[marcusfox]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
Lol. Calm down mate, it was a joke (although admittedly true, I haven't met a first year geography undergrad that didn't think he was a climatology expert).

Regardless, the recent changes in climate and speed at which they're occurring make the fact that this is anything but natural alarmingly evident. And there are far more renowned and intelligent scientists than you that are far more willing to be an authority on the subject. I would however recommend getting that sand out of your vagina

I see.

And you coming down firmly on the anthropogenic global warming climate change side of the fence means there are absolutely no 'world renowned' scientists who don't support AGW?

If all you have to contribute to this thread are bald assertions, offensive denunciations of my mental capabilities and yet fail to provide a single piece of empirical evidence that global warming is even happening (you haven't even bothered with collections of temperature figures that have been carefully selected and fudged to prove the AGW hypothesis) then what have you added to the discussion, really?

Perhaps you could start by providing evidence for the 'recent changes in climate and speed at which they're occurring' assertion of your argument and we'll take it from there.

[marcusfox]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
...

I expected better of you. Typical though from those who have no argument, ad hominem attacks and childish smearing of their opponents instead of debate or constructive argument.

No class whatsoever.

[jumpingjesusholycow]

(Original post by marcusfox)
I expected better of you. Typical though from those who have no argument, ad hominem attacks and childish smearing of their opponents instead of debate or constructive argument.

No class whatsoever.

To be fair, for any rational human being with even a smidgen of knowledge, the idea of arguing against the need to redress our environmental output is about as worthy an argument as the idea that gravity is actually the result of an ancient moon God summoned by Zeus. There's really no argument to be had, and to humour you would waste both our time.

[chefdave]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
To be fair, for any rational human being with even a smidgen of knowledge, the idea of arguing against the need to redress our environmental output is about as worthy an argument as the idea that gravity is actually the result of an ancient moon God summoned by Zeus. There's really no argument to be had, and to humour you would waste both our time.

What on earth is "environmental output"?

[Classical Liberal]

I just think most environmentalists are idiots and really don't understand the facts.

All you need to do is stick "environmentally friendly" or "green" in front of anything and these tossers will orgasm over it. Even if the actual results of whatever the proposal is do more harm than good, or just cause another environmental problem elsewhere.

[A Mysterious Lord]

Questioning man made climate change is akin to Holocaust Denial these days.

Deforestation is a much bigger problem, but tackling that would involve challenging the huge corporations that do it, rather than just screwing the taxpayer for green taxes (which is what the climate change lie is all about).

[jumpingjesusholycow]

(Original post by chefdave)
What on earth is "environmental output"?

CO2 emissions, chemical pollutants etc.

I would have thought it was obvious

[marcusfox]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
To be fair, for any rational human being with even a smidgen of knowledge, the idea of arguing against the need to redress our environmental output is about as worthy an argument as the idea that gravity is actually the result of an ancient moon God summoned by Zeus. There's really no argument to be had, and to humour you would waste both our time.

Now it's come down to refusal even to look at the evidence, and personal attacks.

Yours is an argument from authority fallacy. Just as those who once argued that the Sun revolved around the earth did.

Secondly, it doesn't change the fact that many of the scientists at the Climate Research Unit appear to have purposely tried to skew the peer review process, I suppose in this case there is no need for peer review 'for any rational human being with even a smidgen of knowledge'.

Who peer reviewed Tamino's work?

Where did he draw his data from?

Was it raw or homogenized?

How did he manipulate it?

How cherry picked was it?

Was it just like Briffa using one tree at Yamal to infer a warming trend for the entire planet?

Or was it possibly like Steig using one weather station in Antarctica to represent the entire continent?

Or was it possibly like Jones using a homogenized data set spliced with a homogenized cherry picked proxy?

Or was it like Mann? Did it use homogenized data added onto cherry picked proxies and junk data where necessary?

Or was it like NASA/GISS? Who have rewritten the past to make the past look colder in order to make the present appear warmer?

Whether the thesis is right or wrong, this is disgraceful and does not vindicate any of those involved.

Thirdly, how many of these 'renowned scientists' are actually climate scientists or geoscientists? And from that group how many are funded to investigate AGW?

