Thank god there is someone else out there who can see the forest and isn’t concerned about what CO2 absorbing trees are in it.

Oh wait … too late … they cut down the forest and planted corn to make ethanol.

Fortunately I am old enough that, if I am lucky, I will probably be shuffling off this mortal coil just about when someone is going to be proved right.

“I told you so” make good last words.

Since the dawn of the internet people have been getting more and more disconnected from critical thinking and for some reason swayed into believing many crazy ideas that don’t stand any critical examination. Today more than 30% of people believe that Princess Di was murdered to keep her from marrying Dodi, the same goes for the numbers that believe the US government was involved in the 9/11 attack on it’s own people.

I think this phenomena happens because people with crazy ideas would be shunned in the past, but now on the internet you can quickly find a mob that will agree with you and crazy ideas instead of being weeded out, are encouraged to grow.

There is a simple question I ask deniers that has them shout, change the subjet or walk away. They seldom ever attempt to answer because they are only interest in politicizing and muddying the science. Personally I see them as two separate issues. The science is clear. c02 is contributing to global warming, the question of what to do about it should be the politcal part.

The question I ask is based on two simple undisputed facts. 1: C02 is a heat trapping gas. 2: We pump billions of Tons of C02 into the atmosphere every year increasing the concentration of C02 measurebly.

The simple question is: how can more heat trapping gas in the atmosphere not result in more heat being trapped?

The denier camp with its distrust of science, also seems to be in complete opposition to simple straight forward logic.

People need to stop letting their idealogy short circuit thier thinking to the point that 1+1=3 if their percieved enemy says 1+1=2.

1+1 still equals 2 even if GW Bush or Al Gore says it.

I guess we are about stuck again. This is not simple matter of “facts”. It’s a matter of how the system works. Science IS a popularity contest. Of course the majority of scientists refute this, they have done their best to cull the ones who don’t go along for decades. Those who manage to get to a position without joining the herd, or who one day decide to reject the herd, are cast out and belittled. No one is immune. I have been a graduate student, and almost all my close friends have been. Many have multiple degrees. My mother works in the administration of a top university, where I spend a lot of time myself. I know of what I speak.

I am of the age that I have now seen it a million times. Systems develop these situations time and time again, and very few people ever seem to be able to see it with or without hindsight. GW has all the symptoms of evolution, eugenics, enron, communist economics, the medieval church, and the subprime debacle. The system influences the actors and there is no strong check in the flow. It doesn’t matter whether the information output is true or not, the information must be distrusted because the system producing it is flawed and corrupt.

There are lots of studies that look plenty credible that debunk a lot of the previously accepted, peer reviewed ones. We hear about them all the time, and yes, a lot of the time the author then states that this does not refute climate change, only the one study. Why do you think they do that? So they will not be cast out. They should state no such thing and let the findings stand on their own merit.

The beginning of the end for me was when a study came out claiming that among heterosexuals, men had more partners on average than women did. Clearly mathematically impossible, and it was months before it was withdrawn. That was over ten years ago, and my skepticism is reinforced the longer I live.

We can’t argue it, because I simply distrust ALL the sources. I try to conserve anyway, based on personal cheapness, an appreciation of efficiency, a dislike of waste, and a knowledge that CO2 being a problem or not, there are other pollutants that clearly are a problem. So, don’t blame me for global warming. If you want to fix something, fix the Academy first. The results will be far more valuable than simply reducing carbon.

I’m sorry, but you have absolutely no facts with which to defend this statement.

Climate change has been studied to death. Virtually every study that has been subjected to peer review supports the position that it is happening, that it is man-made, and that it is detrimental.

To believe otherwise is to akin to a whacko conspiracy theory, which is frankly just nuts.

The global warming skeptics are much like the 9/11 “truth movement”, which cooks up all sorts of odd suppositions and accusations based upon distortions and weird interpretations. To support the skeptics position requires a proactive need to ignore the research and willfully misinterpret it.

I’ve seen examples of it in the comments section of this website, in one case when a poster provided a list of sources that allegedly contradicted the climate change hypothesis. Yet reviewing a sample of those articles showed that they not only supported climate change theory, but that their authors had taken clear positions in support of climate change — in other words, precisely the opposite position claimed by the amateur skeptic (who probably cut-and-paste the list from some dubious source and had never bothered to read the articles for himself.) To appreciate these sorts of tactics, you’d have to run a tobacco company…

The real hurt was realizing, as you pointed out, that I had lowered myself to the level of the global warming fans. Ouch.

