Chilling Effects: Climate Change Deniers Have Scientific Paper Disappeared
from the now-you-see-it dept
Let me let you in on a little fantasy of mine: every once in a while, I like to imagine finding myself meeting the person who came up with the term "global warming." Why? So I can punish that person. Severely. See, what a term like "global warming" does is allow the guy in the cubicle next to me to point out of the window in Chicago and say, "If global warming is true, why is it snowing out again?" And that, friends, is something nobody should have to deal with.
Climate change is the better term, of course, and the majority of the scientific community firmly believes that there is such a thing as man-made climate change. From there, we could have a discussion about how profound the effects of climate change are, whether they're actually better or worse, what other contributing factors might be in play in impacting climate, and all the rest, and those would be worthy conversations to have. What we shouldn't do is try to use the law to silence dissenting opinions, particularly if those opinions come in the form of scientific research. Yet, that is exactly what one scientific journal has allowed to happen after publishing an article on the link between those who deny climate change and those who believe in a more wide-ranging array of conspiracy theories. Frontiers originally published the piece last year, but took it down once the legal threats started rolling in. After an internal investigation found the peer-reviewed study to be sound, you'd have thought they'd re-publish it. You'd be wrong. Here's the statement about the retraction from the journal itself.
In the light of a small number of complaints received following publication of the original research article cited above, Frontiers carried out a detailed investigation of the academic, ethical and legal aspects of the work. This investigation did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study. It did, however, determine that the legal context is insufficiently clear and therefore Frontiers wishes to retract the published article. The authors understand this decision, while they stand by their article and regret the limitations on academic freedom which can be caused by legal factors.In other words, a study that was judged by peers to be scientifically sound, has been disappeared over the murky threats of possible legal action. Let that sink in for a moment: science is undone because some people didn't like it. The author of the study resided at the time in the UK, where libel laws used to be of a construction specifically designed to fill the courthouses with all manner of craziness. Just recently, the UK has improved its libel laws to lessen the chilling effect of lawsuits from harming the progression of science. On top of that, the internal review at the journal found no issues with the study after making some minor alterations to appease the angry. Frontiers didn't see fit to re-publish, however.
It is hard to imagine a set of outcomes that would have better remedied each issue flagged by Frontiers as a matter of concern. So it came as quite a shock to hear that the journal had decided to retract the paper ostensibly because “the legal context is insufficiently clear”.Look, if you're a climate change denier, that's cool. I don't agree with you, but feel free to write up your own research, publish any compelling information you can come up with, and all the rest. Consensus is never something I've been much interested in; I'd rather have multiple ideas to choose from and study. And, hey, if you think we never landed on the moon, Hitler was actually fighting the lizard-people now running world government, and 9/11 was all a holographic light-show designed to allow George Bush to fulfill his childhood dream of landing on an aircraft carrier in a flightsuit, have at it. I want you to let me know you believe in that stuff, because that's how I'll know to keep my future children away from you.
But the other side of the coin is that we shouldn't be allowing your side to silence science, either. Fair is fair, after all.
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Filed Under: chilling effects, climate change, legal threats, scientific research, uk
Reader Comments
The First Word
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You could always go find Al Gore...
But, regardless how one thinks of this, the basic ideas of getting off fossil fuels (we'll run out within our lifetimes) and finding better, alternative fuels is something I think that should be pushed.
So... Have we mastered Cold Fusion yet?
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That said, extremism like that is very harmful. Even if the article as some wacky ideas it should be allowed to be published. It's up to the authors to provide sound argument to convince the reader and it's up to the reader to make sure the methodology is reasonable. Even if you disagree with the conclusion there may be tidbits of information inside that are accurate and may even help in further developing the issue.
We are in the age of extremes. Religious zealotry, moral crusade, ethnic 'purity', political fundamentalism.... Humanity has to sort it out before engaging in further real development.
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Oh dear ...
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Re: Oh dear ...
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As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle and extremists from both camps should be ignored equally.
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It should have been retracted
Richard Tol's comment is particularly enlightening as to why the journal did what it did. A more detailed analysis of the paper's flaws and discussions leading up to retraction can be found at www.climateaudit.org.
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Only if he's stupid enough to not realise that the first word of that very term makes whatever he sees outside of his window irrelevant. But, somebody that ignorant isn't going to suddenly accept science and logic because a different term is used. He'd probably just whine that the climate isn't changing because it's the same temperature outside as it was the day before, being just as obnoxious with his ignorance of what "climate" is...
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More garbage
The word "Climate Change" is every bit as bad as "Global Warming" it should have a name that directly implies that it is believed that HUMANS caused it. Of which there is no proof. The Global warming collectivists serve to reveal that Global Warming, Cooling, Change is nothing more than a politically motivated RELIGION!
There is a very specific reason these terms were used! And its not about being accurate!
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Re: Oh dear ...
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(During Winter)
Look it's snowing in the winter! Global Warming is a hoax!
(During Summer)
Look it's over 100 degrees today in the summer! When will you fools admit that global warming is real and we must do something about it!
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I'd rather have multiple ideas to choose from and study
Points to consider...
Geocentrism was once considered settled science. God knows how many ass-backwards (or what we now believe to be ass-backwards) things once had a scientific consensus. Also see global cooling scare.
Climate is constantly changing. You have the dust bowl. Medieval warm period. Little ice age.
We are exiting an ice age/progressing through an interglacial period.
Reliable and accurate satellite observations of worldwide weather has only been around for 30-40 years. The ten most recent years have see temperature level off even though green house gas emissions have continued to climb. Sample size is inadequate.
All predictions by people/organizations that say there is no doubt, at least the highly publicized ones, have been wrong.
Scientific method calls for hypotheses that can be tested and tests repeated. If the models predictions are wrong, the hypothesis needs to be re-examined.
There are thousand if not millions of variables that impact climate.
Whatever... The main point of what Im saying, is that people who are sceptical of the science used to push environmental policies are hardly irrational. I expect better than ad-hominem attacks(comparing your opponents to the mentally ill conspiracy theorists) when Im reading techdirt.
Im not a climatologist or a mathematician, so I have no business speculating either way.
There is good reading to be had out there. Check out the climate etc blog sometime.
Since this post has been completely off topic, let me get to that: Yup, censoring scientific research is complete bullshit. Frontiers should be ashamed of themselves.
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Re: It should have been retracted
What got all of this Psuedo Science rolling along was the Idea that the community is saying what should and should not be published!
I am very much on the fence on the "true" cause of 'Climate Change', but we should set the information free, that is the true essence of Science! Let his ideas get the scrutiny it deserves for better or worse! You cannot have Science beneath the sheets, under the covers, behind the scenes, or legal meanderings!
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Re:
I won't deny that humans have an impact on the environment. I want to know realistically how much we do, but because I don't buy into this religion part of the garbage I get labeled a denier. I just have gotten so sick of the stupidity of the default "your a stupid fundie" if you don't drink my cool-aid. And believe me, this is on both sides, but the pitch from the left on this is shrill.
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Re: It should have been retracted
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Re: More garbage
If you guys want to convince anyone, try a reasoned argument without name-calling and backed with evidence. No, random quotes from people who work in a completely different field and studies funded by petrochemical giants don't count. If you can come up with something else, let's discuss it. Else I'm going to go with the people who sound like they're familiar with the concept of sanity, even if they've made mistakes in the past, thank you very much.
"it should have a name that directly implies that it is believed that HUMANS caused it"
Why? Besides, there is such a term - anthropogenic climate change. Guess why it's been shortened? Hint: the people who can't understand that global warming is global can't quite process the multi-syllabled correct terminology.
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Re:
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Re: I'd rather have multiple ideas to choose from and study
But yea, the ad-hominem is all about shutting down the debate not advancing any aspect of it.
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It was around in the 80's
It's from 1990.
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Re: You could always go find Al Gore...
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Re: Re: More garbage
The other... where did I call anyone a name?
I do not have to offer evidence. I am saying YOUR EVIDENCE does not convince me. This does not require me to run off and fun my own research.
If I see a broken glass with a baseball sitting next to it, there is evidence to suggest that the glass was broken by the baseball... however it does not prove anything. The glass may have been broken by a hammer and the baseball's presence mere coincidence.
The problem is all of the cooking of the evidence to lead people by their nose hairs to a conclusion. This is no genuine! When I see evidence that appears to be a bit more conclusive then you might win me over.
And on a last thought... I am not here to win people to a side... I don't have one... I am acting like a parent telling everyone that they need to stop turning this debate into a religious convent where people are having a revival.
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That is indeed bad...
(I sincerely hope that Timmy starts defending IP soon; then I can just ignore him as a 100% idiot.)
