h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>I think scepticism of the data is fine, indeed to be encouraged, my worry is we are entering now into a realm that borders on a smear campaign to discredit the enterprise of science thus far conducted by undermining the credibility of those doing it.

Of course scepticism is fine, it's the foundation of science and the scientific method. But climate change "scepticism" is largely people who want to disprove the science for ideological reasons trying to pick holes in it by cherry-picking anything that might "discredit" it whilst blithly ignoring mountains of data which support it and discredit their own positions. Their methodology is very similar to that of, to use an obvious example, 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

>Of course scepticism is fine, it's the foundation of science and the scientific method.

Quite

>climate change "scepticism" is largely people who want to disprove the science for ideological reasons trying to pick holes in it by cherry-picking anything that might "discredit" it whilst blithly ignoring mountains of data which support it and discredit their own positions. <

I didn't feel like making this point last night, but for that reason I bridle at even describing it scepticism, in the sense defined above. It's not merely being sceptical it is all to often an agenda of denial

I would say the denial comes from the refusal to debate by those who blame carbon dioxide, and in particular human generated CO2. They won't reveal their maths, or the model they've used. Where they have revealed figures they've been shown to have chosen their data to fit their desired result. The Siberian tree ring data for example.

The abuse in my experience has been directed towards those who question any of the assertions rolled out. What did that nice Mr Brown call people who questioned GWS ? My point would be that if the data points to a lower melting rate then this is what should have been reported. If the effect of CO2 was 100x less than previously predicted then this too should be reported. Alas I feel that peer pressure in peer review leads to institutionalised bias which will/has globally distort/ed this field and provided governments with just hype and nonsense.

Ultimately the public will loose faith with the environmental movement. Hence such acts of Bad Science only work to the advantage of AGW deniers.

I may not understand all the arguments, but I am sceptical that a single cause can produce the effects some people are talking of, and issues like water vapour are being raised in other quaters.

>I would say the denial comes from the refusal to debate by those who blame carbon dioxide, and in particular human generated CO2.

So you don't think that the deniers's science is a bit flawed? Or that the fact most of them have ideological intentions makes their arguments a bit suspect?

There's certainly been some flaws revealed in climate science (which has been admitted, not covered-up) but the deniers science isn't full of flaws, it is flaws. And it's not even science.

Trust me, I've been a bit sceptical on this issue, I've looked at all the arguments and there's only one position to take for anyone with any common sense. If something actually does appear that breaks the CO2 climate change consensus then all well and good but it's not appearing. Being sceptical is fine but choosing to believe that there is no human contribution to climate change when the overwhelming (something like 99%) consensus amongst experts in the field is that it is, that's not being cynical, it's just turning into a conspiracy theorist.

Assuming that you're a bona fide sceptic and not just someone who doesn't want to accept the climatologists' consensus you might want to have a good read of this site:

http://www.realclimate.org./

>I didn't feel like making this point last night, but for that reason I bridle at even describing it scepticism, in the sense defined above. It's not merely being sceptical it is all to often an agenda of denial

No, I agree in the main but some people are bona fide sceptics so it's best to approach the issue with good faith. The people who aren't sceptics and are instead deniers tend to reveal their true colours pretty quickly, anyway.

I agree with this - we should always ask the difficult questions, check the data and so on. But the balance of scientific proof and credibility is now so clear, that you have to doubt the good faith of some of the deniers.

I mean, these people would argue black is white to suit their paymasters - I do some work on control of asbestos, and I still get pseudo-scientific publications from people claiming that chrysotile asbestos is perfectly safe, a century on from the first scientific concerns, and at least thirty years since the dangers have been clear... There is no point taking these kind of people seriously.

sprout

But you'd agree that not all kinds of asbestos are equally dangerous, and the Asbetos Act is a gross overkill that's just made money for unscrupulous traders and impoverished some homeowners ?