I apologize for the remarks. It was not my intention to call you names or degrade you. Again, my apologees.

If you have read all of that, then we simply disagree on the meaning of persuasive. You disagree, and therefore say nothing is persuasive. I say that many of the arguments are well thought out and ARE persuasive – whether or not I agree. You might want to check your thoughts on the word persuasive against the crap you here in the political debates. Much of it nonsense, yet many are persuaded to believe it.

Lastly, no judge in this country ever ruled against I.D. They may have ruled on some matter pertaining to it, but the Constitution is pretty clear on actually putting matters of faith on trial.

PCH,

I believe that, without regard to it’s merits, Global Warming is precisely a popularity contest with the added benefit of being a faith required of all the disciples who want to make a living in science. Just like all the scientists of yore were trained in the church, afraid to investigate certain matters, today’s academy acts in a less aggressive, but wholly similar fashion. To disagree is to be cast out, denied tenure, grants, and a livelihood. It may not be the inquisition, but it has a similar effect.

In addition to being offensive, it’s really just bad argumentative technique. It’s the equivalent of calling me stupid.

Then let’s extend the same courtesy to those who question whether global warming is occurring because of mankind’s actions.

Out of curiosity – what’s the basis for your skepticism concerning a human contribution to the marked rise in average global temperatures at the same time that the sun’s output is entering a long cycle decrease?”

Thanks for noticing, and when the question and/or issue remains the same, so shall the answer:

The fact that mankind in general are fleas on the back of this big blue hound we call Earth.

Unless you wanna argue that setting off every nuke on the planet simultaneously would cause some manmade global warming, I’ll secede that one.

Of course, if you are looking for a more scientific answer, all I can say is for every ten pro-manmade global warming scientists you can put up, I can put up another ten that say otherwise, which all in all equates to a gigantic “We don’t know”.

Summarizing, the big “We don’t know” is grossly insufficent IMHO to burden a populus with major financial, industrial, and lifestyle changes that the environazis demand in the interim.

A wrong minded argument. You act as if scientific “consensus” is some sort of opinion poll or popularity contest, akin to voting for the prom queen.

Climate change is not the equivalent of high school entertainment. It’s a conclusion reached by scientists who have studied it and subjected their conclusions to the rigors of the method and to peer review. There is virtually no disagreement within the scientific community about it.

The fact that there is minimal debate among those qualified to comment (the “debate” exists only among the chattering classes who don’t know what they’re talking about) is a good indicator that compelling scientific rebuttals to climate change theory are few and far between. You certainly don’t find many credible scientists being critical of climate science.

Add to this that most of the arguments against climate change are not subject to scientific peer review and are bought and paid for by industry and by US right-wing organizations, and it becomes clear that the “debate” about climate change is found in pop media, not in the scientific literature.

Virtually all of the rants against climate change are sponsored by business and political lobbies with vested interests to pretend that it isn’t happening. It’s reminiscent of when the tobacco companies claimed that cigarettes don’t cause cancer, even though you would be hard pressed to find any credible research to support them.

After all, for hundreds of years, a consensus of scholars were creationists.

There was consensus among theologians, not among scientists. Unfortunately, it was a bit difficult for those hundreds of years to find any sort of biological research when routine fact finding subjected one to the pleasures of the Inquisition.

Biology is accordingly a relatively new field. But with the rise of the Enlightenment movement that led to the creation of modern secular states, the theory of evolution followed not long thereafter. Once we were given the opportunity to cast off the yoke of Christian dogma and put an end to the persecution of secular ideas, it didn’t take long before someone such as Darwin could come along and bring out the truth. Had we not been subject to centuries of faith-based tyranny and violence, we may have been able to discover the truth that much sooner.

First of all, and I’m trying to be calm about this because it was rather obtuse: but please don’t ever say that I don’t find creationism “persuasive” because

A) I am not properly informed and not well read

or

B) Close-minded

In addition to being offensive, it’s really just bad argumentative technique. It’s the equivalent of calling me stupid.

You don’t think the sun revolving around the earth arguments are persuasive because they were only persuasive back in the day? Why is that? Because we have an increased body of knowledge today that makes it so that no matter what the sun “appears” to be doing we know from our background knowledge that it is merely an illusion.

Creationism is quite persuasive, a logical explanation for why living things exist. Then you learn about biology and natural selection and the history of creationism and the argument becomes just as persuasive as the geo-centric universe.

