GRASPING AT STRAWS

From my perspective the most prominent downside to the "Climate-gate" nontroversy is the fact that every jackass internet commenter and talk radio lemming in the world will resort even more rapidly to "LOL we all know the 'data' on global warming is FAAKE!" What is more interesting to me, though, is the broader public reaction to this "news." No amount of evidence or argumentation can convince Americans to think twice about starting a war, that universal access to health insurance will actually cost less in the long run, or that cutting taxes will not solve all their problems. Yet these same people are ready to believe at the drop of a hat that climate change is a hoax, an elaborate global conspiracy, based on out-of-context quotes extracted from emails among four inconsequential scientists.
buy isotretinoin generic buy isotretinoin online over the counter

First, let's look at the words causing all the pant-shitting. This juicy quote has redneck America reaching for its revolver:

"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

The "decline" in question is not in temperature – it refers to measurements of tree rings. I have no idea what that means, but it seems worth noting that this is explicitly not referring to temperature. That's kinda relevant. As for the word "trick," among my circle of social scientists that term is commonly used to describe statistical techniques, especially techniques one poorly understands. But for all I know, these "tricks" and tree ring measurements could actually contradict the global warming hypothesis. I am not exactly qualified to draw conclusions about this data. That doesn't stop most people.

Second, there is this gem:

"I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

Half of the editorial board of the journal in question resigned in protest of the decision to publish a global warming denialist article, about which Climate Research itself stated: "(The paper's findings) cannot be concluded convincingly from the evidence provided in the paper. We should have requested appropriate revisions of the manuscript prior to publication." Hmm. An editor also claimed that global warming denialists "had identified Climate Research as a journal where some editors were not as rigorous in the review process as is otherwise common." In other words, this is a shit journal, a grease trap that catches all of the detritus from the real journals in the field. Every academic discipline has a few and they are routinely denigrated as we see in this email – especially if it is known for blatantly ideology-driven editorial practices.

Third, we have:

"The other paper by MM is just garbage. […] I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

Folks, welcome to academia. Seriously. This has always happened and happens today in every field with a peer-review process. Academics are elitist, catty little bitches. Find me a field – I beg you, any field – where this scenario does not play out. Smith doesn't like Wong's work (no doubt over some petty, irrelevant methodological issue) so Smith calls Davis and Martinez and all three collude to reject Wong's paper from the conference, journal, seminar, or whatever. Being able to identify the petty assholes, narcissists, and would-be gatekeepers is half of being a successful academic…and dealing with their neuroses is the other. Whoever MM is, he/she has challenged the consensus in the field and his/her colleagues, all of whom are ready to defend their decades of published work to the death. Not exactly man bites dog in terms of newsworthiness.

Not terribly impressive "evidence" of a vast global warming conspiracy. So why are people so eager to buy it? Because Westerners, and car-centric Americans in particular, are desperate to avoid having to alter their behavior. Like a terminal cancer patient who chooses to believe in ridiculous miracle cures offered in spam emails, the average American intuitively understands that fossil fuels and habitat destruction must be having some kind of impact on the planet. Warming, cooling, whatever – all that burning coal and hazardous chemicals dumped into rivers have to be doing something. But the problem either seems too large to confront, a situation highly conducive to denialism, or this "evidence" of a hoax is the excuse people need to morally justify driving an empty Durango to the office every day.

These emails are spectacularly unspectacular. It undermines the credibility of about four scientists at a university no one in the US has ever heard of.
online pharmacy lexapro best drugstore for you

It specifically does not undermine the entire body of climate research. There is no evidence of a hoax, no conspiracy to fabricate data, and no directives from the cabal of liberal professors and militant vegans who control the entire planet in the minds of paranoid Glenn Beck fans. Yet I'd be willing to bet that a majority of Americans will decide that the emails are in fact evidence of all of that and more. What was that line from the X-Files? Not "The truth is out there." The other one: "I want to believe."

45 thoughts on “GRASPING AT STRAWS”

  • Mario Greymist says:

    I think you may be suffering from your own cognitive dissonance here. The debate on climate change has become so political and heated that rational, objective viewpoints are often considered tantamount to heresy by both sides of the debate. The most commonly held perceptions about climate change (due in no small part to a sci-fi thriller starring the former VP) are simply false. Sea levels won't rise 20 feet. The earth won't turn into Venus. The people who make such claims are no less fringe players in the scientific debate than are the authors of papers claiming that CO2 makes bunnies smile.

    The IPCC, admittedly after the release of An Inconvenient Truth, estimated the next century's sea level rise would not exceed 1.5 metres. That's about 5 feet, or 1/4 of the amount depicted in the only visually compelling moments of the aforementioned movie. While the release of this information was reported, if you ask the average democrat on the street if most of florida will be underwater by 2099 if we do nothing, they will tell you "Absolutely!"

    On the other side, there are the people claiming it is a hoax, that AGW isn't happening at all and it's all a scam. These people are getting their information from ridiculous sources; rosy petro-company studies delivered through the filters of FoxNews. What little science exists which throws doubts on the existence of human induced climate change are generally questionable at best, and their presentation by conservative commentators selectively sensationalized.