And finally two can play at that game. There have been other signed petitions by far greater number of scientists dismissing the whole AGW argument. Just a few years back, at a geoscience conference in Japan, 90% of attendees voted against AGW.

You have been told that no-one seriously disputes that the climate is changing, has always been changing, and will continue to change.

This is not and never has been in dispute.

What IS in dispute is the contribution of mankind to the current cycle of heating/cooling, whether this is or is not likely to cause problems to us in the immediate future, and, should there be conclusive evidence that this is the case, whether it is possible to do anything to prevent it, and failing that, what steps we can take to ameliorate the effects.

Myself, I consider the evidence for AGW poor in the extreme. I have no faith in computer modelling of non-linear systems of massive complexity, I am aware of the physics of CO2 absorption and do not belive that, in the quantities involved, it poses a threat, and I consider the idea of "tipping points" to be ridiculous, if the climatic system were prone to such uncontrolled feedback effects, the Earth would have become a cinder or a snowball eons ago. Consider such concepts as chaotic attractors, metastability and homeostasis, and how ridiculous any understanding of such renders any notion of runaway "tipping points".

And that is only one of many reasons that I am utterly unconvinced of AGW.

The departure of the measured temperatures from the predicted models over the last decade or so, and the extremely suspicious affairs at UEA CRU do nothing whatsoever to dispel my doubts, of course.

And even if I am utterly, completely irrevocably misguided and wrong, I cannot imagine by any stretch of imagination how jumped up nobodies such as yourself (who refuse to argue against the evidence and respond SOLELY with personal attacks and statements such as 'for any rational human being with even a smidgen of knowledge') are going to change my mind.

I don't pretend to be a climate scientist, and as far as I'm concerned, you aren't either, instead you mock my qualifications and status high from your lofty position of... what exactly? I know how to read and research, look at empirical evidence for and against an argument and all you can do is post insults.

Your posts carry no weight.

[jumpingjesusholycow]

(Original post by marcusfox)
Now it's come down to refusal even to look at the evidence, and personal attacks.

Yours is an argument from authority fallacy. Just as those who once argued that the Sun revolved around the earth did.

Indeed, but the problem didn't lie with the fact that people placed their faith in those with authority, just that their assertions were based on very primitive science. The logic in believing those with an authority is sound. Case in point: if you abandoned in a jungle with 4 others, you worked in an office job as does three others, whereas the fourth was a professional wildlife expert - who are you going to place your faith in? There's no guarantee that any of the individuals is correct, but one has substancially more experience and authority. Do you go with the advice of one of the office workers just because the wildlife expert may be incorrect? No.

Likewise, the consensus amongst professional scientists with far more authority than you could ever dream of have already concluded the facts, and your tin foil hat theories are little but farts in the wind of professional academia. Your PGCE isn't grounds to warrant you a climate change experts and your delusions about your knowledge are laughable.

[chefdave]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
CO2 emissions, chemical pollutants etc.

I would have thought it was obvious

Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe and present in all known life forms, the left's attempts to demonise and eradicate it constitute a crime against common sense. You may as well try and outlaw water. As a society the sooner we get environmentalism out of our system and replace it with something a bit more optimistic the better imo. Greenist ideoogy is holding us back.

[jumpingjesusholycow]

(Original post by chefdave)
Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe and present in all known life forms, the left's attempts to demonise and eradicate it constitute a crime against common sense. You may as well try and outlaw water. As a society the sooner we get environmentalism out of our system and replace it with something a bit more optimistic the better imo. Greenist ideoogy is holding us back.

The fact that carbon is prevalent in the universe isn't relevant to the fact that carbon affects the Ozone layer.

My God we need to get rid of nutters like you. There's nothing you won't add 'ist' to make it seem like some tin foil hat job.



To my knowledge, David Mitchell isn't part of the 'greenist-leftist-communist alliance to take over the universe'

[marcusfox]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
Indeed, but the problem didn't lie with the fact that people placed their faith in those with authority, just that their assertions were based on very primitive science. The logic in believing those with an authority is sound. Case in point: if you abandoned in a jungle with 4 others, you worked in an office job as does three others, whereas the fourth was a professional wildlife expert - who are you going to place your faith in? There's no guarantee that any of the individuals is correct, but one has substancially more experience and authority. Do you go with the advice of one of the office workers just because the wildlife expert may be incorrect? No.