Although our views have always been diametrically opposed, I am stunned you would claim there are serious creationist scientists. There may be serious scientists who believe in creationism (rare but they exist), but no such thing as serious creationist scientists.

I’m not saying Darwin’s evolution is infallible, in fact, his exact model is almost certainly wrong. Nor am I stating that a all powerful being created us is definitely wrong, it is certainly possible, but very very very very unlikely given our body of evidence.

As for creationism literature, I have read quite a few books on the matter, including Not By Chance by Spetner and The Creation Hypothesis by Moreland, as well as several Bayesian arguments (one by a guy named Steve Unwin I think, I forget it exactly) in addition to their rebuttals. I worked with the conservative, Bush appointed judge that ruled against I.D. when it was an issue in P.A not long ago. Their arguments are not persuasive from a scientific or logical standpoint. I could give you a million books that take such arguments apart, but if you haven’t read Richard Dawkin’s newest book I suggest that.

If you believe in creationism and take the Bible as an accurate account because of your faith, that’s great (not saying you do, just hypothetically). You might even be right in the end. But faith is just that, faith. And it’s not like we need to have science validate all our beliefs anyways, I believe plenty of things without concrete evidence. But I would never call those beliefs “serious science.”

If so, do you realize that the logical extension would be that anyone doing science, from my hypothetical primitive to Galileo to Einstein to … whomever… must accurately model things we don’t yet know?

Back to Al Gore.

Once again, I will give you that your logic is sound, but even if we agree, that will only be two of us all over again.

It would be better if the global warming scientists would denounce Al Gore’s mistakes quite publicly. Without doing so, they lose credibility to guys like us, but apparently, both sides believe that we are in the minority. Best to stick with the team and the truth be damned. They both want to ensure “support” in the form of money and votes.

I think both sides take terrible risks when they are less than totally honest about important issues. They always get caught, and then the parts they were right about get tossed out with the bath water. Which sort of brings us back to the whole “initiated” problem. One foot in the mouth, and a whole lot of people will never listen to the guy again.

Okay, that was not persuasive. It would have been a long time ago, but it’s not today. OTOH, there are some really serious creationist scientist still today. It is interesting to read their stuff, because it does point out a bunch of holes in evolution science. Then you get the intelligent design bunch thrown in, and it gets really cool. At any rate, we are not Vulcans, so arguments for faith can be really persuasive. Perhaps when an immortality treatment comes along, that may change.

Also, my use of earth centric navigation is not unwitting. Since I intend not to leave the earth, but to travel from one point on it to another point on it, it would be more unwitting to use anything else. Is unwitting a word?

This thread does bring up a big point and it also addresses a point from…

PCH,

I agree with your post, very sound. One side note though. It is completely valid to counter a non scientific argument with another equally non scientific one. I specifically mean the “consensus” arguments. After all, for hundreds of years, a consensus of scholars were creationists. Were they correct?

And, working back towards where you think I got off the rails, you offered this:

“If the global warming crowd want to raise Al Gore up as their bodhisatva, they will have to take him whole.”

No, we don’t.

I explained the situation reasonably well. We are grateful to Al for getting the message out front. “An Inconvenient Truth” had some warts but was entertaining, informative and widely viewed (and almost as widely despised). Al pulled together a lot of information and presented it in a reasonably coherent fashion.

But Al Gore is not Global Warming personified. Deniers prefer to project Al Gore as Global Warming personified, so that Al can enjoy residual demonization and the science can be ignored but that’s not discussing the Science, that’s demonizing Al Gore. It’s dishonest.

Certainly none of the panelists at the IPCC look to Al Gore for guidance on the science. He doesn’t do research and he doesn’t come up with new models or projections.

He has worked hard to become identified with this subject, so complaints about bringing up his name in any discussion about global warming, or questioning his credibility, are more than a little disingenuous.

I believe that you are missing Mr. Leikanger’s point.

The science of climate change is what it is. If one is going to argue that it isn’t happening (a position that, incidentally, is not widely held in the scientific community, and is largely the domain of right-wing US politicians), then the arguments should be based upon the science.

The rights to personally dislike Al Gore and to mock him on the internet (that he never claimed to have invented) are protected by the Constitution. But disliking Al Gore is not a credible rebuttal to the science of the climate change hypothesis. That would be akin to opposing freeway construction in your neighborhood based solely on the premise that Hitler would have supported it.

OK. I’ve had my tranquilizers.

I fail to see how Gore as President would lead to an earth shattering, Stalinesque size death and destruction. Kindly explain that.

