North Pole temperature above freezing - December 30, 2015

[pelmet]

I just want to know why Rockie, you are repeating this 97% thing over and over again. I have just proven how wrong you are. Can you at least admit this so we can move on to the next portion of the discussion.

[Rockie]

You haven't proven a damn thing.

[pelmet]

Well, an astronomer isn't going to deny that human induced climate change is occurring because they have no direct knowledge of it, they'll just look at the peer reviewed history of climate science and accept that those guys know what they're talking about - unlike you. Much like a climatologist isn't about to tell an astronomer he's full of shit when it comes to black holes. Why do you suppose that is Pelmet? Could it be because a scientist (which you're not) recognizes when they are outside their area of expertise?

It appears that in your last post, you are stating that the astronomer, who you admit knows nothing about climate change can read a peer reviewed study and then will pretty much automatically agree with it as he knows nothing of the subject and therefore has now become part of the 97%. You see folks, this is how we get 97% of scientists. Almost all of them know nothing about climate as it is not their area. But they read it and seeing as they know nothing about it, agree with it.

Wow, what a way to get millions of scientists to say that climate change is man-made. Well, I am a pilot....And I have as much experience with the weather as your average astronomer.

[Rockie]

It appears that in your last post, you are stating that the astronomer, who you admit knows nothing about climate change can read a peer reviewed study and then will have to automatically agree with it and therefore has now become part of the 97%.

Nope, that's not what I'm saying. What that says is that scientists in unrelated fields acknowledge they don't know more about another scientist's field of study than that scientist does. As a layman with no expertise whatsoever why do you think you do?

Do you argue like this with your doctor? Your flight instructor? Your lawyer? Your plumber and electrician?

If you don't trust what science is saying how do you get through life without killing yourself?

[pelmet]

Any comments on the Wall Street Journal article I posted earlier Rockie. I would be keen to know what you think.

[pelmet]

It appears that in your last post, you are stating that the astronomer, who you admit knows nothing about climate change can read a peer reviewed study and then will have to automatically agree with it and therefore has now become part of the 97%.

Nope, that's not what I'm saying. What that says is that scientists in unrelated fields acknowledge they don't know more about another scientist's field of study than that scientist does. As a layman with no expertise whatsoever why do you think you do?

Do you argue like this with your doctor? Your flight instructor? Your lawyer? Your plumber and electrician?

If you don't trust what science is saying how do you get through life without killing yourself?

Rockie, Rockie, Rockie.......You have to stop unquestioningly accepting everything the so-called experts tell you. I recently had to prove my aircraft mechanic wrong about a major maintenance item on my aircraft that would have cost me a massive amount of money. How did I do it...I called in a credible expert for a second opinion and showed how statements made by that mechanic(who is no longer working on the aircraft) showed that he didn't know what he was talking about. Reminds me very much of this obvious 97% nonsense.

[pelmet]

If you don't trust what science is saying how do you get through life without killing yourself?

From an article in 2000...

"20 of the Greatest Blunders in Science in the Last 20 Years

What were they thinking?

By Judith Newman|Sunday, October 01, 2000

In the last two decades, glorious scientific and technical achievements have altered our lives forever. Try, for example, to imagine the world without the existence of those two little words personal and computer. But there have also been— how can this be put delicately?— blunders. Some were errors in concept: Bad science chasing a bad idea. Some were errors in execution: This would have worked so well if only it hadn't blown up. Others were cases of deliberate fraud, out-and-out hoaxes, or just dopey moments that made us laugh. Perhaps Albert Einstein said it best: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe."

Challenger
Surreal in its beauty, a plume of white smoke ushered in the end of America's romance with space travel after the shuttle Challenger blew up 73 seconds into its scheduled six-day flight on January 28, 1986, at 11:39:13 a.m. The rocket was traveling at Mach 1.92 at an altitude of 46,000 feet as it incinerated all seven astronauts aboard. According to the presidential commission that investigated the accident, the explosion was caused by the failure of an O-ring seal in the joint between the two lower segments of the right-hand solid-rocket booster. This failure permitted a jet of white-hot gases to ignite the liquid fuel of the external tank. The O-ring was known to fail in cold temperatures, but the launch had been delayed five times.

Darsee and Slutsky and Fraud, Oh My!
Following the "greed is good" mantra of the 1980s, some scientists could not resist shortcuts. "The psychological profile of these people is interesting," says Mario Biagioli, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University. "You usually get B-plus, A-minus scientists who get into hyperproduction mode." Take, for example, former Harvard researcher John Darsee. In 1981 he was found to be faking data in a heart study. Eventually investigators at the National Institutes of Health discovered that data for most of his 100 published studies had been fabricated. Or take the case of cardiac-radiology specialist Robert Slutsky, who in 1985 resigned from the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine after colleagues began to wonder how he turned out a new research article every 10 days. University investigators concluded he had altered data and lied about the methods he used. To establish verisimilitude, Slutsky often persuaded scientists more prominent than he to put their names on his articles.

