FiftySeven
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Seems those Gov trained trolls have done a hatchet job on the good folks at friends of science (or am i the gov trained troll, who won the "38 world series anyway?)There are other clues that FoS isn’t all it claims to be, in the form of receiving money from petroleum companies. In 2006, Charles Montgomery published an exposé for Globe and Mail, illustrating the money to be made and the political power to be had in perpetuating the rumor that the scientific community hasn’t come to a consensus. If voters aren’t confident in the science, they can be persuaded. Most importantly, there’s no way to regulate what the claims of people like those from FoS. They can spread as many fallacies as they want, and there’s not a lot that can be done about it.
FoS releases articles describing current research in climate change, and they may speak to groups or get on TV, but it isn’t put through the scrutiny of peer review. That review process is a critical part of scientific integrity, but is lacking in the claims of FoS. It’s a lot easier to say whatever you want when nobody is checking your work over to ensure it is accurate or done in good faith.
At the end of the day, which group seems like the one with the agenda? The diverse group of the majority of scientists from around the world who collect and interpret data under limited budgets and who just so happen to agree on several major points? Or the group with ties to the petroleum industry that admits to pushing a particular slant on scientific data that is advocating against environmentally-responsible policy, which would hurt said petroleum industry?
The serious, mainstream science view goes like this:
Reasonably simple, given the vast complexity of our planet’s climatic system, and in fact the handful of serious climate scientists on the “sceptic” side agree with points 1-4.Now here is the climate “sceptic’s” case:
- The greenhouse effect is real. Without it, average surface temperatures would be -15C, not +15C
- CO2 is a greenhouse gas
- CO2 levels have increased by 41% since pre-industrial times
- A 100% increase will cause a 1.2C rise in earth surface temperatures
- This rise will in turn cause a 3C (+/- 1.5C) rise in surface temperature.
Explanatory video on this point here- Any rise above 2C must be avoided
What the above shows is that there is an endless complexity to the arguments brought by the “sceptics”, many of them self-contradictory.They are not trying to present a coherent picture of reality, which is the aim of science. They are merely producing a stream of counter statements. I have been impressed recently that when I try to discuss the one point where agreement exists with a delayer, they rapidly change the subject to find disagreement.In fact, their case often boils down to a mirror image of the case for man-made global warming. If we say white, they just say black.I predict therefore that soon “sceptic” blogs will be quoting William of Occam as evidence for the truth of their case.
- The earth is not warming
- If it is warming, it is due to the sun
- The warming is due to some kind of natural variation
- It’s going to get cooler soon
- CO2 is too tiny to make a difference
- CO2 will make a difference but there’s nothing we can do about it
- We can afford to wait another 10-50 years to see if it is going to get hot then do something about it then
- It is going to warm but only a bit
- CO2 is good for us
- Cloud cover will extend in a warmer planet and cool us down (No it will not)
- All models are always wrong
- Some models show that the climate will not warm much
- It is all a conspiracy by climatologists, Greens, the nuclear industry and the UN
- It cannot be happening because it would mean that fossil energy would become unprofitable
- It is cold outside today
- Heat cannot get into the ocean
- And so on
- And so forth
We had a very mild year here on the east coast of the us.
Global warming is fact. Whats not fact is that mankind is causing it. No proof of that one way or the other. Planet has gone through heating and cooling cycles long before man ever walked the earth.