(05-29-2013 04:08 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 03:58 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  You can't be reasoned with. Neither can Owl. He claims that climate scientists continue to focus on whether AGW is happening or not, which is another uninformed claim.

Broke 1,4 and 7

Quote:Again, you're claim that tens of thousands of reputable scientists and hundreds of thousands of earth science majors are full of **** is offensive.

Broke number 2, again.

I think we can safely conclude you are absolutely incapable of engaging in rational debate.

Nice counterargument, bro. Avoid the substance of the post as usual:

"He claims that climate scientists continue to focus on whether AGW is happening or not, which is another uninformed claim. Most aren't. In fact, 66% aren't, and the number is growing. This was used as an argument against an AGW consensus (by a convenient twist of logic), but it's actually evidence that most climate scientists have moved on from 'proving' AGW."

Unless you address the actual meat of my post, you're making a fallacious counterargument yourself. Not only that, your understanding of a strawman argument is rather suspect. Your claim about scientists is quite literally offensive to me. You're straw man claim doesn't apply, given that I'm not using it as a formal argument of any kind.

Trends of warming that follow trends of cooling seem to indicate that there will be trends like that going on forever. At least the next hundreds or thousands of years. When individuals take such limited data, normally based upon a relatively small number of years, they can pretty much determine anything. Not necessarily the correct thing. Unfortunately it then comes down to your individual beliefs or disbeliefs of that data.

(05-29-2013 04:17 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  Trends of warming that follow trends of cooling seem to indicate that there will be trends like that going on forever. At least the next hundreds or thousands of years. When individuals take such limited data, normally based upon a relatively small number of years, they can pretty much determine anything. Not necessarily the correct thing. Unfortunately it then comes down to your individual beliefs or disbeliefs of that data.

You would be told that this isn't what's going on. It's not like a scientists took a single set of data over the course of 15 years, performed some statistical voodoo, and declared that AGW was occurring with 100% certainty. A lot more is going on than people give credit for.

(05-29-2013 04:20 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 04:17 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  Trends of warming that follow trends of cooling seem to indicate that there will be trends like that going on forever. At least the next hundreds or thousands of years. When individuals take such limited data, normally based upon a relatively small number of years, they can pretty much determine anything. Not necessarily the correct thing. Unfortunately it then comes down to your individual beliefs or disbeliefs of that data.

You would be told that this isn't what's going on. It's not like a scientists took a single set of data over the course of 15 years, performed some statistical voodoo, and declared that AGW was occurring with 100% certainty. A lot more is going on than people give credit for.

True, in some cases. However even the larger periods of time utilized is small compared to the age of the planet. Empirical data is hard to know.

(05-29-2013 04:26 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 04:20 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 04:17 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  Trends of warming that follow trends of cooling seem to indicate that there will be trends like that going on forever. At least the next hundreds or thousands of years. When individuals take such limited data, normally based upon a relatively small number of years, they can pretty much determine anything. Not necessarily the correct thing. Unfortunately it then comes down to your individual beliefs or disbeliefs of that data.

You would be told that this isn't what's going on. It's not like a scientists took a single set of data over the course of 15 years, performed some statistical voodoo, and declared that AGW was occurring with 100% certainty. A lot more is going on than people give credit for.

True, in some cases. However even the larger periods of time utilized is small compared to the age of the planet. Empirical data is hard to know.

A sample is not required to be close to the size of the overall population. That's the point of a sample. What you need is a large enough sample to be confident that your results are an accurate representation of a population.

(05-29-2013 03:58 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 03:31 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 03:25 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Because you're talking about a global conspiracy is occurring that involves tens of thousands of people who've worked independently (and in different countries) for over three decades. It's laughable, it's irrational, and it's offensive to those who conduct actual research in this country.

Your belief that 10's of thousands of people believe global warming to be a danger to the earth that must be addressed is what's laughable.