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Re:
I was sick of the joke that was pervasive to the internet from 99 to maybe 2008, but Blame Canada seems like a real slogan to be used for humanity's progress. Don't worry though, if we make it to 2015, they are so out of power (the CONservatives), they got in 2006 with talks of transparency and real conservatism, lolnope. I saw it ahead of everyone, as usual. (we are one of the douchest country when it comes to localized environment damaging activities, hope Obama says no to keystone XL and that the cataclysm in northern Alberta is aborted).
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Re:
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Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
If not: shut up. You are not worthy to speak.
Question 2: Have you read at least one textbook on climatology?
If not: shut up. You are not worthy to speak.
Question 3: Have you read the latest IPCC scientific assessment? (It's here, by the way: https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/ and it's about 2000 pages.)
If not: shut up. You are not worthy to speak.
Question 4: Have you read the latest IPCC report on managing the risks of extreme events and disasters? (It's here: http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/ and about 600 pages.)
If not: shut up. You are not worthy to speak.
You are, in all cases, free to hold your own opinion, no matter how uninformed and ignorant. But you should not speak on the issue, because you haven't got the slightest idea what you're talking about. It's beyond your comprehension.
You can, of course, readily fix that problem. You can educate yourself -- much easier now than it once was thanks to a plethora of online resources. You can learn basic thermodynamics, carbon chemistry, stochastic processes, fluid mechanics and so on. In fact, I strongly encourage you to do so, and to read the reports referenced above so that you possess at least a modicum of knowledge on the subject. At that point, maybe, you will be worthy of the privilege of expressing an opinion.
But as long as you choose to be lazy and wallow in ignorance, anything and everything you say on the topic may be instantly dismissed, with prejudice, because, like I said, you are not worth to speak. You haven't earned that right.
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Re: Re: More garbage
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Bad Paper
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"do it for the legality's ,not the children"
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Re: More garbage
Then I take my meds.
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Re:
Peer review is a Quality Assurance system with some flaws, but mostly it is possible to transverse biased reviewers by publishing elsewhere.
The truth depends on the subject:
If we are talking the scientific angle it is stupid to attack the established facts (scepticism is always warrented with extrapolations, though!).
If we are talking the political angle there is a huge open field where arguing that capping economic development caps innovation and it is therefore reducing the amount solutions to combat climate change is a scientifically sound opinion!
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Response to: AjStechd on Apr 4th, 2014 @ 5:31am
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Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
A formal education will not prevent corruption. And there is plenty of it. Neither will a formal education ensure that a Professional with a Degree is more capable than a caveman fresh off a pachyderm.
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Gettin what we pay for
START-
Defund public education.
UNinvest in public schools.
THEN (you get people who) -
Believe Climate = Weather
Believe Science = Faith & Opinion
Don't believe Cause >> Effect
GOTO START
(and run the scenario again until we prove Darwin was correct by disappearing)
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Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
there is no scientific discourse.
The IPCC climate change believers (yes believers, I get to it) have unilaterally declared the discourse is over. Scientific publications questioning it are not considered at all, they are dismissed or made disappear (like this one), their authors are ridiculed and their scientific career irreversibly destroyed. These people only consider studies that support their beliefs and anything that disagrees needs to be silenced.
This is not science, this is dogma. Climate chage has changed from a science into a religion and the deniers (what a wonderfully revealing term) are the heretics that need to be punished.
And this tells me it is most likely wrong, because if it would be correct there would be no need to let studies disappear and silence their authors.
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Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
I did say that there is no reason to resort to ad hominem attacks. Considering the science is not settled as you would believe. If you want to get all high and mighty, go to climate etc and debate with some people with credentials that are actually debating the topic like scientists.
In conclusion. Shut up and put the balls back in your mouth.
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Re: Bad Paper
In the wonderful tradition of the spanish inquisition.
History repeating...
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Re: I'd rather have multiple ideas to choose from and study
I'm quite well versed into this subject, I love history and history that isn't acknowledged by the mainstream is often proven true years later. This is just a very big secret, so much it is illegal to deny the official story in Canada...
But indeed, jews were persecuted and worked to death in concentration camps, stories of holocaust survivers often say that they were mistreated and sometimes well treated, because to Nazis the experiments done on them was in the name of cold "science". But many were just there and when food stopped coming to the camps, the SS guards started to starve to death too.
All of this is just very un-PC to say. I do not mean to offend anyone and am not racist.
From what I know about the subject at hand, it seems like nature is on climate change itself, and we humans are pushing it faster, we should do our very best to diversify energy sources so that oil lasts as long as possible until it is no longer necessary, but that might take a while when major polluters like my own country (sorry, I think we're worse than America since a while now). But even China is working towards Green energy now, the excuse that "fast developing countries not giving a shit about the environment so why should we" is now over.
Herr Harper is trying to push through a very undemocratic (academic experts and Elections Canada both think such) and there is such a backlash that they are pretending to be cooperating with the opposition(s) now...for now all I can do is lie there and wait until 2015 when we finally toss out those Neanderthals.
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Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
It's up to somebody to produce evidence to the contrary that can withstand scrutiny of the scientific method if that's to change. They can't so far, so they run off to other methods (websites, blogs, commentaries).
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Re: Re: Re: More garbage
It is a situation where you have insufficient evidence for one side, but no evidence for the other...
You are not acting like a neutral voice here. By denying evidence you are taking a stance.
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Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
My degree is on computer science, I have never read a book on climatology, and haven't read the IPCC doorstoppers yet. That doesn't mean I'm unworthy to speak. It only means that whatever I speak won't have as much weight as what the lifelong experts on the IPCC say.
It would be the same if I said "if you doesn't have a degree on computer science, didn't read a computer science textbook, or didn't skim the Knuth books you are not worth to program a computer or talk about computer programming". It would be wrong.
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Re: Response to: AjStechd on Apr 4th, 2014 @ 5:31am
We should be focused on having a clean environment because there is a good reason to do so for pollutions sake alone. Not because of some crazy global warming scare that used to be global cooling and is now 'Climate Change' so they can call out humanity no matter which direction it needs to go.
Cap-n-Trade just means you pollute more... someone else gets richer for it. A Very thinly veiled wealth redistribution plot. The only way is... when you pollute without a care to the environment with oil spills or unsafe drilling... well then... you see real jail time, money changing hands only generates corruption... of which your political officials excel at!
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Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Bullshit. Scientific discourse, per definition, is NEVER over.
If new information come to light that call theories into question, they have to be considered.
Here we have the case where evidence and competing theories are not even considered. This is not science anymore.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
I said not enough to convince and I got labeled a denier. That is the crux of the problem right there.
"Drink my cool-aid Denier!!!" is all I read.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
The refinements continue but you don't hear biologists argue over germ theory, etc.
You don't even know what a theory is. There is no competing theory in climate change.
IF you knew what science is, you would have used a different word other than theory.
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Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
same with the others, electricity (or rather electromagnetism) is till worked on a lot as well, especially in theories trying to create a general theory about the 4 fundamental powers (strong and weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, gravity).
so you are very wrong in declaring those as done. The same counts for AGW, calling the discourse done, is not scientific in any way.
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Re: Re: Re: More garbage
Really? Where? My experience is simply that the people who get confused by "global warming" generally can't pronounce anthropogenic, let alone define it... If people get confused by the first word in the term "global warming", will they really understand the full correct terminology?
"The other... where did I call anyone a name?"
Really? Saying "collectivists", "PSEUDOScientific community", etc. doesn't seem like name-calling to you? Childish, at the very least...
"The problem is all of the cooking of the evidence to lead people by their nose hairs to a conclusion. "
...and your evidence of this is....?
That's the funniest thing about this argument. We're meant to believe massive collusion among all the experts in this particular field (but not consider the same of the "opposing" research, of course), but there's little to suggest any actual wrongdoing. The "controversies" so far have been pretty weak attempts, and few of the "experts" opposing this even work in a similar field. If you disagree, present your evidence for doing so.
"If I see a broken glass with a baseball sitting next to it, there is evidence to suggest that the glass was broken by the baseball... however it does not prove anything. The glass may have been broken by a hammer and the baseball's presence mere coincidence."
But, you ignore anyone's fully confirmed research that the baseball was at fault, while refusing to present any evidence that a hammer was even present, let alone the sole culprit.
I'm happy to accept that climate change isn't 100% drive by humans. But, I'm yet to see anything convincing that we're not at least partially responsible. Why don't you try since you're the "adult" here? Links, please.
"I am not here to win people to a side... I don't have one"
Then why are you just attacking one side? There's a reasoned argument to be had here. "PSEUDOScientific", "RELIGION", etc. sure as hell doesn't bear any resemblance to one. Trying to act superior along with your ranting doesn't lend any credence to a word you say.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
no. it is NEVER over. you can never prove a theory, just disprove it. Even if a theory has not been refuted for a century or more it does not become fact. You can never know when new knowledge comes around that may do so. Theories have to be constantly reevaluated based on new knowledge.