We don’t elect a President in a vacuum; it’s not an up or down vote. If you didn’t support Gore (or, maybe, some third party that actually had a chance), you were part of the electorate that put Bush in office.

I do not see how Gore could have possibly been worse.

“The Sun revolves around the Earth…” that wasn’t me. At least I don’t think it was.

However, whether or not that’s good science is actually something worth thinking about.

For a primitive society with no travel and no system of record-keeping, “The Sun revolves around the Earth” is not bad science. It’s wrong but that doesn’t mean it’s bad science. It requires long-range communications and/or travel (implication, level of technology necessary to build and navigate a ship and/or a system of maps) to learn that the Earth is round and what the approximate diameter might be. Or it takes some years and many observations to discern some pattern of the actions of the planets. Then one has to work out modeling techniques for dealing with the data.

Classical mechanics was wrong but we still study classical mechanics today and use it because it works until you go pretty darned fast or the particles are really, really small or really, really big.

For describing things that happen in the lab on an air track, it’s just peachy.

Clinging to classical mechanics as “the way the universe works” when observations don’t fit, THAT is Bad Science. It took us through probably the latter part of the 19th century to arrive at the limitations of classical mechanics.

A person in a primitive society could live out his life without making (or noticing or having time to notice) any observation that would upset the the Earth-Centric Universe theory.

You and I use the Earth-Centric Universe model all the time, unwittingly. We have labeled the Earth with directions, NESW. We note that the Sun came up in the East and we note that the Sun is now going down in the West. Who pauses to reflect, at that time, that the Sun hasn’t really moved, that we’ve actually rotated towards it and then away from it? Few do this. The Sun has MOVED from East to West is our natural thought. It’s wrong.

Of course, that’s not exactly science for us, it’s just a convenience of frame of reference. If you attempted to describe the Universe in those terms, however, given our level of tech and record-keeping, you would pretty quickly run into observations that can’t be adequately described by the Earth-Centric Universe. To cling to the Earth-Centric model in the face of these observations is Bad Science.

Two things, you obviously did not even try to understand my post so I have one upped you and didn’t bother to read most of yours. Please point out to me where I ever got confused on the invention thing? Did I not point out that Gore is due credit? If you are not willing to agree to that I am obviously not claiming he said “invent” and that I have pointed out he is due some credit, then WE cannot have a discourse. (BTW I am still looking forward to that persuasive earth at the center of the solar system argument).

The concerns I had over Mr. Gore as President of the United States are that the results would be earth shattering, Stalinesque size death and destruction. It’s just my opinion. I am entitled to it. I offer no evidence, and do not expect to convince you I am correct about it.

Go to blogs such as the volokhconspiracy.com, which features discussions about this very topic. The depth of knowledge among posters regarding this topic is truly impressive, and shows that skepticism regarding manmade global warming isn’t just limited to those on the right side of the political spectrum.

Personally, I’ll be a little more convinced that activists really believe in global warming when they advocate widespread use of nuclear power. But then, I just read that a bunch of old rockers from the first No Nukes tour (in the late 1970s) are launching a new anti-nuclear campaign, because they believe that the nuclear power industy is using publicity over global warming to get new plants approved!

As for dragging Mr. Gore into any global warming discussion – he has been speaking about this topic for years, and he has even won major prizes for his documentary and work on this very subject.

He has worked hard to become identified with this subject, so complaints about bringing up his name in any discussion about global warming, or questioning his credibility, are more than a little disingenuous.

HE wanted the credit and he uses his name to open doors and garner media attention, the lifeblood of any cause in this country. (Anyone who says that mainstream media is dismissive of his claims or doesn’t give enough credence to manmade global warming is either illiterate or in a coma.)

In a free country he has every right to do this, and if he believes in his cause, I encourage him to do so.

For the record, I do believe that he is sincere in his beliefs, and I don’t care what he (allegedly) said about the internet.

On the other hand, he did say that he and Tipper were the inspiration for Love Story, and if he did inspire the author (he went to Harvard with him), then I can never forgive him. Foisting Love Story on an unsuspecting population? Oh, the humanity…

I will tolerate no complaints about continually dragging Mr. Gore into the discussion, when Mr. Leikanger posts this about Mr. Lutz:

Throughout his career, Mr Lutz has been one of the major forces leading the US to its total dependence upon foreign petroleum. The cars he has “built” and the absolute disregard of fuel economy he has championed are a major contributor to this sad state of affairs.