Because you're an alarmist you see that scientists agreeing the earth is warming translates to it being something that must be dealt with now. Yes, many scientists believe the earth to be warming. Most data supports that. If it's an issue, if something must be done, how much of a factor is man to it is not something that is uniform across that same group. You and Al Gore would have us believe it is.

You continue to do here what you've done in multiple threads. Attacked people who are saying a catastrophe isn't looming or something like it by distorting their arguments to be denying the earth is warming at all or denying that man is contributing to it. You lump everyone who isn't an alarmist into one category of "denier." It's intellectually lazy and false on its face.

And you continue to ignore Owl's very salient point that if it really is such a catastrophe as you and others would have us believe why do they keep spending money to confirm it instead of looking for what it takes to fix it? If it's proven, why keep doing studies to prove it?

This is where deductive reasoning comes in.

You can't be reasoned with. Neither can Owl. He claims that climate scientists continue to focus on whether AGW is happening or not, which is another uninformed claim. Most aren't. In fact, 66% aren't, and the number is growing. This was used as an argument against an AGW consensus (by a convenient twist of logic), but it's actually evidence that most climate scientists have moved on from 'proving' AGW.

Again, you're claim that tens of thousands of reputable scientists and hundreds of thousands of earth science majors are full of **** is offensive.

Again you totally misstate my point to create the strawman that you want to argue with.

Let me clarify. My criticism is not with where there efforts are placed. It is that whatever their efforts toward finding solutions, it obviously isn't enough because they haven't found workable solutions. We still have no useful alternative to oil.

Lacking useful solutions, the mantra appears to be, "We don't have anything but crap to offer as alternatives, but if we can stir up enough hype and fear, we can force people to adopt our crap solutions so that they can at least feel like they are doing something." It's in that sense that my comments are directed.

Instead of spending ever more effort to sell the hype, take the approach that we need to reduce total worldwide CO2 emissions from a pollution standpoint regardless of AGW and that we need to reduce our dependence on oil not only from an environmental standpoint but also for economic and national security reasons. Those are all legitimate non-hype reasons. So in that context, reasonable thought and action are possible, so deal with the problem rationally instead of emotionally?

Do you now comprehend where I am coming from? Do you think that you could possibly address the points I am making instead of the words you want so desperately to put into my mouth?

(05-29-2013 04:31 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 03:58 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 03:31 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 03:25 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Because you're talking about a global conspiracy is occurring that involves tens of thousands of people who've worked independently (and in different countries) for over three decades. It's laughable, it's irrational, and it's offensive to those who conduct actual research in this country.

Your belief that 10's of thousands of people believe global warming to be a danger to the earth that must be addressed is what's laughable.

Because you're an alarmist you see that scientists agreeing the earth is warming translates to it being something that must be dealt with now. Yes, many scientists believe the earth to be warming. Most data supports that. If it's an issue, if something must be done, how much of a factor is man to it is not something that is uniform across that same group. You and Al Gore would have us believe it is.

You continue to do here what you've done in multiple threads. Attacked people who are saying a catastrophe isn't looming or something like it by distorting their arguments to be denying the earth is warming at all or denying that man is contributing to it. You lump everyone who isn't an alarmist into one category of "denier." It's intellectually lazy and false on its face.

And you continue to ignore Owl's very salient point that if it really is such a catastrophe as you and others would have us believe why do they keep spending money to confirm it instead of looking for what it takes to fix it? If it's proven, why keep doing studies to prove it?

This is where deductive reasoning comes in.

You can't be reasoned with. Neither can Owl. He claims that climate scientists continue to focus on whether AGW is happening or not, which is another uninformed claim. Most aren't. In fact, 66% aren't, and the number is growing. This was used as an argument against an AGW consensus (by a convenient twist of logic), but it's actually evidence that most climate scientists have moved on from 'proving' AGW.

Again, you're claim that tens of thousands of reputable scientists and hundreds of thousands of earth science majors are full of **** is offensive.

Again you totally misstate my point to create the straw an that you want to argue with.