You declaring ANYTHING scientific as over, that has not been thoroughly DISPROVED, shows only your fundamental lack of understanding of the scientific methods.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Interesting.
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Re:
It's the centers shifting that's worrying me - there are no radical liberals in US, I think. At least comparing to Denmark, for example.
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Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
You assume that people will arrive at the same conclusion as you do reading up on the evidence. They may very well say, this evidence does not convince me or that they see another conclusion entirely.
yes yes... see it my way or you are an idiot denier!.. catching the pattern here?
Or the best yet... go and provide contrary research! Sorry, you provide research when you are wanting to prove something... You side wants to me life altering changes for your cause... PROVE IT... don't say, prove us wrong... that is a juvenile argument.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
However, I can say that no 'religious' factions have formed in the science that I can immediately identify, not in the way that climate change has.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Are you sure you don't know about that other word they use in the scientific methodology?
It's a shame common day language throws around the 'theory' as if it meant 'guess'.
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Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
I don't pontificate on Renaissance Italian poetry because I know NOTHING about it. I don't speak or read Italian. My knowledge of Renaissance history and culture is middling, but no better. And I have no formal training (or even informal training) in the understanding, analysis, and critique of poetry.
So I do what I should do: I STFU. Nothing I could possibly say on the topic would have the slightest value to anyone. The only useful thing I could possibly do would be to remedy the deficient areas I just outlined (above) so that, MAYBE, after years of diligent study, I might finally have at least one meaningful thing to say.
But that's because I have the humility to recognize and acknowledge my own ignorance. Contrast with the unbelievable arrogance not just of commenters here, but of many elected and appointed public officials -- who "enjoy" a similar level of ignorance w.r.t. climate...yet speak to the subject anyway.
The proper response to all such people is STFU -- until and unless you can demonstrate that you've managed to grasp the basic underlying science and that you've put in the time to read the original source material. (It really is depressing how many mouth-breathing morons think Fox News is a viable outlet for scientific discourse.) (And none of the others are really any better.)
So if requiring that people know WTF they're talking about before they speak is "elitism" -- then guilty, guilty, guilty.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
small defense here, all competing theories have to disprove each other.
The problem with AGW is, competing theories are not allowed into the "discourse". That means you can't prove them wrong because they are not allowing you to attempt it.
That is religious dogma.
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Re: Re: Bad Paper
It's not as evil as it was made sounded to be. 2 extremist groups fought themselves over slaves, gold etc. extracted by the blacks and natives there, there was only a change in Management.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
And it is these predictions that are to be tested. If the experiment confirms some or all of the predictions, a theory is valid, (but never final), if only one is disproven, the theory is disproven.
A theory may be based on observed facts, but doesn't have to be.
That is how you deal with theories.
Theory, YOU are using this word, It doesn't mean what you think it means...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Why is climate change different?
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Re: Gettin what we pay for
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Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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(Full disclosure: I think anthropogenic climate change is real, and likely to be even more harmful in the near future than most models predict, though the long-term effects are probably exaggerated.
I'm also an intellectual heretic and have several non-mainstream opinions. So I can sympathize with the dissenters and doubters when they're not being bullies.)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
I will respond to this part... I will leave you to the rest of your comments as other posts have addressed most if not all.
Collectivists is a term to identify a group of people I am talking about. Are you saying they are not collectivists? I am willing to be corrected if you can convince me.
On using Pseudo Science. How else would you say that I can tell people that I believe they have devolved into whacky non pure science? That one term does a fantastic job of describing what I think about it. It is not intended to be ad-hominem like 'retard' or 'assclown', you are just taking it that way and I cannot stop you. I truly believe the religious advance of this climate change movement is spawned of unmitigated pseudoscience. There are real scientific pursuits to be engaged in. And I am more than fine continuing and encouraging even more research into these things... but not with the pseudo's we have running around right now.
The risks are too great to leave this sort of thing in over zealous hands!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
I've been using the word theory since that's what you've been using.
It seemed like you didn't know what it meant.
Now what is the word for an untested theory in science methodology?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Threats and intimidation have no place in rational discourse. It's tempting to believe that obvious cranks need to be put in their place so they don't mislead everyone else, but that's not much better than censoring or shouting down someone for religious heresy or blasphemy.
I have no sympathy for people who think it's OK when their side does it because they're right. I'll stick with Mill's "On Liberty": even if we could be sure that someone was wrong, censoring them would still be worse.
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If retards can't comprehend the difference between "global" and "local"... then that is their problem.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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reasoned debate on climate change
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/03/john_christy_an.html
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Re: Bad Paper
I will defend Frontiers decission to keep their distance from that pile, even though their reasoning leaves a lot to be desired.
When that is said I do believe in climate change, but it is irrelevant to the specific subject.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: peer review
Is that fair, is that education or science? Or is that the same as a claimed religion?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
I am not trying to convince the world that is NOT happening. Your ARE! YOU Must provide the evidence. It is up to me and others if they choose to...
1. Trust if it was honestly collected, reviewed, and presented.
2. Agree or disagree with the findings regardless of the quality or honesty of them.
It is not up to me to prove or disprove your idea to the world. It is up to me to decide if your evidence is not enough to convince me to side with you and support you.
I follow science and read extensively on certain subjects. Nothing about this debate is scientific... its dogmatic. I do not blame it 100% on the scientific community because I know politics has grabbed it by the short and curlies, but they still can be blamed for allowing biased funding into manipulating their mind sets.
When scientist that already believes in their cause sets about their experimentation, they will by human nature corrupt their own research even if they do a fairly good job of censoring their non scientific urges to pollute the experiment. They will do so unconsciously! And more than anything... the absolute fervent stomp fest that occurs when someone says they are not convinced is the greatest reason for accusation against you that I can find to call it all into question. No one without anything to hide does this sort of thing.
Again... YOU have the burden of proof... not I!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
Denying that there is evidence to convice is by definition a denial of the content of the evidence. I am not trying to poison any wells here, your position is just impossible to reason with.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
That argument that you are saying (that there isn't enough to convince you) is all well and good. but that is you denying that humans have played a part in climate change. So, it is reasonable to call you a denier of anthropogenic climate change.
Does that make more sense now?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
But, of course, everyone in the relevant scientific field agrees among themselves so they must be "zealots" and we have to agree with your definition of this with no supporting evidence.
Sorry, you're convincing nobody.
"There are real scientific pursuits to be engaged in."
Why is the study of the planet's climate and/or the effect of what we're doing to it not a "real scientific pursuit"? You're not only attacking the conclusions and research of climatologists, but rejecting the entire field entirely? On what basis, other than the fact you don't like the fact they mostly agree with one another?
" I truly believe the religious advance of this climate change movement is spawned of unmitigated pseudoscience."
Are you aware that there's a difference between the "climate change movement" and the science it's based upon, or are you one of those morons who just rejects the idea because Al Gore supports it?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Please provide links to the peer-reviewed theories countering AGW theories.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
It seems to me that nearly every criterion advanced as a marker of pseudoscience has been shown to be true of some paradigmatic example of good science.
Heliocentrism is a great example: what the Church did the Galileo was definitively wrong, but at the time the scientific community adopted it, there actually wasn't a lot of evidence for his position. The planets should vary in brightness far more than they do to the naked eye, and there was not yet a good theory of optics that explained why the telescope was more reliable when used for astronomy. (The prevailing theory predicted that anything set precisely at the focal point of the telescope should appear infinitely far away, which of course does not happen.)
If there were actually a master scientific method that let you know when a hypothesis is irreparably refuted, the term would make sense, but there isn't and science is full of comeback kids (e.g. atomism fell out of favor for most of the 19th century). The best we can do is compare the relative status of scientific hypotheses in terms of predictive power vs. how many ad hoc alterations have had to be made to save the core idea (a la Lakatos).
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Re: You could always go find Al Gore...
Just think of it this way the alberta oil sands are about the size of texas and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Re: reasoned debate on climate change
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Re:
How confident scientists are in research results is directly related to how many scientists were able to independently get get same results. By that measure, climate change has a very high level of confidence.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
a) You "carry out" research
b) In an attempt to see IF a theory is true or not
Your wording shows the mindset and lack of understanding on how the scientific method works. You're not an "idiot denier", just a regular idiot who believes vested interests over mass amounts of collected data.
ps...
Do you know that scientists will get grants to study something BEFORE the outcome is known?
The scientists didn't know how much co2 was trapped in ice cores before they studied them.
The scientists didn't know the map of tree rings, hence "tree growth rates throughout time", before they studied them.
The scientists didn't know the rate that the ice caps melt, before they studied them.
The scientists didn't know the atmospheric makeup, before they studied it.
