Republican-Controlled Committee Legislates That Climate Change Does Not Exist

[kirant]

Originally Posted by photon

This is a logical fallacy. Just because a scientist or group of scientists have been wrong in the past does not mean they are wrong now. Just because a group of scientists have been RIGHT in the past does not mean they are right now.

I wonder if this fallacy occurs all too often because many people too put too much emphasis on the fact that they're scientists (I think the common name is Appeal to Authority). Just because someone says it and work in the field, it's taken for gospel. Then, when conflicting reports and proofs of the contrary come in, people start to doubt any authority that the organization has, despite that process being perfectly natural.

[HOZ]

A nice article in the Ecologist

Beyond climategate: can we keep the politics and science of climate forecasting separate?

In November 2009, emails were leaked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that led to its being accused of manipulating data. While nothing in the emails cast doubt on the fact of manmade climate change, the researchers involved were perceived to have been secretive about the information they had gathered, and thus to have something to hide.

Last year the IPCC was forced to admit that a 2007 claim that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035 was sourced not from peer-reviewed scientific literature but a 1999 media interview with a scientist.

Mistakes, cover-ups and inaccuracies have served to undermine many people’s faith in climate science at a time when its work is more important than ever.

A step in this direction was made In July this year. After a two-year battle following ‘Climategate’, an Oxford academic won the right to get access to the UEA data, including 160 years’ worth of thermometer readings from 4,000 weather stations. As a result of the ruling, climate researchers from now on will be required to make their research publicly available.

[Tinordi]

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Graph is wrong, it needs to say "anthropogenic" in it.

[kirant]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

That's a little short-sighted for data use as well. Extensions of millions, if not a billion, years also helps, despite the lack of reliable evidence in some of these values.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

You're right plateauing at the warmest year ever recorded level is indication that we aren't warming.

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Your just saying that an arbitrary 10 year slice doesn't prove warming. To show you how stupid this is all I could say is move that slice back 1 year, and wow, there you go, the warming is back. Most importantly is a longitudinal sample to splice out the temporal noise which you cling to. And that sample shows warming. Everyone agrees on that now, even the skeptical scientist quoted earlier.

And you're sarcastically inferring that a single year does. If you cut down on the faux outrage and insulting remarks, your arguments would hold more (some) merit.

The point of my post, for the quick-to-jump-to-conclusions (like the contributor to the dataset referred to in the original link), is that you can make the data say what you want it to say. The best approach is to analyze, understand and then speak. The AGW proponents tend to start with the last step (and then feel compelled to defend their theory to the death.) Judith Curry tends to buck the trend.

Why is this so damn difficult? Oh I remember, because we're dealing with freaking idiots.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Honestly, more strawmen. We must have have never said that we understand that the Earth is warming.

Lets have a holiday from knocking down strawmen. Lets give them a day! Shall we?

[Tinordi]

International Energy Agency says delaying climate action is leading to a "false economy": http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...-iea-says.html

Meanwhile the Obama administration has delayed the Keystone pipeline citing lack of adequate environmental assessments and climate change as key issues that were not adequately considered.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/stor...ine-route.html

I guess Obama got the memo from the IEA?

[troutman]

Study accuses corporations of hypocrisy on climate change


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...,2592843.story

Some major U.S. corporations that support climate science in their public relations materials actively work to derail regulations and laws addressing global warming through lobbying, campaign donations and support of various advocacy groups, according to a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental and scientific integrity group.

I've seen this myself. A friend of mine has a significant "green" role with a large oil company in the US. Behind the scenes she meets great resistance, despite public successes and awards.