Wikipedia is always a good place to find summaries of uncomfortable information:

Quote:In Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change (2010), Clive Hamilton describes a campaign to attack the science relating to climate change, originating with the astroturfing campaigns initiated by the tobacco industry in the 1990s. He documents the establishment of the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) as a 'fake front group' set up 'to link concerns about passive smoking with a range of other popular anxieties, including global warming'. The public relations strategy was to cast doubt on the science, characterizing it as junk science, and therefore to turn public opinion against any calls for government intervention based on the science.[18]

As one tobacco company memo noted: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the "body of fact" that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."[33] As the 1990s progressed ... TASSC began receiving donations from Exxon (among other oil companies) and its "junk science" website began to carry material attacking climate change science.
—Clive Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change

Sound familiar? It's always the same argument from the side of GW skeptics. This isn't the only time this strategy has been used:

Quote:After the Cold War ended, they continued through the Marshall Institute to campaign against environmental issues from acid rain, the ozone hole, second-hand smoke and the dangers of DDT on to a campaign against global warming. In each case their argument was the same: simply that the science was too uncertain to justify any government intervention in the market place. It is only recently, Oreskes said, that historians such as her have been able to 'join the dots': Individual environmental scientists, finding opposition to their warnings about ozone layer depletion or DDT residues, were at the time unaware that the same institute was using the same arguments at the same time against other scientists who were warning about the dangers of smoking, of second-hand smoke, and about climate change itself.[34][35]

The question is, do you honestly believe that the people opposing climate change research are interested in truth? You guys are right to claim that this issue is about the money. The problem is, you're pointing the finger at the wrong people: the group that stands to lose the most, regardless of what the truth is. In the end it's truly absurd. Scientists are being bribed with generous amounts of money from oil backed think tanks to publish papers critical of the IPCC, which is the exact thing you're accusing the "dirty liberals" of doing. You guys are so quick to point the finger that you don't even realize that it's the right that's engaging in the exact same BS that you accuse the left of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_cha...al#History

I don't believe there are many people, if any who oppose climate change research, so you question is misleadingly worded. To get to the question that i think would be appropriate to ask, yes I do believe that the people who are doing climate change research and coming up with different answers from your favored ones are totally interested in getting the right answer. And part of that is because of the money. There is more research funding to support research that says AGW is true than there is to say it is false. The whole thing about the oil companies is a straw man. Until somebody comes up with a suitable alternative to oil, they aren't going to make less money regardless of what the AGW research says.

This is where I question the AGW advocates. If you really, really thought this was going to happen and would be catastrophic, who you be spending your time and effort on getting more research grants to figure out if it is real or not, or on coming up with a solution. We have all this money going to grants to study how horrible it is, and nobody coming up with any solutions.

It's like we can't actually do anything to fix it until we convince everybody how terrible it is going to be if we don't fix it. That does not strike me as a rational, sensible response.

I've had time to read some of your links in your longer email. No,mat least the ones I've read ar not responsive to my questions. Again, if you really think that this is going to be so awful, why keep debating how awful it is going to be, instead of finding ways to fix it.

(05-28-2013 11:50 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I don't believe there are many people, if any who oppose climate change research, so you question is misleadingly worded. To get to the question that i think would be appropriate to ask, yes I do believe that the people who are doing climate change research and coming up with different answers from your favored ones are totally interested in getting the right answer. And part of that is because of the money. There is more research funding to support research that says AGW is true than there is to say it is false. The whole thing about the oil companies is a straw man. Until somebody comes up with a suitable alternative to oil, they aren't going to make less money regardless of what the AGW research says.

This is where I question the AGW advocates. If you really, really thought this was going to happen and would be catastrophic, who you be spending your time and effort on getting more research grants to figure out if it is real or not, or on coming up with a solution. We have all this money going to grants to study how horrible it is, and nobody coming up with any solutions. That does not strike me as a rational, sensible response.

