On 11/10/2013 2:19 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:05 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 11/10/2013 12:29 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
As I said before, I am agnostic on this issue for the following reasons:
- I am not educated in climate science and I am sufficiently educated
in science to understand that it would take years of full-time effort
to get to a point where I could judge the merit of climate science
research findings by myself -- even there I would probably have to
become an insider, because I understand that a lot of key data is
never made publicly available;
- I am sufficiently knowledgable of complex systems to be skeptical of
the predictive power of any complex systems model at our current level
of sophistication;
- The issue became so heavily politicised that it is basically not
reasonable to trust news reporting on either side of it.
I am aware of the 5th IPCC report and I am also aware of claims by
reputable climate scientists that the models' predictions appear to be
deviating increasingly from the observables:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/30/implications-for-climate-models-of-their-disagreement-with-observations/
Are you aware that Judith Curry was on the Berkley Earth team to resolve the
question of whether the earth is actually warming. She and Richard Muller
had been critical of the analyses performed by NOAA, Hadley, CRU, and GISS.
When the new analysis, which met all the past criticisms, confirmed all the
previous conclusions, she quit the team and shifted her criticism from "it's
not happening" to "it's not predictable". Notice that means it could be a
lot worse than predicted too - but the Deniers and FUDers never mention
that.
I've been around long enough to know that she could possibly describe
the same sequence of events in a way that makes her look good and her
opponents bad. I am more interested in the graphs.
Then look at these:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/02/2012-updates-to-model-observation-comparions/
I am not invested in disproving global warming. I like to think I am
scientifically-minded, so I accept reality whatever it is. I hope it
is wrong. I suspect some people want it to be true.
Yes, you're the perfect example of the success of the Deniers FUD campaign.
Maybe, but I would be more confident that I was witnessing a serious
scientific debate if people were not using terms like "Deniers" and
"FUD campaign".
But that's exactly the point. You are NOT witnessing a serious scientific debate.
There's ZERO serious science on the side of Deniers. They are like anti-evolutionist.
All they do is look for some small anomaly (like a prediction that was off) and say, "What
about THAT?". You are witnessing a disinformation campaign - and the cui bono is pretty
obvious.
98% of all climate scientists agree that AGW is happening and it will have
bad consequences.
This is a badly disguised argument from authority. It's precisely
phrases like "98% of all climate scientists..." that triggered my BS
alarms in this issue.
Since you said you didn't feel up to understanding the science what are you going to rely
on? Talking heads on Faux News or the IPCC?
But you're aware of skeptical scientists, like Judith
Curry (who are given TV time on Faux News), so it's a toss-up. It's been
heavily politicized - by money from the fossil fuel companies - so no news
can be trusted. You're not expert enough to read the scientific literature
- so you're agnostic.
This may be the case.
You *suspect* some people want it to be true???
Well I'm almost sure.
In other words you suspect
some academics of wanting to trash the world economy for vague, unexpressed
personal reasons.
I wasn't referring to the academics, nor suggesting wrong-doings. Some
people strongly dislike capitalism and take pleasure in the
possibility that it could be destructive for the environment. There's
a sort of moral reward for them in that. Notice that I'm not saying
that they are wrong. They could be right. I am saying that they may be
biased.
Since they are not the ones publishing studies and analyses what does their opinion have
to do with anything? Your implication was that the warnings about AGW were falsely
motivated. What difference does it make if Joe Sixpack is biased (and you can bet he's
not biased in favor of high fuel prices)?
But you don't suspect the Koch brothers, Exxon, BP, Faux
News, the Discovery Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, and a host of
right-wing think tanks of wanting it to be false AND paying a lot of PR
firms to obfuscate the issue.
Of course I suspect that too. In fact I'm essentially sure that they
are doing all that. But this doesn't mean that the global warming
models are correct.
Yet you're willing to suspect the IPCC report by scientists is phony because some
anti-capitalists believe it??? Seems to me that you're biased because you think that if
AGW is serious it will require government action and cannot be "fixed" by free market
capitalism. So it's easier to believe AGW is a hoax (as some Congressmen from oil states
have charged).
Brent
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