Likewise, the consensus amongst professional scientists with far more authority than you could ever dream of have already concluded the facts, and your tin foil hat theories are little but farts in the wind of professional academia. Your PGCE isn't grounds to warrant you a climate change experts and your delusions about your knowledge are laughable.

You mean 'professional scientists' like Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who is only qualified to be a railway engineer?

What exactly are you afraid of, debating what is supposedly a consensus viewpoint? If someone wants to postulate evidence that tree rings support global warming, am I out of order pointing out that he only looked at one tree?

Am I out of order questioning why, if someone says that an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in an increase in temperature, and carbon dioxide has only been increasing, he should also explain how that has caused the temperature change in recent years to trend downwards?

Am I not allowed to point out that the graphs of solar activity which show the well-known correlation between sunspot data and temperature indicate that temperature change throughout the ages is a natural phenomenon?

And many others... Are you going to tell me why I am wrong to question those, or are you just going to insult me and tell me that they are 'tin foil hat theories [which] are little but farts in the wind of professional academia'?

It's funny how relying on 'consensus agreement' suits you here, but on other threads, such as the one on the monarchy that you contributed to, the minority republican viewpoint was the 'correct' position to take.

[jumpingjesusholycow]

I'll answer the three threads of coherent rationale in your post.

(Original post by marcusfox)
What exactly are you afraid of, debating what is supposedly a consensus viewpoint?

I'm not afraid of debate at all. The difference between me and you however is that I know I'm not particularly an authority on the discussion, and so look to professionals who have devoted their entire scientific career to it. Unlike you, I'm not deluded into thinking that my 5 year old PGCE makes me a climatology expert capable of coherently disproving the consensus of scientists that currently make up more than 99% of popular opinion.

Am I out of order questioning why

No, you're not out of order. What you are, is uninformed on the subject, and inherently ridiculous in your tin foil hat assertions. I'm not ridiculing you because you're 'out of order for questioning', I'm ridiculing you because your assertions are absurd and worthy for being ridiculed and subsequently laughed out of any serious debate on the topic.

It's funny how relying on 'consensus agreement' suits you here, but on other threads, such as the one on the monarchy that you contributed to, the minority republican viewpoint was the 'correct' position to take.

Science =/= popular thought on politics. It's one thing to argue that placing your political faith in an inherited power that vests its authority based on a fictional deity is stupid, it's another to argue that climate change is some sort of 'greenist-socialist-communist' myth perpetuated by a panel of qualified evil scientists, determined to destroy the planet' Likewise, most of the planet lives under some form of Republican Government, whilst a significant minority live under a form of monarchy. It's something like 15:85 in favour of the republican majority, but hey - there's still dissent. Likewise, the climate debate is practically universally in my favour. I'll repeat. You are a fart in the wind of serious academia.

My thoughts on the subject can be summed up within this video that I posted above and will likewise post here:





EDIT: Ironically, you highlighted the one man rated fifth amongst the entire planet for "Top 100 Global Thinkers", noted for "ending the debate over whether climate change matters". When he is recognised as a global thinking for seperating genuine englightenment from nutcase theorists like yourself, you know your logic flawed

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...kers?page=full

[marcusfox]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
I'll answer the three threads of coherent rationale in your post.

I'm not afraid of debate at all. The difference between me and you however is that I know I'm not particularly an authority on the discussion, and so look to professionals who have devoted their entire scientific career to it. Unlike you, I'm not deluded into thinking that my 5 year old PGCE makes me a climatology expert capable of coherently disproving the consensus of scientists that currently make up more than 99% of popular opinion.

That's the thing, it's their career. They are paid money to support the theory of AGW. If they can postulate an argument that means they get paid millions in grants, then they are going to work towards proving that argument.

And the science is not to difficult for anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of science to understand.

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
No, you're not out of order. What you are, is uninformed on the subject, and inherently ridiculous in your tin foil hat assertions. I'm not ridiculing you because you're 'out of order for questioning', I'm ridiculing you because your assertions are absurd and worthy for being ridiculed and subsequently laughed out of any serious debate on the topic.

No one has yet told me why it is wrong to question why it is possible to make a judgement on tree rings supporting global warming when he only looked at one tree. Neither are there any internet sources or peer reviewed scientific papers justifying that.

Likewise there are no papers explaining why an increase in carbon dioxide caused global temperatures to decrease in recent years when the science says the opposite should occur.

What there has been though is a number of scandals, one rather serious one in particular, of fudged and deleted data in an apparent attempt to prevent the conclusions being independently analysed and peer reviewed. You don't have to be a 'climate expert' to question the motivations for that.

Of course, if the science was settled, there would have been no problems in releasing the data to be independently studied so thier conclusions could be peer reviewed.

I'm sure you are qualified to offer an opinion that it's all part of AGW supporting 'climatology experts' 'coherently disproving' their opponents 'tin foil hat assertions'.

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
Science =/= popular thought on politics. It's one thing to argue that placing your political faith in an inherited power that vests its authority based on a fictional deity is stupid, it's another to argue that climate change is some sort of 'greenist-socialist-communist' myth perpetuated by a panel of qualified evil scientists, determined to destroy the planet' Likewise, most of the planet lives under some form of Republican Government, whilst a significant minority live under a form of monarchy. It's something like 15:85 in favour of the republican majority, but hey - there's still dissent. Likewise, the climate debate is practically universally in my favour. I'll repeat. You are a fart in the wind of serious academia.

Well, there you have it. Republicanism in the UK is very much a minority viewpoint and thus not 'popular thought'. A 'fart in the wind' of current public opinion

[jumpingjesusholycow]

(Original post by marcusfox)
That's the thing, it's their career. They are paid money to support the theory of AGW. If they can postulate an argument that means they get paid millions in grants, then they are going to work towards proving that argument.

By that logic, any and all innovations, scientific discoveries and technological advancements that involved a form of finance are an inherently global conspiracies used to perpetuate a false truth. My God, the fact that people like you are in a position to educate is incredibly alarming. I worry about the kids under your teachmanship, I genuinely do.

What there has been though is a number of scandals

I'm going to stop you here. This is the crux of your argument. The fact that you have absolutely no basis for scientific evaluation, except for 'a scandal happened', is the exact reason your tin foil hat theories are generally regarded as pure nonsense, and subsequently the same reason nobody will ever take you seriously unless you hide your ridiculous theories under a vanity blanket of normal aptitude. I pity you.

Well, there you have it. Republicanism in the UK is very much a minority viewpoint and thus not 'popular thought'.

At what point did I state that republicanism is a 'majority viewpoint'? Go on, I dare you to find the exact quote. I'm dying to know

[marcusfox]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
By that logic, any and all innovations, scientific discoveries and technological advancements that involved a form of finance are an inherently global conspiracies used to perpetuate a false truth. My God, the fact that people like you are in a position to educate is incredibly alarming. I worry about the kids under your teachmanship, I genuinely do.

Back in the 1970's, all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming. That was a 'scientific consensus' right there.

They thought the world was getting colder. But once the notion of global warming was raised, they immediately recognised the advantages. Global warming creates a crisis, a call to action. A crisis needs to be studied, it needs to be funded, it needs political and bureaucratic structures around the world. And in no time at all, a huge number of meterorologists, geologists, oceanographers and other scientists (including chemists) engaged and making their names and careers in the management of this crisis.

The UN formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the late 1980s. That’s the IPCC, as you know, a huge group of bureaucrats, and scientists under the thumb of bureaucrats. The idea was that since this was a global problem, the UN would track climate research and issue reports every few years. The first assessment report in 1990 said it would be very difficult to detect a human influence on climate, although everybody was concerned that one might exist. But the 1995 report announced with conviction that there was now ‘a discernable human influence’ on climate.

The claim of 'a discernable human influence' was written into the 1995 summary report after the scientists themselves had gone home. Originally, the document said scientists couldn’t detect a human influence on climate for sure, and they didn’t know when they would. They said explicitly, ‘we don’t know.’ That statement was deleted, and replaced with a new statement that a discernable human influence did indeed exist. It was a major change.

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
I'm going to stop you here. This is the crux of your argument. The fact that you have absolutely no basis for scientific evaluation, except for 'a scandal happened', is the exact reason your tin foil hat theories are generally regarded as pure nonsense, and subsequently the same reason nobody will ever take you seriously unless you hide your ridiculous theories under a vanity blanket of normal aptitude. I pity you.

Like I already said, I am not basing my analysis on the single fact that a scandal happened, but a number of serious points that call into question the AGW theory, the main one being, that the climate has changed drastically over millenia without the help of man. Furthermore, if increasing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere causes increase in temperature, why has the temperature gone down in recent years.

Atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind. The present rise began about 1750, long before humans could have made any meaningful contribution. Supporters of man-made warming have failed to ask, let alone answer, what the CO2 level would be today if we had never burned any fuels. They simply "ASSUME" wrongly, that it would be the 'pre-industrial' value. RUBBISH.

The solubility of CO2 in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools. The warming of the earth since the Little Ice Age has thus caused the oceans to emit CO2 into the atmosphere, and that's before consideration of rotting vegetation, volcanic eruptions and all other NATURAL occurrences.

As for the scandal, attempting to manipulate data, falsify the results of experiments and avoid peer review of their conclusions are all perfectly natural actions of scientists who truly believe there is no problem with their methodology and that their experimental data truly supports their conclusions, don't you think?

You cannot deny the suspicion that data may have been deleted when asked for under the FOIA (a criminal offence) and that other data may have been subjected to manipulation with intent to deceive. Although as yet unproven in the law courts, the evidence is there for all to see and can only mean that ALL data from the IPCC, NASA's GISS, the UK Met office, Hadley, HadCRUT data, or the UK CRU can not be guaranteed to be uncompromised, therefore has no scientific credibility whatsoever.

So what does the empirical evidence tell us?

A) Most of the warming in the 20th Century was before 1940, a time when human contributions to atmospheric CO2 were trivial.

and B) post 1940 heavy industry got going and more "anthropogenic" CO2 was delivered into the atmosphere than ever before, while temperatures COOLED, enough to trigger the scaremongering nonsense of the impending ice age touted in the early 1970's.

GOT THAT? Temperatures INCREASED with no help from CO2, and as CO2 increased, temperatures REDUCED.

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
At what point did I state that republicanism is a 'majority viewpoint'? Go on, I dare you to find the exact quote. I'm dying to know

You didn't. However, you do believe that it is the correct one, and regardless of the majority view, that it should be imposed on the people of the UK at the earliest opportunity.

[RJ555]

(Original post by marcusfox)
Take termites as well. The total weight of termites exceeds the total weight of all the humans in the world. A thousand times greater, in fact. Do you know how much methane termites produce? And methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

I suppose you are all for tighter regulation or outright banning of these chemicals you mention - at what cost?

Termites are producing methane by surviving, rather than through any additional/external actions or tools. Its not as if termites are using oil reserves to create plastics for devices they may or may not need (if they did then yes I'd want them regulated! We can't all have IPods! ).

The difference I see is that humans produce waste far beyond our natural design* (through industry, transport etc). Its a flaw coming from our desire to innovate and why, for better or worse I don't think we can be compared to animals.

*By "natural design" I'm referring to respiratory and bodily waste.

[marcusfox]

(Original post by RJ555)
Termites are producing methane by surviving, rather than through any additional/external actions or tools. Its not as if termites are using oil reserves to create plastics for devices they may or may not need (if they did then yes I'd want them regulated! We can't all have IPods! ).

If you consider that human produced methane is bad and termite produced methane is good simply because you define one as artificial and one as natural, then you are falling into the cognitive dissonance trap many environmentalists do by assuming that because man is doing it, then it's not natural, and therefore bad.

(Original post by RJ555)
The difference I see is that humans produce waste far beyond our natural design* (through industry, transport etc). Its a flaw coming from our desire to innovate and why, for better or worse I don't think we can be compared to animals.

Our natural design is to do exactly that. It is not a flaw. We are using the adaptive features we have evolved for that purpose to improve our quality of life - large brains, opposable thumbs, tool use, etc - just as a lion does by using his adaptive features they have evolved for that purpose - claws, teeth, high speed sprinting, etc.

(Original post by RJ555)
*By "natural design" I'm referring to respiratory and bodily waste.

Like I said in the first paragraph, termites spew out more methane, just because they are designed to do that 'naturally' it doesn't make it any less damaging.

Would you say a comet impact would be more or less damaging to the Earth than humans? It fits the accepted definition of 'natural design' perfectly.