The scientists didn't even know the average global temperature until they studied it.
To say there is some sort of conspiracy among the thousands of independent and initially, totally unrelated studies is complete "idiot talk".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
That is equal to proclaiming to be the only one to have the absolute truth, and that is what religions do, not scientists.
They want to get the "deniers" to shut up? well first of all, stop calling them deniers, that is an unjustified ad hominem. Then, finally take part in an actual and honest discourse and make a honest and thorough effort to work with those sceptical scientists and put all the theories to the test (at this point I would say, even the outlandish ones deserve this scrutiny in an attempt to undo the damage the "believers" have done so far).
As it is going now, they will never have a chance convince the sceptics, because of how poorly they follow proper scientific procedures. Only when they finally face the questions and discussions can something worthwhile come out of it.
Personally, I don't know enough about this specific field of science to evaluate the works of either side, but the way how sceptical works are dismissed and their authors treated tells me enough about their validity to be deeply concerned.
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Re: Re: peer review
"And those people had to change their study to conform or not be degreed."
This seems like a highly dubious assertion. Do you have an example? Doctoral theses are not accepted or rejected based on whether they are perceived to be "true" or not. They are accepted or rejected based on the methodology and quality of the paper. Again, a totally different thing.
Scientists as a group love nothing more than having their hypothesis disproved. That's the only time knowledge advances, and advancing knowledge is what really turns scientists on. If it wasn't, they wouldn't be scientists.
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Re: reasoned debate on climate change
http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Retraction_of__Recursive_Fury__%3Cbr%3EA_Statement/812
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
This is illogical bordering on the bizarre. You have defined "collectivist" to mean "the people I am talking about," and then say you are willing to be corrected if you can be convinced. You are saying "I use the term "x" to mean "y", prove me wrong." That's a meaningless thing to say because it's obviously true that you use the term "x" to mean "y".
"How else would you say that I can tell people that I believe they have devolved into whacky non pure science?"
So you admit that this is name-calling. A better approach would be to say something like "I don't think that climate researchers have reached the correct conclusions, and this is why..."
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Re: Re: reasoned debate on climate change
...and how did he do that by posting a comment on an article he didn't write, addressing a reaction that was already taking place?
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The paper was not about climate change
The paper was not about climate change. It was about the psychology of climate change deniers, and how they lean flaky. Some of them took it personally. Interestingly enough, it was the second of two papers. The first generated reactions from the deniers, and the second paper was about this meta-reaction.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
The source of funding is a concern, however can be easily seen through as good and proper research will reveal itself for what it is.
I hear constantly that the community said this is a done deal, yet I also hear that this is not so.. Whom do I believe? Certainly not the ones sounding religious over it. I am religious myself... I know what it looks like and baby... I see twins when you set global warming right next to another religion right now.
Your historical view of "Heliocentrism" could use some refining. Galileo was accosted by the church more by his disrespectful comments towards it... not specifically for his theory. Furthermore... it is on record that he hesitated to publish his owns finding because he believed fellow (non religious)scientists might spurn his findings not just the Church. His theories were not so as accepted as you claim. There is debate even there on how well his theories were accepted but to this day does reveal how horrible humans are at remaining objects... no matter which side you are taking.
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Re: I'd rather have multiple ideas to choose from and study
"Geocentrism was once considered settled science"
No, it wasn't. There's no such thing as "settled science". Geocentrism was considered a prevailing hypothesis, and was informed by and pushed as "settled fact" by religion, not science.
Science is what disproved geocentrism.
"Also see global cooling scare."
Again, that didn't come from science. That came from the popular press.
"Reliable and accurate satellite observations of worldwide weather has only been around for 30-40 years"
True, which is why climate change science does not draw any conclusions from those observations.
"All predictions by people/organizations that say there is no doubt, at least the highly publicized ones, have been wrong."
Scientists haven't, and don't say things like "there is no doubt". You're confusing the popular press with scientists again.
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Re: Re: Re: More garbage
I don't ever recall hearing about a revival meeting at a convent. Revivals are staged to bring strays back to the faith and bring in new faithful. Convents are already populated by the faithful.
Although the image of a bunch on nuns having an old fashioned revival is fun.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
This is where you convince me that I am using the incorrect name.
I have used the wrong word before I trying to describe something, it happens... I am willing to be corrected, but since you have seemed to outwit yourself, I am not sure if you contributed to the conversation. Ask a specific question, you will get a specific answer.
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Re: Re: reasoned debate on climate change
Yes - just like Tim said:
Next time do a bit more digging before you get everyone up in arms.
Next time actually read the article before condemming it. Just sayin'
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Evidence, please?
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Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
There are degrees of knowledge. Someone who did not take the many years for a full degree, but has studied the basics, can help educate the ones who did not have that opportunity. They won't usually add anything new, but they help spread the information.
If a child comes to me and asks, "what's global warming", I have enough knowledge to impart at least the basic information. If someone on a discussion has never heard of ocean acidification, I know enough to give a general idea of what it is, how it works, and a few of its consequences. And so on.
I recognize and acknowledge my own ignorance, but I also recognize and acknowledge my own knowledge. I know there is a lot I don't know, but I also know there are a few things I know.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
I will stand corrected! But I think most people got what I wanted to say, however I always prefer clarity to agreement.
That clarity comment was taken from Dennis Prager, for those that recognize it.
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Re: The paper was not about climate change
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Re: Re: reasoned debate on climate change
-How not to deal with stuff you don't agree with.
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Re: The paper was not about climate change
I want the article to remain in the light because it helps prove my point that this movement is more about religious/political motivations than what it has to say on scientific merits.
Even though I do not agree with Tim on this specific subject I can say that its take down benefits the believers more than the deniers despite initial indications.
Reminds me of how governments would send their troops across a border... get them all dressed up as another enemy and then attack another enemy... drumming up a false war.
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Re: Re: The paper was not about climate change
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Re: Re: The paper was not about climate change
Thanks for disagreeing in a reasonable way and actually finding some common ground on not wanting to censor shit. Nice to see someone who I disagree with do it civilly and actually read the god damned motherfucking post and comment on that rather than a larger debate I never opened, and in fact said we should be having elsewhere.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
I know science works like this.
First, you become familiar with a specific field of science.
You prove your knowledge thru degrees (Bachelor's, Master's, etc). You contribute to your field with a PhD.
Starting with an hypothesis (educated guess), you seek to answer a question within your field.
You then think up what evidence/observations/experiments that help back up your hypothesis or disprove it.
You then proceed with your evidence/observations/experiments.
You then provide this to some of your colleagues in the same field. They repeat the same evidence/observations. If they match up, you write up a paper, present to a scientific journal for all your colleagues to review.
If there is a consensus, it's a theory.
pseudoscience doesn't follow that methodology.
Climate science does.
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Re: Re: Re: The paper was not about climate change
ffs, be civil man!
Who gives a fuck what the article was that started the communication.
Forum slides are fun.
Meeting IRL idiots and arguing with them is fun.
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A stopped clock is often correct at least once a day, you've mistaken the acuity of the readers of techdirt based on them accidentally pointing in roughly the correct direction on IP issues for the wrong reasons.
Learn from this.
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Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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The thing I don't get
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Re: The thing I don't get
Haven't heard of it, nobody thinks about it, absolutely nobody even suggests it.
Back in actual reality....
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Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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lolwut?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Then I started to. I found the deniers to be alot like creationists. I even found a website for the deniers stating an oath to denial because the Bible said it was so. Pretty shocking, but I didn't let that be a tipping point.
The science for climate change is there.
CO2 increasing, actual temps increasing. CO2 of the isotope only found in fossil fuels being the greatest source. Islanders in the Pacific noticing sea levels rising.
Satellites measuring energy input to Earth/Output from Earth. The result? Earth holding onto that energy more over time.
Glacier melt rate overall, increasing over time.
So, it would take some evidence to address these to change my mind.
Go...
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Re: Re:
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Not Sure Why?
Basically, it seems it was an article trashing people who deny "global warming". I'm not sure how that qualifies as a scientific article. Science is not about what the scientist or the advocate believes, it's about the facts.
Linus Pauling may have been a bit nuts about Vitamin C; Shockley may have been a bit controversial about genetics - but whateevr your views of those issues, that has zero bearing on the science that they did before, and even during those controversies. The only question is whether the science is sound.
"So let it be with Caesar..." The OP laments that a hatchet job was suppressed, but says nothing about the work of the hatchetees and its merit. The article, if as described by the OP, is a hatchet job and has no place in climate discussion.
IMHO, the biggest problems are these:
- (some) "Global Warming" advocates have become as fanatic as (some) deniers.
