"Climate Change - Doubts, Denials, Scepticism, and Politics"

[Reverend Blair]

Good to see you here, Tarby. Here's some death-banjo in your honour

I saw one post elsewhere where a prominent "sceptic" gave a veiled threat to an AGW blogger that her career was threatened.

Yeah, I've noticed the denialists...not the one or two honest skeptics out there...getting increasingly strident and ever more publicly threatening. I had one guy...a libertarian who professes to hate the courts...threaten to sue me a few months ago. Not sure what he was going to sue me for...making fun of people who own denialist websites he frequents, perhaps. Very odd.

[Fact-Man]

I did get of to a bad start, and I offer my apologies to fact-man for that.

What set me off was the admonitions in the OP about "No denial here! No-no! We must all agree about points one through nine" that pissed me off, on top of the other stress of the last few days, and I read in that all of the other dogmatic, fundamentalist type behaviour that kept me out of these kind of threads at RDF.

Interestingly, though the thread did invite the creation of another thread for purposes of discussing skepticism, which you in fact did create, and here we are in it.

Well, that was the mods TBH.

But the thread has your name on it as its creator, which I can't second-guess.

In creating the "science and policy implications" thread I merely followed the traditional practice on boards in which those who create threads do so for the purpose of discussing a topic they've selected as being worthy of discussion ... and as a thread unfolds anything posted that's not on that topic is considered "OT" and a thread derail, which moderators have traditionally recognized, and enforced when it gets out of hand or interrupts the narrative flow of a thread.

That approach tends to help threads stay on topic and not become messes interlaced with OT stuff and derails, which is why it is a traditional form.

My mstake was to assume that tradition was operative here, but apparently it isn't, as per the words of the Mod that was looking after that thread at the time (see their response to my post to you early on).

That all strikes me as pretty innocent.

This very distinction was hammered out at RDF and we did end up there with three threads on GW and climate change, just as we now have three identical threads here. And the skeptic thread at RDF was a very robust affair and was indeed much, much longer than the other two, probably longer than the other two combined. I don't recall ever seeing any posts from you in that thread, assuming your user handle was the same there as it is here, which I understand may not be the case. But nevertheless, there was ample opportunity at RDF for members to voice skepticism and/or denial and plenty of memnbers did exactly that.
I think MacDoc figured out that the skeptics thread at RDF was 100 pages in length.

Hence I fail to see how you "read in that all of the other dogmatic, fundamentalist type behaviour that kept me out of these kind of threads at RDF." There was a skeptics thread at RDF, and as I've noted it was the most used and most robust of all three threads on the subject in that forum.

Yes, I'm Mysturji everywhere on the web. It's not surprising you don't remember me from those threads though. Early on, I got in a good smack-down on some guy who couldn't tell the difference between "influence" and "control", but soon after that I replied to someone else's post with a "yes, but..." and the wolves descended. It was like a flashback to my Mindfuck at Rapture Ready, so I thought "OK, fuck you too, arsewipes" and never went back. That was probably about 2 years ago.

I was an active participant at RDF from June 2007.

I'm a little surprised that you felt you were attacked by a pack of wolves because two years ago the skeptics thread at RDF was quite dominated by skeptics and cranks (all those named below from my post yesterday, and more), with but a few AGWers posting. In those days it was kinda me and MacDoc against that "pack of wolves."

Be that as it may ...

When we dealt with the question at RDF and tried to figure out what a good logical breakdown of the discussion might be we came up with three threads, 1) reporting on the science, 2) discussions the science and its policy implications, and 3) discussing skepticism and denialism.

A lot of work by a lot of people went into making that decision and arriving at what, in the end, turned out to be a very workable three-thread structure. It definitely satisfied all the needs that had been expressed regarding the best way to structure things.

When we came here, I think MacDoc decided that the best place to start was to duplicate RDF's three thread structure, which had worked so well. He asked me to create the "policy implications" thread, which I did, while he created the science reporing thread and we left the idea of a third or skeptics thread open to see if there was a demand for it.