Let me clarify. My criticism is not with where there efforts are placed. It is that whatever their efforts toward finding solutions, it obviously isn't enough because they haven't found workable solutions. We still have no useful alternative to oil.

Lacking useful solutions, the mantra appears to be, "We don't have anything but crap to offer as alternatives, but if we can stir up enough hype and fear, we can force people to adopt our crap solutions so that they can at least feel like they are doing something." It's in that sense that my comments are directed.

Instead of spending ever more effort to sell the hype, take the approach that we need to reduce total worldwide CO2 emissions from a pollution standpoint regardless of AGW and that we need to reduce our dependence on oil not only from an environmental standpoint but also for economic and national security reasons. Those are all legitimate non-hype reasons. So in that context, reasonable thought and action are possible, so deal with the problem rationally instead of emotionally?

Do you now comprehend where I am coming from? Do you think that you could possibly address the points I am making instead of the words you want so desperately to put into my mouth?

Thank you for the clarification. I'm not sure how applicable this is to climate scientists specifically. They aren't the engineers that are tasked with creating these solutions. I assumed that your issue with climate scientists is specifically that they can't come up with useful solutions. If this is the case, you need to direct your criticism toward the lawmakers and engineers who are failing at producing viable solutions. I can't really comment because I don't know jack sh.it about global warming solutions.

(05-29-2013 04:30 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 04:26 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 04:20 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 04:17 PM)GoApps70 Wrote:  Trends of warming that follow trends of cooling seem to indicate that there will be trends like that going on forever. At least the next hundreds or thousands of years. When individuals take such limited data, normally based upon a relatively small number of years, they can pretty much determine anything. Not necessarily the correct thing. Unfortunately it then comes down to your individual beliefs or disbeliefs of that data.

You would be told that this isn't what's going on. It's not like a scientists took a single set of data over the course of 15 years, performed some statistical voodoo, and declared that AGW was occurring with 100% certainty. A lot more is going on than people give credit for.

True, in some cases. However even the larger periods of time utilized is small compared to the age of the planet. Empirical data is hard to know.

A sample is not required to be close to the size of the overall population. That's the point of a sample. What you need is a large enough sample to be confident that your results are an accurate representation of a population.

They are not doing a Harris Poll where a predicted result can be determined by polling. People can be predicted that way, the future of the planet is a different thing. Too many things that they may or may not be reading correctly. It's a science that has not been fully developed yet.
They cannot predict what the weather will be like a year from now, much less 100 or 200 years.

(05-29-2013 04:14 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Nice counterargument, bro.

I thought pointing out your violation of the commandments of rational debate was very nice. If what you posted isn't rational, what better counter argument is there than pointing it out?

Quote:Avoid the substance of the post as usual:

Irony.

Quote:"He claims that climate scientists continue to focus on whether AGW is happening or not, which is another uninformed claim. Most aren't. In fact, 66% aren't, and the number is growing. This was used as an argument against an AGW consensus (by a convenient twist of logic), but it's actually evidence that most climate scientists have moved on from 'proving' AGW."

First, I don't need to speak for Owl, he's quite capable of doing that on his own. Second

Quote:Unless you address the actual meat of my post, you're making a fallacious counterargument yourself.

The meat of your post was irrational. You engaged in 4 different violations of the commandments you chose to post here. I've addressed you point by point many times, as have others, and your tactic is always the same. To distort what we say and argue against it. And when that is pointed out to you, you ignore it. I honestly believe that you simply don't know how debate or reasoned discussion is supposed to occur. You distort our claims, when we point that out you whine about not addressing the "meat" of your distortion. The lunacy of that boggles the mind.

Quote:Not only that, your understanding of a strawman argument is rather suspect.

To someone like you who doesn't understand what it is, I can see how you come to that conclusion.

Quote:Your claim about scientists is quite literally offensive to me.

You mind being more specific? Please cut and paste the specific comment I made.

As to it being offensive to you, the number of sh!ts given? Zero.