The Debendox Debacle
William McBride, an Australian obstetrician, was hailed as a whistle-blowing visionary in 1961 when he sounded a warning about the dangers of thalidomide, a sedative prescribed for anxiety and morning sickness. In a letter to the journal The Lancet, McBride suggested that the drug was causing infants to be born with severe limb deformities. Although McBride's hypothesis was based on limited anecdotal observations, subsequent studies proved him right. Thalidomide was removed from the market, and the drug became almost synonymous with pharmaceutical malfeasance. Two decades later, in 1982, McBride published a report about a morning-sickness drug called Debendox that, he claimed, clearly caused birth defects in rabbits. Merrell Dow took the drug off the market amid an avalanche of lawsuits. But there was a problem. McBride had altered data in research carried out by assistants. The results showed Debendox had no ill effects. After years of investigation, McBride was found guilty of scientific fraud in 1993 by a medical tribunal.

Nuclear Winter of Our Discontent
In 1983, astronomer Carl Sagan coauthored an article in Science that shook the world: "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions" warned that nuclear war could send a giant cloud of dust into the atmosphere that would cover the globe, blocking sunlight and invoking a climatic change similar to that which might have ended the existence of dinosaurs. Skeptical atmospheric scientists argued that Sagan's model ignored a variety of factors, including the fact that the dust would have to reach the highest levels of the atmosphere not to be dissipated by rainfall. In a 1990 article in Science, Sagan and his original coauthors admitted that their initial temperature estimates were wrong. They concluded that an all-out nuclear war could reduce average temperatures at most by 36 degrees Fahrenheit in northern climes. The chilling effect, in other words, would be more of a nuclear autumn.

Piltdown Chicken
The finding was initially trumpeted as the missing link that proved birds evolved from dinosaurs. In 1999 a fossil smuggled out of China allegedly showing a dinosaur with birdlike plumage was displayed triumphantly at the National Geographic Society and written up in the society's November magazine. Paleontologists were abuzz. Unfortunately, like the hominid skull with an ape jaw discovered in the Piltdown quarries of England in 1912, the whole thing turned out to be a hoax. The fossil apparently was the flight of fancy of a Chinese farmer who had rigged together bird bits and a meat-eater's tail.

Statistics for Dummies
Shocking factoids based on half-baked interpretations of scientific data have been foisted on the public at an alarming rate during the past 20 years. Take the "spinsters beware" theme that gained currency in 1986. Summarizing a study on women and marriage by two Yale sociologists and a Harvard economist, several news agencies reported that single women at 35 had only a 5 percent chance of ever marrying, and unmarried women at 40 were "more likely to be killed by a terrorist." Never mind the fact that in analyzing data from the 70,000 households the authors of the original study had not looked into what percentage of the over-30 women had made a conscious choice to put off marriage. Indeed, U.S. Census Bureau statistician Jeanne Moorman's follow-up projections indicate that of unmarried women ages 30 to 34, 54 percent will marry; of those ages 35 to 39, 37 percent will marry; and of those ages 40 to 44, 24 percent will marry.

Very Cold Fusion
At the University of Utah in 1989, chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced that the world's energy problems had been solved. They claimed to have created nuclear fusion on a tabletop by electrolyzing deuterium oxide— heavy water— using electrodes made of palladium and platinum. Deuterium is a naturally occurring stable isotope of hydrogen; its nucleus contains a neutron in addition to the single proton found in the nucleus of ordinary hydrogen. According to the chemists, the deuterium nuclei were squeezed so closely together in the palladium cathode that they fused, releasing energy. As Robert Park, professor of physics at the University of Maryland and author of Voodoo Science puts it, "Basically if what Fleischmann and Pons said was true, they had duplicated the source of the sun's energy in a test tube." The problem is, no other scientists have been able to reproduce their results— and not for lack of trying. "There's always some guy willing to say, 'OK, we found something that works, but it only works once in a while,' or 'We're not going to show it to you, because we're worried you'll steal our patent rights,'" says Marc Abrahams, editor of Annals of Improbable Research.

Chernobyl
April 26, 1986, was the day Soviet nuclear experts learned the true meaning of the word oops. During a test of one of Chernobyl's four reactors, they turned off the backup cooling system and used only eight boron-carbide rods to control the rate of fission instead of the 15 rods required as standard operating procedure. A runaway chain reaction blew the steel and concrete lid off the reactor and created a fireball, releasing 100 times more radiation than did the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. Some 4,300 people eventually died as a result, and more than 70,000 were permanently disabled.

Currents That Don't Kill
The Clinton administration estimates that American taxpayers have paid $25 billion to determine that power lines don't do anything more deadly than deliver power. In 1989, Paul Brodeur published a series of articles in The New Yorker raising the possibility of a link between electromagnetic fields and cancer. Eight years later, after several enormous epidemiological studies in Canada, Britain, and the United States, the danger was completely discounted. "All known cancer-inducing agents act by breaking chemical bonds in DNA," says Robert Park. "The amount of photon energy it takes is an ultraviolet wavelength. So any wavelength that is longer cannot break chemical bonds. Visible light does not cause cancer. Infrared light is still longer, radio waves longer still. Power-line fields are preposterous. The wavelength is in miles."