These people are getting bribed to get results. They are getting personal checks, not research grants. Academia doesn't work on the basis of, "I'm giving you money to find this specific result".

Claiming that my argument is a straw man doesn't even make sense. I'm claiming that climate science skepticism is a result of public relation campaigns funded by oil companies. I didn't misrepresent anything with that argument, given that almost no publications exist that are against AGW. What you're saying about the state of climate science also doesn't reflect reality. You're saying that climate science is focused exclusively on if a catastrophe will occur or not, which is a massive generalization. I just don't understand where that comes from, and it would qualify as a straw man argument itself. You're misrepresenting what climate scientists do as an argument that they're doing it wrong.

(05-28-2013 11:58 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-28-2013 11:50 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I don't believe there are many people, if any who oppose climate change research, so you question is misleadingly worded. To get to the question that i think would be appropriate to ask, yes I do believe that the people who are doing climate change research and coming up with different answers from your favored ones are totally interested in getting the right answer. And part of that is because of the money. There is more research funding to support research that says AGW is true than there is to say it is false. The whole thing about the oil companies is a straw man. Until somebody comes up with a suitable alternative to oil, they aren't going to make less money regardless of what the AGW research says.
This is where I question the AGW advocates. If you really, really thought this was going to happen and would be catastrophic, who you be spending your time and effort on getting more research grants to figure out if it is real or not, or on coming up with a solution. We have all this money going to grants to study how horrible it is, and nobody coming up with any solutions. That does not strike me as a rational, sensible response.

These people are getting bribed to get results. They are getting personal checks, not research grants. Academia doesn't work on the basis of, "I'm giving you money to find this specific result".
Claiming that my argument is a straw man doesn't even make sense in this situation.

No, in academia you get tenure and other financial rewards for publishing, and the peer review process is rigged in favor of work that follows the company line. I play the game, I know how it works. If I say A it will get published, if I say B it won't. Academia works on the basis of, "I'll give you money if you get get published and you'll get published faster if you get a specific result." And no, research grants don't go directly to a faculty member's pocket, but the prestige and other bennies that come with grants do, and profs fight harder over grant money than they do money in their pockets. Galileo and Copernicus could not get published in the "peer-reviewed journals" of their day.

But again, answer my larger question, if you thought this was really happening and that the impact would be catastrophic, would you be spending your time trying to determine exactly how bad, or trying to find a solution?

(05-29-2013 12:09 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(05-28-2013 11:58 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-28-2013 11:50 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I don't believe there are many people, if any who oppose climate change research, so you question is misleadingly worded. To get to the question that i think would be appropriate to ask, yes I do believe that the people who are doing climate change research and coming up with different answers from your favored ones are totally interested in getting the right answer. And part of that is because of the money. There is more research funding to support research that says AGW is true than there is to say it is false. The whole thing about the oil companies is a straw man. Until somebody comes up with a suitable alternative to oil, they aren't going to make less money regardless of what the AGW research says.
This is where I question the AGW advocates. If you really, really thought this was going to happen and would be catastrophic, who you be spending your time and effort on getting more research grants to figure out if it is real or not, or on coming up with a solution. We have all this money going to grants to study how horrible it is, and nobody coming up with any solutions. That does not strike me as a rational, sensible response.

These people are getting bribed to get results. They are getting personal checks, not research grants. Academia doesn't work on the basis of, "I'm giving you money to find this specific result".
Claiming that my argument is a straw man doesn't even make sense in this situation.

No, in academia you get tenure and other financial rewards for publishing, and the peer review process is rigged in favor of work that follows the company line. I play the game, I know how it works. If I say A it will get published, if I say B it won't. Academia works on the basis of, "I'll give you money to get published and you'll get published faster if you get a specific result." Galileo and Copernicus could not get published in the "peer-reviewed journals" of their day.

But again, answer my larger question, if you thought this was really happening and that the impact would be catastrophic, would you be spending your time trying to determine exactly how bad, or trying to find a solution?

