fuel use could have become so gosh darned politicized, gee whiz... :crazy: :crazy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/01/exxon-mobil-climate-change-sceptics-funding

I heard that Exxon Mobil only spent around $8 million. That money was well spent, if increasing public doubt regarding global warming was the intent, and especially with evidence of accelerated global warming all around us. They got professionals to market their True Doubt well. They dug up some desperate and/or narcissistic scientists and "opinion leaders" who utilized our conservative-dominated media to toss around their Truthiness as though it were still a matter of earnest debate.
-- Scientists disagree !
-- Climate is also cooling in places!
-- CO2 has been higher before!
-- An ice age is coming again!
-- Denying is nihilistically edgy, man. Instant cool.

Never mind that dwelling on a temperate planet with fairly predictable climatic patterns has been much easier than figuring out how to proceed on our current destabililized planet Earth. We have torn up millions of acres of beautiful forests, and lost millions of highly developed species with unique properties. I am so glad we snorkeled through Micronesia on my way to college-- I got to see all that beauty before the ecosystems overheated and many coral died.

The planet we got from our grandparents was quite breathtakingly beautiful. There were many areas as yet untouched by industrialization. Because its continents were teeming with loosely guarded resources coveted by traders far away, who came armed to conquer, a lot of the bounty has been stripped so far.

You'd think capitalists of generations to come would join in the quest to slow down the burning up of the earth's fossil fuel, to save some for future generations. Especially if there were possibilities for engineering less limited resource like solar, wind, and conservation technologies. Have we not enjoyed our fossil fuels? And if so, do we really not wish to leave a well or two to future generations?

Isn't slowing down exploiting limited energy resources just the smart thing to do for future generations? Are we all so Rapture Crazy that we think a cataclysm is unavoidable so it's full steam ahead?

I am hoping that we wouldn't want the ocean currents we have depended on for centuries to be kicked off their smooth courses by ocean and atmospheric heating. If we could avoid that calamity, why wouldn't we at least try? I hope we are teaching our children what we have learned about the role of the circulation of major ocean currents and its effects on our climate. The beautiful engineering of the Earth's ecosystems is an exciting part of science education. Scientific literacy through public education is an efficient means of getting citizen compliance with necessary changes in consumption patterns ahead. We could all be working together to save as many of this gorgeous planet's natural ecosystems as possible, celebrating our ingenious engineering successes and sharing them internationally-- or we could be initiating more devastatingly costly, brutal, and messy wars to attempt to dominate the dwindling remaining resources.

Wouldn't true scientists and conservatives wish to err on the side of the preponderance of the evidence? Especially if so doing would enhance our ability to tap into a less limited, decentralized power source? I really do hope my friends are not right when they say that half of the objection to solar power and electric cars and such is that they'd allow for the possibility of decentralized power sources. They'd reduce our beholdenness to Mega Energy Companies, which is scary to the Corporate States of America.

Ingenious engineering is so much more fun than brutal privatized warfare.

Surely, we can all agree that our fossil fuel supply is limited, and atmospheric deterioration has been disrupting planetary ecosystems. So wouldn't we love to see our country fully participate in international initiatives to reduce our carbon emissions and save some of the "easy fuel" for future generations?

http://www.docudharma.com/diary/16801/anti-science-climate-crisis-propaganda-is-working

[Lorien]

91. The only ones with a political agenda are the fossil fuel giants

I have a friend in Antarctica who has studied climate change since 1964. I'll take his word over the corporate media's any day, and he says we're pretty much screwn. The faster we take action to longer more species will survive on this planet.

Oh, and before you start to whimper over jobs and profits; every study out there has shown that green energy would lead to MORE jobs, health benefits, and it would bring the cost of nearly everything DOWN-which is exactly what out corporate overlords don't want. He who controls energy controls the planet. An egalitarian society will not be tolerated.

[Stumbler]

35. I find it interesting

Our nation is willing to throw trillions of dollars to defense contractors if they're told there's even a 1% "chance" of a threat to our nation's security, regardless of where the threat originates. At the same time, our leaders refuse to raise any significant funding for green energy, even though there's a wealth of information showing how our reliance on burning coal and oil will likely have disastrous consequences for the very survival of our species on this planet. At this point, I'll trust doomsday-envisioning scientists with peer reviews over folks like William "wrong about everything, always" Kristol.

[Uncle Joe]

75. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, TomCADem.

[wpsedgwick]

81. Heading toward an international accord? U.S. Senate ignores climate bill to focus on health care.

Lets hope the international community takes the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen next month seriously. With the recent decision in the U.S. Senate to delay the passage of climate legislation until next year <http://www.greentechnologydaily.com/climate-change/468-senate-delays-climate-bill-to-focus-on-health-care>and focus on health care reform, what kind of participation can we hope to see from the U.S. at the UN talks?

[imdjh]

90. Copenhagen is about one thing: getting "rich" countries to give money to "developing" nations.

And the complaint, said Naomi Klein in a rare moment of candor with Amy Goodman, is that the "rich countries" aren't willing to give 800 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR to "developing nations". I can't imagine why.

[Nihil]

92. Wrong.

It was hoped that it would get "Team America F*ck Yeah!" morons like you
to wake up to the situation in the real world (i.e., outside your petty
little city and yes, even outside your beloved "homeland").

Sadly, it looks like your new president is about as fucking useless as your
previous four when it comes to protecting the environment: all nice words
and photo-ops until it gets to the hard part of doing something (at which
point he fades quietly into the background again before he upsets his
paymasters).

Unfortunately, it goes against your "We're Number One!" religion to stop
paying your MIC, your oligarchy, your own greed & consumption habits and
so you prefer to stuff your fingers in your ears, put your head in the
sand and pretend that nothing is going to affect you in your shit-filled
state of denial.

[imdjh]

94. Charming.