Mars Meltdowns
The "better, faster, cheaper" mantra adopted by NASA in 1992 might be reinterpreted today as "you get what you pay for." In September 1999, the $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter plunged to oblivion near Mars. NASA officials were using the metric newton to guide the spacecraft. That was unfortunate, because Lockheed-Martin engineered the Orbiter to be guided in the English units of poundals. In December, the $185-million Mars Polar Lander went AWOL, and repeated efforts to contact it by space radio antennas failed. Officials now speculate that a signaling problem in the landing legs— caused by one line of missing computer code— doomed the Lander.

Rock of Life
In 1996, scientists at NASA declared that a 6.3-ounce rock, broken off from a Mars meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1984, contained flecks of chemical compounds— polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, magnetite, and iron sulfide— that suggested the existence of bacteria on the Red Planet 3.6 billion years ago. "August 7, 1996, could go down as one of the most important dates in human history," intoned one newspaper report. But within two years the theory began to crack. Traces of amino acids found in the rock, crucial to life, were also found in the surrounding Antarctic ice. More damning, other non-Martian rocks— rocks from the moon, where it is clear life does not exist— showed the same "evidence" of life. By November 1998 an article in Science declared "most researchers agree that the case for life on Mars is shakier than ever."

All Abuzz
Sometimes mistakes that were made decades ago take a while to make the force of their foolishness felt. Consider the case of killer bees. In the 1950s, Brazilian geneticists crossbred mild-mannered European honeybees with their more aggressive, territorial cousins from Africa, reasoning that the Africanized bees would be better suited than their European counterparts to warmer South American climes. They were too right. Before the aggression could be bred out of the resulting cross, the buggers got away, and some immediately headed north. In 1990 the first Africanized honeybees were discovered in Texas. Since that time they've gradually spread to New Mexico, Arizona, California, and in 1999, to Nevada.

Here They Come to Save the Day
Indeed, antibiotics have been the Mighty Mouse of medicine. Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928, it seemed there were few bacteria that antibiotics couldn't destroy handily. At the turn of the last century, the average life expectancy was 47. Thanks partly to a decline in bacterial diseases like tuberculosis, dysentery, and gonorrhea, life expectancy in the United States has risen to 76 today. Unfortunately, doctors did not take seriously the consequences of promiscuous antibiotic use. Physicians have long been generous in prescribing antibiotics for minor ailments, even for viral infections like the common cold. Moreover, even when antibiotics were warranted, patients were not sufficiently warned about the dangers of not taking the drugs for the full course of treatment. When the symptoms of their infection abated, patients often threw away their pills, allowing the bacteria that had not been killed off to mutate. Now there are whole categories of antibiotics that no longer work. And there are some potentially deadly bacterial diseases, including tuberculosis, that can only be beaten by one or two of the strongest, most expensive antibiotics.

The Sky Is Falling Again
Um, never mind. On March 12, 1998, on the front page of The New York Times, a headline read: "Asteroid Is Expected to Make a Pass Close to Earth in 2028." Brian G. Marsden, director of the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, predicted that on October 26, 2028, an asteroid about a mile in diameter would come within 30,000 miles of Earth. That's within spitting distance, spacewise, which evoked comparisons to the asteroid that crashed on the Yucatàn peninsula 65 million years ago, allegedly wiping out all the dinosaurs. "When you first discover a comet, or any kind of body, you start measuring its position," notes Robert Park. "From that you extract its trajectory. The more measurements you make, the more accurate your trajectory gets." Marsden issued his warnings based on very early trajectory measurements. Now he anticipates the asteroid will pass Earth at a safe distance of 600,000 miles.

Evolution? What's That?
In 1995, it became official: Colorado students would not be tested on evolution, Charles Darwin's theory that, through an endless series of genetic mutations, we all developed from single-celled organisms. "I believe in divine creation," said Clair Orr, Colorado's chairman of the state's board of education. Colorado is not alone. Kansas removed evolutionary theory from its tests in 1999. Mississippi and Tennessee do not teach the subject at all, and curricula in Florida and South Carolina touch on it only lightly. Given the trend of treating all theories of how we got here as equal, Marc Abrahams, of Annals of Improbable Research, has a suggestion: Why not teach the theory of Chonosuke Okamura, a Japanese paleontologist who became convinced that patterns of water seepage in rocks were "mini-fossils" and that life was descended from mini-horses, mini-cows, and mini-dragons. "It's kind of like forming an evolutionary theory out of cloud formations," says Abrahams.

Fen-phen Fiasco
In the early 1990s Michael Weintraub, a researcher at the University of Rochester, concluded that a combination of two nonaddictive drugs that had been around for years— phentermine, a stimulant, and fenfluramine, an appetite suppressant— could be used for the long-term control of obesity. The fen-phen diet craze was born. Physicians began giving the drug combination off-label to patients who wanted to lose as little as 10 to 15 pounds. In the meantime, an August 1996 report in The New England Journal of Medicine linked the use of fen-phen for more than three months to a 23-fold increased risk of developing primary pulmonary hypertension, a fatal lung disorder. Subsequent studies revealed that prolonged use of fenfluramine could cause heart-valve defects. By September 1997, the Food and Drug Administration signaled the demise of fen-phen by ordering that fenfluramine be taken off the market. It is estimated that between 1.2 million and 4.7 million Americans were exposed to the drug combination.

