Comments on: Skeptical Inquiry

By: bi

bi — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 06:20:59 +0000

jet: I wanted to read it, but after your last comment, I don’t feel like reading it any more.

By: jet

jet — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 20:31:45 +0000

All those who believe without question that anthropogenic forcings are the main cause of global warming have been pwned. Those dickhead anti-globalists and their money-slave puppets are sitting back laughing “All your bases are belong to us.” Shit, has no one actually read the IPCC report?

By: jet

jet — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 20:20:30 +0000

“There are some indications that solar irradiance fluctuations have indirect effects in addition to direct radiative heating, for example due to the substantially stronger variation in the UV band and its effect on ozone, or hypothesised changes in cloud cover (see Chapter 6). These mechanisms remain particularly uncertain[my emphasis] and currently are not incorporated[again my emphasis] in most efforts to simulate the climate effect of solar irradiance variations, as no quantitative estimates of their magnitude are currently available[again].”

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/466.htm

By: jet

jet — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 20:12:35 +0000

“There are grounds for debating the appropriate policy response to human-caused global warming, but not for debating whether [human-caused global warming] is a real phenomenon”

The American Association of State Climatologists doesn’t agree there is a “consensus”.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/aasc/aascclimatepolicy.pdf

In fact, the IPCC admits in the nitty gritty details (not in their final conclusion) that the jury is still WAY out on what could be the largest forcing behind climate change (last paragraph):
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/246.htm

By: Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:16:30 +0000

Damn. Should a “view” after the )

By: Tim Worstall

Tim Worstall — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:13:28 +0000

“There are grounds for debating the appropriate policy response to human-caused global warming, but not for debating whether it’s a real phenomenon.”

So the Lomborg (and my, but that’s of little importance) that it is happening, we humans are causing it and now can we talk about what we should do about it is respectable then?

By: MFB

MFB — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 09:31:53 +0000

No, a consensus is not necessarily correct. However, dissent ought to be based on a thorough understanding of the consensus and on an analysis of solid researched information which serves to challenge the consensus.

Not on the fact that someone slipped you some dollars to tell the public what they want the public to hear.

Kabisa!

By: Dave F

Dave F — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 08:40:07 +0000

A consensus is not necessarily correct, as scientific pioneers have sought to demonstrate—often painfully—for centuries. Models to essay long-term trend predictions are contentious in the extreme.

By: Harald Korneliussen

Harald Korneliussen — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 08:02:04 +0000

Seconded, mill. I say we should do as Tim Lambert and call them global warming denialists. Because sceptics has positive connotations these people don’t deserve.

By: Mill

Mill — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 00:31:12 +0000

Semantic note—“anti-global warming groups” sounds like it means “groups that fight global warming” (like Greenpeace) rather than “groups that fight the idea that global warming exists”.

The context makes it pretty clear in this case what you mean, but it still makes me a bit uneasy to see the phrase “global warming” used as shorthand for the idea that global warming might exist, rather than the phenomenon itself. (We can still argue about whether the phenomenon exists, sure, but let’s keep the terminology non-meta.) Maybe I just absorbed too much of that Lakoff hoo-hah last year.

(I know that “anti-evolution groups” is commonly used, but (a) that irritates me too, for the same reasons—it demotes “evolution” to the status of an idea that can be argued against—and (b) anyway, every educated person knows that literally fighting evolution is a nonsensical idea, unless you’re referring to some weird luddite posthumanism or something.)

By: bi

bi — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 20:25:00 +0000

Can we do anything about it without bankrupting ourselves?

Wow, I didn’t know that’s such an important question.

By: nofundy

nofundy — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 18:35:56 +0000

Exxon denies climate change while the Alaska pipeline sinks into the thawing permafrost. And while I’m on Alaska and oil, anyone noticed how there’s hardly ANY news coverage of 2 recent oil spills in the land of the midnight sun?

By: Functional

Functional — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 17:49:27 +0000

an overwhelming scientific consensus that human caused greenhouse gases are causing the world’s temperature to rise. So what? The really difficult questions are: (1) By how much? (I.e., how much warming is anthropogenically-forced, and how much is really due to natural fluctuations?); (2) Can we do anything about it without bankrupting ourselves?, and (3) Ought we to do anything about it? There's a good argument that global warming might be stopping the Earth from slipping into a long-overdue ice age. (See also here and here). Or the opposite could be the case. It takes an certain amount of arrogance to think that these questions (particularly the latter) have any easy answers.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 17:24:17 +0000

pimping for anti-semitic quasi-dictatorships

To be honest, my own view on that Mahathir speech was similar to the one that the AEI put out – I wrote a post but I can’t be bothered looking for it. Just goes to show that you can get decent common sense out of a thinktank if you’re prepared to pay for it.