Monday, September 6, 2010

An appeal to my fair-mindedness

Hal (OC) writes:
We've gotten way too used to engaging pictures, whether of unicorns, polar bears on ice flows, as a substitute for thinking. I'm sure a lot of climate scientists by now wish Al Gore had never been born.

Yes, it's true, the IAC has critiqued the IPCC on some counts.

Another report of theirs, which can be accessed at www.interacademies.net/?id=9075 which makes, among other conclusions:

·At current emission rates models suggest that all coral reefs and polar ecosystems will be severely affected by 2050 or potentially even earlier;

·Marine food supplies are likely to be reduced with significant implications for food production and security in regions dependent on fish protein, and human health and well being;

·Ocean acidification is irreversible on time scales of at least tens of thousands of years;

·Even with stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 at 450ppm, ocean acidification will have profound impacts on many marine systems. Large and rapid reductions of global CO2 emissions are needed globally by at least 50% by 2050.

Counting on your fairmindednes, as I've gotten accustomed to doing.
I appreciate the OC's comments, as always. He and I can be described as being polar opposites politically.  Yet we are able to engage in meaningful discussion without rancor.  Would that all such discussions could be handled so amicably.

Okay, enough of the mutual admiration society.  Let me address the substance of your comment.

You post four "evidences" of the damage wreaked by mankind on our environment by our emissions of carbon dioxide.  Given that these "proofs" originate from the very people I cite as having bitch-slapped the scientists con men at the East Anglia University Propaganda Factory, one would think that I would give those "proofs" some weight.  One would be wrong.

It boils down, sadly, to a matter of faith.  Because, for every "proof" you or others produce, I can produce one (or more) contradicting or refuting that "proof".  Many more.  These links are just those accumulated prior to 2010; there are many, many more in the aftermath of the IPCC email-gate scandal.

As I wrote in my first post in the Death Knell series:
Never mind that ALL of the scientists working for alternate energy companies, for the government, or on projects that are government-funded are part of the 'consensus'.

Never mind? Let me take that back. It DOES matter that the 'consensus' emanates from those sources. Why? Like they say in all of the detective shows: follow the money.
ALL of the money going into grants to study warming comes from those with much to gain from that warming being "true".  All of it.  There is NO government or Quango (Quasi-governmental organization) money going into ANY study to try to falsify the findings of those claiming AGW is true.  Falsification - proving something is correct by first trying to prove that it isn't - is the bedrock of science and the scientific method.  Funding only studies that seek to PROVE warming and to identify its "effects" gives the impression that the science isn't serious.  It's the scientific equivalent of a Soviet show trial (Verdict first, then trial!).  

Approaching the issue from a common sense perspective, it's hard to get behind man-made carbon as a factor in warming when:
  • The #1 cause of warming and cooling of the planet is.....solar activity.  Period.  Everything else is incidental.  There was high solar activity in the 90's: there were high temperatures in the 90's.  There has been extremely reduced solar activity in the 00's: there have been colder temperatures in the 00's.  These colder temperature have been noticed; the name change from "warming" to "climate change" is a lame attempt to address this.

  • The #2 cause of warming of the planet is....carbon?  Nope.  Water vapor.  Yeah.  Water vapor.  From evaporation.

  • The "unprecedented" warming of the 90's?  Can't even touch the Great Medieval Warming.  Not even close.  What has the receding ice in Iceland uncovered?  Farms.  From....wait for it....the Great Medieval Warming.  Warming that, so far as we know, wasn't caused by factories, internal combustion engines, or AGW.
I made mention earlier to faith. I have believed AGW to be a fraud and a scam from Kyoto on.  How can anyone take seriously a crisis whose answer is to demand that the developed world commit economic suicide while exempting mega-polluters China and India?

Those who "deny" AGW are bullied and shouted down.  They're call "flat earthers" and equated with Holocaust deniers.  Scientists whose studies "prove" the warming get fat funding.  Scientist who don't toe the line get bupkis.  

AGW is just another arrow in the quiver of scamming and bullying employed by governments to drag us back to the Good Olde Days of Feudalism.  They get to rule and control all of the wealth.  We get to work at the jobs they let us work at, live where they let us live, for as long as they choose to let us live, and we get to like it or lump it.

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