Why conservatives think the global warming "conspiracy", ID, et al, make sense

[MadRat]

If you've ever been around the learned of the "academies" of this or that then you are very familiar with the abbreviation of B.S. and for what it means. The leadership of every academy is self serving and political, far removed from the very foundation of which it is named. That people put so much faith into something they themselves do not want to spend their lives researching is just plain nonsensical and foolish. Quite frankly there is more junk science out there than practical science simply because the money goes to the best grant writer, not to the best research goal.

 

[NeoV]

While there may be naysayers, the VAST majority of the scientific global community believes that global warming is real

Yes, there have been spikes in CO2 in the past - as one of you posted, after the last ice age...you know...when the ice melted/retreated from most of the northern hemisphere, and GREEN PLANTS once again could grow - plants put more CO2 in the atmosphere....so there is your CO2 spike - only this time, we don't have nearly half the planet growing new green plants....we have countries like China and India experiencing explosive growth in automobile use - the same 2 countries that are the most populated nations on the planet...

I like the comparison made earier about smoking and the health impact it has - while it took a while for a consensus to be reached, because of political pressures from tobacco-backed special interest groups/politicians, it is now accepted as scientific fact.

Until there is something to push back against the big oil companies and the automotive industry, I expect this ridiculous debate to continue.

We should be ashamed that the basic car engine has, for the most part, been unchanged for 75 years - there is only one reason that more fuel efficient cars aren't available today - there is little/no financial incentive for the automotive industry to do so, and the political pressure exerted by the oil companies helps keep it that way.

 

[Duckzilla]

I spent an average of $450 a month for about 4 months over winter keeping my house warm. I want global warming, I will pay for global warming, I fact, I'm going out right now to build a fire just to add Co2 to the air so that I know that I did my share to bring on global warming. Does it get to 20 below zero where you live? Who doesn't want global warming?

 

[Stunt]

Global warming is a misleading term.
Climate change is more accurate. CC could cause massive weather fluctuations very undesirable conditions.

 

[umbrella39]

Originally posted by: Duckzilla
I spent an average of $450 a month for about 4 months over winter keeping my house warm. I want global warming, I will pay for global warming, I fact, I'm going out right now to build a fire just to add Co2 to the air so that I know that I did my share to bring on global warming. Does it get to 20 below zero where you live? Who doesn't want global warming?

Wow. I hope this was a parody post. Global warming brings on ice ages. Google it, I'm too tired to explain it. It all has to do with glaciers melting enough to affect the gulf stream consequently slowing the thermohaline circulation .

It would not take 100's of years once we reach the critical temperature. It could happen in as little time as 3 years. There would be a mass exodus to the tropics which from what most climatologists say are ice age proof. However, recently some scientists have stated that the most recent ice age covered the entire globe, all the way to the equator. Not a good scene if it happens again. Well, it will happen again, just when and how bad will it be is the question.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: charrison

So you are ok with global climate policy being set by bad data....

If you'd bothered to read the responses, you'd have seen that the data called into question took up all of 10 pages out of 760.

The hockeystick is almost trivial to the whole debate about climate change. In fact, if you read the IPCC Working Group I document, you see that it and the other climate reconstruction takeup about 10 pages of the 760 odd in the report.

But I expect that you believe that "overwhelming consensus" means "lockstep unanimity". Sorry, science is NEVER that neat. There will always be scientists to challenge the status quo. That's how scientists earn their stripes. And this is what's so ironic about the "anti-climate-change" crowd: They claim there's some sort of "conspiracy" by climate-control nazis within the scientific community. Yet when the normal peer-review give and take shows that challenges within the scientific community are commonplace (that's what the scientific method is all about), the anti-climate-change ideologs LEAP at the tiniest dissension as though it "proves" the entire climate-change framework is fundamentally flawed.

Sorry, we're talking nits here.

 

[shira]

But this whole thread is being sidetracked by the climate change EXAMPLE.