To Be or Not to Be, Thanks to MTBE
It was intended to solve a pollution problem. Instead, it may be the cause of one of the most serious pollution problems of our time. MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, is a gasoline additive that came into use in the late 1970s during the phaseout of alkyl lead additives. It helps gasoline burn more efficiently and cuts down on air pollutants. It also happens to be highly water-soluble and has a nasty tendency to leak from underground storage tanks at gas stations. In California, MTBE contamination has forced water suppliers to shut down wells in many counties. A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey found MTBE in 14 percent of all urban drinking water wells it sampled. In March 1999, the Clinton administration announced a ban on the additive. Meanwhile, there appears to be no cost-effective way to remove it from drinking water.

Earth to Iridium
The award for "Most Expensive Piece of Immediately Obsolete Technology" goes to Iridium, a communications company that 10 years ago promised crystal-clear cellular phone service anywhere on the planet. Sixty-six satellites were launched at a cost of $5 billion. "The phones were bulky. They cost $3,000. A call cost several dollars per minute, and the system didn't work indoors," says Richard Kadrey, a founder of Dead Media Project, a Web-site collection of failed media and technology. "Most people simply don't need to call Dakar at a moment's notice. In fact, the number of people who do is so small that it is probably dwarfed by the number of people who really need to talk to aliens." In 1999, Iridium took its place among the 20 largest bankruptcies in history.

Chest Say No to Silicone Implants
Pamela Anderson had them taken out. So did Jenny Jones. They needn't have bothered, according to an independent panel of medical experts. Never mind that lawsuits over the implants bankrupted Dow Corning, a multibillion-dollar company. The medical panel reported in 1998 that there is no greater incidence of immune-system abnormalities among women with breast implants than there is in the general population. In the end the science didn't fail us; the lawyers did.

Y2K
It all got fixed before it could happen, but at a cost of $100 billion. Thanks to purposeful programming, computers were likely to read the year code "00" as 1900 instead of 2000. So we were treated to an entire year of talking heads ranting on about doomsday scenarios, including a world where airplanes would drop out of the sky and banks would register your portfolio value as zero. And some people don't have to buy canned goods for at least a year. All we can say is: Thank you, Bill Gates.

[Rockie]

JOSEPH BAST

Written by Joseph Bast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bast

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)

Two guys...that's it. I could point to several articles in the CBC written by Rex Murphy (usually a smart guy) who is equally dismissive of climate change, and the most pompous ass in Canada Conrad Black who shares Rex's opinion. So what? Both write in respected Canadian media outlets repeatedly about this subject.

Having a bullhorn doesn't make you right.

[pelmet]

Rockie, the 97% of scientists thing is a lie. You have admitted yourself, some of them(and likely most of them) are likely scientists without a clue about the subject who just said..."Yes I agree. And I agree because it is peer reviewed." That just doesn't cut it. The earlier Wall Street Journal article I posted clarifies it quite well how wrong the 97% thing is.

Remember, it is a strength to be able to admit when you are wrong.

[Rockie]

Rockie, Rockie, Rockie.......You have to stop unquestioningly accepting everything the so-called experts tell you.

They're not "so called" experts Pelmet. They actual, real life, honest to god, genuine, accredited, peer reviewed, published scientists with actual PHD's in the field of climate science. Please don't say you're more of an expert than they are.

If an astronomer, or a geologist, or a medical doctor, or a seismologist, or a geneticist, or any one of hundreds of other disciplines can accept findings from another scientists field of expertise why do you find it so impossible to do?

Not that it matters. You'd fit right in with the church in Galileo's time.

[pelmet]

Rockie....I have often wondered why so many intelligent people working in technical fields have such foolish opinions. But it seems to be the way it is. You also seem to have latched onto this peer reviewed thing as if it is the be all and end all. It must be right.

http://www.wired.com/2013/01/worst-scie ... eeds-2012/

In this link to The Worst Scientific Mistakes, Missteps and Misdeeds of 2012, it turns out that one of the topics is this...

"ALLOW MYSELF TO REVIEW ... MYSELF

When scientists publish work in peer-reviewed journals, it means that other scientists have reviewed the work. Or does it? Sometimes, the “scientists” who reviewed a paper aren’t other scientists at all. Instead, in what appeared to be the trend this year, sometimes the reviews are provided by the paper’s authors or friends.

In February, journal publisher Elsevier retracted a paper by Guang-Zhi He of the Guiyang College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China after learning that he had offered up false e-mail addresses and impersonated his paper’s reviewers. As Ivan Oransky at Retraction Watch describes, Elsevier became suspicious after observing that many of the reviewers’ e-mails were directing to web domains in China — though some of the supposed reviewers weren’t in China.