That's why in the OP of the "policy implications" thread I started this statement was included:

I would prefer that doubts or denials of that body of science not be debated here. Sceptical or denialist debate may be made the topic of another thread anyone may create should they wish.

which was an open invitation for yourself or anyone to create a skeptics thread, which you then proceeded to do, but only after dropping a bomb on my OP.

I felt more at home here,

How could you feel "more at home here"? There weren't any GW or CC threads here until MacDoc and I showed up.

and thought I would be more likely to get a word in, because over there (it seemed to me the last time I tried to post in a CC thread) that anyone who doesn't completely toe the AGW Party line (even just a "yes, but...") is immediately shouted down by a pack of rabid wolves and dissed as completely ignorant of all science in all it's forms. The peanut gallery then chips in with a flurry of ad-homs, they pat each other on the back, then the wannabe Cali's step in with links to 23,971 peer-reviewed papers and say "See: Proof! Go away and don't come back until you're read it!". Because unlike the original version, they can't "Blind them with science" or construct a valid argument, so they BURY the poor fucker in cut&paste science for DARING to say "Yes, but...".

Well, you're exaggerating here.

Yes, I do that. It's part of my posting style. I figure even when you're making a serious point, you can still have fun and/or raise a chuckle. That's why my exaggerations are so ludicrously over-the-top that they couldn't possibly be mistaken for a serious comment.

Well, not usually.

Well, it creates problems because it's very hard for others to judge if you are being "ludicrously over-the-top" or being serious or what.

I won't judge your posting style but I will say that it seems to me it risks misinterpretation or even confusion and in a science thread it seems that more plainly spoken posts will almost always serve better. But, do what ya do. I'll be more watchful in future so that hopefully I won't misinterpret.

The skeptics thread at RDF was home to several denialists and skeptics who persevered there literally for years, Zappi, Jij, Collegavanerik, JohnBrandt, Egrey, AM, and Luis Diaz, among others. The so-called "pack of rabid wolves" to which you allude didn't slow these folk down for a minute. Had you joined in you'd have had plenty of allies.

I won't say it wasn't rancorous at times or that members didn't give the moderator Gallstones a run for her moderating money, it certainly did become turbulent and angry and harsh from time to time, sometimes even for extended periods, but Gallstones managed to keep it generally in line, handing out more than a few month-long banishments to members on both sides of the issue.

Part of the problem in that thread was the repetition of already debunked arguments, Zappi was particualrly guilty of this transgression, and Jij wasn't far behind him. Can you understand how such repetitions can become frustrating to those on the other side of the issue? How many different times does an argument or a case have to be shot down? It seems once ought to be enough.

Indeed I can. I have suffered that very frustration with creationists and other fundy-types at RDF. Can you understand my frustration at being smacked down for postulating those very same canards when in fact, I had said something completely different? See what I mean about "only one kind of kaffir"?

Perhaps a failure to communicate? An exaggerated syle leading to misinterpretations? I don't know.

What I do know is that it's incumbent upon us all to convey as clearly and as concisely and as cogently as we can just what our contention or argument is or what we are asserting. If someone then attacks that, well, I usually just ignore them, maybe after giving them a second chance to get it.

And perhaps especially when the skeptic/denialist community has been unable to proffer any peer-reviewed science that explains the warming that's been observed. AGW science does explain it, the denialosphere has failed to do so. There are no countervailing theories to AGW and what few that have been offered, e.g., natural variability, the sun's intensity, cosmic rays, water vapour, have all been shot down.

Have I questioned the science?

Please re-read my posts and tell me if you think I have. If something I said needs clarification, I will clarify it.
My one and only issue with the science is that SOME people (not all) seem a little too cocksure about climatology's predictive powers. (And even that issue is much less about the actual science than it is about the arrogance of some of the people involved.)

And that's the only "denialist" stance I have ever taken, but that's for another day.

This is a good clarification, because the impression at least was to the contrary.

I don't concern myself too much with anyone who accepts AGW theory and does so even without question, because, afterall, that puts them in my camp. I do concern myself with those who drink the Kool Aid offered up by the denialosphere in an uncritical manner. sort of a mirror image of those who accept AGW theory uncritically.