Yes. I say yes to both because this isn't an either or scenario, even though you seem to believe it is. Again, the whole of climate research isn't about whether or not it'll be catastrophic. There's a lot more going on than you seem to think

No, I don't think it's an either/or scenario, and I'd prefer that you not try to build that straw man.

What I am saying is that they're not coming up with useful alternatives. It's more like, "here is an alternative, we know its a terrible alternative, but if we can create enough hype, then we can get people to fall for it out of hysteria."

What we need is sensible, rational solutions. What we are getting is a lot of stupid ideas forced upon us because, ohmygod, we're all going to die if we don't do something, and this is something.

By the way, I have published (peer-reviewed) articles about sensible and rational solutions that would work. I know how the system works.

(05-29-2013 12:21 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  No, I don't think it's an either/or scenario, and I'd prefer that you not try to build that straw man.

What I am saying is that they're not coming up with useful alternatives. It's more like, "here is an alternative, we know its a terrible alternative, but if we can create enough hype, then we can get people to fall for it out of hysteria."

What we need is sensible, rational solutions. What we are getting is a lot of stupid ideas forced upon us because, ohmygod, we're all going to die if we don't do something, and this is something."

This isn't relevant to the OP (even though you're going to say it is).

Who died and left you in charge of determining relevance?

Nothing he ever posts is relevant.

No one argues that the earth will continue warming as it was continually doing before a single car or plane was created.......

We argue the cause of the heating and what little role man has in the natural cycle of the earth. We also argue that there is no consensus and lefty scientists have just as much to gain from government grants as right wing scientists do from "bribes".

As though any scientist who would dare dispute global warming is automatically evil because they obviously accepted a bribe to come to their faulty research. It couldn't just be that they did research and it showed what it showed, no, clearly it's a sinister plot to destroy the world from evil corporate controlled scientists.

Give me a break.

Typical liberal BS

GE is investing in fracking now so I suspect things will change.

(05-29-2013 04:48 AM)Jedi Master Sipho-Dyas Wrote:  Typical liberal BS

Exactly. What's funny is how dmac is so dutiful in researching everything but the science itself.

Climate change skepticism exists for one reason: the science behind it is and was bad.

dmac and mach pretend they love science, but they are the deniers. They both intentionally avoid all of the evidence that runs contrary to their beloved crisis theory, and spend all their time repeating the straw man arguments of their like-minded luddites. They would have been the first in line to throw Galileo in prison, and the last to accept Lister's ideas on sterilization.

(05-28-2013 11:58 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(05-28-2013 11:50 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I don't believe there are many people, if any who oppose climate change research, so you question is misleadingly worded. To get to the question that i think would be appropriate to ask, yes I do believe that the people who are doing climate change research and coming up with different answers from your favored ones are totally interested in getting the right answer. And part of that is because of the money. There is more research funding to support research that says AGW is true than there is to say it is false. The whole thing about the oil companies is a straw man. Until somebody comes up with a suitable alternative to oil, they aren't going to make less money regardless of what the AGW research says.

This is where I question the AGW advocates. If you really, really thought this was going to happen and would be catastrophic, who you be spending your time and effort on getting more research grants to figure out if it is real or not, or on coming up with a solution. We have all this money going to grants to study how horrible it is, and nobody coming up with any solutions. That does not strike me as a rational, sensible response.

These people are getting bribed to get results. They are getting personal checks, not research grants. Academia doesn't work on the basis of, "I'm giving you money to find this specific result".

Claiming that my argument is a straw man doesn't even make sense. I'm claiming that climate science skepticism is a result of public relation campaigns funded by oil companies. I didn't misrepresent anything with that argument, given that almost no publications exist that are against AGW. What you're saying about the state of climate science also doesn't reflect reality. You're saying that climate science is focused exclusively on if a catastrophe will occur or not, which is a massive generalization. I just don't understand where that comes from, and it would qualify as a straw man argument itself. You're misrepresenting what climate scientists do as an argument that they're doing it wrong.

