Atmospheric science is not politically motivated science. People who refuse to recognize scientific consensus for _political_ reasons are pushing political motivation over science.
Clearly the scientific consensus turns out to be wrong at times, so _scientific_ skepticism is often warranted. Pretty much always the people that fix a theory are scientists trying to produce a better theory, rather than politically motivated naysayers. The techniques for naysaying scientific consensus on CFC and ozone are well laid out here: http://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/ozone_skeptics.asp Patrick Foley bees, fleas, flowers, disease patfo...@csus.edu ________________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU] on behalf of Robert Hamilton [roberthamil...@alc.edu] Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2012 3:18 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Confronting climate deniers on college campuses - EOS Forum Actually this climate debate is more about hocus pocus than anything else. at least a it is. That climate change is occurring is undeniable, and the oddity would be no climate change occurring. The climate is going to change regardless. The issue of why is where the hocus pocus comes in. There is no evidence that changes in CO2 levels have caused any sort of atmospheric warming; none. It is a predicted outcome of climate models designed to show that CO2 can affect atmospheric temperatures. We know for a fact that atmospheric warming would cause CO2 levels to increase because all the various organisms would increase respiration rates. It is dubious to suggest that CO2 levels that we observe could have any influence on the greenhouse effect on earth given the overwhelming effect of water vapour, and the flux of water vapour, which in itself is substantially greater than the total effect of CO2, let alone the difference in CO2 past and present. Many of the things we do could cause climate change. The massive increase in runoff of freshwater from terrestrial systems; various drainings and fillings in of wetlands and floodplains, channeling if rivers along with rapid runoff through sewers and other means. A lot less standing water in the spring to ameliorate continental warming through the summer. Conversion of heat sinks like say Manhattan Island (via urbanization) into heat sources, possibly radiating more energy back than is input from the sun due to additional heat from things like air conditioners and automobiles, and this sort of thing occurs on a massive scale (like say Germany, which used to be a very moist deciduous forest) in the northern hemisphere. But such issues are not allowed to be investigated for the sake of the political hacks with their CO2 argument. There is no science to this process, and amazingly the public in general sees the weakness of the science. The thing of it is that what goes around comes around, and the truth will out in the end. If we are wrong about CO2 but right about human impacts the political hacks will blame us for being unscientific even though it is they that force us this way via the way they dispense power in the form of academic appointments and funding. A bit like CFCs causing the ozone hole. They could cause the ozone hole for sure, but do they actually cause it? Never seen any evidence of that. Could be that flying jet aircraft is causing the ozone hole, but political hacks don't want to go there! If it isn't CFCs, they will blame us for sure, because we are supposed to know for sure in their eyes in such situations. We are the scapegoat if they (we) are wrong). I suppose I am a "denier" because I reject politically motivated science, and that sort would shout me down, pull my hair and throw things at me if I were ever to present such heretical arguments to the public. But I don't need to. As the consequences of the CO2 based policies sink in, they will be revisited with a more skeptical eye. We move forward, but do bumble along, and that seems to work in general, although there are casualties along the way, and the way it looks now is Ecology will be one of those casualties, which is the real crime here IMHO. Rob Hamilton -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news on behalf of malcolm McCallum Sent: Tue 7/3/2012 10:07 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Confronting climate deniers on college campuses - EOS Forum society has never been trusting of scientists. However, the same could be said of business with identical survey mechanisms. So what. This isn't about a bunch of hocus pocus and its not about baseless opinions. ITs about the facts that exist. Period. As for track records of academics, virtually all of our discoveries were by academics. Very few were made by others. Do your homework. Malcolm On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 6:46 PM, Paul Cherubini <mona...@saber.net> wrote: > On Jul 3, 2012, at 10:31 AM, Jerome Joseph Howard wrote: > >> See the Goddard site at >> http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/. > > > Those graphs also show a flattening of global mean temperatures > over the past decade or so. Therefore the flattening trend > could conceivably continue for another 20-25 years, just > like the 30-35 year flattening trends of 1880-1910 and 1940-1975. > IF the anthropogenic factors that contribute to warming are > relatively minor or moderate in relation to the natural factors > which may well turn out to be the case. > > In view of these uncertainties it is understandable why > industry and agriculture appear to be taking a wait and > see approach instead of making plans for a much warmer > world. > > The track record of academia is not stellar in the minds > of conservatives that run industry and agriculture. > Surveys indicate educated conservatives have grown > increasingly distrustful of scientists (but not science) > http://tinyurl.com/7dkgolp > > > Paul Cherubini > El Dorado, Calif. -- Malcolm L. 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