I would hope that you have some concerns with the tsunami of mis and disinformation that's flooded the airwves and print media over the past 15 or 20 years on the efficasy of AGW. In the in-house memo that was leaked from Exxon on this, they said, "Our product is doubt." And they have spent $millions spreading exactly that. Is this fair to the public? I'd rather think not. Fortunately, and despite their efforts, polling shows that Americans at least remain convinced of AGW theory by about 55 per cent, only down from 65 per cent a few years ago.

It has become something of a cliche over at RDF, because fundies keep saying it, but in some cases it is true: To some people, science (especially the science of climate change) is a religion. They appear to have complete and utter faith in something they don't understand, and they act like science has all the answers.

Do you have faith that the jetliner you're about to climb aboard to fly off to Rio will actually get you there safe and sound? I can't think of anyone who would board such a jetliner without that kind of faith, yet few of them have any idea of the aeronautical science that underpins a jetliner's ability to do what it does.

I don't think that's any kind of religious faith at all, it's merely a reflection of the airplane's track record and the track record of commercial aviation.

This is a poor analogy if it's supposed to illustrate my position.

I'm not a scientist, but I am a science enthusiast, and physics is one of my favourites, so yes: I do have a pretty good understanding of the basic principles of aerodynamics, and even internal combustion engines, though I'm not a mechanic either.

I agree that relatively few people who fly have as much understanding, but it's still not blind faith. Everyone has seen planes flying. Lots of them. All the time. No-one has seen the future.

No of course not. But they can see it in the Arctic, as Reverand Blair pointed out, they can see it in any number of places where GW is causing manifest change, all those red straked forests I mentioned here in BC, the fast disappearing Snows of Kiliminjaro, accelerating melt rates in Greenland and in mid-latitude glaciers the world over, or in the rising acidification of the ocean.

There's lots of evidence. Many trends point to future conditions we can expect to become realities. Climatologit's cnstruct trendlines precisely so the future can be discerned.

GHG emmisions are up; temperature is observed to be rising. Prediction? It's going to get warmer.

I'd agree that it takes a special kind of mind to "see the future," we call these folks "visionaries." But science is, if anything, the art of prediction. Will the sun come up tomorrow? Science says, yes, a prediction. Will the water boil if we put a panful over heat? Science says, yes, it'll come to a boil, a prediction.

And in fact, in science, it is said that the work is intended to allow practitioner's to "predict the next most probable state."

The IPCC's scientist's have neen doing exacty this, predicting the next most probabale state.

We aren't and can't or won't all be scientists; at some point we all place faith in science and we do so largely on its track record. Medical patients do this routinely, subjecting themselves to medical procedures about which they have no clue of the science upon which they are based.

Again: everyone has seen a doctor. Many of them have even had surgery done on them, or at least know someone who has. This is a different kind of "faith". It is based on evidence.

The idea that climate science was a new "religion" was put out there by the denialosphere ... as a means of denigrating the science and those who adhered to it. I always thought i was kind of funny that this charge would be levied on an atheist site, of all places. It was pure demonization.

I think there is yet another misunderstanding of my position here. I'm not that kind of kaffir. The "faith" I was talking about belongs to the sheeple who believe every word they hear - even when they don't understand - because it came from a "scientist". Gullible and/or impressionable people take the Argument from Authority to its logical extreme, and then they join the peanut gallery.

At least, that's how it seems sometimes.

But most people nowadays do have at least a general faith in science, much of it evidence based, as you note.

And given the decline in avergae mental acuity that's been observed in American society over the past several of decades I guess it should come as no surprise that many will accept AGW uncritically. I don't know that there's anything that'll change that any time soon.

People like that piss me off for being as ignorant as they accuse me of being, just for saying "yes, but..."

In the face of behaviour like that, I have rolled my eyes and bitten my tongue. I thought it would have been different here. My mistake.

I don't think it's a "mistake" at all and the reason I don't is because I'm convinced that if you post cogent arguments agaist AGW in this thread they will be taken seriously and seriously considered. And the truth is there's a Nobel awaiting anyone who does develop a scientific explanation for the warming we've observed that's not AGW.

It sure seemed like a mistake when someone who had joined this forum less than 24 hours before waded in and bitchslapped a long-standing member, telling them what they could or could not post and where, throwing fallacies and misrepresentations into the mix. Who died and made him mod?

