If parties A and B were well-educated scientists and all the evidence had been pulished in peer-reviewed, referreed literature then I WOULD expect that A's final response would be 1. ("whew, we're off the hook. AGW isn't happening")
PLEEEEEEAAASSSE don't be so cynical, Andre. Most of the people on either side of the debate are sincerely looking for the right answer. Of course there are ignorant people out there entirely disregarding the other side's arguments, good or bad. They don't even think about it, they just react against it. (I'm not talking about you or anyone here, but Greenpeace and the coal industry fall into that category, on opposite sides, obviously).
But it is horribly cynical to act like the whole scientific process is going down the tubes. What has happened is that the initial reports, simulations, theories about AGW scared a lot of people, including scientists, into believing that even if we weren't certain about AGW the risks of enormous catastrophic environmental destruction that "could" happen was motivation enough to take measures against it (and I AM NOT endorsing or agreeing with the predictions of "enormous catastrophic environmental destruction" so you needn't address them. I'm just explaning how I think things have happened). Then the policymakers got (are still getting) on board and said "We need to stop this...let's impose restrictions on CO2 emmissions". And now as the scientists realize that the previous models/predictions/paleoclimate models might not have been right at all they are starting to really investigate whether or not the current AGW theory is valid or not at all. The politicians don't want to admit they might have been wrong about AGW so they are still going at anti-CO2 measure. (Mind you, we don't know yet whether AGW is valid and even if it is not, the rapid CO2 rise is probably going to upset our environment in some major ways so it is not foolish to at least start addressing it, that is, looking at ways to reduce its production. And I AM NOT endorsing Kyoto or other potentially economy-halting legaslation, I'm just saying based on our knowledge of CO2's important role in the environment (not just climate) it is wise to take caution with CO2 emissions).
I don't think anyone in the world wants anthropogenic global warming to occur. In fact no one wants any sort of massive climatalogically destabilizing event to happen, man made or natural. But people, scientists and the non-science public alike, are worried, because if AGW is true then we may be in trouble and maybe we can save ourselves. Scientists are notorius risk avoiders. Before detonating the first atomic bomb the Manhattan project carried out serious detailed calculations to make sure the risk that an atomic bomb explosion would ignite the whole atmosphere was minimal. Very very minimal. You can't expect the scientific community to disregard the AGW theory so quickly.
As long as all valid research is still published in our respected scientific journals, we as the public have a way to know which research is good. As Andre has pointed out, these journals publish research that disagrees with AGW theory. Some research has not been accepted by these journals. I assume this means that research was not valid. Do you, Andre, believe the journals are ignoring research they reject because the reviewers think the theory of AGW is just such a great thing they don't want to see it challenged? These journals are the bastians of science, where the research is evaluated with objective rigor by some of the greatest scientists in the field. If we can't trust the peer-reviewed journal system to be an impartial judge then we can no longer trust the scientific community. I'm not saying the reviewers are perfect, but I don't see what the motivation would be to continue a huge scientific lie. Once it was discovered, and it would be discovered, everyone involved in the lie would lose their jobs and their prestige and the public would lose faith in science, and that would be very bad.
The argument that scientists would keep up a lie of AGW just for funding,
- if I warn against it I get more funding for my explorations
is the same as the argument that scientists could be swayed by oil companies funding their research,
As it turns out, the report by Baliunas and Soon was funded in part by the American Petroleum Institute. It was also coauthored by Craig Idso and Sherwood Idso, whose Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide has been funded by the coal industry and ExxonMobil.
Either scientists are corrupt or they aren't. I certainly don't think they generally are so I don't consider that a rule. But I would expect fossil fuel companies to hire scientists who already believe AGW is false, as Soon and Baliunas have for many years. That doesn't mean that Exxon-funded research is necessarily wrong or bad, but you know how it's going to turn out. Do you think that if Soon and Baliunas suddening discovered a smoking gun for AGW completely proving it was true while doing research funded by Exxon that Exxon would let them publish it? Nope. I trust scientists, but not huge companies that have a huge stake in the debate.
Most of what I've read criticizing the M&M, B&S, and muller research cites errors in the authors mathematical/statistical calculations. Typically their research consisted of taking Mann's data but using a different mathematical/statistical outlook. I am not knowledgeable enough about that math to assess Mann, M&M, or anyone else's statistical methods, nor do I have the time. So I rely on others, namely the journals, to do this for me and determine what research is scientifically robust.
Other people who have problems with the recent work of M&M, soon&baliunas, and muller:
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000406.html (noted earlier in this thread)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000829C7-70D9-1EF7-A6B8809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=4
I don't feel compelled to give much consideration for the paper that Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon wrote on the MWP. They are both astrophysicists (not climatologists, paleoclimatologists, etc. ) and have a personnel scientific stake in the idea that AGW is false. If AGW was false their own theory of sunspots' would quite possibly be accepted as the best explanation of the major force in Earth's climate change. It appears they might have gone out of their own area of expertise to try and dissprove a competing theory. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Willie_Soon
One might find it offensive that I would consider the possibility that a scientist would partake in poor science just to further their own theories and prestige, but if you believe climatologists would lie about AGW to do that, why not astrophysicists?
So. What's my point anyway.
I'm not saying S&B are wrong about sunspots.
I'm not saying AGW is going to create a horrible mess in 50 years.
I'm not saying AGW is going to do anything more than raise the temps 0.5 F over 100 years, if that.
I'm not even saying the hockeystick is true. It may be a complete artifact of the statistical methods used by Mann (though I'll be rather upset at the journal reviewers if there is nothing else at all to it).
But I think we have to trust the established review process to determine which AGW-disproving research is valid. And trust them not to change their standards for such research.
But I don't want them to lower their standards either. Of course, if some AGW-disproving research is bad science that does NOT mean that AGW is true. In the same way, if some one claims Saddam Hussein has nuclear warheads and I say 'No he doesn't, he's too nice a guy to have nukes'. I would be wrong, but that doesn't mean that he has nukes.
If journals have raised their standards for work disproving AGW it might be because there is no single theory to replace AGW being proposed, rather a number of separate theories about different factors affecting the environment. As Andre mentioned in his hypothetical argument,
B - Okay I found several independ pieces of evidence in multiple disciplines that suggest that the current warming can be attributed to a lot of other factors, whilst the anthropogenic contribution seems to be minor, if at all. Besides that, your hockeystick seems to be doubtfull.
I'm not saying that is a valid reason to keep AGW theory, but scientists do like it when a theory brings together disparite data from multiple disciplines and melds it all into one clean mechanism. Of course we all like they idea that things can be explained in a neat package that humans are smart enough to figure out.
And I also wonder if scientists (and humans in general, for that matter) just like the idea that we've become so powerful data we actually alter the entire natural system around us. Arrogance, some would call it.
I don't think science is going down the tubes because scientists are being unethical and unscientific about AGW. But I don't think Andre is going to exactly agree with me there, so what I'm interested in is:
If we are keeping up a myth of AGW, why do we do it? Arrogance?