The main point I made in the OP was that there are deliberate efforts afoot to discredit SERIOUS science. Isn't it interesting how willing many contributers to this thread are to disregard/disbelieve what the weight of scientific evidence is telling us.

I have a simple question: What possible reason could the scientific community have for promulgating a highly dubious theory? Do you think scientists are basically religious fanatics, imagining a false reality and then conspiring among themselves to force that fantasy down our throats?

When 300,000 qualified scientists vote "A" and 10,000 qualified scientists vote "Not A", there'd better be a DAMNED solid reason for believing "Not A". My question to conservatives is: What's your damned good reason, and aren't you the least bit interested in the "process" going on in this country that is sewing the confusion to which you've obviously fallen victim?

 

[assemblage]

It's global warming being tied to adding carbon to the atmosphere as the result of burning fossil fuels that's questioned. It's a theory that the reason why there is slight warming of the atmosphere. Another theory is that it's a normal cyclical phenomenom. Maybe the rapid deforestation of rainforests is another reason.

You might find some more ideas to post about here.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: assemblage
It's global warming being tied to adding carbon to the atmosphere as the result of burning fossil fuels that's questioned. It's a theory that the reason why there is slight warming of the atmosphere. Another theory is that it's a normal cyclical phenomenom. Maybe the rapid deforestation of rainforests is another reason.

You've completely missed the point: No reasonable person doubts that ALL of these things are contributors to climate change. But you make the ideological leap that if, say, cyclical effects are a contributor to climate change then burning fossil fuels CANNOT be a contributor. Almost no climatoligists I've read about think that fossil fuels play NO role in climate change, yet that's apparently the conclusion to which YOU have come. So I repeat the question I asked in the previous post: Why are you choosing to ignore the mainstream view in favor of the minority view? What's your "damn good reason"?

 

[assemblage]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: assemblage
It's global warming being tied to adding carbon to the atmosphere as the result of burning fossil fuels that's questioned. It's a theory that the reason why there is slight warming of the atmosphere. Another theory is that it's a normal cyclical phenomenom. Maybe the rapid deforestation of rainforests is another reason.

You've completely missed the point: No reasonable person doubts that ALL of these things are contributors to climate change. But you make the ideological leap that if, say, cyclical effects are a contributor to climate change then burning fossil fuels CANNOT be a contributor. Almost no climatoligists I've read about think that fossil fuels play NO role in climate change, yet that's apparently the conclusion to which YOU have come. So I repeat the question I asked in the previous post: Why are you choosing to ignore the mainstream view in favor of the minority view? What's your "damn good reason"?

I made no ideological leap or made any conclusion. The argument is whether human based carbon dioxide emissions have any signifacant effect on global warming. Its theory, as is the cause of global warming is due to variations in solar output or orbital variations. Anyways, for your information some scientists who do not think that human based carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of global warming are Richard Lindzen, Robert Balling, Kary Mullis, Fred Singer and Sherwood Idso.

It is interesting how ice temperatures were warming before the increase in human greenhouse gas emmisions and how most of the warming happened before the emissions. It is interesting how between 1940 and 1970 a period when carbon dioxide emissions increased, temperatures decreased.

 

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Orsorum
Global warming is NOT a scientific fact, and doubt still exists within many portions of the scientific community. Or at least one professor at the UW said so when I heard him speak a few years ago on the topic of global warming.

Wow. One, whole professor said so? "A few years ago"? And maybe the professor actually had credentials in the field on which he was making pronouncements?

Perhaps if you did a little reading on the subject, you'd realize there is in fact an "overwhelming scientific consensus" that global warming is occurring. For example, check out the links at the following site:

That's why I qualified my statement so that those of you who are no doubt more involved in the field could ignore it. I've neither the time nor the educational background to get into it much beyond cursory readings in my spare time. Spare me your condescension.

IIRC it was Theodore Anderson that spoke at the class I was taking, Link.

I'm not a supporter of intelligent design nor am I a conservative hack, as most of you would like to paint me as whenever I disagree with your ideological bent. My views are based on my readings and my interactions with a particular topic, nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Orsorum]

Bump.