I've addressed most of this at the beginning of this post.

I think your characterization of my response to your initial post as a "bitch slap" is an exaggeration. I think a careful read of it will demonstrate this.

Or, if your calibration is such that you do see it truly as a "bitch slap," all I gotta say is you never want to be on the receiving end of a bitch lap from me!

I've never liked bullies, and I don't take that shit anymore.

None of us should. But I'm no bully, far from it.

But as I've been trying to say... I'm not disputing the science. I'm not that kind of kaffir.

OK.

It does however take some familiarity with the issue to do this, one has to know which arguments have already been debunked for example, one has to know AGW science pretty well and have some undertanding of where its weak spots may be. That's a fairly tall order but I'm the last guy who will claim it isn't possible.

And it's rather frustrating when people debunk those canards in response to one of your posts when you never said any such thing.

I reckon we all suffer this to one extent or another. You sound pretty bitter about it. It pushes us to be clear. We can always ignore the dolts who don't get our point, purposeully or out of ignorance. I don't think we should waste our valuable time on such dimwittery. Pass on it and pass on them. Why waste your time?

I think the best approach is when you run across an argument you think has merit in debunking AGW to first throw it out there as a question, rather than as an assertion. "I ran across this paper and it appears to me it debunks AGW, has it been discussed? Is it holding water? Can it be trusted? Is my source reliable? Then see what you get by way of response and carry on from there. That is, of course, a non-confrontional approach and is, rather, a collegial one

If things remain civil here (as I hope they do) I will probably be doing that.

They will remain civil if I have anything to do with it!

Note that I did not accept the apology you proferred at the beginning, not because I don't think it's worth accepting but because I don't think it was necessary in the first place. I can and do appreciate the idea of it and the impetus that drove you to making it, but I just don't think you owed anyone an apolgy for anything.

I chalk these things up to the "heat of the battle," so to speak, and I know that all of us are capable of going off sometimes. No harm, no foul.

I was going to forgive you for mis-spelling my name, but not any more.

My apologies for mis-spelling your name. I'll be more careful in future. It certainly wasn't done purposefully. I'm neither a bully nor a chain-puller.

Onward!

[Fact-Man]

Good to see you here, Tarby.

I saw one post elsewhere where a prominent "sceptic" gave a veiled threat to an AGW blogger that her career was threatened.

Yeah, I've noticed the denialists...not the one or two honest skeptics out there...getting increasingly strident and ever more publicly threatening. I had one guy...a libertarian who professes to hate the courts...threaten to sue me a few months ago. Not sure what he was going to sue me for...making fun of people who own denialist websites he frequents, perhaps. Very odd.

Jim Hansen tells the story of being invited to speak at some affair in Houston and being told that he'd be met at the airport by a Houston Police Department escort crew, who would deliver him to his hotel and then stick on him like glue.

Houston PD had received death threats aimed at Mr. Hanson, who also said he receives his share of death threats via e:mail.

Well, they've already perpetrated one crime (CRU hack) so they've stepped over the line into criminal activity. And once done, there's probably no turning back. I'll be precient here for a moment and say I'd not be surprised to read in the news next week that some whacko crank has gunned down some noted climatologist.

They all should be wearing body armor when in public.

Senator Inhof is trying to use the law to silence climatologist's who are employed by the US goverment or work under government supplied grants. If that witch hunt doesn't work (and I don't think it will), he's the kind of whack job who just might reach for his gun, or hire one.

Inhof opened a hearing of a Senate Commitee the other day and in his remarks said, "The IPCC has been discredited," before blithely moving on. Like a good propagandist, he figures if that's said often enough, it'll become true in lots of people's minds.

One mistake in a three-thousand page IPCC report and he thinks they've been "discredited?" The man's clearly bonkers.

The battle over cutting emissions is indeed heating up, it has become a war, a war of words to date, but a war nonetheless.

[Reverend Blair]

Senator Inhof is trying to use the law to silence climatologist's who are employed by the US goverment or work under government supplied grants. If that witch hunt doesn't work (and I don't think it will), he's the kind of whack job who just might reach for his gun, or hire one.

