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Originally posted by Robmb:
Observa - this isnt independent anymore than the FoS are indedpendent or Real Climate etc etc. Both sides are guilty of cherry picking but there is no need to peddle their wares for them.

Why are the authors of the referenced report any less independent than (say) those who make up the IPCC? You refer to "both sides" - it doesn't seem to me that sides are being taken in this report. It is balanced and overall neutral.

Are the authors of this report the people we are supposed to liken to holocaust deniers, or flat earth supporters? Is this the scientific debate that 'real scientists' want to suppress because the 'consensus' has decided the debate is over?

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Why are the authors of the referenced report any less independent than (say) those who make up the IPCC? You refer to "both sides" - it doesn't seem to me that sides are being taken in this report. It is balanced and overall neutral.

I took the challenge, and read about 12 pages of it and scanned a few more. The tone is neutral which makes it a bit boring - there are no obvious strong statements, and a few slightly pointless statements such as "The earth was ice free for most of its history". It takes quite a lot of digs at climate models, but the section on Radiative Forcing at the beginning is full of quite a few errors that I was able to spot with my limited understanding. It does say that that it is "credible" that GHGs could cause warming.

They state that the standard IPCC report is not written by scientists which I don't think it is true because I had the opportunity to ask one of them. My question would be to ask how much of this report has been written by that scary ACPO PR organisation that is behind a lot of the "sceptic" websites. I hope it didn't have any subliminal messages in it

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Originally posted by Steve_M:

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Why are the authors of the referenced report any less independent than (say) those who make up the IPCC? You refer to "both sides" - it doesn't seem to me that sides are being taken in this report. It is balanced and overall neutral.

I took the challenge, and read about 12 pages of it and scanned a few more. The tone is neutral which makes it a bit boring - there are no obvious strong statements, and a few slightly pointless statements such as "The earth was ice free for most of its history". It takes quite a lot of digs at climate models, but the section on Radiative Forcing at the beginning is full of quite a few errors that I was able to spot with my limited understanding. It does say that that it is "credible" that GHGs could cause warming.

They state that the standard IPCC report is not written by scientists which I don't think it is true because I had the opportunity to ask one of them. My question would be to ask how much of this report has been written by that scary ACPO PR organisation that is behind a lot of the "sceptic" websites. I hope it didn't have any subliminal messages in it

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pointless statements such as "The earth was ice free for most of its history"

Why pointless? The IPCC Summary states (p.8)

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At continental, regional, and ocean basin scales, numerous long-term changes in climate have been observed. These include changes in Arctic temperatures and ice,...

and (p.10)

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reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise.

. It seems quite pertinent to point out that 'less' rather than 'more' ice is not necessarily an exceptional event or a signal of non-natural climatic change.

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the section on Radiative Forcing at the beginning is full of quite a few errors that I was able to spot with my limited understanding

No doubt you will explain what these are and what qualification you have to make the assertion.

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It does say that that it is "credible" that GHGs could cause warming.

Indeed. It also says the hypothesis can be cerdibly disputed (so not quite the 'settled science' of "real scientist" and others).

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They state that the standard IPCC report is not written by scientists

No. They say the "Summary Report for Policymakers" was not written by scientists.

I repeat - are these the deniers we are supposed to liken to flat earth supporters and holocaust deniers? Is this the debate that should be suppressed?

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"The earth was ice free for most of its history"

You don't wanna tell that to the 'snowball Earth' advocates.

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Originally posted by Chi Squared:

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You are mistaken. There is no red herring nor strawman in what I state. Your denial of the science and the Creationist's denial of the science are equivalent.

Rubbish. It is the very EPITOME of a straw man argument. Substitute what a person is actually saying with some completely different argument and then reason that because you can defeat the latter you have somehow defeated the former. That is the entire definition of 'straw man'.

A good definition of a strawman and utterly irrelevant. I simply drew people's attention to the fact that your denial of climate science and the Creationists' denial of biological science are analogous. Clearly the validity of this analogy make you uncomfortable, but that is your problem.