You forget two things -

1) Academia pays you to get published
2) Climategate emails showed that people were trying to keep unfavorable research from getting published...

But yea, other than that...

(05-28-2013 08:53 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Wikipedia is always a good place to find summaries of uncomfortable information:

Quote:In Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change (2010), Clive Hamilton describes a campaign to attack the science relating to climate change, originating with the astroturfing campaigns initiated by the tobacco industry in the 1990s. He documents the establishment of the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) as a 'fake front group' set up 'to link concerns about passive smoking with a range of other popular anxieties, including global warming'. The public relations strategy was to cast doubt on the science, characterizing it as junk science, and therefore to turn public opinion against any calls for government intervention based on the science.[18]

As one tobacco company memo noted: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the "body of fact" that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."[33] As the 1990s progressed ... TASSC began receiving donations from Exxon (among other oil companies) and its "junk science" website began to carry material attacking climate change science.
—Clive Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change

Sound familiar? It's always the same argument from the side of GW skeptics. This isn't the only time this strategy has been used:

Quote:After the Cold War ended, they continued through the Marshall Institute to campaign against environmental issues from acid rain, the ozone hole, second-hand smoke and the dangers of DDT on to a campaign against global warming. In each case their argument was the same: simply that the science was too uncertain to justify any government intervention in the market place. It is only recently, Oreskes said, that historians such as her have been able to 'join the dots': Individual environmental scientists, finding opposition to their warnings about ozone layer depletion or DDT residues, were at the time unaware that the same institute was using the same arguments at the same time against other scientists who were warning about the dangers of smoking, of second-hand smoke, and about climate change itself.[34][35]

The question is, do you honestly believe that the people opposing climate change research are interested in truth? You guys are right to claim that this issue is about the money. The problem is, you're pointing the finger at the wrong people: the group that stands to lose the most, regardless of what the truth is. In the end it's truly absurd. Scientists are being bribed with generous amounts of money from oil backed think tanks to publish papers critical of the IPCC, which is the exact thing you're accusing the "dirty liberals" of doing. You guys are so quick to point the finger that you don't even realize that it's the right that's engaging in the exact same BS that you accuse the left of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_cha...al#History

The climate is controlled in large part by the sun and in others by the oceans. According to Al Gore 12 years ago, our coastal cities were to already be underwater by now. I'm all for continuous improvement on the environment, but I am not for intellectual dishonesty. It is obviously warmer in center cities where more people and activity occur than in the outskirts... you just need to look at the Weather Channel to see that... so yes, I believe there is obviously some impact with respect to temperatures and emissions and asphalt, but the end of world prophecies by the AGW extremists are really insulting to most people's intelligence and frankly probably bring on the skepticism themselves.

Just a heads up dmac you broke numbers 2, 4 and 10 of the commandments in this thread.

(05-29-2013 07:32 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  

(05-29-2013 04:48 AM)Jedi Master Sipho-Dyas Wrote:  Typical liberal BS

Exactly. What's funny is how dmac is so dutiful in researching everything but the science itself.

Climate change skepticism exists for one reason: the science behind it is and was bad.

dmac and mach pretend they love science, but they are the deniers. They both intentionally avoid all of the evidence that runs contrary to their beloved crisis theory, and spend all their time repeating the straw man arguments of their like-minded luddites. They would have been the first in line to throw Galileo in prison, and the last to accept Lister's ideas on sterilization.

How can a liberal claim to be on the side of science, yet be SO against and afraid of challenging or questioning our scientific knowledge?

Its make no sense at all.

I bet there were people saying back in the day that the earth was flat and those who thought othewrwise were idiots who needed to be shunned for the betterment of mankind. Or that the sun and planets revolved around the earth.

I personally believe that climate change is just an ongoing process that we have little control or effect on. I'm sure carbon emissions have some effect, but there is no way to know how much yet. At the very least, the science is grossly incomplete on this topic.