In August, the same thing happened again. But this time, it led to more than 30 retractions. Korean researcher Hyung-In Moon, who studies plant compounds, had also submitted false reviewer e-mails, and then he or his colleagues wrote the favorable reviews. Too quickly, it seems. Retraction Watch reports that the scheme was revealed when a journal editor noticed that most of the reviews were coming back within 24 hours — way too fast. When asked, Moon admitted to his fabrications.

In September, more false reviews were discovered, this time of mathematics papers, though it isn’t clear who submitted the fraudulent contact information."

Peer review means little to me.

I didn't eat eggs for 20 years because the science said that it was unhealthy for me. And I love eggs over easy and poached eggs. Now it turns out that it was all bad science and the US government has withdrawn this restriction. I was fooled by the supposedly settled science. There is no shortage of further examples.

We used to always try to maintain altitude for some stupid reason in the sim during a stall recovery. That changed too after several accidents that were unnecessary. They authorities also told us during initial training that below Va, you could move the controls as much as you wanted(or there was no restriction) until the tail fell off an A300 in NYC at a speed below Va. The it turned out that it was really only a single full input allowed.

Feel free to continue mindlessly following the "Science" and authoritative statements. You will probably get through life without killing yourself as well.

[hoptwoit]

Thank for that post Pelmet some really good information. I have actually seen all kinds of information on this topic it's been very educational.

[photofly]

An astronomer is actually in a pretty good place to tell a climatologist he's full of shit. An astronomer knows how to create and examine mathematical models of physical systems, and how careful you need to be before announcing that your model matches the real world and we all need to take cover.

An astronomer also understands how scientists get funded, and the pressures that brings.

In different branches of science the details differ but the methods and politics are common across the board.

I am so amused by the pedestal on which pilots place this strange people the "Scientists" as if they priests or something.

[Rockie]

I am so amused by the pedestal on which pilots place this strange people the "Scientists" as if they priests or something.

In 30 years of polling Gallup found that around 42% of Americans believe to this day that God created man and earth in the last 10,000 years. Priests told them that and it's written in a book so it must be true.

[cgzro]

I have written peer reviewed papers and have peer reviewed a dozen or so papers. I am in the Elsevier database as a reviewer in my field (computer science/telecommunications). You do not need a Phd, you just need a lot of experience.

I'm afraid peer reviews is not an in depth check of a paper. Its essentially a read through. Very few reviewers have time to check the details and in fact is not possible to check the details without the computer code and data that went into most papers.

I suspect that pure math papers are properly reviewed because nothing additional is required, and possibly pure physics papers, but pretty much every other discipline which requires additional information that is either supplemental or not provided are impossible to actually review properly.

So I would not put much faith in peer review for most sciences and in fact research is showing that in some disciplines (medicine) most peer reviewed research is not reproducible (i.e. is wrong).

As to climatologists being experts .. yes but they are not experts on statistics, they are not experts on computer modelling and they are not experts on physics. Many many engineers have vastly more experience in those subjects (30 years) than a newly minted climatologist with say 8 years of study.

You should not hold PHd's in such high regard, a very few are amazing and brilliant but the majority are quite normal and no better, nor better educated than the engineers out there that make this world work.

[Rockie]

Climatologists aren't experts in car mechanics either which is why I don't consult them when something goes wrong with my car. If I want to know about my car I ask a mechanic, if I want to know something about the climate I ask a climate scientist.

Not a hard concept but beyond a lot of people.

[pelmet]

I have written peer reviewed papers and have peer reviewed a dozen or so papers. I am in the Elsevier database as a reviewer in my field (computer science/telecommunications). You do not need a Phd, you just need a lot of experience.

I'm afraid peer reviews is not an in depth check of a paper. Its essentially a read through. Very few reviewers have time to check the details and in fact is not possible to check the details without the computer code and data that went into most papers.

I suspect that pure math papers are properly reviewed because nothing additional is required, and possibly pure physics papers, but pretty much every other discipline which requires additional information that is either supplemental or not provided are impossible to actually review properly.

So I would not put much faith in peer review for most sciences and in fact research is showing that in some disciplines (medicine) most peer reviewed research is not reproducible (i.e. is wrong).

As to climatologists being experts .. yes but they are not experts on statistics, they are not experts on computer modelling and they are not experts on physics. Many many engineers have vastly more experience in those subjects (30 years) than a newly minted climatologist with say 8 years of study.

You should not hold PHd's in such high regard, a very few are amazing and brilliant but the majority are quite normal and no better, nor better educated than the engineers out there that make this world work.

Thank you C-GZRO for the ACTUAL experience on this peer reviewed sub-subject.

We are starting to slowly tear apart Rockie's and HiLow's arguments bit by bit.

Look at what was said by them and so many other man-made global warming advocates that are right now affecting us significantly with lost jobs, high electricity rates, hundreds of billions of dollars going to corrupt countries and government workers(and coincidentally, cheered on by those on the left).

