Climate Change: Modern Witch Hunts - Desmogblog.com

  • Thread starter Andre
  • Start date
In summary: I have serious reason to doubt that particular claim. If it were true what is the motive for not releasing both the email and the name of the person who sent it?
  • #1
Andre
4,311
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It may be known that I like to discuss in detail why the climate issues as in catastrophical anthropogenic global warming is greatly exagarated.

It may seem that such a discussion can be conducted in a normal neutral setting, however look at http://www.desmogblog.com/national-posts-corcoran-pops-his-cork and think again.

I wonder what the reaction would be on my post there.
 
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  • #2
There's too much for me to read right now, but I think I can gather what kind of people are discussing it from that first comment.
 
  • #3
So people all across the spectrum have opinions and express them in blogs. Andre, is there any blog at the other end of the spectrum that you think is over the top? Why not bestir yourself and give us a link to it, too?
 
  • #4
selfAdjoint said:
So people all across the spectrum have opinions and express them in blogs. Andre, is there any blog at the other end of the spectrum that you think is over the top? Why not bestir yourself and give us a link to it, too?

A sceptic blog over the top would mean that we'd have to find one, devoted to personal attacks (ad hominems) on the prominent alarmists like Micheal Mann, Jonathan Overpeck, Kevin Trenberth, Jim Hansen et al, for instance about the grants they make or about the sense of power of the high priests and medicine men, preaching doom unless the people make offerings to avoid those (see the commonality?)

However that doesn't happen a lot, you cannot command from an underdog position of being demonized. The most "radical" sceptic sites that I know of, both not being always exactly accurate (only most of the time) are those two of late John Daly, managed by his son now and Eduardo Ferreira.

http://www.john-daly.com/
http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/ENGLISH.html [Broken]

Actually it may be an idea to compare the fallacy density of the extremists of both sides.
 
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  • #5
Anyway, when confronted with such a blog as in the openings post, I can't help to think about preconceptual science:

http://www.cougarinfo.org/lionpics/nsdiscie.gif

Disclaimer: any resemblance with hockeystick creating science is unintentional and purely coincidal

Source: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/index.phtml [Broken]
 
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  • #7
Andre, how many times you have accused large numbers of climate scientists of complicity in some grand conspiracy?
 
  • #8
Did I?

Anyway, shall we try and deduct who may have been the mysterious E-mail writer to http://www.sepp.org/Archive/NewSEPP/StateFear-Deming.htm [Broken]?

A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period."
 
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  • #9
Pfff, do we actually need to care about this ?

marlon
 
  • #10
marlon said:
Pfff, do we actually need to care about this ?

marlon

Absoluut, je kan maar niet zo zonder meer ongestraft de wereld op z'n kop zetten. dat wreekt zich zeer zeker.

translation: yes, definitely
 
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  • #11
Andre said:
Did I?

Anyway, shall we try and deduct who may have been the mysterious E-mail writer to http://www.sepp.org/Archive/NewSEPP/StateFear-Deming.htm [Broken]?

I have serious reason to doubt that particular claim. If it were true what is the motive for not releasing both the email and the name of the person who sent it?

There are three possibilities

a) there is no mysterious email-writer and the claim has been invented knowing that it cannot be investigated

b) there was an email-writer but the email has been misquoted, or quote mined, in which case the motive for not naming the mysterious email writer would be so that said email is not made public which would debunk the claim

c) The claim is true. In which case there seems no benefit in hiding the person who sent the email. In fact it would be totally irresponsible to help cover up such potential fraud in the scientific community rather than naming the individual and making the email they sent public.
 
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  • #12
I'll have to agree with the creator of the thread.
There are certain issues which are being "hunted down" in society because of stereotypes.
They are generally based on myths or exagerations, for example:

- the myth of modern society that destroyed the primordial paradise of tribal people leaving in peace.
You'll see this theme occurring a lot, mainly in random attacks (witch hunts) on "western consumerist/corporatist/greedy/etc society".

- the myth of iminent doomsday (promoted, of course, by the doomsdaylovers :)).
Be it global warming, global dimming, asteroids, UFO's, killer bees, what-ever! They're all out to get us, and we HAVE to listen to those that warn us :rolleyes:
I myself have accepted this and check my closet every night for ManBearPig.

- the myth of Microsoft = evil.
Especially linux fans (and nowadays firefox fans) will give you an ankward look if you praise any Microsoft product.
They'll immediately shut you off and blame you for software patents and starving kids in africa.
'Nuff said.

Btw: the "starving kids of Africa" and "poor Africa (in general)" is an important symbol of the western civilisation haters.
They hate industrialism, they'd like us to go back to an agricultural peaceful society.