Inhof opened a hearing of a Senate Commitee the other day and in his remarks said, "The IPCC has been discredited," before blithely moving on. Like a good propagandist, he figures if that's said often enough, it'll become true in lots of people's minds.

One mistake in a three-thousand page IPCC report and he thinks they've been "discredited?" The man's clearly bonkers.

Inhofe has been been out of control for years. Scientists should have taken him to court and sued his ass off about 5 years ago when his web site was shown to be clearly misrepresenting their work. They didn't do it when they should have, not wanting to "get involved in politics." They made the monster bigger and stronger by their inaction.

Now they are basically facing a witch-hunt. Obama needs to rally the Democrats in Congress behind the scientists, and he needs to do so very vocally. Then the scientists, NGOs, etc. need to start launching lawsuits against Inhofe and his friends, demanding criminal investigations into the computer hacking etc., and just basically shutting these guys down. I doubt that will happen though.

Jim Hansen tells the story of being invited to speak at some affair in Houston and being told that he'd be met at the airport by a Houston Police Department escort crew, who would deliver him to his hotel and then stick on him like glue.

Houston PD had received death threats aimed at Mr. Hanson, who also said he receives his share of death threats via e:mail.

Well, they've already perpetrated one crime (CRU hack) so they've stepped over the line into criminal activity. And once done, there's probably no turning back. I'll be precient here for a moment and say I'd not be surprised to read in the news next week that some whacko crank has gunned down some noted climatologist.

This is something that should be highly publicized and the FBI should be brought in to investigate each and every threat. Hansen is a high-profile government employee. A threat against him is a threat against the government...terrorism.

[Fact-Man]

Senator Inhof is trying to use the law to silence climatologist's who are employed by the US goverment or work under government supplied grants. If that witch hunt doesn't work (and I don't think it will), he's the kind of whack job who just might reach for his gun, or hire one.

Inhof opened a hearing of a Senate Commitee the other day and in his remarks said, "The IPCC has been discredited," before blithely moving on. Like a good propagandist, he figures if that's said often enough, it'll become true in lots of people's minds.

One mistake in a three-thousand page IPCC report and he thinks they've been "discredited?" The man's clearly bonkers.

Inhofe has been been out of control for years. Scientists should have taken him to court and sued his ass off about 5 years ago when his web site was shown to be clearly misrepresenting their work. They didn't do it when they should have, not wanting to "get involved in politics." They made the monster bigger and stronger by their inaction.

Now they are basically facing a witch-hunt. Obama needs to rally the Democrats in Congress behind the scientists, and he needs to do so very vocally. Then the scientists, NGOs, etc. need to start launching lawsuits against Inhofe and his friends, demanding criminal investigations into the computer hacking etc., and just basically shutting these guys down. I doubt that will happen though.

I'll never understand why some court actions weren't taken and aren't being taken now. It just makes no sense to me to let some of these fucks get away with their bullshit. But scientists aren't used to the adversarial arena of the justice system and are probaly loathe to go there.

They oughta hire some lawyers!

Jim Hansen tells the story of being invited to speak at some affair in Houston and being told that he'd be met at the airport by a Houston Police Department escort crew, who would deliver him to his hotel and then stick on him like glue.

Houston PD had received death threats aimed at Mr. Hanson, who also said he receives his share of death threats via e:mail.

Well, they've already perpetrated one crime (CRU hack) so they've stepped over the line into criminal activity. And once done, there's probably no turning back. I'll be precient here for a moment and say I'd not be surprised to read in the news next week that some whacko crank has gunned down some noted climatologist.

This is something that should be highly publicized and the FBI should be brought in to investigate each and every threat. Hansen is a high-profile government employee. A threat against him is a threat against the government...terrorism.

I'm sure the FBI does investigate these threats As I recall, the piece I read on it reported that they do. It's a natural for them because under US Federal law, it is illegal to utter a death threat. It is a crime to do so.

Catching perps is probably another matter. It's not too difficult to maintain anominity in the e:mail circuitry.

[macdoc]

I notice france has taken some steps to make anonymous posts illegal...interesting experiment.