Mr. Lutz did not even work in the American automobile industry until the late 1980s, when he joined Chrysler. Our dependence on foreign oil began LONG before then. (He had worked for both GM and Ford before then, but it is my understanding that the worked primarily in their European subsidiaries.)

Even if he had advocated that Chrysler (his employer in the 1990s) only build vehicles that got more than 30 mpg, it would not have made any difference, except at Chrysler, which would have gone out of business in the 1990s. Buyers were not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain that kind of mileage.

Please don’t complain about making Al Gore the whipping boy when we often do the same thing to Mr. Lutz. Both have put themselves front-and-center in the debate over their respective issues.

Realistically, GM’s problem isn’t that it doesn’t have a competitor to the Prius, or that it’s cars don’t get good enough gas mileage…GM’s problem is that it doesn’t have an effective competitor to the (regular) Civic, CR-V or RAV4, and it only has one really good competitor to the Camry/Accord, and that one is hobbled by the baggage its maker has accumulated over the past 30 years.

I had the displeasure of renting an Audi A3 1.9TDI during my last trip to Koln, Deutschland. That thing sounded like a Mack truck!!!! Gee whiz!!

While the turbo whine was cool, the noise it made was incredible.

I originally rented a VW Golf, but had to return it because the rental company Sixt hadn’t switched to winter tires, and because it didn’t have a navigation system. That car was quick, cool, and would be my car if I lived in Deutschland. However, I do not think I’d drive a diesel even if you paid me to do it.

Att: jurisb

“They are good for intersection fights probably, not race circuits.”

You might want to discuss that with Audi. Remember Le Mans?

===

Oh, Simon. Now that we were all having fun at the expense of diesel.

“They are good for intersection fights probably, not race circuits.”

You might want to discuss that with Audi. Remember Le Mans?

Outstanding.

But Diesels have the advantage of locking up carbon emmissions in soot, which is speculated to have a “global cooling” effect with enough concentrations.

I wonder why this hasn’t been exploited to some extent? Oh, that “cancer” thing.

Oh, well.

Wow, don’t these GW threads eat up resources! Probably emitting MORE CO2 by the “heated” response.

I wonder if Rush Limbaugh will ever win a Nobel Prize for Journalism.

Here’s what I posted in the podcast thread:
Those who dispute global warming, without themselves being scientists and invested in the tremendous amount of research being carried out on the topic, might want to coast a little when declaring it a fraud.

Or else just check the weather.

Whether it is caused by humans or not, it’s happening. Can we do something about it? Who knows – fortunately, the sun is cooling down just as the planet is heating up. That source of heat has turned down the thermostat a couple of ticks since the early 90s.

As a senior officer of GM, Mr Lutz’ opinion on GW should be in line with his company’s — the fact that it isn’t clearly demonstrates why GM has absolutely no credibility whatsoever as an environmentally concerned or friendly automaker. And since car buyers to a greater and greater extent are concerned about the environment, that is not so good for GM.
Whether Lutz feels it’s the macho thing to do – to deny GW – again, who knows? I mean, why get all touchy feely about it, it’s just a lot of noise, standing in the way of the amazing cars Lutz was going to build. What’s tens of thousands of scientists and millions of potential customers compared to his global ambition?

Mr. Lutz goes on to demonstrate his ignorance of science in the next sentence of his global warming “statement.”
“I’m motivated more by the desire to replace imported oil than by the CO2 (argument).”
This with reference to the Volt. Throughout his career, Mr Lutz has been one of the major forces leading the US to its total dependence upon foreign petroleum. The cars he has “built” and the absolute disregard of fuel economy he has championed are a major contributor to this sad state of affairs. To recap: the US has 4% of the world’s known oil reserves, and consumes 25% of worldwide production. The level of hurt the US could suffer should the supply lines falter is unimaginable – and Lutz is one of the chief “architects” behind that tottering house of cards.

Whether you are driving a Volt or a Trailblazer doesn’t matter much — as the energy to run both has to come from somewhere. The same amount of what physicists call work is required to move car and occupants from A-B, unless the Volt is aerodynamically more efficient and a lot lighter. Given the look and spec’s, don’t hold your breath for that one.
So – where’s the energy going to come from? Is Lutz embarked on an alternative energy project of some kind? The best contribution he can make, if his concern really is to reduce dependency on imported oil, is to reduce the size and weight of his cars, across the board and to make them a lot more energy efficient.

Having Lutz in charge of GM’s global product planning at this point in time probably makes as much sense as having Jack the Ripper spearheading nighttime pedestrian safety in Victorian London.