- everything is explained away. Worst winter in decades? Staistical anomaly. (Hottest summer? Ditto, by other side.) Excessive rain? "It's climate change, side efect of warming!"; lack of predicted massive hurricanes, in fact, abnormally quiet seasons? Actual warming stalled for 10 years now? "Let me get back to you on that", "It's saving up for a big one", "La Nina is temporary holding things back..." Statistics can be waterboarded to tell you whatever you want to hear.
-Ignoring the fact that climate change is confused with recovering from a series of little ice ages. The Thames and the Hudson stopped freezing over, glaciers befgan retreating, long before gloable CO2 was significant.
-This is my biggest point - compared to mother nature, we are crumbs on the floor. Without the benefit of human input, she has had dinosaurs wandering the arctic forests, she has had mile-thick glaciers across the northern states. We have no idea if what we are seeing is our doing or hers.
-The solar cycle this time is half what it was last time and about where it was in 1900 when we were recovering from low sunspot cycles and a period of cold. Are we headed to another climate low like the Maunder minimum, or the Oort minimum, which killed off the european Greenlanders? We had the warming period before that, again with limited human input, that allowed crops in Greenland. Climate change is a possible reason for the Mayan civilization collapse too.
Looking at the temperature graphs for the last dozen ice ages - there is no logical coherent pattern. The cycle is too irregular for the alleged astronomical cause. Regardless, compared to past cycles, we seem to be overdue for a cooling cycle. Sometime in the next 0 to 3,000 years we'll probably see a serious cooling. When? How fast? Who knows. We can't rely on it to save our globally warmed bacon, or ignore CO2 emissions because of the coming ice age.
-My opinion - we should be avoiding excessive pollution, simply because we DON'T KNOW. Global warming as a hypothesis is more valid than "it doesn't matter". There's only one way to prove it, which we probably don't want to do.
-My other contention is that there is a limited supply of oil. Deep sea drilling, fracking, and other tricks simply put off the day when oil starts to become like it statred in 2008, f***ing expensive. Society needs to adapt now or else the inflection point with oil will be a much much bigger crash. Now is the time to build, for example, the transit infrastructure to handle the day when one-person-per-car commuting is impracticale. Suburban sprawl needs to be rationalized sooner, before suddenly any house built more than 10 miles from city center has no resale value. Factories need to cluster closer to transit paths. Manufacturing capacity that relies on cheap intercontinental shipping needs to rationalize. Alternate energy sources, better electric or hydrogen cars... And so on.
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Re: The thing I don't get
What took a few millions of years to produce (oil) is being released in just 100 years at an increasing rate. Need something more than that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
What I do question is the way people are trying to tackle the climate issue. Trapping carbon dioxide is an idiocy. Instead they could be using that energy that would go down the drain to build better pollution removal systems. Carbon dioxide in the air doesn't do shit. Nitrous oxides, sulfur, dioxins and the likes are pure poison ready to fuck up a myriad of things. But air is still not the worst of our problems. Trash, overexploitation of natural resources and polluted liquid effluents will do the job faster than any coal plant driven economy can ever think of doing.
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Re: Re: Re: The paper was not about climate change
Still, this comment section alone must be giving plenty of material for a 3rd paper lmao!
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Re: Re:
Whatever it means.
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Re: Not Sure Why?
Actually it's an article about the psychology of the denial process (if I read right), not about climate change. So.. uh... it is science. But not in the climate change issue but rather in the social and psychological stuff behind the topic.
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Re: The thing I don't get
Trees etc... decompose and with it, they release ALL their co2. Only in exceptional circumstances when they are "buried alive" do the trees become co2 stores (like when a tree falls into a swamp/bog).
The problem is releasing all that stored (as carbon) co2 by burning fossil fuels.
If we all burnt wood then the co2 levels would not increase. carbon-neutral
The tree takes co2 from the atmosphere, turns it into carbon. PROBLEM is that nitrogen dioxide is also released and that is a worse greenhouse gas.
Fighting the root cause or "pushing an agenda" ?
Fighting the root cause is better than just dealing with it.But looks like we will have to just deal with it.
Bury trees deep underground when they die.
Grow algae and bury it deep underground before it decomposes.
Farm photosynthesizing bacteria and bury it underground before it decomposes.
"Dealing with it" is far more costly than preventing it.
5 Trees buried when you die just to cover the co2 omitted from your breathing....for a start.
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I have .... for teh lulz
Ron Paul 2012
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Re: More garbage
"L et's be honest here. These climate change scientists do climate science for a living. Surprise! Articles. Presentations. Workshops. Conferences. Staying late for science. Working on the weekends for science. All of those crappy holidays like Presidents' Day? The ones you look forward to for that day off of work? Those aren't holidays. Those are the days when the undergrads stay home and the scientists can work without distractions.
Now take a second before you drop your knowledge bomb on this page and remind me again... What's your day job? When was the last time you read through an entire scholarly article on climate change? How many climate change journals can you name? How many conferences have you attended? Have you ever had coffee or a beer with a group of colleagues who study climate change? Are you sick of these inane questions yet?"
You're really going to dismiss the finding of an entire branch of science? You think you know better? Go on then, tell me what profound evidence you have to support your claims!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
No. Unless you have at least minimal understanding of the subject, you should not speak of it at all. For example, here are some of our elected representatives demonstrating that they do not grasp even the first principles of science, the things that they should have learned in elementary (or at worst, high) school: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2014/03/31/the-house-of-representatives -committee-on-science-is-turning-into-a-national-embarrassment/
On this particular topic, it is impossible for anyone who does not understand principles like temperature, energy, entropy, diffusion, convection, etc. and a least enough math to understand a partial differential equation to say anything meaningful: how could they? They don't even speak the language in which the conversation is being held.
Similarly, anyone who hasn't read original source materials: the papers, the textbooks, the IPCC reports, etc., can't say anything meaningful either: how could they? They are not acquainted with the basic scientific facts.
I'm not demanding that someone be a PhD-level climatologist before uttering an opinion. But I think it's absurd that people who cannot not recite the laws of thermodynamics or explain the difference between convection and conduction or recognize a diffusion equation, and have read zero technical papers and zero books and zero reports, somehow think that they are magically enlightened enough to say something meaningful about this subject.
They're not.
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So, ignoring climate change for a minute...
So ignore your biases for or against the subjects of the paper for a moment.
According to Frontier's statement on the retraction, "The article categorizes the behaviour of identifiable individuals within the context of psychopathological characteristics."
If this is true, do you think it's really appropriate to publish such a paper? Would anyone here really not object to a psychological paper being published based on their posts, in which they are identifiable? Would you still not object if it portrayed you as having psychological issues? Does it even MATTER if it's true or not?
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Re: So, ignoring climate change for a minute...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
That strikes me as an unreasonably high standard for science. It's also not always a scientist's fault when their ideas are hijacked — did Social Darwinism, which Darwin despised but was powerless to stop its proliferation, invalidate the theory of evolution? And it's certainly not the idea's fault.
Your historical view of "Heliocentrism" could use some refining.
My elaboration of it was oversimplified but I don't believe it differs substantively from your own. I still believe Galileo's punishment was unjust because the Church had no business getting involved in the first place. Still, he got away easy in comparison to some others.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
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Re: Re: The thing I don't get
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Re: Re: So, ignoring climate change for a minute...
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Re:
In my experience, it's actually left-wing libertarians who are most likely to go along with the opinions TechDirt regularly espouses.
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I know I have won when you don't have to guts or balls to not censor those you are so scared of..
I guess that all the power you will ever have, so you make the very best of it..
you censor friends are so proud of you..
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Re: Re: The thing I don't get
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
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Re: Re: Re: So, ignoring climate change for a minute...
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Re: More garbage
But there is an enormous amount of difference between the effects of food on the diets of humans than there is the study of other subjects.
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Re: So, ignoring climate change for a minute...
Someone likely with an axe to grind makes disparaging remote psychological analyses of people who hold opposing views. Likely these people are identifiable. Should the publisher expect legal action?
The author could have examined 1980's survivalists, 1900's anarchists, etc. He had to pick on the one side in a very current polarized debate and associate them with crazies, and expect that it would be taken as "just impartial science"? yeah, right.
When someone attacks a group rather than the merits of their point of view, it says something about the attacker. Either the rebuttal of the facts is too weak, or the attacker is themselves part of a group of crazies.
If global warming is the runaway freight train that it is claimed, the anomalous data points should not be:
- "coldest winter in a century",
- "series of very cold winters",
- "first snow in Cairo in decades"
- 'Second year in a row of heavy snowfall in Jerusalem"
- "warming has virtually stopped the last 10 years"
- "quietest hurricane season(s) in a long time"
- "heavy storms and flooding are a result of global warming".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Oh dear ...
or, oh dear, what if its all a hoax and we borrow and spend trillions of dollars for nothing.
Climate change prevention and even mitigation is not free. That money could be used to feed starving people or improve quality of life. Bjorn Lomborg makes this point exceptionally well.