An example, and a large part of their argument is in the quotes I have shown by them earlier about "97% OF SCIENTISTS" agreeing with this theory which of course is ridiculous by any measure. Then we start to dig deeper and it turns out that even though they were saying 97% of scientists. Rockie says

Nobody has ever said a seismologist knows about climate change, or a geologist, or an astronomer. Please...I'm laughing even as I write this.

Well, yes Rockie, you did say that. Over and over again when you write things such as...

No there isn't, 97% of the planet's scientific community is in agreement. 3% are the crackpots and most mathematicians would agree that 97 is a much larger number than 3.

It means exactly what you are saying. I shouldn't need to teach you what your own quotes mean but when you talk about 97% of scientists(and the remaining 3% that you call crackpots), it includes all geologists and astronomers and all the others. If you don't want to include all these others, then say what this 97% includes, which I think you will find is far less than 1% of the overall population of scientists. This is a serious subject BUT....even Gore and Obama say the same thing. These outright lies are thrown at us every day and followed up with quotes like...

If an astronomer, or a geologist, or a medical doctor, or a seismologist, or a geneticist, or any one of hundreds of other disciplines can accept findings from another scientists field of expertise why do you find it so impossible to do?

Not that it matters. You'd fit right in with the church in Galileo's time.

So earlier he basically states that he never stated that a seismologist knows about climate change(and is laughing at how I could think that) but then states later that the seismologists opinion is credible on the subject simply because he read this peer reviewed paper. Somehow if something has been peer reviewed it must be correct and if you challenge any of this, you are the equivalent of the discredited church argument in Galileo's time about whether the earth was round. Oh by the way...Galileo was persecuted by the church so the subtle hint here in Rockie's argument is perhaps that persons like me would do the same.

By the way, you have mentioned the church/religion more than once in such a way as to equate religious believers as not credible persons such as your Galileo argument and 42% of Americans believing that God created the earth. Well the pope is one of the biggest advocates of man-made global warming these days. So based on your line of thinking, can we consider that the man-made global warming argument is now discredited. Seems reasonable.

So these are the type of arguments we face by the climate change advocates. Gordon Brown when he was PM of England called skeptics of man-made global warming "luddites" and mentioned "Flat earth" for us. A bishop in England compared us to an infamous child molestor. No doubt Hitler or the nazis will eventually arise as a comparison somewhere. This is the arguments we see from the alarmists.

Please question these people thoroughly. You will find most of their arguments fall apart once you get into the details.

Notice how when I posted a link to an article showing how the 97% argument was a complete lie, Rockie never gave us any details about how the author was wrong. Only a link showing that his opinions are right wing. His argument against this detailed article is simply the mans political leanings(and your no doubt) instead of actually taking any time for detailed discussion. This is typical of what is put forth by the alarmists.

Please just give informed opinions backed by credible arguments. Repeatedly saying "97% of scientists" and "don't you believe in science" type quotes are frankly...a joke.

[Rockie]

By the way, you have mentioned the church/religion more than once in such a way as to equate religious believers as not credible persons such as your Galileo argument and 42% of Americans believing that God created the earth.

This same 42% who reject evolutionary and geological evidence are the same ones funny enough who reject climate science. Not big on science these folks, they'd rather believe in fairy tales because - you know - they make more sense than scientific evidence.

Well the pope is on of the biggest advocates of man-made global warming these days.

No, the pope doesn't "advocate" global warming, he's simply too smart to argue with the scientists. I'll bet he believes scientists when they say the earth is over 3 billion years old too, but even he can't convince 42% of Americans

[Rockie]

If you don't want to include all these others, then say what this 97% includes,

From NASA. I'm assuming you know who they are, and may even know some of the other organizations listed here:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

And here's a more comprehensive list from the California Governor's Office:

https://www.opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizations.php

[pelmet]

Well the pope is on of the biggest advocates of man-made global warming these days.

No, the pope doesn't "advocate" global warming, he's simply too smart to argue with the scientists. I'll bet he believes scientists when they say the earth is over 3 billion years old too, but even he can't convince 42% of Americans

I'm sorry Rockie. Your every post proves how ill informed you are on this subject. I suggest you do like you suggested other scientists do when in your aircraft. Basically, don't talk about stuff when they have no clue what they are talking about.

Here is what the Pope said last year as quoted from a Wall Street Journal article...

" “Laudato Si’ ” is addressed not only to Catholics but to “every person who lives on this planet,” the pope wrote. In it, the pontiff related ecological concerns to his signature theme of economic justice, especially the gap in wealth between the global north and south.

In the draft, the pope wades into the debate over climate change, writing of a “very consistent scientific consensus that we are in the presence of an alarming warming of the climactic system.”

He writes that there is an “urgent and compelling” need for policies that reduce carbon emissions, among other ways, by “replacing fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.”

While acknowledging that natural causes, including volcanic activity, play a role in climate change, the pope writes that “numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others) emitted above all due to human activity.”"

http://www.wsj.com/articles/papal-draft ... 1434389790

Next subject please.

[Rockie]

I'm sorry Rockie. Your every post proves how ill informed you are on this subject.

the pope writes that “numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others) emitted above all due to human activity.”"

So he's not arguing with the scientists like I said. What was your point again?