Quote:You're straw man claim doesn't apply, given that I'm not using it as a formal argument of any kind.

Yes, you are. Among the multitude of straw men you have offered on this forum you said

Quote:Again, you're claim that tens of thousands of reputable scientists and hundreds of thousands of earth science majors are full of **** is offensive.

I never said that. I never even alluded to that. It's a gross exaggeration of what I said and completely distorts my point.

Frankly trying to have a reasoned discussion with you appears to be a futile effort as you clearly lack the ability to follow any train of thought of those you are having a discussion with. Every reply you make is centered around what you want to believe they said instead of what they actually said. I'm not the only one that has pointed that out to you. Reasoned discussion doesn't happen that way. Until you learn that, people are wasting their time trying to engage you.

(05-29-2013 04:38 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 04:14 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Nice counterargument, bro.

I thought pointing out your violation of the commandments of rational debate was very nice. If what you posted isn't rational, what better counter argument is there than pointing it out?

Quote:Avoid the substance of the post as usual:

Irony.

Quote:"He claims that climate scientists continue to focus on whether AGW is happening or not, which is another uninformed claim. Most aren't. In fact, 66% aren't, and the number is growing. This was used as an argument against an AGW consensus (by a convenient twist of logic), but it's actually evidence that most climate scientists have moved on from 'proving' AGW."

First, I don't need to speak for Owl, he's quite capable of doing that on his own. Second

Quote:Unless you address the actual meat of my post, you're making a fallacious counterargument yourself.

The meat of your post was irrational. You engaged in 4 different violations of the commandments you chose to post here. I've addressed you point by point many times, as have others, and your tactic is always the same. To distort what we say and argue against it. And when that is pointed out to you, you ignore it. I honestly believe that you simply don't know how debate or reasoned discussion is supposed to occur. You distort our claims, when we point that out you whine about not addressing the "meat" of your distortion. The lunacy of that boggles the mind.

Quote:Not only that, your understanding of a strawman argument is rather suspect.

To someone like you who doesn't understand what it is, I can see how you come to that conclusion.

Quote:Your claim about scientists is quite literally offensive to me.

You mind being more specific? Please cut and paste the specific comment I made.

As to it being offensive to you, the number of sh!ts given? Zero.

Quote:You're straw man claim doesn't apply, given that I'm not using it as a formal argument of any kind.

Yes, you are. Among the multitude of straw men you have offered on this forum you said

Quote:Again, you're claim that tens of thousands of reputable scientists and hundreds of thousands of earth science majors are full of **** is offensive.

I never said that. I never even alluded to that. It's a gross exaggeration of what I said and completely distorts my point.

Frankly trying to have a reasoned discussion with you appears to be a futile effort as you clearly lack the ability to follow any train of thought of those you are having a discussion with. Every reply you make is centered around what you want to believe they said instead of what they actually said. Reasoned discussion doesn't happen that way. Until you learn that, people are wasting their time trying to engage you.

So you won't comment about scientists shifting their focus to topic other than the existence of AGW? You're trying to invalidate my entire post based on statements I've made that you see as fallacious, but not my claim (scientists not focusing on AGW). You're the one who brought it up again, so why won't you address it?

You've alluded that scientists are in it for the grant money (which makes their results suspect).

Owl,

I know alot of people want to tax carbon based fuels so the alternatives can compete. I think if we just put on a tax to subsidize the American Tax Payers cost of patrolling the Middle East would be sufficient. The true cost of a barrel of oil isn't in the price of it. It's heavily subsidized.

(05-29-2013 12:29 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Who died and left you in charge of determining relevance?

Nice

Another great article that articulates what I want to say much better than I do:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cl...cteristics

Quote:Another characteristic of movements that deny a consensus involves impossible expectations. The tobacco industry perfected this approach in the 1970s, demanding ever-more stringent levels of proof that smoking caused cancer in order to delay government regulation of their products. This technique of impossible expectations was illustrated in another blog post claiming that only papers which quantify the human contribution to global warming count as endorsing the consensus. Most climate-related research doesn't quantify how much global warming humans are causing, especially in the abstract; there's simply no reason to.