Actions, even actions to "SAVE the PLANET"™ still need to make economic sense.
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Scientific paper?
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Re: Re: Re: The thing I don't get
But with the amount of CO2 from fossil fuels being dumped at increasing rates, forestation on the most massive scale wouldn't put a dent in it.
Like using your car as a barrier to stop a tidal wave.
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Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
Draw your own conclusions
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Re: Re: Oh dear ...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re: Re: peer review
Who's the most famous scientist of all time, the guy who was widely recognized as being so brilliant that, even almost a century later, his name is still synonymous with "genius" in the colloquial lexicon, even by people who don't know anything about science? Yeah, I'm talking about Albert Einstein. But do you know what he actually did to earn that?
He proved that something that everyone had believed was correct--Newton's laws of motion--were actually wrong. He took the solidly established consensus, found a hole it it, and became the most famous scientist in history. What scientist wouldn't want to be the next Einstein?
But here's the truly interesting thing about it: Newton really wasn't all that wrong. For essentially anything at all that you would want to do on Earth, Newton's laws still hold, and you'd use them rather than Einstein's equations in engineering calculations, because they're simpler. Einstein's Relativity only becomes relevant in extreme situations, such as space travel.
Applying this logic to the analogous situation, even if "the next Einstein" found an Einstein-sized hole in the science of global warming, this suggests that most of the scientific consensus would still be understood to be valid! So denial simply doesn't work at all to anyone with even a cursory understanding of science.
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The journal's respondse.
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Re: Re: So, ignoring climate change for a minute...
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The journal's response.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The thing I don't get
"Deforestation is a contributor to global warming, and is often cited as one of the major causes of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Tropical deforestation is responsible for approximately 20% of world greenhouse gas emissions. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest_destruction
I'm not saying that CO2 emissions from fossil fuel consumption is an issue that doesn't need to be dealt with. I'm saying that a lot of those people that push the issue are more about pushing their own agendas rather than solving the actual problem otherwise they would be looking for multiple ways of addressing the problem not just demonizing the petrochemical countries.
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Re: The thing I don't get
Sinks and turnover rates/equilibrium between the different sinks.
Sinks in this context are air, ocean, deep ocean, surface ground, underground and some other mostly pasive places for the most part irrelevant to the argument.
There is a balance between surface ground sinks and the air sink, though it has some seasonal variation. The turnover is fast. Air and ocean has a certain equilibrium based on concentrations of CO2, carbonic acid and biological buildup. It is also rather fast. The turnover from ocean to deep ocean is pretty slow and the deep oceans are sometimes seen as a sink even though certain parts of the planet can attest to that assumptions limitation.
The underground is very slow in building up carbon (coal, tar and oil. Natural gas is a lot faster at forming and therefore assumed to be less problematic.).
By collecting a lot of carbon from underground at a very rapid rate, you are emptying that mostly passive sink and turning it into part of the active system (air, surface ground and ocean).
The problematic sinks for the extra carbon are mostly the air and ocean (greenhouse effect and acidification).
Planting more multiannual vegetation does help compared to seasonal vegetation but turnover rates from forests are still fast compared to deep ground buildup of carbon and a large majority of the carbon stays in the active sinks anyway!
The chemistry of acidification is very easy to show and relatively easy to understand. The physics of greenhouse effect is more complicated to show and understand, while still being at the intermediate end of physics and therefore scientifically settled.
When you understand these three effects it is hard to keep rejecting effects and if humans are at least partially responsible.
What to do about it is politics.
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there is such a thing as man-made climate change.
That's not the same as 97% supporting AGW. 67% of the published articles expressed no position one way or the other.
Despite any conclusion the referenced article might draw, their own numbers don't support their conclusion.
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I hate that i can't edit my comments ...
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Re: Scientific paper?
I have respect for Frontiers pulling this article. It is extremely controversial and the problem description is not even close to a neutral starting point scientifically. It is the scientific equivalent of "how often do you beat your wife?".
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Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: Re:
Ironically left-wing libertarians seems to be a good name for what you find here:
People are extremely enamoured by the civil rights and particularly how authorities are abusing those. Thus socially libertarian seems pretty straight.
Scepticism about IP and proponents of a collectivistic culture as in public domain is traditional left-wing.
A less comfortable side of the usual suspects is shown in this thread and it has been said by several more reasonable dissidents before: There is a large degree of conspiracists, which is pretty common for both sides of the extremes in the traditional political spectrum.
Extremist left wing libertarians sounds about right?
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Re: Re: Bad Paper
The journal also has stated they tried to get a revised paper that addressed the issues but the authors apparently refused to rewrite the paper to address the issues.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
-Bertrand Russel
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Re: Re: The thing I don't get
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
"People should be encouraged to speak up with their opinions regardless of what their background is."
but I don't.
I'd like to encourage people to THINK about whether they have the slightest clue about what they're saying before they say it. I'd like to encourage them to self-educate so that they do have a clue. I'd like to encourage them to show self-control, restraint and good judgment in what they say -- and what they don't. I'd like to encourage them to acknowledge that they aren't experts in the field (with some rare exceptions, of course) and that there ARE experts in field who have spent their professional lives studying this stuff -- and those people are vastly more likely to be correct than they are. I'd like to encourage people to have some humility and to learn to answer "I don't know" -- because nearly all of them know little-to-nothing.
For example, anyone who can't read this, understand it, and explain it hasn't got the slightest clue about climate: http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/model/direct/images/image9.gif
It's absolutely impossible for such a person to say anything intelligent about climate: they don't even grasp the first principles of climatology 101. (Just as it's absolutely impossible for me to say anything intelligent about Renaissance Italian poetry: I'm utterly clueless. The difference is that I have the humility and the honesty to admit it and STFU -- as I should.)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The thing I don't get
As a natural extension of that the left wing has transitioned to be very strong supporters of doing something against gw/acc. The problem is that people are conflating science with politics. Since many professors in USA or even globally are left-leaning politically, it is an easy trap to fall into. The current problem with climate change is that politicians have entrenched religiously.
Scientists of any kind never want to pick a side politically and since everything coming from them is used as such it is extremely delicate for them to comment on this subject. Sceptics working with other partially controversial explainations are scared of the left-wing and the establishment are scared of the right-wing. It sucks to be a climate scientist at the moment! 3% denying acc and 67% being non-specific tells a story of an extremely controversial subject where few are willing to take the inevitable beating rather than a story of doubt!
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Re: Oh dear ...
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Re: Re: Re: Bad Paper
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Re: Re: The paper was not about climate change
From madasahatter above:
________________________
Read the retraction notice (http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Retraction_of_Recursive_Fury_A_Statement/812). The journal explicitly states there were serious ethical and legal problems with the paper. The principle on was the implication of a psychopathology by the authors on those they considered deniers without any real evidence of any pathology of the "deniers".
The journal also has stated they tried to get a revised paper that addressed the issues but the authors apparently refused to rewrite the paper to address the issues.
________________________
I think the article should get an update.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The thing I don't get
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Re: Re: Oh dear ...
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Re: Re: Re:
Anyway, left-wing libertarians comprise the field from Tuckerite free-market socialists to capitalists who are anti-big-business and pro-equality on social issues. Good examples are Kevin Carson and Roderick T. Long. Every one I'm aware of is vehemently anti-IP, anti-surveillance, pro-equality for gays and minorities, and they all think the Republicans are complete hypocrites for slamming Democrats about "big government."
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Re: Re: Re:
Scepticism about IP and proponents of a collectivistic culture as in public domain is traditional left-wing.
Anti-IP libertarians think exactly the opposite is true, of course: IP is a denial of individual freedom to peaceably use information one possesses, traditionally justified by its utility to society as a whole. So, collectivistic.
There is a large degree of conspiracists, which is pretty common for both sides of the extremes in the traditional political spectrum.
True that.
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Re: Not Sure Why?
This is the problem a number of people have with many of the long-term predictions of the IPCC model: it assumes the oil supply will just keep coming, and increasing as quickly as it is now. That's just ridiculous.
The consensus seems to be that peak oil started in 2005, and we've just managed to stave off the downward curve with some dirty tricks and just devoting a larger percent of the oil we extract to extracting more of it.
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Re: Re: Re: So, ignoring climate change for a minute...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The thing I don't get
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The only constant is change. The climate has always and will always change. Look up Milankovitch cycles.
Science is misunderstood. Science proves nothing. If you want proof go to a court of law. Science disproves. Any given event could have an infinite number of causes. You cannot prove you are correct without refuting every other cause in question. You can only disprove hypotheses on a case by case basis. Good science is what is left standing.
Climate change is left standing.