Another witch-hunt is done against GW Bush and the Republicans.
Basically the believers apply the rule "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", and they'll agree with anyone who speaks against their "enemy", even if it's Kim Jong-il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Jews and jew haters. I don't know which one is more fierce: those who want to blame the jews for all the evil in the world or those who want to praise the jews for all the good in the world.

And now we got to racism: the mother of all modern witch-hunts.

Of course, as all other memes, modern witch-hunts all are extremely tied with proselytism. Yes, just as bad as the Jehova's Witnesses!
God, have you ever heard a fan of "An Inconvenient Truth" praise his movie?
 
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  • #13
inol said:
I have serious reason to doubt that particular claim. If it were true what is the motive for not releasing both the email and the name of the person who sent it?

I agree that's wishy washy and I don't know the motives of http://eteam.ncpa.org/about/david-deming [Broken], why he stopped at 50%. Perhaps for health reasons? On the other hand he may also feel unable to live with a secret like that.

Anyway, it is a fact that against all the evidence and without any incentive that the Medieval Warming Period was declared death shortly after that:

http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/pr98/dec98/noaa98-88.html

While the evidence for a warm MWP is accumulating every day.
 
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  • #14
SF said:
- the myth of modern society that destroyed the primordial paradise of tribal people leaving in peace.
You'll see this theme occurring a lot, mainly in random attacks (witch hunts) on "western consumerist/corporatist/greedy/etc society".

- the myth of iminent doomsday (promoted, of course, by the doomsdaylovers :)).
Be it global warming, global dimming, asteroids, UFO's, killer bees, what-ever! They're all out to get us, and we HAVE to listen to those that warn us :rolleyes:
I myself have accepted this and check my closet every night for ManBearPig.

- the myth of Microsoft = evil.
Especially linux fans (and nowadays firefox fans) will give you an ankward look if you praise any Microsoft product.
They'll immediately shut you off and blame you for software patents and starving kids in africa.
'Nuff said.

Btw: the "starving kids of Africa" and "poor Africa (in general)" is an important symbol of the western civilisation haters.
They hate industrialism, they'd like us to go back to an agricultural peaceful society.

Another witch-hunt is done against GW Bush and the Republicans.
Basically the believers apply the rule "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", and they'll agree with anyone who speaks against their "enemy", even if it's Kim Jong-il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Jews and jew haters. I don't know which one is more fierce: those who want to blame the jews for all the evil in the world or those who want to praise the jews for all the good in the world.

And now we got to racism: the mother of all modern witch-hunts.
Here are some articles that explain how it got to be: http://www.stormfront.org/whitenat/racism.htm [Broken]
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/08/feds_rule_white.php [Broken]
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2006/11/diversity_matte.php [Broken]

Of course, as all other memes, modern witch-hunts all are extremely tied with proselytism. Yes, just as bad as the Jehova's Witnesses!
God, have you ever heard a fan of "An Inconvenient Truth" praise his movie?
SF! I liked your post. I very much agree.
 
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  • #15
Andre said:
Absoluut, je kan maar niet zo zonder meer ongestraft de wereld op z'n kop zetten. dat wreekt zich zeer zeker.

translation: yes, definitely

I assume you used a translation software for the Dutch right, because the order of the words is incorrect. But still, it is the reaction that is out of proportion NOT the action.

marlon
 
  • #16
So, am I to understand that you don't think that http://www.desmogblog.com/national-posts-corcoran-pops-his-cork is an abnormal disproportional action?

Perhaps try also this thread. And perhaps it helps to understand that I personally feel subject to the witch hunt.

Soms sta ik ook wel eens te kijken van de woordvolgorde in het Vlaams.
 
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  • #17
let me clarify a little about the causes of the global warming witch hunt.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html you can see exactly how the global warming idea was formed. In a word, the ice cores, the correlation between isotopes and CO2 formed the singlemost important factor. However, it's common knowledge that the physics is wrong, something with saturation. Therefore there are sceptics who say it can't be. So there were some constructions with "positive feedback" to bridge the gap but those are equally physically nonsense.

Nevertheless, if the ice cores were rightly interpreted, dramatic climate changes had occurred in the past, hence we needed to change CO2 output and fast. However, the honest concern / alarm continued to meet physical critique. Then there are only two options: Either give up and accept that there is no dramatic climate change associated with greenhouse gasses, or persist and try to reach your targets with other means (bad -pre conceptual- science, hyperbole, demagoguery and witch hunts)

Meanwhile, it was proven that the CO2 in the ice cores lagged the isotopes considerably and could never have caused those changes. But that's unimportant now, the machinery does not need a cause anymore.

Anyway, if you try to find out what really happened and observe that things are rather different, you face tar and feathers.

Just http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/ncsu.pdf [Broken] about what may have happened

and the http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/extinctions_climate_refs.pdf [Broken], after all, who is entitled to his own facts?
 
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  • #18
Andre said:
let me clarify a little about the causes of the global warming witch hunt.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html you can see exactly how the global warming idea was formed. In a word, the ice cores, the correlation between isotopes and CO2 formed the singlemost important factor. However, it's common knowledge that the physics is wrong, something with saturation. Therefore there are sceptics who say it can't be. So there were some constructions with "positive feedback" to bridge the gap but those are equally physically nonsense.

Nevertheless, if the ice cores were rightly interpreted, dramatic climate changes had occurred in the past, hence we needed to change CO2 output and fast. However, the honest concern / alarm continued to meet physical critique. Then there are only two options: Either give up and accept that there is no dramatic climate change associated with greenhouse gasses, or persist and try to reach your targets with other means (bad -pre conceptual- science, hyperbole, demagoguery and witch hunts)

Meanwhile, it was proven that the CO2 in the ice cores lagged the isotopes considerably and could never have caused those changes. But that's unimportant now, the machinery does not need a cause anymore.

Anyway, if you try to find out what really happened and observe that things are rather different, you face tar and feathers.

Just http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/ncsu.pdf [Broken] about what may have happened

and the http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/extinctions_climate_refs.pdf [Broken], after all, who is entitled to his own facts?

I imagine this will be largely settled within the next 30 years as long as solar trends remain the same. In 30 years time if temperature has started leveling off, or even falling, surely that will falsify the AGW theory (or at least as it stands today). On the otherhand if temperature rises 0.5C+ in that timeframe surely that would be good evidence for it.
 
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  • #19
I'm pretty sure that the temperature changes should be bigger than the error rate in the measurement in order to say anything specific:)
 
  • #20
inol said:
I In 30 years time if temperature has started leveling off, or even falling, surely that will falsify the AGW theory (or at least as it stands today).

That could be happening already, the latest graph of www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2[/URL], measured by satellites:

[PLAIN]http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/tltgmam-5.2.gif [Broken]

The hockeystick was made in early 1998, when the temps soared due to a strong El-Nino.
 
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  • #21
More graphs, the carbon dioxide contends of the atmosphere is supposed to have been hovering around 280ppmv until the start of the industrial revolution, according to the ice cores, then it started to rise to some 380 ppmv currently. The amount is now monitored continuously, predominantly in Hawai, Mauna Loa as of 1961. Ten thousends of measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere have been made as of the early 19th century, few of them have been (cherry) picked to sustain the CO2 assumption.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/Kreutz_J__1_%5b2%5d.pdf [Broken] I have translated a German scientific article about CO2 measurements in Germany in the timeframe 1939-1941. The author had no idea about the explosiveness of the matter. He just made neutral observations, which he tried to explain. No change to dismiss it with an ad hominem fallacy.

Is this the reason, why this study never has been quoted by anybody?:

The value of 0.03 volume percent which is noted in the literature has been proven to be too low compared with the results in Gießen. In the next tables we give the average values of all the samples in thousands of percents during the period 1.5 years. The overall average of more than 25,000 samples is 43.85 (438.5 ppmv)
 
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  • #22
inol said:
Originally Posted by Andre
Did I?

Anyway, shall we try and deduct who may have been the mysterious E-mail writer to David Deming?

I have serious reason to doubt that particular claim. If it were true what is the motive for not releasing both the email and the name of the person who sent it?

There are three possibilities

a) there is no mysterious email-writer and the claim has been invented knowing that it cannot be investigated

b) there was an email-writer but the email has been misquoted, or quote mined, in which case the motive for not naming the mysterious email writer would be so that said email is not made public which would debunk the claim

c) The claim is true. In which case there seems no benefit in hiding the person who sent the email. In fact it would be totally irresponsible to help cover up such potential fraud in the scientific community rather than naming the individual and making the email they sent public.

Just reporting that David Deeming has repeated his allegation to a Senate Comitee:

http://www.epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, and distinguished guests, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I am a geologist and geophysicist. I have a bachelor's degree in geology from Indiana University, and a Ph.D in geophysics from the University of Utah. My field of specialization in geophysics is temperature and heat flow. In recent years, I have turned my studies to the history and philosophy of science. In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.
I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period."

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the "Little Ice Age" took hold in the 14th century. Warmer climate brought a remarkable flowering of prosperity, knowledge, and art to Europe during the High Middle Ages.

The existence of the MWP had been recognized in the scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century warming was truly anomalous. It had to be "gotten rid of."