I really do have a problem with someone who says I've determined the cause of global warming is CO2, but won't reveal their model or the math used, and refuse to release it despite FOI requests.

The convenient way it allows governments to raise tax money, and gas and electricity companies to make money is another matter, and totally unconnected. (I hope.)

"I really do have a problem with someone who says I've determined the cause of global warming is CO2, but won't reveal their model or the math used, and refuse to release it despite FOI requests."

And yet you don't have the same problem with a small, rather shrill group of people who oppose the science despite having no science of their own, no theories to explain why the ice in the far-north has been becoming thinner and thinner, and whose motivation is blatantly not science but ideology. Why, as a rational person (I assume) are you unwilling to believe an overwhelming consensus amongst experts in the field but don't show the same scepticism towards an ideological fringe?

You also keep alluding to the "climategate" email scandal. That represented a tiny, tiny proportion of climatologists and, moreover, didn't contain any sort of "smoking gun" regarding climate change being a big con.

I did find the original published paper the other day which established CO2 *is* a greenhouse gas.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/116315425/abstract

It does annoy me when some of the right wing blowhards* come out screaming CO2 is natural and *therefore* poses no danger.

*Michelle Bachman, ; Prison Planet.com etc.

No it is a danger and here's why.

Zagreb,

> And yet you don't have the same problem with a small, rather shrill group of people who oppose the science despite having no science of their own, no theories to explain why the ice in the far-north has been becoming thinner and thinner, and whose motivation is blatantly not science but ideology. Why, as a rational person (I assume) are you unwilling to believe an overwhelming consensus amongst experts in the field but don't show the same scepticism towards an ideological fringe?



Well put!

The people who are sceptical are not demanding that we undertake expensive and illogical actions to protect the future.

Carbon trading is a fraud, it's an excuse for rich countries to carry on as they are in exchange for sending money to a non-developed nation.

Also the deniers don't behave like this.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/05/climategate_questions/

McKay, that's kind of a strange response. Zagreb put the question:

> Why, as a rational person (I assume) are you unwilling to believe an overwhelming consensus amongst experts in the field but don't show the same scepticism towards an ideological fringe?

and your reply is:

> The people who are sceptical are not demanding that we undertake expensive and illogical actions to protect the future.

So your response is that you're willing to entertain skepticism towards a group who are offering answers you don't like (because they're expensive) but not towards a group who are telling you what you want to hear?

As to the article, are you saying that the police and the scientists are in league against the climate change skeptics? (FWIW, not that I feel I have to defend the police, but I'm struggling to work out what exactly they supposed to have done wrong there - aren't they supposed to ask questions to find out what was happening when someone does something illegal?)

And for your information, a lot of environmentalists oppose carbon trading too - it's a big debate amongst them.

I'm not against the arguments because they are expensive, I'm seriously questioning how they have decided the cause of climate change is a single factor out of all the possible causes.

I also don't understand why it is relevent that the last 10 years have been the warmest on record, but its not relevent that this has been the coldest winter for 30 years.

Well, it's not like they were sitting around and saying stuff like "Global temperatures seem to be going up at a faster rate than ever before, what's that about then?" "I dunno... carbon?" "Yeah, that'd explain it. Carbon. Yeah." The near consensus that has been reached on climate change and carbon emissions didn't come out of nowhere one day, it took decades of research and even more decades of hard work bringing it to our attention. It has got to be as prevalent a view as it has not because people naturally want to believe it - people desperately want to not believe it - but because the arguments and evidence for it is so strong that all the people who seriously look into it end up agreeing.

> I also don't understand why it is relevent that the last 10 years have been the warmest on record, but its not relevent that this has been the coldest winter for 30 years.

Do you really not understand that? Because unless you've got a reason for wanting to not understand it, it's not that difficult. Think about a casino. Sometimes people win at them. Imagine someone who bet it all on black and won, and then comes out saying "You know what, I don't how these places make money - you just go in and bet your money and you come out rich!" How DO the casinos make money when sometimes the punter wins? Yes, you got it! On average!