There is no scientific conspiracy. There are biased papers, there are scientists who have compromised themselves. But, if you believe that climate change is made up, you havent looked at the raw data or, if you have, you may fall into the demographic this paper is talking about. While some might debate whether there is a consensus about the origin, there is a mountain of data pointing to rapid climate change.
But don't take my word for it. Look at some data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
What you are exhibiting here is no where near humility. It's professional elitism. Perhaps you shouldn't engage in debate until you have done a little more research on the subject.
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Re:
Whether that's what the paper said or not, that has certainly been my experience.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The thing I don't get
When talking about politics, discussions are becoming much more devious and brutally divisive in arguments, while the policy is becoming exactly the same with only slight deviations. It is fascinating and scary at the same time. I guess it is the same as with dogs: The louder the bark, the smaller the dog!
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So in other words you admit that your logical fallacy of appealing to authority is based off of faith?
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Global Weather Chaos
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Re: Re: You could always go find Al Gore...
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Re: Global Weather Chaos
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Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
If not: shut up. You are not worthy to speak.
No.
Question 2: Have you read at least one textbook on climatology?
If not: shut up. You are not worthy to speak.
No.
Question 3: Have you read the latest IPCC scientific assessment?
If not: shut up. You are not worthy to speak.
No.
Question 4: Have you read the latest IPCC report on managing the risks of extreme events and disasters?
If not: shut up. You are not worthy to speak.
No.
At that point, maybe, you will be worthy of the privilege of expressing an opinion.
Free speech is a privilege now, is it?
...you are not worth to speak. You haven't earned that right.
Rights aren't "earned." They're considered inherent. You can agree or disagree with opinions, you can listen to them or not, but you can't silence them by virtue of them coming from someone who didn't waste a hundred grand on a college degree.
Are we clear?
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Re: Re: Oh dear ...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
Problem with statement is that the climate we are experiencing may not be "wrong". Undoubtedly, it is problematic for our civilisation in very many ways, but to say that there is something wrong with it is jumping to a conclusion that can only be described as an opinion.
There is quite a lot of historical data available (you do need to look into the records for the last century and a half) that seriously indicates that what we are seeing now is part of a cyclic pattern. I find it interesting that it is commonly reported that we are seeing unprecedented changes when I recall from my own youth, the same events occurring year on year.
I do agree that we need to be much more careful with our natural resources and the contaminants we released.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
You need to define what you mean by "collectivist mindset" in order for me to answer that question.
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Re: Re: Oh dear ...
Would it really cost that much to reduce levels of pollution? I'd like to see the analyses.
Let's continue filling the air, rivers and oceans with our unwanted crap because we are too friggin cheap to cleanup after ourselves.
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Re: Re: Oh dear ...
Problem that does not exist? Denial is horrible way to go. Anyone who thinks there are no problems is certainly being delusional, and many of them get mad when this is pointed out. So yeah - do nothing, good plan.
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Re: Re: Oh dear ...
Except that nobody is proposing any such thing. What people are proposing is the development of new industries and technologies that, all by themselves, bring great economic benefits.
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Re: That is indeed bad...
First, Pattern Recognition in Physics is not considered a reputable scientific journal, so you can't impugn "science" by what it does. it was only in existence for about a year.
Second, the reasons that they gave for killing the journal had nothing whatsoever to do with the article in question doubting global warming. The reasons were accusations of unprofessional behavior serious enough to pretty much ensure that the journal couldn't be taken seriously.
For a publishing group like Copernicus, publishing a journal that looks like it has shady or dubious practices is poison and casts doubt on all of the other journals they publish.
Shutting down the journal seems drastic, but it also seem justifiable.
You may think they're lying about why they shut down the journal (I assume that you do), but unless you can come up with support for that, the shutting of the journal isn't an example of what you think it is.
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Re: Re: Global Weather Chaos
Weather is actually the paradigmatic example of a chaotic system in the sense here. Chaos theory began when a meteorologist truncated a few digits in initial conditions of a weather simulation and got completely different results than if he'd left the digits in. What was discovered was that weather is extremely sensitive to relatively small disturbances.
Increase in average temperature means and increase in the thermal energy in the atmosphere and thus an increase in sensitivity to disturbance. So the term is appropriate.
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Re: Re: Bad Paper
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
The anecdotal data isn't what's worrying. The worrying bits are raising sea surface temperature and higher global temperature averages. There is ice core data going back 100k years along with many other kinds of data that go into cyclic analyses. There are certain periods we expect to see rising and lower temperatures based on changing distance from the sun, axial tilt and even periodic changes in solar output.
Cyclic variation can be accounted for. There is still some worrying excess.
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ARRRGHH!
Look, people, if you want to discuss AGW itself, there's already a zillion and one places to do it. You don't need to turn every related topic back too AGW itself.
...
Well, you don't need to, but you're going to anyway. Why I'm even bothering to type this comment out? *sigh*
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Re: Re: Re: Global Weather Chaos
I just googled chaos and Webster spit out "complete confusion and disorder." While weather is a system with sensitive variables we still recognize it as weather. Your definition doesn't describe anything new. Weather has had the properties you describe since before language was developed so it doesn't serve to distinguish what we are experiencing now.
I haven't seen any data that indicate increasing temperature increases the systems sensitivity to temperature. More extreme weather is expected when there is more energy on tap but sensitivity to temperature and more extreme weather are two different things.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Global Weather Chaos
Increased heat causing more extreme weather is chaos theory in action: the more energetic the system, generally the more exaggerated the reaction to events both within the system and from outside. A prime example is the different states of matter: drop a solid object and it generally keeps its shape, drop a liquid and it sloshes about. Wind is the closest equivalent with respect to gases, I think.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Global Weather Chaos
Chaos theory involves sensitivity to initial conditions and the unpredictability of systems. It applies to ice age weather equally as well as "warmed" climates. As far as chaos theory is concerned it doesn't matter how much energy is in the system, just that the system has a starting state that is different, lots of things interact and time goes by.
"Warmed" climates are not more chaotic. Something is either chaotic or not. Sensitive to initial conditions and unpredictable over time even though it's based on deterministic principles, or not. Weather, regardless of how much energy is in the system, is chaotic.
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One person commented about the toxicity associated with our carbon fuel technologies. This (and the much more thorough and expanded environmental poisoning) is the gold, the big deal, the rapidly developing, urgent, and systematically underrepresented threat to all life on earth. Start noticing whenever anyone bothers to test, say, aluminum levels in whale or other mass animal die offs. Anytime someone bothers with such testing, we get these high measurements that we are then reassured are unrelated to the deaths. Anyone following the standard NSA doubletalk should be skilled in recognizing this we-don't-see-a-problem-because-we-will-not-look-and-therefore-the-problem-does-not-exist methodology. Have you lost someone yet from a toxin induced illness? Are you dealing with one, or is someone you love dealing with one? Probably. Would you know it? Every attempt has been made to ensure that you wouldn't, and that liability is maximally avoided for those responsible.
But don't trust me -- just start noticing. You might also want to find out what technologies have been developed and tested and used which affect climate and weather directly, and investigate some of the catastrophic environmental and health effects of those technologies. I think many people who are involved in digital rights advocacy don't yet see the full set of ways in which we are being profoundly violated. I would like that process to speed up as this is generally a great group of people.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Global Weather Chaos
Things either act chaotically or not but the time period over which we can make predictions is relevant. We can forecast weather. So something could be more chaotic if that predictable period is shorter.
However, chaos theory doesn't imply that higher temperature result in more extreme weather. It only states that there will be different weather. The guts of it state that if we had very similar starting conditions we could end up with radically different results. With climate change we know that is going to be the case anyway because we are changing starting conditions by a significant amount.
We don't need to invoke chaos theory.
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Re: Re:
excellent, i'm sure that will turn out well:
let's just all decide gravity is a myth ! ! !
gosh, that sciencey stuff sure is hard, let's just agree to disagree with it, h'okay ? ? ?
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Re: Re: Re: The thing I don't get
Forests, swamps etc. are not just forests, swamps etc. There are large differences on a climate scale between how much of an effect they have and the more advanced understanding of those areas cycles is only in its infancy.
Most importantly getting a planted forest to a state where it acts as a reasonable sink has proven to be a slow process.
Reducing deforestation is therefore more important than ever and especially dense old jungle is important to keep because of its high storage capacity and the slow increase in capacity of replanted jungle. For us in the non-jungled parts of the world, it is not as relevant.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
I disagree that it's elitism. However, if "studying at length" and "reading widely" and "doing the math" and "self-educating to fill in gaps in my background" is elitist: then, okay, fine. I guess it's fashionable now to disrespect people who actually know WTF they're talking because somehow that would hurt the tender feelings of the uneducated and ignorant masses who wouldn't know a boundary value problem even if it was tattooed on their ass.