People with common names - it would be a nightmare.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Right then. First of all, can someone please provide the science paper that proves CC is man-made and not a natural event.

I have fallen down on the skeptics side of this debate, but I'm open to persuasion from the pro-AGW folk.
Having watched programs and read articles about CC, all I seem to see is natural CC. For instance, one program started off telling us how CC is going to effect us and is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, then take us back millions of years ago and told us how CC effected the dinosours and other animals. No mention of Gas gussling cars though, so we know that CC can be a natural event.
And of course, climate observations started at the end of the little ice-age, so temperatures will rise?
And we're about 10,000 years into an interglacial period. Isn't another ice-age due?


Having said all this, I do believe we should clean up our act anyway. End our reliance on fossil fuels and look for cleaner, renewable energy. Stop deforestation. End overfishing. Etc.
But I'm not in favour of hitting the poorer people with sky high taxes, and not giving them an alternative.
I drive an old diesel car and cannot afford a Toyota Prius, but I need the car to get to work. Public transport is a no go. Car sharing is not possible. I have no choice but to pay any taxes due. To a wealthy person, no amount of tax will stop him driving a big car or flying off for a few foriegn holidays, so all it's going to do is make the poor poorer, while the wealthy carry on as normal.

P.S. This post is meant as more of a question than a statment of fact

[macdoc]

You certainly haven't read the science given your confusion here....

There is a natural carbon cycle and in most cases in earth's history ( not all ) C02 is a feedback from other climate change drivers...most notably Milankovich cycles.

C02 is a feedback in both directions...it can make a climate getting colder move in that direction as it is absorbed more readily in a cooling ocean and so there is less to keep the atmosphere at a liveable temperature.

In the current case we have dug up fossil carbon and raised atmospheric carbon levels to those not seen in 15 million years...and that has consequences for the climate and we have not yet even begun to see the extent of them.

Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were This High: 15 Million Years ...
8 Oct 2009 ... You must go back 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels as high a

s

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 152242.htm

The links I sent you will allow you to explore the science and consequences.

perhaps seeing the fossil industry's own scientists acknowledging AGW as "incontrovertible" might give your skepticism pause.....they knew that back in 1995.

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate - NYTimes.com
24 Apr 2009 ... A fossil fuels industry group campaigned against an idea its own ... On Climate Issue, Industry Ignored Its Scientists (April 24

, 2009) ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/scien ... 4deny.html

••••

Putting AGW reality to bed then leaves us with a much more difficult set of issues....what to do about it and how.
That's a very very difficult path to chart....
To get on that path tho one must accept there is a problem to confront and deal with ....

at this point in time and body of climate science...NOT acknowledging the reality of AGW is very akin to denying evolution....the evidence in both is overwhelming and the body of knowledge grows every day.

Where there is uncertainty is how much change and how rapidly and unfortunately as the evidence grows the time frame grows shorter....even 10 years few thought the Arctic could change as rapidly as it has.

Nearly all parameters the change has come more rapidly.

Some nations like Sweden and Norway are committed to carbon neutral by mid century.

Leaving climate aside the risk to the oceans via acidification is unacceptable as well.

#
#
Global Scientists Draw Attention To Threat Of Ocean Acidification
1 Feb 2009 ... The scientists issued this warning Jan 30, 2009 in the Monaco Declaration, .... Attached to the 10-foot-diameter buoy are sensors to measure climate . ... Acidifying Oceans Add Urgency To Carbon Dioxide Cuts (July 6, ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 124553.htm

If you think about it for a second...C02 could not impact climate in the past and yet stop impacting now ...there were a couple of other episodes where fossil carbon drove the climate ....when volcanic basalt intruded into carboniferous rocks.
Look up Siberian traps.

This time, right now....we're the primary driver of change ( and not just C02 but other gases and land use )
Up to us to alter our behaviour and it can be done via nuclear power and a number of other approaches...

I fully intend to have a rich sophisticated existence and be carbon neutral...I'm part way there now and the countries that are the heart of the problem are also the countries with the wealth to change the way we source energy.

So let's see if we can gently get you off your skeptics fence AGW reality and then deal with the real problem of how to deal with it....no one has a pat answer on that issue.