 

[CanOWorms]

Originally posted by: Orsorum

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Orsorum
Global warming is NOT a scientific fact, and doubt still exists within many portions of the scientific community. Or at least one professor at the UW said so when I heard him speak a few years ago on the topic of global warming.

Wow. One, whole professor said so? "A few years ago"? And maybe the professor actually had credentials in the field on which he was making pronouncements?

Perhaps if you did a little reading on the subject, you'd realize there is in fact an "overwhelming scientific consensus" that global warming is occurring. For example, check out the links at the following site:

That's why I qualified my statement so that those of you who are no doubt more involved in the field could ignore it. I've neither the time nor the educational background to get into it much beyond cursory readings in my spare time. Spare me your condescension.

IIRC it was Theodore Anderson that spoke at the class I was taking, Link.

I'm not a supporter of intelligent design nor am I a conservative hack, as most of you would like to paint me as whenever I disagree with your ideological bent. My views are based on my readings and my interactions with a particular topic, nothing more and nothing less.

There are other professors that are critics of global warming, too. There's a group of professors in my hometown who have excellent credentials in the field. I think that they believe that humans cause some global warming, but disagree with the catastrophic predictions people like to make.

 

[ntdz]

Obviously, global warming is occuring. However, my opinion is that there isn't any proof that CO2 emissions are causing it. As some liberals state, corrolation doesn't equal causation. If you look at warming and cooling trends historically, a warming trend happens right before an ice age. Ice ages happen roughly every 10,000 years. Guess when the last time there was an ice age? 10,000 years ago. I'm not saying we're gonna hit an ice age in 100 years, I'm just saying there might be other factors involved in climate that we just do not know about.

 

[Orsorum]

ntdz: That's moreso what I meant, not necessarily that global warming wasn't occurring. I think the research I've come across doubts whether aerosol emissions are responsible for climate forcing.

 

[Vic]

Without addressing global warming or climate change in any way whatsoever, I just want to know when consensus became a form of scientific proof.

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: NeoV
Yes, there have been spikes in CO2 in the past - as one of you posted, after the last ice age...you know...when the ice melted/retreated from most of the northern hemisphere, and GREEN PLANTS once again could grow - plants put more CO2 in the atmosphere....so there is your CO2 spike -

You hereby fail all biology and must return to elementry school. Animals exhale C02, plants emit oxygen as the waste product of photosynthesis.

Originally posted by: Vic
Without addressing global warming or climate change in any way whatsoever, I just want to know when consensus became a form of scientific proof.

Consensus is how theories advance, it doesn't guarantee acuracy but it is an indicator of how convincing the evidence is.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Vic
Without addressing global warming or climate change in any way whatsoever, I just want to know when consensus became a form of scientific proof.

Exactly, and when did we wait for consensus before we change a bald tire. Consensus is not what it's cracked up to be.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Vic
Without addressing global warming or climate change in any way whatsoever, I just want to know when consensus became a form of scientific proof.

Exactly, and when did we wait for consensus before we change a bald tire. Consensus is not what it's cracked up to be.

Why is it that when there's a powerful scientific consensus on such things as general relativity, HIV as the cause of AIDS, or plate techtonics, almost no one has a problem accepting these theories as "truth". But when the same scientific methods and scientific community are brought to bear and produce the same degree of consensus about, say, the causes of homosexuality, the evolution of life forms on Earth, or the causal relationship between human activity and climate change, there's powerful resistance among right-wingers?

The fact is, there isn't a single theory, not ONE, toward which there isn't a least some opposition among reputable scientists. That is, it is a fact that you can ALWAYS find serious, knowledgeable scientists to oppose ANY theory. So the existence of reputable scientists opposing a theory is a given and means nothing in terms of the validity of the theory.

This being the case, what I continually ask, and NEVER get a good answer to, is: Given a powerful scientific consensus in support of a theory, WHY do you choose to go with the small minority of opposing scientists you already know will exist, regardless of the actual theory? And why is your own opposition so tendentious? - You ALWAYS oppose theories that contradict your religious or economic "faith". Yet why do you have no problem accepting theories that don't challenge your faith?