There is a serious dose of anti-intellectualism, anti-education, anti-science in this thread. I find that highly ironic given that it's a discussion on a web site on the Internet of computers built of hardware designed by engineers based on research by scientists. One of the things that you need to accept is that (a) there are people who are much smarter than you and (b) there are people who know a lot more than you and (c) there are people who are smarter AND know a lot more than you. You can either get your precious ego butthurt over this violation of your egalitarian principles, or you can accept it. Or better yet, you can work your ass off, like I have, in order to try to catch up to them, and put your energy into that instead of this incessant, annoying whining.
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Re: Re: More garbage
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bogus comparison
The fact is, the vast majority of people who have an opinion about climate change one way or the other did not come to their opinion by careful analysis of the data.
How did you reach your opinion?
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Re: Re: Re:
That's an awful lot to read into what the last poster said.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Global Weather Chaos
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Re: Re: Re: More garbage
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Re: Re: Bad Paper
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"Deniers"?
No sensible person on either side "denies" that the world is warmer than it was 20 years ago. No denial there.
No sensible skeptic denies that the climate is "changing". It always has. No denial there.
No sensible person denies that there has been no significant warming for the last 15 years. That's just established fact. No denial.
One can't "deny" future predictions. They haven't happened yet. You can doubt the predictions or believe the predictions but you can't "deny" predictions.
So what do you think is being denied? I don't see "denial".
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Good Grief!!!
Some of you have a Saturday-morning-cartoon understanding of how science works. Here's a couple of hints: it's not a democracy and it's not a popularity contest; it's not done by press release, and the most important researchers are people you've never heard of unless you're doing work in their field. Scientists are people, too; they put their pants on one leg at a time, they hold opinions and biases and likes and dislikes, some of them are total jackasses, most of them are normal but you get the occasional bloated ego just like in any other occupation. Stop putting them on a pedestal as if they were demigods - they're not.
Think for yourselves. Blind appeals to authority, whether religious or scientific, are equally valueless.
And yes, I did teach for two decades in a geosciences department. And no, I'm not saying either the 'alarmists' or the 'deniers' are wrong. Or right. I am bemoaning an educational system which has produced far too many people bereft of the critical reasoning necessary to form an intelligent decision.
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Deforestation
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Just one thing...
There is one thing which you (or anyone else meeting the same criteria) could say of value on any topic with which you are unfamiliar, and that is:
I don't know.
Which, in and of itself, is knowing something; the alternative of not knowing what one doesn't know is worse. Take a look at human history (as a whole) and you'll find that pretty much every problem humans have faced has been the result of what we don't really know but choose to believe we know anyway.
Further, simply stating 'I don't know.', rather than remaining silent, might introduce the concept to others who aren't familiar with it.
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History and repetition
When I read "History repeating..." all I can think is, Does it ever not? Will it?
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Re: Re: reasoned debate on climate change
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What a stupid article
The crowning touch of stupidity was the ongoing Bush Derangement Syndrome in the last paragraph. Bush left office five years ago and has moved on with his life. You might want to do the same
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Re: Re: Re: Re: More garbage
Past experience with un-sourced statements about "they" and what their new research reveals. Perhaps a link to this new research claiming trans fat is ok would be appropriate, oh and you might want to include who funded same.
Remember the studies on smoking that claimed it did not cause health issues? I wonder who funded those.
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Re: Re: Re: Bad Paper
Revisionist history, isn't it fun? The torture and horrific means of ending life were reasonable responses to the heretic non believers of the chosen religion.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
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Re: It should have been retracted
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_McIntyre
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Response to: AjStechd on Apr 4th, 2014 @ 5:31am
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Re: That is indeed bad...
Frontiers did not “cave in to threats”; in fact, Frontiers received no threats.
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Statement from Frontiers in Psychology blog
Did you note the part where "Frontiers received no threats"?
I think a bit more investigation was warranted before making such inflammatory accusations. Unfortunately, when something touches the highly volatile subject of "Climate Change", good judgement seems to be lacking in many cases.
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Whats the problem
The other side of the coin is starting to show paranoia. The paper was about psychology. About one person calling another paranoid. The publisher asked by the subject said have him prove it. He would not prove it, just reinterated what he originally wrote. Whats that to do with climate science? One by saying the patients name, he violated patients rights, by publishing diagonsis he violated confidentiality, he should have been sued outright in court for defimation and slander, since he wasn't a shrink. And I thought all peer reviewed papers were withdrawn and the problems noted or corrected and then republished. That what the process till the bullies got in the way of education and scientific research.
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Re: "Deniers"?
Well, there's your first mistake. There's a lot of people denying exactly that. They're perhaps not "sensible" in any traditional sense, but they certainly do exist.
"I don't see "denial"."
Wilful blindness is not a virtue.
Perhaps instead of getting caught up in semantics, you might want to take a look at the arguments being made.
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Re: Oh dear ...
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Re: Re: Oh dear ...
And 'saving the planet' makes a lot of economic sense in itself - but not necessarily for the current generation.
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Re: Re:
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Re: More garbage
The Climate is always changing. There's been a couple BIG Ice Ages and a number of small ones. Without Climate Change, New York would be under a couple miles of ice!!! How did the Earth Warm up and then Cool down and then Warm up over and over again without MAN or Few people, let alone burning Oil???
How come it has been Warming up on MARS? Is there a bunch of cars driving around on the surface I don't know about???
The Climate is always changing. Guess what, warming weather has a lot of pluses. Longer growing season. Less need to heat homes burning fuel!!
Cap & Trade would do what? NOTHING. Not a single thing to change anything other then just a Grand Scale of Spreading the Wealth. That's money from the U.S. and Europe and other rich countries to the Poor Countries that have Carbon Credit because they have no Industry. In the middle there's people like Al Gore that get Rich on this garbage!!! A person that has a HUGE Carbon footprint over that of dozen's of normal Family's!!!
The Ice Pack has been GROWING, but it just doesn't matter. It's all about CONTROL over YOU! For these other people, they'll continue to do what they're doing. They're Rich, it doesn't matter if Gas is $15 a gallon to them. You on the other hand can't afford it and will be on a bike or Public Transportation like the rest of the little people.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Reducing the level of ignorance in the discussion
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/debunking_the_97_consensus_on_global_warming.html
h ttp://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-perce nt-consensus-claims/
Come on that's FORBES!!! Surprise, Surprise, once again doctoring the results to get what they want that lie of 97%!!!
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Re: The thing I don't get
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Re:
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Re: Scientific paper?
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Re: Re: Re:
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Timothy: Please Stop The Ad Hominems and Strawmen
Would you mind clarifying, please, why you feel the need to take an article standing up for free speech and turn it into an ad hominem against those who with whom you disagree on an issue? Do you really feel that those who believe climate change might have significant causes other than human ones are in the same category as all those other strawmen you put up?
And frankly there are lots of nuanced opinions between "humans are all rainbows and lollipops for Earth and never ever ever cause damage" and "it's likely that the significance of human action on environmental damage is at least somewhat overblown due to the benefits people receive from being on 'the right side'" and "climate change is real, but I have no idea whether humans are causing it, and even so government involvement will (as always) misdirect the resources that people who care would be putting towards doing something about it anyway." Could you please speak to which of these positions it is that would cause you to want to keep your kids away from someone holding it?
Your debate tactics, I'm sure, score a lot of points with people that feel like you do, but they sure turn me off. Part of what's tearing people apart today is this adversarial tit-for-tat argumentation, which has been perfected by the politicians, big businessmen, and pundits. And frankly, you're dragging Techdirt down by putting that bullshit here.
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Re: Re: Re:
While I don't agree with either pole position, I do think that having a roughly equal number of extreme liberals to that of extreme conservatives in power in government would create a middle as people strove to create an equilibrium. It'd be a long and messy journey, but that'd happen in the end. As it is, the whole political spectrum of those in power appears to have lurched sharply to the right with few efforts made to pull it back to anywhere near the center.
I am, perhaps, a little right of center and while I've often said I can't abide right-wingers because they scare the hell out of me I'm not fond of liberals or lefties either because they tend to want to band-aid the problem instead of getting to the root of it and encouraging/enabling people to take personal responsibility. Plus the ones I argue with tend to adopt the polar opposite position of whatever the Right's is.
What I'm saying is, we need an actual middle, and this needs to be the middle between Left/Liberal and Right, not the middle of the Right.
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Thus, for legitimate research which has been peer-reviewed to be withdrawn from publication because of fears of a libel suit is a Bad Thing.
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Re: Re: "Deniers"?
Really? Who? Name some names.
Oh, wait, you're just talking about all your "denier" strawmen, not real, people who are actually talking about "climate change". Good one.
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Re: Good Grief!!!
Except that there were no legal threats and the paper wasn't about "climate change".
But, hey, who cares about accuracy?
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