We should just be able to agree on keeping the place clean as we can and being good stewards of the land.

But the bullying and shunning the libs try to pull on this issue to end all questioning study and debate is disgusting.

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

You took the thread off topic and ignored the subject of the OP.

So this is what I got from the responses in this thread:

Instead of admitting that it's been documented that climate skepticism is in some part being intentionally manufactured, most of you just accuse 'liberals' of being the bad ones and bury your heads in the sand.

You guys should be impressed that the scientists being offered this money had the integrity to go to the media with the story rather than accept the bribe. Instead, you're still acting like getting a salary is the equivalent of being bribed.

Your own party is becoming more and more worried about climate change.

(05-29-2013 08:13 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(05-28-2013 08:53 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Wikipedia is always a good place to find summaries of uncomfortable information:

Quote:In Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change (2010), Clive Hamilton describes a campaign to attack the science relating to climate change, originating with the astroturfing campaigns initiated by the tobacco industry in the 1990s. He documents the establishment of the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) as a 'fake front group' set up 'to link concerns about passive smoking with a range of other popular anxieties, including global warming'. The public relations strategy was to cast doubt on the science, characterizing it as junk science, and therefore to turn public opinion against any calls for government intervention based on the science.[18]

As one tobacco company memo noted: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the "body of fact" that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."[33] As the 1990s progressed ... TASSC began receiving donations from Exxon (among other oil companies) and its "junk science" website began to carry material attacking climate change science.
—Clive Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change

Sound familiar? It's always the same argument from the side of GW skeptics. This isn't the only time this strategy has been used:

Quote:After the Cold War ended, they continued through the Marshall Institute to campaign against environmental issues from acid rain, the ozone hole, second-hand smoke and the dangers of DDT on to a campaign against global warming. In each case their argument was the same: simply that the science was too uncertain to justify any government intervention in the market place. It is only recently, Oreskes said, that historians such as her have been able to 'join the dots': Individual environmental scientists, finding opposition to their warnings about ozone layer depletion or DDT residues, were at the time unaware that the same institute was using the same arguments at the same time against other scientists who were warning about the dangers of smoking, of second-hand smoke, and about climate change itself.[34][35]

The question is, do you honestly believe that the people opposing climate change research are interested in truth? You guys are right to claim that this issue is about the money. The problem is, you're pointing the finger at the wrong people: the group that stands to lose the most, regardless of what the truth is. In the end it's truly absurd. Scientists are being bribed with generous amounts of money from oil backed think tanks to publish papers critical of the IPCC, which is the exact thing you're accusing the "dirty liberals" of doing. You guys are so quick to point the finger that you don't even realize that it's the right that's engaging in the exact same BS that you accuse the left of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_cha...al#History

The climate is controlled in large part by the sun and in others by the oceans. According to Al Gore 12 years ago, our coastal cities were to already be underwater by now. I'm all for continuous improvement on the environment, but I am not for intellectual dishonesty. It is obviously warmer in center cities where more people and activity occur than in the outskirts... you just need to look at the Weather Channel to see that... so yes, I believe there is obviously some impact with respect to temperatures and emissions and asphalt, but the end of world prophecies by the AGW extremists are really insulting to most people's intelligence and frankly probably bring on the skepticism themselves.

That makes no sense. The world is blanketed with weather stations, inside and outside of cities. The global average has increased everywhere, not just in urban areas.

(05-29-2013 12:48 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  So this is what I got from the responses in this thread:

Instead of admitting that it's been documented that climate skepticism is in some part being intentionally manufactured, most of you just accuse 'liberals' of being the bad ones and bury your heads in the sand.

You guys should be impressed that the scientists being offered this money had the integrity to go to the media with the story rather than accept the bribe. Instead, you're still acting like getting a salary is the equivalent of being bribed.

Your own party is becoming more and more worried about climate change.

It's also been documented that climate science has been intentionally manufactured.