Actually I think your confusion might arise from me saying the pope doesn't "advocate" global warming which is what you said. Advocating global warming means he's in favour of it which is absurd. You probably meant to say he an advocate for the scientific case supporting the existence of human induced global warming.

For someone as big into semantics as you are I'm surprised you missed that.

[B208]

I just want to know why Rockie, you are repeating this 97% thing over and over again. I have just proven how wrong you are. Can you at least admit this so we can move on to the next portion of the discussion.

We're talking about Rockie here!

To his credit he is tenacious.......

[Posthumane]

I'm in agreement with Peter (cgzro) regarding peer review. I also have peer reviewed some papers, internal to my research organization, even though I'm just an engineer. Authors almost always have a very thorough understanding of their research topics, but sometimes make over-reaching conclusions regarding things like the applicability and impact of their topics. There have been cases of authors fitting an exponential curve to two data points to confirm their hypothesis. Peer reviewers sometimes catch these issues, recommend changes, and sometimes those changes are implemented before publishing.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that their is some, or even a significant amount, of consensus between researchers about the role that anthropogenic greenhouse gasses have on global climate. As I understand, what many people are arguing, is that it is a stretch to go even from that to the implementation of political schemes such as carbon taxes. Unfortunately there are some people yelling loudly that any questioning or contrary viewpoint is not "scientific." The very nature of science is the ability and willingness to question accepted facts and attempt to approach the truth through logical reasoning and experimentation.

I think there are a number of questions which have not be adequately answered to back up current political schemes and show their actual benefit. There are, for example, a number of benefits to an increased global temperature. The amount of arable land may increase somewhat with lengthened growing seasons in polar regions. A population redistribution would probably have to happen, but over the course of several generations - large migrations over much smaller timescales have occured due to lesser causes. Canada would actually stand to befenfit in a number of ways.

Direct control of carbon outputs may also not be nearly as effective as global population growth mitigation, which is probably best done through better wealth distribution and education (as already mentioned upthread) and may require greater outputs in the short term as developing countries are brought up to the same standards as developed ones.

Re: logging:
It may be somewhat counterintuitive, but old growth forests are actually often carbon neutral - the carbon emissions from decaying matter balances the carbon capture by growing trees. New growth forests, on other hand, tend towards carbon capture due to an abundance of saplings and much less decaying matter. Logging old growth forests, replacing them with new ones, and using the timber for something which does not openly decay in the atmosphere - be it building lumber, or even paper which eventually gets buried - is actually a method of carbon sequestration. Of course, there are other factors besides carbon output which are affected by logging such as biodiversity, so it's not a method which should be used without further consideration.

[pelmet]

I just want to know why Rockie, you are repeating this 97% thing over and over again. I have just proven how wrong you are. Can you at least admit this so we can move on to the next portion of the discussion.

We're talking about Rockie here!

To his credit he is tenacious.......

Actually, I was thinking about Rockie's arguments today. His repetitive statements showing complete obedience to whatever the science says(despite so many cases of the science being wrong like my 20 years of avoiding eggs and its dangerous cholesterol) and I realized something. He claimed in other threads to have had a career in the military. What is one important characteristic required for a soldier of war. Obedience. You do not question the orders to drop bombs even though innocents may be killed as collateral damage. You jump up over the trench to run into the hail of gunfire even though the last five waves of troops were completely mowed down after a few steps. You launch the nuclear tipped missiles that you know will destroy a city. Questioning authority is not a characteristic that will make you a good person of war.

I take it that Rockie had the characteristics to become successful at his earlier career. I don't. I question somebody whether it is the president or an internet poster that says "97% of scientists" support the man made global warming theory with no proof as backup.

[Rockie]

What is one important characteristic required for a soldier of war. Obedience. You do not question the orders to drop bombs even though innocents may be killed as collateral damage. You jump up over the trench to run into the hail of gunfire even though the last five waves of troops were completely mowed down after a few steps. You launch the nuclear tipped missiles that you know will destroy a city. Questioning authority is not a characteristic that will make you a good person of war.

So now you're an expert on the military too?

I question somebody whether it is the president or an internet poster that says "97% of scientists" support the man made global warming theory with no proof as backup.

The earth is 6000 years old, and evolution and relativity are just theories. I'm still waiting to hear a convincing argument why you're right and these 197 scientific organizations are wrong:

1.Academia Chilena de Ciencias, Chile
2.Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa, Portugal
3.Academia de Ciencias de la República Dominicana
4.Academia de Ciencias Físicas, Matemáticas y Naturales de Venezuela
5.Academia de Ciencias Medicas, Fisicas y Naturales de Guatemala
6.Academia Mexicana de Ciencias,Mexico
7.Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Bolivia
8.Academia Nacional de Ciencias del Peru
9.Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
10.Académie des Sciences, France
11.Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada
12.Academy of Athens
13.Academy of Science of Mozambique
14.Academy of Science of South Africa
15.Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS)
16.Academy of Sciences Malaysia
17.Academy of Sciences of Moldova
18.Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
19.Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran
20.Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, Egypt
21.Academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand
22.Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy
23.Africa Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science
24.African Academy of Sciences
25.Albanian Academy of Sciences
26.Amazon Environmental Research Institute
27.American Academy of Pediatrics
28.American Anthropological Association
29.American Association for the Advancement of Science
30.American Association of State Climatologists (AASC)
31.American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
32.American Astronomical Society
33.American Chemical Society
34.American College of Preventive Medicine
35.American Fisheries Society
36.American Geophysical Union
37.American Institute of Biological Sciences
38.American Institute of Physics
39.American Meteorological Society
40.American Physical Society
41.American Public Health Association
42.American Quaternary Association
43.American Society for Microbiology
44.American Society of Agronomy
45.American Society of Civil Engineers
46.American Society of Plant Biologists
47.American Statistical Association
48.Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
49.Australian Academy of Science
50.Australian Bureau of Meteorology
51.Australian Coral Reef Society
52.Australian Institute of Marine Science
53.Australian Institute of Physics
54.Australian Marine Sciences Association
55.Australian Medical Association
56.Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
57.Bangladesh Academy of Sciences
58.Botanical Society of America
59.Brazilian Academy of Sciences
60.British Antarctic Survey
61.Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
62.California Academy of Sciences
63.Cameroon Academy of Sciences
64.Canadian Association of Physicists
65.Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
66.Canadian Geophysical Union
67.Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
68.Canadian Society of Soil Science
69.Canadian Society of Zoologists
70.Caribbean Academy of Sciences views
71.Center for International Forestry Research
72.Chinese Academy of Sciences
73.Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences
74.Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) (Australia)
75.Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
76.Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences
77.Crop Science Society of America
78.Cuban Academy of Sciences
79.Delegation of the Finnish Academies of Science and Letters
80.Ecological Society of America
81.Ecological Society of Australia
82.Environmental Protection Agency
83.European Academy of Sciences and Arts
84.European Federation of Geologists
85.European Geosciences Union
86.European Physical Society
87.European Science Foundation
88.Federation of American Scientists
89.French Academy of Sciences
90.Geological Society of America
91.Geological Society of Australia
92.Geological Society of London
93.Georgian Academy of Sciences
94.German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina
95.Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
96.Indian National Science Academy
97.Indonesian Academy of Sciences
98.Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management
99.Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology
100.Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand
101.Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK
102.InterAcademy Council
103.International Alliance of Research Universities
104.International Arctic Science Committee
105.International Association for Great Lakes Research
106.International Council for Science
107.International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
108.International Research Institute for Climate and Society
109.International Union for Quaternary Research
110.International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
111.International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
112.Islamic World Academy of Sciences
113.Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
114.Kenya National Academy of Sciences
115.Korean Academy of Science and Technology
116.Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts
117.l'Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
118.Latin American Academy of Sciences
119.Latvian Academy of Sciences
120.Lithuanian Academy of Sciences
121.Madagascar National Academy of Arts, Letters, and Sciences
122.Mauritius Academy of Science and Technology
123.Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts
124.National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, Argentina
125.National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
126.National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic
127.National Academy of Sciences, Sri Lanka
128.National Academy of Sciences, United States of America
129.National Aeronautics and Space Administration
130.National Association of Geoscience Teachers
131.National Association of State Foresters
132.National Center for Atmospheric Research
133.National Council of Engineers Australia
134.National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand
135.National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
136.National Research Council
137.National Science Foundation
138.Natural England
139.Natural Environment Research Council, UK
140.Natural Science Collections Alliance
141.Network of African Science Academies
142.New York Academy of Sciences
143.Nicaraguan Academy of Sciences
144.Nigerian Academy of Sciences
145.Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters
146.Oklahoma Climatological Survey
147.Organization of Biological Field Stations
148.Pakistan Academy of Sciences
149.Palestine Academy for Science and Technology
150.Pew Center on Global Climate Change
151.Polish Academy of Sciences
152.Romanian Academy
153.Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium
154.Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain
155.Royal Astronomical Society, UK
156.Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
157.Royal Irish Academy
158.Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
159.Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
160.Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
161.Royal Scientific Society of Jordan
162.Royal Society of Canada
163.Royal Society of Chemistry, UK
164.Royal Society of the United Kingdom
165.Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
166.Russian Academy of Sciences
167.Science and Technology, Australia
168.Science Council of Japan
169.Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
170.Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics
171.Scripps Institution of Oceanography
172.Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
173.Slovak Academy of Sciences
174.Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
175.Society for Ecological Restoration International
176.Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
177.Society of American Foresters
178.Society of Biology (UK)
179.Society of Systematic Biologists
180.Soil Science Society of America
181.Sudan Academy of Sciences
182.Sudanese National Academy of Science
183.Tanzania Academy of Sciences
184.The Wildlife Society (international)
185.Turkish Academy of Sciences
186.Uganda National Academy of Sciences
187.Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities
188.United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
189.University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
190.Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
191.World Association of Zoos and Aquariums
192.World Federation of Public Health Associations
193.World Forestry Congress
194.World Health Organization
195.World Meteorological Organization
196.Zambia Academy of Sciences
197.Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences