The Skeptical Environmentalist on Global warming

djpbarry wrote:

Hardly. If anything, there are far more attempts within the media to discredit the AGW theory than there are to reinforce it, particularly within the American media - check out FOX for example. Or who could forget Martin Durkin's ridiculous documentary on the subject on Channel 4?

Durkin is not any worse than Gore's white lies. Even one of Gore's science advisors (glaciologist Lonnie Thomson) is distancing himself from the movie.

D'ont forget Gore got a Oscar and the Peace Prize for his junk (I wonder if the peace prize was politically motivated)

Gore Scientific “Adviser” says that he has no “responsibility” for AIT errors

djpbarry wrote: »

They don't. The HSE is ultimately responsible for the fluoridation of water supplies.

Can we get back on-topic now please?

The last time I checked the HSE was not a publicly private organisation. (although it sure acts like one).

djpbarry wrote: »

People forget that Al Gore is not a scientist. As he has said himself:
"I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand."
He is inevitably going to make mistakes (I would hardly call them white lies). But to put Gore in the same category as Durkin is ridiculous - that guy set out to deliberately mislead as many people as possible with what can only be described as pure nonsense. Gore's errors were in the detail, Durkin's were in the fundamentals.
Taking "John Anderson" as an example:

There are two guys on that list by the name John Anderson, which is in itself a very common name (I know two myself). The Google search you did - which John Anderson did you find? The first? The second? Both? Neither? The point is you have no idea.

Even if we assume that these people are all scientists, that does not mean that they are all climatologists. I am a scientist, but that does not mean I am an expert on climate change.

Even if we go so far as to assume that all these people are scientists who are experts on climate change (and conduct research in the area), then where is all their research? Where are all their publications? If there are that many research scientists (19,000) who do not believe in the AGW theory, then surely there must be at least one paper out there disproving it?

The point of my post was to show that these guys are scientists. Who on the face of it have put their names and reputations in support of this petition.

Take a couple of names yourself and put them into google scholar and see what you get back. Sure, you'll get some pseudo scientists in there.

You do not have to be a climatologist to see that climate change is just a fresh air tax on the people of the developed world. It will ultimately restrict our childrens children right to create life. Thats what worries me.

Have you ( or anybody else for that matter) personally searched for papers that go against the concensus?

djpbarry wrote: »

The point of my post was to show that:

• You do not know who these people are and, therefore, do not know that they are scientists
• You do not know that the hits you get on Google refer to the same people (John Anderson, for example, is a very common name)

True, I dont know for certain. I should have searched for a less popular name, like those of the other two I took as examples.

Its a faith based system.

djpbarry wrote: »

If I were to put together a petition such as this, I would at least state what institution/company each petitioner is affiliated with so that people could find these individuals themselves. The fact that no details are given about each person makes me question the legitimacy of the petition.
Care to back that up with something?

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22896334-2,00.html
The professor in question is a man called
Professor Barry Walters [ http://tinyurl.com/yqe5ky ]

What has this guy, a Clinical Associate Professor
School of Women's and Infants' Health, got to do with global warming?

Why has his opinions made it across the world? Maybe because of his qualifications?

People tend to listen to the letters more than than man. Which is sad no matter what side of the argument they take.

His statements have made the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
They are not too far fetched. You only have to look at what the Party have accomplished in China to see that. But that is under a different label and can be interrupted as off topic here even though the results are the same.



Thanks for the link by the way!

djpbarry wrote: »

Then perhaps the people in question should take the time to educate themselves in the relevant topic rather than taking someone's (anyone's) word for it.

Experts researched based opinions are taken as gospel in todays world. You only have to look at people on a bus reading the metro etc.. to see that.
Which means that for the most part our reasoning is done for us.

Its not easy to illuminate ones self in todays society.
The average person is working too hard to make a decent living (after the myriad of taxes levied on our labour) for them and their loved ones.

So why not let the experts we read so much about do our reasoning for us? Nobody consciously agrees to this, it just taken as the norm.

djpbarry wrote: »

They are pretty far-fetched. Such a radical change in taxation policy would require a referendum in a country such as Ireland (for example), and it is highly unlikely that it would pass, seeing how ridiculously unfair (not to mention pseudo-scientific) it is - it is impossible to predict how much CO2 an individual person will emit (both directly and indirectly) over their lifetime. Besides, population control is hardly necessary in Australia - the guy is just a right-wing nut.

I’m not sure what the overall relevance of your post is?

I agree they are far fetched. But is has been implemented else where under different circumstances. None the less it was humans just like you and me that ultimately let it happen as they felt powerless to do anything about it.

I also agree, it would take a very long time if even, under current circumstances, for such a population control policy to implemented in Ireland and similar countries. However, it does not mean that it could not under any other circumstance come knocking on our door. We all know circumstances change all the time.

The relevance to my post was in reply to you asking what could I back up my claim with in regard to the next few generations could ending up in a situation where their write to create life is restricted due to a previous consensually perceived threat.

The first director general of unesco talked about this particular need to control the population by various means. Eugenics (Bio-ethics) I believe is the term.

These subjects are very relevant to the topic at hand as ultimately this is what it will come down to.

djpbarry wrote: »

I take your point, but what I am saying is that if people are not prepared to do a little research into what the paper says (especially The Metro), then, quite frankly, they're idiots and their opinions are worthless.

However, I would argue that a lot of people (not everyone) take more head of what celebrities say than what scientists say, which is even more worrying. If Beyoncé said that climate change is all a load of nonsense, then a whole load of people would take her word for it. I have no time for anyone who forms an opinion on anything without doing even a little research into the subject.
Are you serious? What about the Internet? There's a whole wealth of information on there for anyone to view. The problem is most people just couldn't be bothered.
The average working week is actually decreasing in length:
http://www.tcd.ie/ERC/observatorydownloads/Changing%20Times.pdf
The average Irish person has more free time now than they ever had - think of all the holidays that Irish people take every year. I myself remember my Dad working a 7-day week in the 80's - virtually unheard of these days.

I'm going to leave the population control talk because I think it's probably more of a humanities issue than a green one.

I'd consider myself and average joe, and I find it very difficult to get the time to do what I'd really like. But I cannot be selfish with my time. I have to share my off time with family. Its not far fetched to say that this is typical picture. Travel - work - travel - family.... repeat.

Working time may be getting shorter, but it does not mean the average family member is no less busy. I often find myself commenting on how fast weekends go.

There is a considerable degree of overlap as humans are being labelled as the cause.

bonkey wrote: »

So what you're saying is that on one hand, you don't have the time to study the problem properly. On the other hand, you reject the notion that those who've made a career out of studying the problem might actually know a bit more about it than you do.

Either you accept that the climate is too complex a beast for an average joe like yourself to properly appreciate and understand, or you don't need the time you bemoan not having.

If only life was so black and white.

I didn't say that I do not have the time to study this problem properly. I dont have the time to study other topics I'd like to.

On the contrary I have taken a considerable amount of time to study the societal fallout from it. My motive for this stems from it being the only day-to-day observable consequence of global warming.

I would much appreciate somebody pointing out to me a manifestation of the problem that I can observe for myself in my day-to-day life relation to this theory.

bonkey wrote: »

The societal fallout has nothing to do with whether or not climatologists are correct.

I disagree. Policy makers are using climatologists' findings to justify green policies.

bonkey wrote:

You have argued that climate change is "just a fresh air tax on the developed world". It may be true that there is a "fresh-air tax" as a result of our being aware of the issue, but that's not quite the same thing.

In both cases the end result is the same.

bonkey wrote:

If you were analyzed with being in the early stage of some debilitating diseasse in the morning, what would you do?

Would you:

a) Rationalise that you feel the same today as you have done any other day, and you don't exhibit any problematic symptoms, and therefore any action taken is just someone trying to scam your hard-earned money off you because there's no problem.
or
b) Rationalise that there is a coming problem which will get progresively harder and more expensive to treat, and which will ultimately result in serious impacts on your life?



This suggests that were you unfortunate enough to experience the situation I describe above, you would go for 'a', given that no-one could show you the problem that was being caused today. That they could tell you there was a high probability of serious problems in the future if you didn't take action today is, apparently, not a sufficient reason for you to do anything about it.

If, however, you think you would go for option b, then ask yourself why the reasoning you used to reach that conclusion doesn't apply to the problem of anthropogenic global warming.

All this hangs on premise that the expert who does the diagnosis is 100% correct in their findings. You need to have faith in them before, the rationalisation process will begin. After that point the fallout (in either direction ) has to be dealt with by the recipient.

This, I think you'd label as 'c' - shooting the messenger.
In the case of Global Warming, I want to see the proof and not model results concerning the future before joining the concensus and participating in the restrictions the concensus employs.