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A good definition of a strawman and utterly irrelevant. I simply drew people's attention to the fact that your denial of climate science and the Creationists' denial of biological science are analogous. Clearly the validity of this analogy make you uncomfortable, but that is your problem.

Blah.....blah.....blah............yeah, right, use the straw man argument and then accuse anyone who disagrees with you of doing so.....blah...blah...blah.......cough cough.

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Originally posted by Chi Squared:

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Not is is inane in the extreme to refuse to accept evidence that one does not consider good enough. Scientific evidence is objective; it isn't up to you to pick and choose the bits you like the look of and to reject those you don't like.

This is yet more rubbish. Yet more logical fallacy.....this time a mixture of the 'appeal to authority', the 'appeal to belief'....and a bit of 'special pleading' thrown in.

Please do entertain us by detailing how you arrive at this bizarre conclusion.

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Scientific evidence is NOT 'objective' when even the people presenting it state that they have a 90% confidence level. Last I heard, 2 + 2 = 4, which is a genuine objective fact, was not expressed with a 90% confidence level.

Then you heard wrong. Firstly maths and science are not analogous. Secondly, all decent scientific evidence has been statistically analysed and so has a confidence level attached.

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I bet you would not play Russian roulette with a gun with 10 chambers and one bullet and state it as an 'objective fact' that you would not get shot !

It would be genuine objective fact that I'd be 90% confident of not being shot. It would be a subjective fact that I'd find that remaining 10% far too high.

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Originally posted by JL(SFC58,AFCB):

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Originally posted by Son of Mulder:
Steve_M

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Unfortunately jets produce lots of CO2 as well as nitrates which increase tropospheric ozone which is also a greenhouse gas

So are we getting rid of jets completely. I think not they can carry passengers at the same time.

Interesting, isn't it, that the middle class organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are only now interested in getting plane flights minimised. When it was only nice middle class people who went on foreign holidays, then it wasn't a problem. But now that the oiks can do it as well......

Hurrah! Bloody plebs quite ruin a foreign holiday. It's got so bad in parts of Europe that it's embarrassing to have to admit to being British due to those plebs creating such a bad image.

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It would be genuine objective fact that I'd be 90% confident of not being shot. It would be a subjective fact that I'd find that remaining 10% far too high.

So WHY don't you find the remaining 10% doubt over AGW 'far too high' ?

C'mon now...lets stop all this crap on these boards that amounts to no more than egos arguing.....and get down to the real facts.

IF AGW is correct ....I'll be the first to accept an ass whopping. I just don't feel that many of you even know what an ass is.......let alone a whopping.

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Originally posted by Chi Squared:

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It would be genuine objective fact that I'd be 90% confident of not being shot. It would be a subjective fact that I'd find that remaining 10% far too high.

So WHY don't you find the remaining 10% doubt over AGW 'far too high' ?

Because a gun to the head does funny things to my ability to be objective. Under most situations, a 90% confidence level would be good enough for me.

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Because a gun to the head does funny things to my ability to be objective

Oh I see........so the entire future survival of mankind is NOT a gun to your head ??

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Because a gun to the head does funny things to my ability to be objective

I cite this as exhibit (A) for the defence........alongside the bloody glove in the hallway.

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Originally posted by Chi Squared:

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Because a gun to the head does funny things to my ability to be objective

Oh I see........so the entire future survival of mankind is NOT a gun to your head ??

No, I don't buy the doom-sayer's claims that unless we do something to stop global warming, we will all die. It's more a case of there being a 90% chance that it'll inconvenience me, not kill me.

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Originally posted by Steve_M:

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Answer the question!

Arcana69, I checked back on your posts and got the impression you were cynical about global warming, irritated with anyone who suggested any of the questions about it were closed, but otherwise I didn't get a sense of what you believed in.

There is a significant denier industry which is trying to keep open the scientific debate with meaningless or pointless arguments, and you are perhaps unwittingly supporting it by demanding that all aspects of the scientific debate remain permanently open.

Why do you call it the 'denier industry'? They simply don't agree with you. Live with it, argue with it, whatever, but don't try and suppress it.

l don't understand why you would ever want to close any aspects of any debate.

Freedom of Speech is one's right and l abhor attacks on it. lf you can't convince someone of your argument and get them to agree with you ... so what? What do you want? is it if you don't agree with me, shut up or else? Do you want it to be a criminal offence to disagree with you? My country came out of oppression like that in 1989 and l don't want to return to it.

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No, I don't buy the doom-sayer's claims that unless we do something to stop global warming, we will all die. It's more a case of there being a 90% chance that it'll inconvenience me, not kill me.

So we're in the same boat.....just arguing semantics.

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Originally posted by Chi Squared:

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If science took that approach, we would still be watching apples falling out of trees. By all means keep an open mind, but close off debate for the time being on avenues where there is no substantial new evidence.

You are missing the point that I only ever got labelled a 'denier' in the first place because I DARED suggest that AGW 'MIGHT' be wrong.

Lets stop you there for now. You use the word 'MIGHT' not to mean a remote possiblitity but to imply a strong liklihood.

But I'll ask you this. If I DARE say that the Earth 'MIGHT' be flat, or that the holocaust 'MIGHT' not have happened, am I a denier?

There is no difference between saying that something that is proven true is not true and saying that something that is proven true 'might' not be true, at least not in terms of the message you are trying to spread.

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I entirely agree that all one has to go by is the current evidence.....however prone to error it may be.

You have not gone far enough. The evidence is not prone to error any more, at least not any more so than any other science certainties.

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Some have failed to grasp that I'm arguing the purist scientific approach. ... My complaint has always been that that total rigour has NOT been applied to AGW....largely due to the sense of urgency over the matter.

No you are not. You are trying to argue the pseudo philopshical anti scientific approach. This is the thing that you seem to be very slow to get: the rigour of the scientific claim that global warming caused by man made emmissions is a fact is just as strong as the rigour of any other scientific field.

Criticising climate science for "lack of vigour" thus becomes an attack on the entire scientific methodoligy.

And what's all this "burned to the AGW stake". If you have something to say write a scientific paper or make a lecture. This is open to ANYBODY AT ALL. But unfortunately nobody arguing against AGW can survive the peer review because, like flat Earthers and holocaust deniers, they are denying reality.
"Data, what data? I can't see it."
"That data over there taken from the arctic just yesterday".
"[covering eyes and ears] Can't see it, la la la".
"It's just there."
"Still can't see it. Look at my data".
"But you just wrote that five minutes ago"
"No it's proper scientific data".
"It's written on a handkerchief, and the pen it is written on is in your hand right now".
"No it is not, la la la".

I think that's a pretty good summary of the debate between "pro" and "anti" AGW in the last 5 years.

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Originally posted by real scientist:
I think that's a pretty good summary of the debate between "pro" and "anti" AGW in the last 5 years.

If that's what you think, then don't be surprised when non-scientists don't take scientists seriously.

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Why do you call it the 'denier industry'? They simply don't agree with you. Live with it, argue with it, whatever, but don't try and suppress it.

l don't understand why you would ever want to close any aspects of any debate.

I do "live with it" and "argue with it", but I'm afraid, Arcana69, that there is a denier industry. Scientists are happy to keep open the scientific debate, but my observation is that many of the attacks come from a small number of non-scientific organisations set up by PR companies, and that these attacks distract from the science, and from the general public's understanding of the science.

Here's my evidence from personal research:

Take co2science.org. They keep a list of papers on medieval temperature reconstructions with the aim of proving or implying the Medieval warming period was warmer than now, and provide their own summary of what the paper says. I've had time to review 4 of them, and in all 4 they misrepresent quite obviously the information in the paper, and ignore blatant quotes from the papers that disagree with their position.

Somebody yesterday quoted a paper from Friends of Science. Again it was easy to find misrepresentations, eg. That the Moburg temperature reconstruction of the last 1200 years is now the "accepted" one. It is one of a number, and it's a reconstruction of the northern hemisphere temperature anomaly only, so not a global temperature anomaly (they clearly picked it because the MWP and Little Ice Age are more apparent in the Northern Hemisphere).