Self-awareness of motives is the key to understanding the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, self-awareness is sorely lacking among true believers.

 

[alent1234]

Originally posted by: Czar
http://www.manicore.com/documentation/serre/commence.html

lots of graphs there on average temperture in the last thousand years or more

do you know that a little more than 100 years ago a volcano erupted in the Pacific and that it caused global temperatures to cool by at least one degree celcius?

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Vic
Without addressing global warming or climate change in any way whatsoever, I just want to know when consensus became a form of scientific proof.

Exactly, and when did we wait for consensus before we change a bald tire. Consensus is not what it's cracked up to be.

Why is it that when there's a powerful scientific consensus on such things as general relativity, HIV as the cause of AIDS, or plate techtonics, almost no one has a problem accepting these theories as "truth". But when the same scientific methods and scientific community are brought to bear and produce the same degree of consensus about, say, the causes of homosexuality, the evolution of life forms on Earth, or the causal relationship between human activity and climate change, there's powerful resistance among right-wingers?

The fact is, there isn't a single theory, not ONE, toward which there isn't a least some opposition among reputable scientists. That is, it is a fact that you can ALWAYS find serious, knowledgeable scientists to oppose ANY theory. So the existence of reputable scientists opposing a theory is a given and means nothing in terms of the validity of the theory.

This being the case, what I continually ask, and NEVER get a good answer to, is: Given a powerful scientific consensus in support of a theory, WHY do you choose to go with the small minority of opposing scientists you already know will exist, regardless of the actual theory? And why is your own opposition so tendentious? - You ALWAYS oppose theories that contradict your religious or economic "faith". Yet why do you have no problem accepting theories that don't challenge your faith?

Self-awareness of motives is the key to understanding the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, self-awareness is sorely lacking among true believers.

Especially a true believer like yourself.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Vic
Without addressing global warming or climate change in any way whatsoever, I just want to know when consensus became a form of scientific proof.

Exactly, and when did we wait for consensus before we change a bald tire. Consensus is not what it's cracked up to be.

Why is it that when there's a powerful scientific consensus on such things as general relativity, HIV as the cause of AIDS, or plate techtonics, almost no one has a problem accepting these theories as "truth". But when the same scientific methods and scientific community are brought to bear and produce the same degree of consensus about, say, the causes of homosexuality, the evolution of life forms on Earth, or the causal relationship between human activity and climate change, there's powerful resistance among right-wingers?

The fact is, there isn't a single theory, not ONE, toward which there isn't a least some opposition among reputable scientists. That is, it is a fact that you can ALWAYS find serious, knowledgeable scientists to oppose ANY theory. So the existence of reputable scientists opposing a theory is a given and means nothing in terms of the validity of the theory.

This being the case, what I continually ask, and NEVER get a good answer to, is: Given a powerful scientific consensus in support of a theory, WHY do you choose to go with the small minority of opposing scientists you already know will exist, regardless of the actual theory? And why is your own opposition so tendentious? - You ALWAYS oppose theories that contradict your religious or economic "faith". Yet why do you have no problem accepting theories that don't challenge your faith?

Self-awareness of motives is the key to understanding the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, self-awareness is sorely lacking among true believers.

Well I am not sure whether you are asking me about this or accusing me of doing it, but I have given my answer many times. And you should know that when it comes to asking a question, one can ask a question one is incapable or unwilling to understand. Not implying that is the case here for you, but be prepared:


Firstly, I am with you here and agree with your post. I agree there will always be a small minority that will oppose anything. That is why I dismissed Vic's thingi on consensus as not all it's cracked up to be. We need to act in the direction of our best faith efforts to understand when we face a crisis which global warming, for example, can become, before, say, our cities and farm lands are under water from ice cap melt. That is the intelligent thing to do in my opinion. That takes us into the area of forethought and prediction and who is really best at this. We have known for eons that long ranged thinkers are ignored and that societies often fail to respond to the warnings or their best and brightest. We know, for example, that we will run out of oil. Compare that to the phony Bush energy plan. We know that a lot of this is about whose ox gets gored and when. Many people are quite content to get theirs now and the hell with future generations. Small selfish people abound. We know that good people can differ or become emotional about matters of risk assessment. I will drive because I have control over fly where I have no control even though flying is safer. We are risk assessment insane in these ways and should develop strategies to save ourselves from ourselves in many ways.

