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About LinkBacksThis place is keely about politics so I take it upon myself to annoy those that do my head in.
This place is keely about politics so I take it upon myself to annoy those that do my head in.
Advances in any field are built upon people with the small or personal view.
Tombo posts a number of examples:Originally Posted by Gnome Chomsky
To further support his post I would like to let you know about an instance of a massive political, social and media supported error in science.
It relates to the HeLa cell line which was fundamental to cancer research. The point here is not about the area of research but the institutional behaviours that were revealed when it was found that much of the research was in error.
It also touches upon the more recent changes in theories for the cure of cancer and how the promises of these new theories are misleading by playing off people's fears and cupidities to garner support.
It is a fascinating documentary in its own right and I learned a number of things that were new to me from this unimpeachable source. It can be watched below:
The Way of All Flesh by Adam Curtis
Errors in scientific theories are far from rare. The principal reason that the AGW theory has had such attention is because of political reasons as it suits a number of interest sets.
We are constantly told of that we should distinguish between climate and weather. Well the earth's climate must be influenced by the region of space we are in and so what might be classed as a climatological period on earth should only be reckoned as a weather event for much larger celestial bodies such as the sun.
I think that the current popularised thinking on climate is geocentric in much the same way as the Ptolemaic view of the universe was. If many of the geocentrically trained scientists were to concede that the sun did, in fact, have an influence on the earth's climate they would lose their problem.
The symbolic power of smokestacks continue to hold sway over many and the association with oppression has simply been transformed in the C21th from class to environment.
It is all a little bit of psychosomatic and opportunistic thinking from enthusiasts and toy soldiers.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl4Pz1mwBao"]YouTube- Unstoppable Solar Cycles[/ame]
Audio, video, disco
I'd be absolutely amazed if you could find a "geocentrically trained scientist" who thinks the sun doesn't have an effect on Earth's climate. Unfortunately, that's not the question - the question is whether the Sun is driving the current changes in Earth's climate, and the answer is no.I think that the current popularised thinking on climate is geocentric in much the same way as the Ptolemaic view of the universe was. If many of the geocentrically trained scientists were to concede that the sun did, in fact, have an influence on the earth's climate they would lose their problem.
This isn't a Milankovitch cycle, and there are no solar changes that explain the current changes in Earth's climate. It has been investigated, it has had its day, it doesn't stack up. People cling to it because it's "common sense", but "common sense" is just another word for "fits my prejudices".
Dressing up "it's the Sun wot done it" as a problem with a "geocentric paradigm" is one way of giving it a new lease of life, but it still doesn't change the basic problem of there not being any current solar changes that account for the current climate changes.
Last edited by ibis; 14th March 2010 at 07:25 PM.
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.
Correlation does not prove causation. Many other factors are at work, and to pin the cause randomly on one factor is not logical without further evidence.
Global temperatures fell between 1940 and 1970. At the same time, CO2 levels increased rapidly. Global temperatures increased between 1815 and 1890 without any correlation with CO2. Global temperatures fell during the little ice age, centuries before industral CO2 production.If global temperature (the average temperature across the whole planet, not small parts of it) drops by 1 degree and stays down for 10 years, without any major changes in actual manmade greenhouse emissions then I will drop any beliefs in AGW, and I will entirely accept that my former beliefs were mistaken.
Also, back in the 1980's, the role of CFCs as a greenhouse gas was widely discussed, and was one of the reasons they were banned. Some studies suggested they accounted for a warming component equal to that of human produced CO2. Production of CFCs largely ended in 1994. The hottest year on record was 1998, and temperatures have declined since then.
There is a reasonable possibility that the reduction in CFCs is connected to the drop in temperatures. Why do none of the climate change proponants make the connection between CFCs and climate change anymore. Did they forget what they used to say in the 80's?
"Who will bailout the IMF after FF is finished with them?"
The point here is that the assumption is that there are: very long periods in the sun's changes; that we can detect and correctly interpret those changes; and that we have sufficient evidence to make a very substantive claim about a highly complex system.
Satellite records are only three to four decades old and the terrestrial instrument records appear to require arbitrary scrubbing in order for them to be entered into the data set. Paleoclimatological derivations that were present at the beginning of the great push for AGW awareness have been discredited and we have conclusive evidence that numbers were massaged. Furthermore the action of the ocean's currents and the contribution of water vapour is still unknown. Both of these impact climate with far greater effect than CO2. The thesis is that the system is highly unstable and the very very small contribution of man-made CO2 is sufficient to tip it - that man is the Demiurge of the planet.
The system we are attempting to describe is more complex than anything that we have been able to lucidly explain. We do not have sufficient data to make a decision. Instead we have what is far more likely to be an anthropological process rather than an anthropogenic one. AGW tried to make its case and we found that that case was founded on falsified research, supposition and projection.
I am not trying to imply that scientific research on climate is not a worthy pursuit but it is an area that is novel and has not yet found its feet. Rather, as a science that is still ambiguous, it has been exploited in order to support a political and financial agenda. The course it proposes is not a prudent one and will result in the squandering of resources - both material and intellectual - in an effort to support a presumption that will require imposition rather than persuasion as further research is conducted and known.
Last year Global Warming transformed from a crusade into a farce. Its time you recognised that or do you not mind?
Audio, video, disco
There is very straightforward science linking CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to warming. When you've examined all the possibilities, and only one of them fits, you're not "randomly" doing anything.
Yes, that was sulphur air pollution, which has a cooling effect. The acid rain problems highlighted the dangers of sulphur aerosols, and they have been largely eliminated in Western industry. That has had the effect of removing a cooling component from the system, unfortunately.
An effect can have more than one cause. Hypothermia is natural in freezing weather, but can also be induced by sticking you in a fridge. In the latter case, there is an anthropogenic component that is missing in the former case.
Nope. Temperatures have been lower than 1998 in one data set, which isn't the same as 'declining'. In the other major data set used, the warmest year is 2005.
There isn't a drop in temperatures. You're confusing the "current warmest year" record with trend.
The global average temperature isn't a smooth rising line. It's a trend discerned through rather a lot of natural variation from year to year. The year to year variation is a lot bigger than the annual trend rise - about a degree of fluctuation from year to year compared to about 0.012 degrees of warming trend rise.
You are, as they say, failing to see the wood for the trees - or, more literally, the trend for the noise.
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.
Is the evidence actually there that funding for climate science originates in political beliefs and motivations?
This wouldn't actually happen. There is a lagging effect, which means that we probably can slow down or stall further warming, but we cannot reverse it. The warming that we have caused and that is inevitable over the next century will likely be with us for a thousand years or so.
Welcome back to the forum! Your post is interesting but I would just like to ask, who are you thinking of as being the interests that benefit from AGW? Are they anything like as powerful as those that are inconvenienced by AGW? Do you still think that climate change is "the left's hustle"?
"But do 'climategate' revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory? Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence."
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Ibis, if, as you accepted earlier in the thread, that 95%+ of warming is due in an increase in the level of water vapour in the air, why is cloud seeding never proposed as a solution?
"Who will bailout the IMF after FF is finished with them?"
Well...
Cloud-seeding ships could combat climate change
Science Museum | Facing up to climate change | Cloud seeding
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Futuristic fleet of 'cloudseeders'
Office of Climate Change - Cloud-seeding trials
Cloud Seeding: A Promising Strategy for Cooling the Planet and Rebuilding the Polar Ice Caps
Google.
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.
Fair enough. Thanks for links.
"Who will bailout the IMF after FF is finished with them?"
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