And, to be blunt, if you find averages too complicated, do you feel confident that your understanding of Siberian tree ring data is sufficient to know that it provides evidence against climate change? If you don't understand something, you've got two choices. Either you can rely on the opinions of the vast majority of people who spend their lives working on and thinking about this stuff; or, you can learn enough about it to form your own opinion. But you seem to have chosen instead to listen to a tiny minority of people. Why do you think it is that you seek out opinions like those of Andrew Orlowski in The Register, but you don't look for the huge amount of material that is generated by the scientific community in reaction to the skeptics, explaining why their reasoning is wrong?

I understand averages very well - I also understand that averages depend upon the validity of the data you use to achieve them - and this is another area where data used does not seem to comply with obtaining honest figures.

To decide that winter temperatures are decided by the temperature from a chosen period, rather than across the whole winter seems to be cherry-picking your data.

All this talk of Peer Reviewed data, and the vast majority of scientists seem to be a group of scientists who are reveiwing (or not) each others work and ignoring any dissenting voices. The clip from the register is about how they've turned on a scientist who supports their theories because he has refused to support one of the people involved in the dodgy e-mails.

It does not come across as open and honest science.

>It does not come across as open and honest science.

And a handful of ideologues do?

I mentioned the Realclimate website earlier which goes into a lot of the science and tries to explain much of it. Did you bother reading it?

>I also don't understand why it is relevent that the last 10 years have been the warmest on record, but its not relevent that this has been the coldest winter for 30 years. You might want to go back to the first post in this thread. It was a prediction that climate change might lead to colder weather in Europe and it was a prediction made *several years ago*. Here's that post again: "According to New Scientist magazine & the Southampton Oceanography Centre, the Gulf Stream that gives western Europe its relatively mild climate could be failing. A study of ocean circulation found a 30% reduction in the warm currentsspace yikes Full Article: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398" And you still haven't explained something. If, as you claim, you merely remain "unconvinced" why are you so unwilling to listen to a vast, vast majority of experts in the field but so willing to listen to a handful of ideologues and columnists who have no expertise in the field at all. Amongst climatologists (ie those who know what they are talking about) the consensus on climate change is around 99%. Even if it were 90% the rational response would be to assume the majority is correct. And remember, this is science and science doesn't work by creating a consensus (hence why all the conspiracy theory is so ridiculous). Scientific theories are created by taking a theory and then trying to disprove it. Remember those "other explanations" you keep alluding to? Those can't be dismissed, they have to be taken on board and used to try to disprove the theory. And this is what has been happening over the last twenty-odd years and more. This consensus isn't the result of some kind of global plot, it's the result of people having to accept the only conclusion all the science keeps pointing at.

>All this talk of Peer Reviewed data, and the vast majority of scientists seem to be a group of scientists who are reveiwing (or not) each others work and ignoring any dissenting voices.

No, that's not remotely how it works. Peer-reviewed data isn't just people saying "well, this data looks like it backs up our pre-determined review so let's just stick a gold star on it and say "good boy"", it's scientists in the same field reviewing the thing to see if the correct methodology has been used and to determine that it's scientifically valid. The studies that point towards human CO2 contribution to climate change have gone through these rigorous examinations, the wild, unscientific claims of the ideological denier fringe has undergone no such examination.

And yet you expect to be taken seriously by dismissing out of hand that which has been subjected to peer-review because (as you've admitted) you don't like what it leads to but you *will* accept alternative arguments which have been subjected to no such rigorous examination and that are produced by people with no climatological or often even scientific background and whose motivation is plainly ideological?

McKay, you don't seem to be clear at all on why you're skeptical. Perhaps you should check out the Realclimate site that Zagreb mentioned?

Tell you what - I'll wait and see what Sir Muir Russell has to say.