We didn't expect scientists to go into nitty gritty detail about settled science in the valuable real estate of the abstract (the short summary at the start of the paper). However, we did expect to see it more often in the full paper, and that's exactly what we observed. When scientists were asked to rate the level of endorsement of their own papers, in the 237 papers that actually specified the proportion of human-caused global warming, over 96% agreed that humans have caused more than half of the recent global warming.

Quote:In yet another blog post, Christopher Monckton, whom my colleague John Abraham exposed as habitually misrepresenting climate scientists' research, has also misrepresented our results. Monckton compared apples to oranges by looking at previous consensus studies in an effort to argue that our results show a 'collapsing' consensus. On the contrary, using a consistent apples-to-apples comparison over a two-decade span, we showed that the consensus on human-caused global warming is growing.

Quote:In recent years, fewer papers have taken a position on the cause of global warming in the abstract. This was predicted by Naomi Oreskes in 2007, who noted that scientists will move on to focus on questions that are not settled. Some blogs advanced a related logical fallacy by claiming that this shows 'an increase in uncertainty.' However, if uncertainty over the cause of global warming were increasing, we would expect to see the percentage of papers rejecting or minimizing human-caused global warming increasing. On the contrary, the percentage of rejecting studies is declining as well. That scientists feel the issue is settled science actually suggests there is more certainty about the causes of global warming.

Quote:So you won't comment about scientists shifting their focus to topic other than the existence of AGW? You're trying to invalidate my entire post based on statements I've made that you see as fallacious, but not my claim (scientists not focusing on AGW). You're the one who brought it up again, so why won't you address it?

No, I didn't bring it up. Owl brought it up. I reminded you he brought it up, and I will now remind you has responded to you. You are conflating what multiple posters have said. Address what I say, don't ask me to address what they say. I didn't say it.

Quote:You've alluded that scientists are in it for the grant money (which makes their results suspect).

I gave you very simple instructions. Cut and paste what I said. Don't tell me your version of what I said. It's not hard. Cut and paste where I said what you accuse me of saying that offended you. Cut and paste where I said thousands of scientists and earth science majors were full of sh1t.

[quote='dmacfour' pid='9364363' dateline='1369865196']
Another great article that articulates what I want to say much better than I do:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cl...cteristics

Quote:Another characteristic of movements that deny a consensus involves impossible expectations.

Forget the fact every model benchmark which has been set has failed to happen.... Uggggg We are in a place where people claiming to embrace science consider dissent a cult movement.

dmac, climate skepticism exists because it is warranted. Not everybody is a true believer of your faith. Many of us have seen this movie before and recognize the alarmism and what usually follows.

Who Are the Real Climate Deniers?

Quote:Harris’s main point is that the science is far from settled and that if we were honest with ourselves and wished to approach the subject with scientific rigor and impartiality, we would have to modestly agree, in his own words, that “the more we learn, the more we realize that we just do not know. Climate change and extreme weather have always happened and always will, no matter what we do. Perhaps instead of trying to stop it from occurring, we need to adapt and promote a sensible approach to a range of energy and environmental topics.” We plainly need “to learn more about the vast uncertainties in the field of climate change and discuss sensible policy actions.”

Quote:No mention is made in mainstream media reports of the more than 31,000 scientists who added their signatures to the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine “petition project” in 2008, repudiating the 600 or so scientists who have signed on to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warming consensus. Further, it seems, as the petition states, “that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth,” a subject Harris also touched on but one studiously avoided by the warmists.

We know that a number of major players in the climate game, such as Canada’s David Suzuki, Rajendra Pachauri who heads the IPCC, and Al Gore, have all grown obscenely wealthy huckstering the global warming canard. Suzuki, as Ezra Levant of Sun News Network has shown, profits handsomely from various multi-national organizations that finance his campaigns, including Canada’s Power Corp that operates in totalitarian China, one of the world’s leading carbon emitters. Suzuki has been intensely busy franchising himself.