But there is another issue here, my usual one, that is unknown to the scientific and every other community as well, in my opinion, that is a powerful key and answer to this problem. We hate ourselves and do not know it. Our self is nothing but a fiction whose function is to protect ourselves from consciously remembering experiences that caused this self hate, one of the most important of which is identification. I may have been made to feel like a piece of sh!t, but look at me now. I am an oil man of much means. I am famous for disagreeing with this or this. I am an American, the greatest people on earth, and on and on and on. I am my opinion and so my opinion must not be wrong or I will loose the shield of false success behind which I hide how bad I really feel.

This is hard to swallow if you do not know yourself, but it explains why nobody does. They do not want to remember the pain. As I said, man will go extinct before he will be forced into remembering. It can only be done by those who are deeply curious about the truth or those so desperate they must. Self knowledge can't be bought except at the cost of everything we believe is true. The resurrection comes out of crucifixion.

This explains two kinds of true believers. There is a state that man can reach when he is real, no longer identified with the false self. It is a rare thing to achieve. My opinion is that God is nothing more than the projection of that state as a universal. A man who is real knows he is. He is a true believer and his truth is in his experience. A man who has had sex knows how great it is whereas a child may have heard it is and believes. The religious 'true believer' believes in a distortion of something real and the atheist does not believe there is an anything that corresponds to any such higher state. Both are true believers. The real knower knows because he tastes and lives in a state of being unknown to others.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy
The HS Graph claims that data from tree ringS (plural is important here) shows us what the climate was like a couple hundred years ago. Some of the hisstorical data from tree ringS actually come from a SINGLE tree. Is that really a good scientific sample? Taking one tree from one specific part of the world and then using that information to extrapolate a global future is hardly good science.

Actually, we've got multiple, different sources of data on global warming, not just tree rings., supporting the "hockey stick." We've got ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, observable glacial retreat in many areas of the world, including Glacier National Park in the US, warming in the arctic tundra, and other sources of past climate data.

Then again, we don't really know anythig about the science that led this this graph because the guy who wrote part of it refuses to hand over his research data. *shock*no peer review*shock* Imagine that.

Actually, Mann's "hockey stick" paper was published in the best known peer reviewed journal in the world, Nature, in 1998. It's also worth pointing out that you're completely wrong about the unavailability of his data, as his data and program are available in the public domain to other scientists, who have replicated his findings.

Even if Mann was wrong, it doesn't matter, because there are multiple teams of scientists using different analysis methods that have all came to the same conclusions about world climate. All of their results show relatively warm medieval times, a cooling by a few tenths of a degree (Celsius) after that, and rapid warming since the 19th Century.

Is the world getting warmer. Yeah, a little. Have we been warmer. Yup. Have we been colder? Yup.

Don't forget: Has the Earth's climate been harsh enough to exterminate humanity in the past? Yes.

I don't care if the Earth had a worse climate in past eras. I want a climate in which we can live and maintain a modern civilization.

If you take your temperature samples by satellite are we getting warmer? Barely.

True, warming is small so far, as is predicated by modern climate models. The problem isn't today, but the 1.5-4.5C degree average temperature increase over the next century.

Oh but wait a minute!

Thinking of non-peer reviewed sources, you don't want to quote junk science, as it is what it's name implies. I don't recall any scientists claiming that current CO2 levels are the highest in the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth. That's a strawman and that site is pure junk about science, baseless assertions funded by industrial sources with no science to support them.