Recently we had Tom H. (Tom Harris) on this forum promoting his organisation, the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (associates include 4 of the people from the Swindle programme). He linked to opinion pieces written by him in the Canada Free Press which repeated a lot of the anti-GW fibs (such as human CO2 emissions are negligible), and heavily quoting professor's Tim Ball and Tim Patterson without actually saying they are his colleagues.

The Independent Summary for Policy Makers, written by the Fraser Institute was also posted here. Again, full of flaws that were obvious to me such as their incorrect description of radiative forcing, and criticism of model problems without saying what models do well. The report was designed to be soooo boring that you only read the introduction and conclusion (which surprise, said that we cannot know whether warming is man-made). At least they admit that the CO2 theory is "credible".

The few people from these organisations have a disproportionately high representation in the media, so far from being shut out, they get a big say, and a strong influence, largely without being involved at all in the scientific process.

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Originally posted by Steve_M:

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Why do you call it the 'denier industry'? They simply don't agree with you. Live with it, argue with it, whatever, but don't try and suppress it.

l don't understand why you would ever want to close any aspects of any debate.

I do "live with it" and "argue with it", but I'm afraid, Arcana69, that there is a denier industry. Scientists are happy to keep open the scientific debate, but my observation is that many of the attacks come from a small number of non-scientific organisations set up by PR companies, and that these attacks distract from the science, and from the general public's understanding of the science.

So? does it really matter? People should be free to express their opinions. That's what a free society is. To deliberately align them with 'holocaust deniers' is an attempt to restrict their rights to say what they believe. l also believe that the term 'holocaust denier' is also perverse. You can say what you like about Stalins extermination of 10 million people but not the Holocaust?

You say that these debates are unscientific yet we have the situation where you can attain a Bachelor of Science in Homeopathy? Yet, Homeopathy is not accepted as a science by the vast majority of the scientific world!

Mathmatics and percentages are used to endorse GW (consensus 90%?) as though this should be enough to convince anyone. Percentages mean very little to people. Example, the Lottery ... a 1 in 14 million chance of winning. Does this stop people playing?... No and the reason is that they believe they will win. It's not rational but would you label them 'reality deniers'? ... l think not.

Freedom of Speech does not include 'inciting violence'.

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So? does it really matter? People should be free to express their opinions. That's what a free society is. To deliberately align them with 'holocaust deniers' is an attempt to restrict their rights to say what they believe. l also believe that the term 'holocaust denier' is also perverse.

I'm not suggesting that they should be shut down, but I am entitled to state my view of what they are, and I think I've justified my view.

Observa, I picked this quote:

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pointless statements such as "The earth was ice free for most of its history"

because it seemed a good example of something stated without much context but which is perhaps supposed to subliminally suggest to people that somehow having ice at the poles is abnormal, and that life would be better if sea levels rose 76 metres.

Regarding radiative forcing. They give a very blah-blah, almost meaningless, and convoluted discussion of radiative forcing when really it is very simple: amount of energy into the earth minus amount of energy out equals additional energy in the earth's system.

For example, they say that radiative forcing is "computed by assuming a linear relationship between certain climatic forcing agents and particular averages of temperature data". You what?! I don't understand what the sentence means. The units of radiative forcing are Watts per metre squared, so don't have anything to do with temperature. They mumble something about the forcing agent's (eg. CO2's) "time evolution and its spatial and vertical structure need to be taken into account" even though CO2 is well-mixed in the atmosphere and stays around for centuries.

My qualifications to judge this are that I am a physicist who understands the concept of conservation of energy.

The summary for policy makers is written by the lead authors of the chapters who are scientists. Indeed lots of them have had a moan this week in the New Scientist about someone who suggested that they'd watered down the report due to political pressure.

I think the bulk of the report was simply designed to be boring and meaningless since 98% of its readership will only look at the introduction and conclusions.