Carbon trading schemes, like cap and trade would create another vehicle to enormous wealth. Gore was involved in setting up just such a trading scheme in Chicago.

Quote:Pachauri, who sits on the boards of several climate-related companies and runs The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), seems implicated in a number of suspicious commercial manipulations. Dennis Ambler, writing for the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), comments in a devastating exposé of Pachauri’s diverse business associations, “Conflict of interest has been taken to new levels.”

Quote:We know that assessments counter to the prevailing orthodoxy have been deliberately suppressed and that the evidence for AGW was often just made up — witness the infamous “hide the decline” email dumps emanating from the mysteriously hacked Hadley Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which have disclosed the duplicitous and counterfeit nature of its methods and procedures. The lead researcher at the East Anglia CRU, Phil Jones, has gone so far as to recommend deleting all incriminating emails and/or changing the wording of others.

Funny how those up to no good like to leave no trail, paper or electronic. Witness our own corrupt government using private email accounts to avoid having their duplicity see sunlight.

Quote:It is also telling that in a radio debate between Harris and Rhynas that took place following Rhynas’s initial presentation, the former agreed to take questions from the public but the latter refused. Surely it says nearly everything one needs to know about probity and cognitive assurance when a speaker refuses to debate on facts and logic with his audience. Rhynas’s performance serves as an illustration of the misuse of reason, calling to mind the French-Algerian religious philosopher Muhammad Arkoun, who declared that the sole function of reason “is to shape, bend and systemize reality in accordance with God’s signs” — God in our case being Gaia and her Prophet, Al Gore. What we dub “climate science” is not so much a science as a religion, and as in the ultra-theological realm the application of authentic rational arguments is rejected as a violation of faith. In this domain, the function of reason is to support unreason. We can say that Rhynas and those like him do not have an argument, they have a position, which is impervious to proof and reason. By contrast, Harris is a true scientist and an independent thinker who believes in the supple and genuine use of reason whereas Rhynas is a man of the meteorological cloth who believes in sticking to the letter of an unreformed holy text.

(05-29-2013 04:59 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  Owl,

I know alot of people want to tax carbon based fuels so the alternatives can compete. I think if we just put on a tax to subsidize the American Tax Payers cost of patrolling the Middle East would be sufficient. The true cost of a barrel of oil isn't in the price of it. It's heavily subsidized.

Here is the tradeoff there. Right now, we are looking at an economic recovery facilitated by lower energy costs here. If you put on a carbon tax, there goes that advantage.

History lesson here. That's why we have the tax breaks for oil companies in the first place. Sam Rayburn and LBJ convinced FDR and later Truman that first, we would come out of the depression faster, and second, the postwar US economy would do better against the rest of the world, if we had cheap energy, and that tax breaks for oil companies would accomplish that, including tax breaks for domestic exploration to offset higher costs. It worked, and fueled (literally) a large part of the postwar boom.

Today the only reason US energy prices are lower than those in Europe is taxes. If we taxed energy as much as Europe our energy would be just as expensive, if not more so because of higher finding costs domestically. Now the lower cost is not all good. It has led us to consume up to twice as much oil per capita as Europe.

So, one part of my approach to energy would be to implement a carbon tax (alternatively cap and trade, although I prefer the carbon tax) and offset it with tax savings elsewhere. Structure things so that total costs go down for efficient users of energy and up for inefficient users. This is part of the point I'm making about focusing energy on solutions instead of fear mongering.

(05-29-2013 04:34 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Thank you for the clarification. I'm not sure how applicable this is to climate scientists specifically. They aren't the engineers that are tasked with creating these solutions. I assumed that your issue with climate scientists is specifically that they can't come up with useful solutions. If this is the case, you need to direct your criticism toward the lawmakers and engineers who are failing at producing viable solutions. I can't really comment because I don't know jack sh.it about global warming solutions.

