You sure you want to try to conflate scientists who are unpersuaded of the validity of anthropogenic global warming - or is it climate change now? - with creationists?
I was under the impression that the party line was to try to demonize scientists who raise questions about anthropogenic global warming - or is it climate change now? - by trying to imply they're the equivalent of Holocaust deniers?
By the way Donal, just where are those "peer-reviewed" studies you go on about so? Could you point to a few of your favorite examples?
Folks seem to be confused about the terms global warming and climate change.
I explain it to my science classes this way. We are having global warming. This warming will produce various kinds of climate change. Some we can predict, some will blind side us. We really don't know what changes will be produced by thousands of square miles of melting permafrost, for instance. Personally I'm not betting on a positive outcome.
Well, yes. I am sure. When someone wants to say that huge numbers of scientists who have done tonnes of research, published hundreds of papers, have presented at thousands of conferences and the like are not "real scientists", then I will say they are like the creationists.
No Richard, folks aren't confused about the terms global warming, or rather anthropogenic global warming since the other kind, the kind that's warmed the earth numberless times before is of little interest, and climate change. That's the problem, the lack of confusion and that's why climate change has been introduced into the public conversation.
Anthropogenic global warming is an excuse for a particular political action although to gain the necessary credibility it's tarted up as science. The trouble is global warming's starting to run out of steam as a political issue and starting to collect enough in the way of scientific opposition to make the generation of alarmist headlines a tough proposition. In response, like advertisers of overpriced products have done down through history, you change the name of the product and hope too much of your audience doesn't catch wise.
So the problem isn't that people are confused about the terms global warming and climate change it's that they're not confused enough.
With regard to your brief foray into an approximation of science, you might want to consider what happened to that permafrost layer during the Medieval Warming Period (800AD-1300AD) and why that warming, rather unlikely to have been caused by anthropogenic global warming, didn't result in a run away greenhouse effect.
No Richard, I'm not hostile to the idea of AGM. I'm hostile to the idea of science in the service of an ideology. That's why I'm hostile to Lysenkoism, Malthusianism, Peak Oil and eugenics as well as, not AGM, but how AGM is being presented - as if it were a done deal.
Climate science, contrary to the claims of ideologues, is so new it's hardly worth taking anything that comes out of the field too seriously.
Computers and satellites have worked huge changes in the understanding of how the climate works and, as a result, basic phenomena are still being discovered. For instance, until not that terribly long ago the phenomenon of megalightening was dismissed as pilots hallucinating or lying. Now it's part of the science of the climate but how does it effect the climate? No scientist knows how to do that because until not very long ago no scientist had megalightening as part of their understanding of the Earth's climate.
Until you know the phenomenon exists how can you integrate it into your understanding of the overall phenomenon of climate?
And megalightening's just one phenomenon that's either been recently discovered or recently discovered to interact with the Earth's climate.
There are large-scale solar, interstellar, geological, biological and chemical events that bear on the state of the climate that are only now starting to be well-enough understood to be seen as relevant. How can anyone realistically create an understanding of how the climate works when big pieces of the puzzle are just swimming into view and others, by implication, haven't even achieved that level of understanding?
The obvious answer is, you can't. At least you can't if it's the science you're interested in.
Many ideologues, however, aren't interested in the science, only in what the credibility of science might let them do: impose their beliefs on their fellow human beings.
So Donalblain - pardon be for appropriating you in this manner but you're handy - feels no compunctions about substituting a quantitative measure of scientists for the qualitative measure of science. If a thousand scientists say it's so, and what they say fits the preconceptions of the ideologue then those thousand scientists are correct and beyond criticism. The history of science however shows precisely the opposite to be true; one scientist is right and all the rest of the world's scientists are wrong.
But the ideologue's agenda consists of the imposition of their views not the pursuit of knowledge. Hence my hostility to the presentation of anthropogenic global warming as a supportable prediction of a sufficiently comprehensive body of knowledge.
allen: No. I have not done what you suggested. If you go back and READ what I typed, you will see that I refered to the fact that the scientists have done research, published papers, presented at conferences. My point was simply that DARREN implied that scientists who disagreed with him were not real scientists DESPITE the work they had done.
I am sure the scientific academies of all G8 nations will look forward to you explaining why they are not real scientists.
ReplyDeleteJust like they will look forward to hearing from Ken Ham and the other creationists.
You sure you want to try to conflate scientists who are unpersuaded of the validity of anthropogenic global warming - or is it climate change now? - with creationists?
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that the party line was to try to demonize scientists who raise questions about anthropogenic global warming - or is it climate change now? - by trying to imply they're the equivalent of Holocaust deniers?
By the way Donal, just where are those "peer-reviewed" studies you go on about so? Could you point to a few of your favorite examples?
Folks seem to be confused about the terms global warming and climate change.
ReplyDeleteI explain it to my science classes this way. We are having global warming. This warming will produce various kinds of climate change. Some we can predict, some will blind side us. We really don't know what changes will be produced by thousands of square miles of melting permafrost, for instance. Personally I'm not betting on a positive outcome.
Richard
As they say on Battlestar Galactica, "All this has happened before, and it will happen again." And each time it happened before, mankind flourishes.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes. I am sure. When someone wants to say that huge numbers of scientists who have done tonnes of research, published hundreds of papers, have presented at thousands of conferences and the like are not "real scientists", then I will say they are like the creationists.
ReplyDeleteHey, I don't know if that's the best example. I love Battlestar Galactica, but they are homeless and down to 36,000 humans.
ReplyDeleteI'm not worried, I'm a skin job myself.
Richard
No Richard, folks aren't confused about the terms global warming, or rather anthropogenic global warming since the other kind, the kind that's warmed the earth numberless times before is of little interest, and climate change. That's the problem, the lack of confusion and that's why climate change has been introduced into the public conversation.
ReplyDeleteAnthropogenic global warming is an excuse for a particular political action although to gain the necessary credibility it's tarted up as science. The trouble is global warming's starting to run out of steam as a political issue and starting to collect enough in the way of scientific opposition to make the generation of alarmist headlines a tough proposition. In response, like advertisers of overpriced products have done down through history, you change the name of the product and hope too much of your audience doesn't catch wise.
So the problem isn't that people are confused about the terms global warming and climate change it's that they're not confused enough.
With regard to your brief foray into an approximation of science, you might want to consider what happened to that permafrost layer during the Medieval Warming Period (800AD-1300AD) and why that warming, rather unlikely to have been caused by anthropogenic global warming, didn't result in a run away greenhouse effect.
So Allen, I get it that you are hostile to the concept of AGM.
ReplyDeleteWhere are we in factual disagreement?
Do you not believe global warming is happening?
Do you believe that it is happening but humans have nothing to do with it?
Do you not believe that carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gasses?
Richard
No Richard, I'm not hostile to the idea of AGM. I'm hostile to the idea of science in the service of an ideology. That's why I'm hostile to Lysenkoism, Malthusianism, Peak Oil and eugenics as well as, not AGM, but how AGM is being presented - as if it were a done deal.
ReplyDeleteClimate science, contrary to the claims of ideologues, is so new it's hardly worth taking anything that comes out of the field too seriously.
Computers and satellites have worked huge changes in the understanding of how the climate works and, as a result, basic phenomena are still being discovered. For instance, until not that terribly long ago the phenomenon of megalightening was dismissed as pilots hallucinating or lying. Now it's part of the science of the climate but how does it effect the climate? No scientist knows how to do that because until not very long ago no scientist had megalightening as part of their understanding of the Earth's climate.
Until you know the phenomenon exists how can you integrate it into your understanding of the overall phenomenon of climate?
And megalightening's just one phenomenon that's either been recently discovered or recently discovered to interact with the Earth's climate.
There are large-scale solar, interstellar, geological, biological and chemical events that bear on the state of the climate that are only now starting to be well-enough understood to be seen as relevant. How can anyone realistically create an understanding of how the climate works when big pieces of the puzzle are just swimming into view and others, by implication, haven't even achieved that level of understanding?
The obvious answer is, you can't. At least you can't if it's the science you're interested in.
Many ideologues, however, aren't interested in the science, only in what the credibility of science might let them do: impose their beliefs on their fellow human beings.
So Donalblain - pardon be for appropriating you in this manner but you're handy - feels no compunctions about substituting a quantitative measure of scientists for the qualitative measure of science. If a thousand scientists say it's so, and what they say fits the preconceptions of the ideologue then those thousand scientists are correct and beyond criticism. The history of science however shows precisely the opposite to be true; one scientist is right and all the rest of the world's scientists are wrong.
But the ideologue's agenda consists of the imposition of their views not the pursuit of knowledge. Hence my hostility to the presentation of anthropogenic global warming as a supportable prediction of a sufficiently comprehensive body of knowledge.
allen: No. I have not done what you suggested. If you go back and READ what I typed, you will see that I refered to the fact that the scientists have done research, published papers, presented at conferences. My point was simply that DARREN implied that scientists who disagreed with him were not real scientists DESPITE the work they had done.
ReplyDelete