In 1769, Joseph Priestley warned that scientists overly attached to a favorite hypothesis would not hesitate to "warp the whole course of nature." In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became known as the "hockey stick," because of the shape of the temperature graph.

Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its extent.

There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed on this and other environmental issues.

Earth's climate system is complex and poorly understood. But we do know that throughout human history, warmer temperatures have been associated with more stable climates and increased human health and prosperity. Colder temperatures have been correlated with climatic instability, famine, and increased human mortality.

The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the past 150 years is poorly constrained, and its cause--human or natural--is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty. If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of misinformation and irrational hysteria.
 
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  • #23
Andre said:
Just reporting that David Deeming has repeated his allegation to a Senate Comitee:

http://www.epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=266543

It is still hearsay, doesn't matter who he says it to.

I wonder if he was under oath?

Would be nice if he would provide some evidence. Perhaps he could produce the email, or give the name of the alleged NPR reporter. My guess is he will just keep making unsubstantiated allegations against non-existent persons.
 
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  • #24
Skyhunter said:
It is still hearsay, doesn't matter who he says it to.

I wonder if he was under oath?

Would be nice if he would provide some evidence. Perhaps he could produce the email, or give the name of the alleged NPR reporter. My guess is he will just keep making unsubstantiated allegations against non-existent persons.

Why would your guess be that? After all, the Medieval Warm Period was indeed assassinated, against all the evidence, as I showed before, (Fall Meeting AGU 1998 - Jonathan Overpeck and the Hockeystick Mann et al) after which a rather coordinated campaign was carried out alleging that the MWP was regional (which it was not) and uncoherend in time (which it was not) and based on haphazard regional reports (certainly but also practically ALL of the geologic reports, none counter balancing with cooling events in the same time frame). It's not that the allegations of Deeming don't fit into the pattern.
 
  • #25
Andre said:
Why would your guess be that?

Because he has been telling that story for 10 years. Without ever producing the most basic of evidence.

Where is the email?

Who is this unnamed major researcher?

Who was the NPR reporter?

This is the only reference made of Deming by Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate.

Part of me felt a little nostalgic yesterday watching the last Senate hearing on climate change that will be chaired by Sen. James Inhofe. It all felt very familiar and comforting in some strange way. There was the well-spoken 'expert' flown in from Australia (no-one available a little closer to home?), the media 'expert' from the think tank (plenty of those about) and a rather out-of-place geologist. There were the same talking points (CO2 leads the warming during the ice ages! the Medieval Warm Period was warm! it's all a hoax!*) that are always brought up. These easy certainties and predictable responses are so well worn that they feel like a pair of old slippers.

Barbara Boxer will chair the next hearing. I don't think Deming will be invited to testify for the foreseeable future.
 
  • #26
Andre -

I'm not competent to judge your position fairly. However, Science is a
human endeavor, and so it occasionally demonstrates the all the nastiness
inherent to political debates. Sometimes this involves ganging up on folks who don't agree with mainstream points of view. It happens. You seem to be
on the receiving end.

Scientists sometimes label dissenters as crackpots. Lubos Motl's (Harvard
String theorist) blog has that word sprinkled everywhere.

Personally, I do not see a witch hunt on the climate change issue. My
definition of a witch hunt: active persecution of people falsely found
guilty of a crime. Being called a name like crackpot is not a witch hunt
because it is not active persecution. Just Kindergarten level behavior:
name-calling. Shouting down dissent is not a witch hunt either, only even
worse behavior.

So everybody acting like 5 year olds doesn't solve a problem, IMO.

You can call the bad behavior whatever you choose, but you're just sinking to
a level of non-debate which isn't productive.

Anyway.

For a view on the scientific community failing to recognize a correct point
of view espoused by one or two dissidents, and then slowly coming around,
see:

Marshall BJ, Warren JR (1984).
"Unidentified curved bacilli in the stomach patients with gastritis and peptic ulceration".
Lancet 1 (8390): 1311–1315.

This paper was pretty much the start of a sea change in handling patients
with chronic peptic ulcers. The idea was that a bacterium (Helicobacter
pylori) caused the disease not excess acid or spicy foods. Therefore,
antibiotic treatment would be the preferred course, rather than what was
then accepted - acid reduction.

But the voyage was bumpy and slow because most clinicians didn't believe
the H. pylori bacterium could live for any length of time in the
extreme acidity of the stomach. Manufacturers of acid blocking drugs, like
cimetedine, which were a clinical mainstay for ulcer treatment, stood a
chance of losing a lot of revenue. You can guess on which side of the
debate the manufacturers stood.

SF -

With regard to the "myth" thing -

What you have is a laundry list of black and white statements, which is fine.
It would be even nicer if you could substantiate those statements with a real citation or two.
-- just a thought.

Plus, if you ever get a chance, try reading Joseph Campbell and learn the
original meaning of m word.
 
  • #27
Barbara Boxer will chair the next hearing. I don't think Deming will be invited to testify for the foreseeable future.[/QUOTE]

Let's have a look at your favorite climate site welcome:

Climate science is one of those fields where anyone, regardless of their lack of expertise or understanding, feels qualified to comment on new papers and ongoing controversies. This can be frustrating for scientists like ourselves who see agenda-driven 'commentary' on the Internet and in the opinion columns of newspapers crowding out careful analysis.

Many scientists participate in efforts to educate the public and to rebut or debunk rather fanciful claims or outright mis-representations by writing in popular magazines such as EOS and New Scientist or in the Comments section of journals. However, this takes time to put together, and by the time it's out, mainstream attention has often moved elsewhere. Since these rebuttals appear in the peer-reviewed literature, these efforts (in the long run) are useful. However, a faster response would sometimes be helpful in ensuring that the context of breaking stories is more widely distributed at the time.

Journalists with deadlines and scant knowledge of the field quite often do not know where to go for this context on papers that are being pushed by some of the partisan think-tanks or other interested parties. This can lead to some quite mainstream outlets inadvertently publishing some very dubious and misleading ideas.

It occurs to me that we have the roots of the witch hunt here with some blatant poisoning-the-well fallacies, most basically meaning that everybody who expresses doubt about "global warming" is a villain by default.

Furthermore it says:

In order to limit the scope to those issues where we can claim some competence, the discussion here is restricted to scientific topics. Thus we will not get involved in political or economic issues that arise when discussing climate change. The validity of scientific information is completely independent of what society decides to do (or not) about that information. Constructive comments and questions are welcome, as are guest articles from other scientists who may choose to contribute on an occasional basis.


Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate.

Part of me felt a little nostalgic yesterday watching the last Senate hearing on climate change that will be chaired by Sen. James Inhofe. It all felt very familiar and comforting in some strange way. There was the well-spoken 'expert' flown in from Australia (no-one available a little closer to home?), the media 'expert' from the think tank (plenty of those about) and a rather out-of-place geologist. There were the same talking points (CO2 leads the warming during the ice ages! the Medieval Warm Period was warm! it's all a hoax!*) that are always brought up. These easy certainties and predictable responses are so well worn that they feel like a pair of old slippers.

Can you explain which part of GS's collection of red herrings is adhering to "the discussion here is restricted to scientific topics. Thus we will not get involved in political or economic issues that arise when discussing climate change." Or perhaps is the objective of RC a little bit different than it's credentials are stating?

However about "CO2 leads the warming during the ice ages!"

Have a good look here:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/EPICA-CO2-LH-dD.GIF [Broken]

It's the latest CO2 - isotope comparison of EPICA-Dome C for 20,000 - 10,000 years ago. Perhaps it can be noticed that CO2 lags the paleothermometer "dD" with some one and a quarter millenium all the way.
 
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  • #28
jim mcnamara said:
Andre -
My definition of a witch hunt: active persecution of people falsely found
guilty of a crime.

Yes? isn't character murder active 'persecution':

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="climate+deniers"&btnG=Google+Search

Now go back 60 years in time and replace "climate deniers" with "Jews". That's how a witch hunt works.

For a view on the scientific community failing to recognize a correct point of view espoused by one or two dissidents, and then slowly coming around, see:

Marshall BJ, Warren JR (1984). "Unidentified curved bacilli in the stomach patients with gastritis and peptic ulceration". Lancet 1 (8390): 1311–1315.
SF -

Guess what: See post #18

With regard to the "myth" thing -

What you have is a laundry list of black and white statements, which is fine.
It would be even nicer if you could substantiate those statements with a real citation or two.

https://www.physicsforums.com/search.php?searchid=532766 [Broken]

edit: Link does not work but it was created by clicking my user name, go to "view public profile" and go there to "find all threads started by me".

Anyway I also recommend http://www.epw.senate.gov/109th/Carter_Testimony.pdf statement for the senate committee.
 
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  • #29
Andre said:
Barbara Boxer will chair the next hearing. I don't think Deming will be invited to testify for the foreseeable future.

Let's have a look at your favorite climate site welcome:

That is the whole point of the article. There was very little science involved in the entire hearing.

Andre said:
It occurs to me that we have the roots of the witch hunt here with some blatant poisoning-the-well fallacies, most basically meaning that everybody who expresses doubt about "global warming" is a villain by default.

That is a product of your paranoid mind, no where do they claim that climate skeptics are "villains". I understand that you must make these claims, else your entire argument for witch hunts falls apart.

What you are doing is projection Andre. You are accusing those who disagree with your opinion of using the same tactics you yourself are employing. The sources you site have been part of a concerted effort to discredit scientists and therefore discredit the science that is found to be at odds with industry and economic development.

I have spent considerable time learning about the GW science and debate. I have followed your links, read what you have posted, read other opinions on blog sites and found that the majority of the denialist sites are not scientific in nature, but political.

You post anything that seems to support your conclusions, many time without even reading the article, just the abstract, which you sometimes misrepresent.

Like this http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=7153&start=1 [Broken]

Which after finally reading for himself, http://www.ipsl.jussieu.fr/GLACIO/hoffmann/hoffmannengl.html [Broken] wrote:

So I read the article of Khyliuk/Chilingar again. Andre was asking for some "mud throwing" in his opening post, I prefer tarts. The first one for Andre. Posting such rubbish (and not even having read it) is the final proof that he is ready to accept literally everything to do his anti-Kyoto or mainly anti-Science propaganda. The paper is pure nonsense with incredible errors. It's breathtaking. Their computation of solar variation, their implicit suggestion of processes on a billion years time scale are relevant for today's climate. UNBELIEVABLE. Their citations! Obscure websites, russian journals from the 60s etc etc. This tart is with cream.

Next tart in the face of Pat Michaels for posting the paper on his worldclimatereport website. May please the native speakers read again what he wrote. Am I wrong, for me it reads in each phrase like "ok that's nonsense I know, but it has been published". Further details : It turns our that Khilyuk can't be identified as a faculty member of UCS. Chilingar is infact at UCS, but now, given that so many here are fond of polls, here is a question. The paper is about solar insolation variation, carbon dioxide outgassing and microbial activity. So let's guess what the expertise of Chilingar is:

1) Astronomer

2) Geochemist

3) Biologist

4) Oceanographer

5) Petroleum Engineer

Just one vote is allowed and the answer is http://www.usc.edu/dept/civil_eng/dept/faculty-staff/faculty-directory/chilingarian-george.htm [Broken]
 
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  • #30
Look at what else Senator Inhofe has spewed forth in his last gasp to defeat the "alarmists".

http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=266711

The color glossy 64 page booklet -- previously was only available in hardcopy to the media and policy makers -- includes speeches, graphs, press releases and scientific articles refuting catastrophe climate fears presented by the media, the United Nations, Hollywood and former Vice President turned-foreign-lobbyist Al Gore.

Just to give you an idea of how ludicrous this "Senator from Oklahoma is, here is a portion of a transcript of a speech he gave at the "2006 Voter Values Summit".

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/25/12463/2968 [Broken]

[ ed: US Senator James Inhofe Presents A Short History Of Global Warming. Note - to start with - the wildly incorrect names and dates. ]

Anyway, in 1970 the United Nations came up with something called the IPCC, the International Plant Panel for Climate Control [ ed: the correct name is "The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change". The IPCC was established in 1988 ] , and they came up with one guy who said he was a scientist and they had this thing called the hockey stick that said this is what the temperature had been and how it's visibly related to the hockey stick, Global Warming's coming in, and how we're all going to die. Well, that was in 1970 and all the liberals joined in, the Hollywood crowd all joined in, and this was the liberal agenda that they enjoyed so much.

The witch hunt is over, because the high inquisitor, Senator James Inhofe, is on his way out.
 
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  • #31
So whilst you amuse yourself by playing the persons instead of the ball, why not have another look at the ice age graph:

Remember this one? The big proof that CO2 caused the interglacials:

http://www.arikah.com/encyclopedia/images/thumb/3/39/300px-Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

http://www.arikah.com/encyclopedia/Ice_age

In a nutshell, the cause of those 100,000 years spikes (interglacials) is believed to be caused by the wobbles in the earth. However the forcing of those is very weak. So CO2 GHG effect was invented to boost the "warming" and indeed we see a tight correlation between the alleged paleothermometer of the "water"-isotopes (d18O and dD) and the CO2 concentration. And here is also the main booster of the global warming hype: "CO2 caused the Earth to come out of the ice ages".

Then it became apparent that CO2 lagged the isotope thermometers, slightly at first, no problem, this was also explained: "negative feedback", initial orbital forcing warming caused warming and increase of water vapor in the atmosphere, which is a strong greenhouse gas, boosting the warming as a negative feedback and hence lagging the isotope warming. But it's also clear that the lagging cannot be very big, a few years perhaps, not over an millenium as the current high resolution proxies clearly show:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/EPICA-CO2-LH-dD.GIF [Broken]

I didn't spell it out on the first showing of this graph, for the viewers to realize it themselfs but we are looking at the most convincing refutal of the greenhouse gas hype. As CO2 lags isotope-temperature by more than a millenium it also follows the isotope temperature. When the CO2 is still rising for instance at 14,800 years, the temperature decides to drop, disdaining any notion of CO2 forcing. The CO2 follows some millenium later without a trace of a forcing character. Something similar happens at 12,200 years with the temps leveling off and CO2 following the leveling off another millenium later.

So the original trigger of the catastrophic climate hype now refutes the same. CO2 follows temperature and not the other way around. But what is the discussion about? Nothing but red herrings and hype. if you're against catastrophic greenhouse effect, you're a crook and with the departe of Inhofe another era of unfounded scaremongering demagoguery has free play
 
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  • #32
Andre said:
So whilst you amuse yourself by playing the persons instead of the ball, why not have another look at the ice age graph:
I thought this thread was about witch hunts (witch=person) not futbol.

Andre said:
Remember this one? The big proof that CO2 caused the interglacials:

:confused: :confused: :confused: Where has any credible climate scientist ever offered what would be considered; "The big proof that CO2 caused the interglacials:"

Andre said:
In a nutshell, the cause of those 100,000 years spikes (interglacials) is believed to be caused by the wobbles in the earth. However the forcing of those is very weak.
Good up to this point.
Andre said:
So CO2 GHG effect was invented
Now you lost me, I no longer trust what you are saying. You are setting up a strawman argument, which as we both know is a logical fallacy.

Here is the position that your "opponents" take. If you are going to argue against their position, at least present it fairly.

From studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release. So CO2 during ice ages should be thought of as a "feedback", much like the feedback that results from putting a microphone too near to a loudspeaker.
 
  • #33
Skyhunter said:
I thought this thread was about witch hunts (witch=person) not futbol.

Well at the amazing speed you have others demonizing me, I thought it was wise to prove global warming wrong first before continuing exposing the hype.

:confused: :confused: :confused: Where has any credible climate scientist ever offered what would be considered; "The big proof that CO2 caused the interglacials:"

Read up on your classics. Thats 1970-1980 consensus, when the hype was born and also the exact reason why the hype was born, converting from the new ice age hype. http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm. But with a self sustaining hype nowadays, who needs a reason? So we can just deny it now.


Here is the position that your "opponents" take. If you are going to argue against their position, at least present it fairly.

Right:

In other words, CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway. From model estimates, CO2 (along with other greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O) causes about half of the full glacial-to-interglacial warming.

Problem is that they switch of the amplifier at will and any of the abundant physics specialists here can tell you that this is not how interacting systems work. Let me visualize the problems here:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/EPICA-problem.GIF [Broken]

Added the oceanic sea floor isotope temperature compilation "LR05" Benthic stack to confirm the early warming.

But If CO2 is going up, how can the "temperature" go down rather abruptly at the "problem"-areas without any gradual gradient which would be seen if the dropping temperature would indeed have to fight against the amplyfying warming of the CO2? This is where this reasoning shows to be invalid.
 
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  • #34
Andre said:
Read up on your classics. Thats 1970-1980 consensus, when the hype was born and also the exact reason why the hype was born, converting from the new ice age hype. http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm. But with a self sustaining hype nowadays, who needs a reason? So we can just deny it now.

If you insist on setting up strawman arguments there is no point in further discussion.

From your source

By the late 1970s, most scientists were convinced that orbital variations acted as a "pacemaker" to set the timing of ice ages.(43) Science magazine reported in 1978 that the evidence for the Milankovitch theory was now "convincing," and the theory "has recently gained widespread acceptance as a factor" in climate change.(44)

In climate science, where everything is subtle and complex, it is rare for an issue to be settled. By the late 1980s, it did seem to be an established fact that ice ages were timed by orbital variations. The chief question that remained in the minds of most scientists was what kind of feedbacks amplified the effect.

The problem is not so much with the data you provide, it is with your mischaracterization of the opposition. You are setting up strawman arguments, by attributing an easily discredited position to the "warmers" and then knocking it down.

Obviously the consensus opinion, from your own source, is that ice ages are triggered by orbital variations, not from CO2.

The more important point to be made from all this studying of the ice cores is this: (also from your source)

The scientists who published these calculations always added a caveat. In the Antarctic record, atmospheric CO2 levels over the past 750,000 years had cycled between about 180 and 280 parts per million. The level in the late 20th century had now climbed above 370 and kept climbing. (The other main greenhouse gas, methane, was soaring even farther above any level seen in the long ice record.) Greenhouse warming and other human influences seemed strong enough to overwhelm any natural trend. We might not only cancel the next ice age, but launch our planet into an altogether new climate regime. The ice cores themselves gave convincing evidence of the threat, according to analyses published in the early 1990s. The "climate sensitivity" — the response of temperature to changes in carbon dioxide — could be measured for the last glacial maximum. The answer was in the same range that computer models were predicting for our future, raising confidence that the models were not far wrong.(53a)

What is happening to the atmosphere is unprecedented in the last 750,000 years. We are conducting a planet wide atmospheric experiment. I think you will agree, since you tend to discredit most of the scientific assertions, that we do not know enough to confidently predict the outcome of this experiment.