[Fact-Man]

Right then. First of all, can someone please provide the science paper that proves CC is man-made and not a natural event.

Climate change is much too complex an affair to be explained in one paper.

The only alternative I'm aware of is to download the IPCC's AR4 Report and go through it. This report is freely available on the web and is contained in several PDF volumes. You can find it easily using Google.

Aside from that, there are also a number of recently published books that explain AGW rather well. One I'd recommend is David Archer's "Global Warming, Understanding the Forecasts."

CC is not something we can spend a hour reading up on and get a good idea. It takes some study.

I have fallen down on the skeptics side of this debate, but I'm open to persuasion from the pro-AGW folk.
Having watched programs and read articles about CC, all I seem to see is natural CC. For instance, one program started off telling us how CC is going to effect us and is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, then take us back millions of years ago and told us how CC effected the dinosours and other animals. No mention of Gas gussling cars though, so we know that CC can be a natural event.

Earth's climate is not a static thing, it's always changing. But, its changes are very slow and involve very small increments of change in atmospheric composition. But a volcanic eruption like Krakatoa or Penatubo can spew forth so much gas and dust they do change the atmosphere's composition and hence affect climate in noticeable ways, albeit for relatively short periods.

Past changes in earth's climate have been caused mainly by what are known as "Milankovich curves," which define certain long wave or long term alterations that occur in earth's orbit round the sun and thus cause differences in earth's average mean annual temperature. These alterations repeat on long reasonably well known cycles and are the cause of Ice Ages.

And of course, climate observations started at the end of the little ice-age, so temperatures will rise?

Climate observations, mainly in the form of weather observations, only began in 1850, which is when the instrumented record is said to have begun.

Going backward in time past 1850, all climate "observation" has come in the form of paleo-reconstructions, which are built mainly from data obtained from tree rings. deep ice cores, and sedimentary rocks.

And we're about 10,000 years into an interglacial period. Isn't another ice-age due?

No. The current interglacial we are enjoying probably has a lifepan of 24,000 years.

Having said all this, I do believe we should clean up our act anyway. End our reliance on fossil fuels and look for cleaner, renewable energy. Stop deforestation. End overfishing. Etc.

But I'm not in favour of hitting the poorer people with sky high taxes, and not giving them an alternative.
I drive an old diesel car and cannot afford a Toyota Prius, but I need the car to get to work. Public transport is a no go. Car sharing is not possible. I have no choice but to pay any taxes due. To a wealthy person, no amount of tax will stop him driving a big car or flying off for a few foriegn holidays, so all it's going to do is make the poor poorer, while the wealthy carry on as normal.

All the talk we hear about the cost of reducing emissions and mitigating global warming is at this point just so much hot air, much of it shot through with money making schemes created by nefarious parties, e.g., cap and trade. The denialosphere has produced a lot of scary scenarios on this front as they try to browbeat people into doubting the science of AGW.

It won't be free of course, but at this point nobody really knows what the costs will be or how they will be paid, contrary to what we might hear on the subject.

I think it's fair to say that any scheme of payment that causes hardship to ordinary people just isn't going to fly, not especially when the fossil fuel industry has been using our atmosphere as a free sewer for its wastes while making $trillions in profits. How about the concept of polluter pays?

P.S. This post is meant as more of a question than a statment of fact

Fair enough.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

OK, thanks. I've been provided with plenty of reading matter via PM too, enough to maybe plant a seed of doubt against GW skeptisism. We'll see.

Now, if the other skeptics would like to post something to the contrary?
In the past I've been reading articles like this....
http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk ... arming.htm

[Reverend Blair]

Right then. First of all, can someone please provide the science paper that proves CC is man-made and not a natural event.

I have fallen down on the skeptics side of this debate, but I'm open to persuasion from the pro-AGW folk.
Having watched programs and read articles about CC, all I seem to see is natural CC. For instance, one program started off telling us how CC is going to effect us and is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, then take us back millions of years ago and told us how CC effected the dinosours and other animals. No mention of Gas gussling cars though, so we know that CC can be a natural event.
And of course, climate observations started at the end of the little ice-age, so temperatures will rise?
And we're about 10,000 years into an interglacial period. Isn't another ice-age due?