It is applicable to the Algores and others who fund the studies. Every one of the cites you listed previously came from research funded by someone on the pro-AGW side. So if they are convinced they are right, why are they still funding studies after studies to prove it right, instead of funding efforts to find solutions. I think it's because they realize correctly that, on the merits, we are going to be heavily dependent on oil for a long time to come. We simply do not have a reasonable alternative, and any even remote prospects are a long, long way from commercial viability on a large scale. But they want to get us off oil, even if they have nothing to go TO in its place. So their only hope is that people will panic and make unreasonable and unrealistic and nonsensical decisions. So they keep pumping the hype instead of looking at reasonable alternatives. In that context, I can't blame the climate scientists. They just go where the research bucks are. Some of those come from the Algores of the world, and some of those come from the Kochs of the world.

I have identified reasonable alternatives and quantified their estimated impact. I have posted on here--search if you want to read them, I'm not taking the time to find them. I have written peer-reviewed articles about them, and I have proof that those articles have prompted some level of interest. Quite frankly, more people need to be looking at it the way that I am. If that comment strikes you as immodest, so be it.

(05-29-2013 04:34 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Thank you for the clarification. I'm not sure how applicable this is to climate scientists specifically. They aren't the engineers that are tasked with creating these solutions. I assumed that your issue with climate scientists is specifically that they can't come up with useful solutions. If this is the case, you need to direct your criticism toward the lawmakers and engineers who are failing at producing viable solutions. I can't really comment because I don't know jack sh.it about global warming solutions.

I find the "complaint" against climate scientists specifically to be a red herring. Climate scientists do what they do. They don't publish magazines or news articles or (at least not often) write op ed's or publish blogs... meaning if you want to know what they are doing, you generally have to go look for it. The "deniers" generally rail against those who have an agenda, who take the research of these scientists and try and make some point... the fear-mongering most allude to isn't (often) by the scientists themselves, other than the fact that their livelihood is paired with funding from fear mongering profiteers.

The "warming" of the earth is a relative term... by that I mean we have been warmer in the past 100 years, and certainly much warmer in the last million... almost always by events far beyond mans ability to control... The NASA study I linked is one of many who try and assess man's contribution... because on SOME levels, we CAN control that (somewhat). It seems to imply that at SOME point, man's influence will outweigh those of the earth... meaning things like volcanos... but their own study seems to imply that sheer population (and the resulting need for food and shelter) is a larger impact than fossil fuels, yet even here... all we talk about is fossil fuels. On the more grand scale, nothing implies that the sort of thing that caused the ice age or anything of THAT magnitude would be caused by man. It is arguable that an ice age or an extreme warming would actually negate mans impact by killing off tens or even hundreds of millions. Man made global warming arguable HELPS us during times of earth cooling, no? My point being, very few scientists of any sort are looking at this from the proper perspective. Almost everyone is looking at it from a standpoint of oil, when deforestation is arguably a much bigger problem. Growing corn for fuel may be "good", though it takes energy (often oil) to do so, but I have read growing it for feed produces more methane than grass. I think you could get LOTS AND LOTS of people to support being good stewards of the earth... planting trees... finding "more secure" alternatives to imported oil.... etc etc etc which accomplishes most of the goals of the alarmists without having to predict a catastrophe and stretch the truth to do so. It STILL won't solve the population problem, and there is less money in calm solutions than in panic.

(05-29-2013 07:50 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  [quote='Machiavelli' pid='9364348' dateline='1369864799']
Owl,

I know alot of people want to tax carbon based fuels so the alternatives can compete. I think if we just put on a tax to subsidize the American Tax Payers cost of patrolling the Middle East would be sufficient. The true cost of a barrel of oil isn't in the price of it. It's heavily subsidized.

One of my biggest reasons I support alternatives and "drill here". It's a national security issue. I think we could get a lot of support for natural gas, electric, etoh and the like if we looked at it from this perspective... not to mention the "drill-bit ready" jobs.