Should we just continue and hope for the best, based on the assurances of a few skeptical scientists, with curious ties to political think tanks funded by vested interests, that it won't be a problem. I say no. We need to stop the experiment before we trigger a reaction that no scientist has yet to even imagine.
 
  • #35
Skyhunter said:
If you insist on setting up strawman arguments there is no point in further discussion.

Better be a bit careful with those allegations; that those are abundant at your side of discussion, doesn't mean that they are commonplace at my side.

I said something about CO2 being the main cause of the glacial cycles. Perhaps I should have said: "main driving force" But look again:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

After 1988 =>after88

During the 1990s, further ice core measurements indicated that during past glacial periods, temperature changes had preceded CO2 changes by a few centuries. Was it necessary to give up the simple hypothesis that had attracted scientists ever since Tyndall in the 19th century — that changes in CO2 were a simple and direct cause of ice ages?

nuff said. Who needs fallacies with a closer approximation of reality on his side?

think you will agree, since you tend to discredit most of the scientific assertions, that we do not know enough to confidently predict the outcome of this experiment.
.

No, I know enough to know and to proof that nothing is what it looks like and if you indeed have followed my threads here and at UKww for the last three-four years you know that if we must scaremonger per sé, that the treats to the environment are rigorously different.
 
<h2>1. What is the definition of "Climate Change: Modern Witch Hunts"?</h2><p>The term "Climate Change: Modern Witch Hunts" refers to the idea that the scientific consensus on climate change is being unfairly attacked and discredited by certain individuals or groups for their own political or financial gain.</p><h2>2. How does climate change relate to witch hunts?</h2><p>The comparison to witch hunts is often used to highlight the unjust persecution and denial of scientific evidence that is similar to the historical persecution of individuals accused of witchcraft without evidence. In both cases, there is a rejection of established facts and a disregard for the harm caused by this denial.</p><h2>3. Is there scientific evidence to support the existence of climate change?</h2><p>Yes, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that shows the Earth's average temperature is increasing at an alarming rate, and that this is primarily caused by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.</p><h2>4. Who is responsible for perpetuating the idea of "modern witch hunts" in regards to climate change?</h2><p>There are various individuals and groups who perpetuate this idea, including certain politicians, lobbyists, and media outlets who have a vested interest in denying the reality of climate change. They often use misinformation and conspiracy theories to discredit the scientific consensus.</p><h2>5. How can we combat the idea of "modern witch hunts" and promote acceptance of climate change?</h2><p>One way to combat this idea is through education and promoting critical thinking skills. It is important to emphasize the overwhelming scientific evidence and the potential consequences of inaction on climate change. Additionally, holding those who spread misinformation accountable and promoting responsible media coverage can also help combat the idea of "modern witch hunts" and promote acceptance of climate change.</p>

1. What is the definition of "Climate Change: Modern Witch Hunts"?

The term "Climate Change: Modern Witch Hunts" refers to the idea that the scientific consensus on climate change is being unfairly attacked and discredited by certain individuals or groups for their own political or financial gain.

2. How does climate change relate to witch hunts?

The comparison to witch hunts is often used to highlight the unjust persecution and denial of scientific evidence that is similar to the historical persecution of individuals accused of witchcraft without evidence. In both cases, there is a rejection of established facts and a disregard for the harm caused by this denial.

3. Is there scientific evidence to support the existence of climate change?

Yes, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that shows the Earth's average temperature is increasing at an alarming rate, and that this is primarily caused by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

4. Who is responsible for perpetuating the idea of "modern witch hunts" in regards to climate change?

There are various individuals and groups who perpetuate this idea, including certain politicians, lobbyists, and media outlets who have a vested interest in denying the reality of climate change. They often use misinformation and conspiracy theories to discredit the scientific consensus.

5. How can we combat the idea of "modern witch hunts" and promote acceptance of climate change?

One way to combat this idea is through education and promoting critical thinking skills. It is important to emphasize the overwhelming scientific evidence and the potential consequences of inaction on climate change. Additionally, holding those who spread misinformation accountable and promoting responsible media coverage can also help combat the idea of "modern witch hunts" and promote acceptance of climate change.

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