There is no single science paper proving anything. What exists is a huge body of science which provides a massive amount of evidence.

I started out on the other side of this argument, long, long ago. I was pretty sure that it had to be wrong, and pretty sure that I could show it. I expected to find a bunch of easily debunkable pseudo-science. Instead I ran into a mass of strong scientific evidence that dovetailed with what I knew of other, seemingly non-related science.

Things were easier back then. This was before Rio, and the politics hadn't muddied things yet. There was a lot less science too, so it wasn't as massive an undertaking as starting from scratch today would be. Still, everything pointed in the same direction. I basically got my ass kicked by the science and had to change my position.

MacDoc is likely the easiest source of the science if you are really interested in looking at it. He's got a lot of links etc.. Follow the links within those links. Go look up papers that sound interesting or within your area of knowledge. There's a ton of science out there, and it's a lot of work just to keep up.

Contrast that with the other side of the argument. They have basically no science on their side. They do no original science. The few peer reviewed papers they do have are pretty questionable (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt with that statement). What they mostly do is attack science and scientists from the field and those attacks have become increasingly dishonest over the years.

Having said all this, I do believe we should clean up our act anyway. End our reliance on fossil fuels and look for cleaner, renewable energy. Stop deforestation. End overfishing. Etc.
But I'm not in favour of hitting the poorer people with sky high taxes, and not giving them an alternative.
I drive an old diesel car and cannot afford a Toyota Prius, but I need the car to get to work. Public transport is a no go. Car sharing is not possible. I have no choice but to pay any taxes due. To a wealthy person, no amount of tax will stop him driving a big car or flying off for a few foriegn holidays, so all it's going to do is make the poor poorer, while the wealthy carry on as normal.

This is a huge part of the problem and a lot of us are in the same boat. I need a truck and there are no really good alternatives available for a price I can afford, so I bought another V-8 Chevy. Oh, I got a smaller one and it's better on gas than the old one. Oddly enough, one the same size as the old one would have been even more of a gas guzzler than the one I already had. We've been moving backwards since 1980.

Because valid political action has been so badly delayed by the denialist lobby, we are left with very few alternatives. Most of the alternative technologies we are looking at aren't new. If we would have been developing them and introducing them since the energy crisis of the 1970's, we'd have options in place now and we'd be well on the road to a carbon neutral world. That's not the way things went though, for purely political reasons.

There are things you can do though...things that will save you money and/or make you more comfortable. Don't leave the TV on for the cat when you are out. Shut out the lights when you leave a room. Turn the heat down and put on a sweater. I can produce a pretty full list ranging from the free to the quite expensive if you are interested. Not all of it will apply to any one person, but some of it applies to almost everyone.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

I'm always interested in saving money (not that I have any to save. )

I know about not leaving the TV on standby, turning the heating down etc.

[Fact-Man]

OK, thanks. I've been provided with plenty of reading matter via PM too, enough to maybe plant a seed of doubt against GW skeptisism. We'll see.

Now, if the other skeptics would like to post something to the contrary?

In the past I've been reading articles like this....
http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk ... arming.htm

Bellamy is not a climate scientist. He's a Botanist. He's also a pracicing Anglican, for whatever that's worth.

Any half decent climate scientist could easy shoot his piece full of holes, hell, even I could shoot it full of holes.

He's daft. Spreading untruths.

[Reverend Blair]

Bellamy is not a climate scientist. He's a Botanist. He's also a pracicing Anglican, for whatever that's worth.

Most importantly of all, he quotes the Oregon Petition. It is, at its very base, a fraudulent document. Anybody who quotes it as "proof" of anything is immediately discredited.

It's one of the clues that I look for when reading literature about the subject. If an alleged expert mentions the Oregon Petition, the fully discredited work of Soon and Baliunas, etc., I know they are politically motivated, not scientifically motivated.

And now, The Ozark Mountain Daredevils:

[ginckgo]

In the past I've been reading articles like this....
http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk ... arming.htm

Does anyone know the actual bibliographic reference for the article he cites as "Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Over The Last Glacial Termination". Google it, and just about every instance only comes up with a direct quote from Bellamy's post.