    Neither side is engaging in rational discourse on the problem at hand. Labeling skeptics "deniers" when the foundation of the scientific method is skepticism is bald-faced hypocrisy for the side of the debate that rests its whole argument on the idea of a scientific consensus. (never mind that consensus has never been a valid method of verification for hard science) The environmentalists (I consider myself a rabid environmentalist, have worked as a canvasser for environmental groups, and have been known to literally hug trees) in this debate have a disturbing and long-held tendency to engage in ad hominem, guilt by association, poisoning the well, strawman and appeals to fear and emotion in their public statements.

    Consider the case of Bjorn Lomborg. Here's a man who wrote a book which did nothing but examine what data the author had to test the hypothesis of global warming through his own field's standards. He did this to prove, not disprove the hypothesis, as he was very much like me, an environmentalist. I am not a statistician, but what training I have in statistics does nothing to make me feel there was anything but honest intent in the Skeptical Environmentalist, a book vilified as propaganda by Greenpeace, an organization of which Lomborg was once a member.

    I am not a statistician, nor am I a climatologist, geologist, or meteorologist. I have studied argumentation with some extent over the past 20 years however. I have come to believe that when a particular side in a debate develops a pattern of deceit and fallacious argumentation, it is usually because it is hiding a secret flaw in their argument.

    In this case, it is the political, and not the scientific argument which is flawed. That scientists have hitched their wagons to the political implications and policy proposals surrounding the debate has completely destroyed their credibility in my eyes. There is a huge industry springing up around the reduction of CO2 emissions, and other "green" initiatives. That industry is the cash cow of the scientific consensus, along with the political animals which would take whatever control they can over whatever aspect of our lives they can.

    I am no less inclined to consider the e-mail controversy insignificant than I am to consider the watergate break in insignificant. They both are indicative of a political avarice born of hubris and without regard to the processes (scientific in one, democratic the other) they appeared within.

  • Ed,

    I accidentally came across your site while doing a search to see how many blithering idiots purchased Sarah Palin's ghost written book to date. Can't say how glad I am I did that at 4 am after stumbling across a link to your side splitting and spot-on review of it. I haven't read it and won't unless all four limbs are tied to elephants – like Tarzan – and the choices are death or read her book. (I've loved David Letterman's 'Things I'd Rather Do Than Read Sarah Palin's Book).

    What a pleasure to come across your site. I'll be stopping by on a semi-regular basis to add my two cents worth.

    Again, thank you for one of the best book reviews I've read in my five decades of life. Hilarious, witty, best review of a book in years. It was a pleasure.

  • PS

    I'd bet good money when Palin first read the publisher's title idea she thought the book was called 'Going ROUGE'

  • "I am not a statistician, nor am I a climatologist, geologist, or meteorologist. I have studied argumentation with some extent over the past 20 years however. I have come to believe that when a particular side in a debate develops a pattern of deceit and fallacious argumentation, it is usually because it is hiding a secret flaw in their argument."

    You can't conclude that, not even as a weak, inductive conclusion, because there is nothing which can count as evidence for that. There simply isn't any way which we can see the inner workings of someone's mind, so we shouldn't depend on somebody thinking one thing rather than another. It's simply entirely unverifiable and unfalsifiable: once you come to such a conclusion, there is nothing which would be able to convince you otherwise, whether you are right or not.

    In any case, there are many reasons people make bad arguments. They might simply be getting overexcited. They might be making rhetorical points more than anything else. Everybody makes stronger statements than they should when generalising (as Austen nicely puts it: "the never of
    conversation which means not very often"). And so on. And not only people in the wrong do this. The anti-theist arguments of the New Atheists (Dawkins and Hitchens in particular), for instance, are an embarrassment in my (godless) eyes, engaging in ludicrous exaggerations and very selective attention in order to find yet another thing to hit God over the head with.

    So, you can't conclude anything about people's hidden motivations, and you shouldn't conclude anything about people's hidden motivations.

  • Grumpygradstudent says:

    I think part of the problem is that the average lay person does not understand the difference between the sciences and the humanities within the academy. I studied philosophy and religion at a liberal arts school as an undergrad, but I switched to social science at a large state university for graduate school. Imagine my shock when I discovered that there were large swaths within academia where nobody really cared if you used a masculine pronoun! I don't think the average person truly understands how much rigor goes into the upper levels of the physical and social sciences, and how notably non-ideological it is, at least compared to the humanities. Not saying the system is perfect…as Kuhn pointed out, false paradigms can indeed take hold within the scientific community at times…but still, when it comes to understanding the world, I'm always going to defer to the people with phds who can do math and statistics.

  • To Mario above: With respect to Al Gore's movie, you have misrepresented what was actually said by Gore. His "sea level could rise by 20 feet" comment was stated in the context of a massive collapse and melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and was clearly expressed in the movie as a hypothetical scenario, not a foregone conclusion. Regrettably, clueless denialists and rabid "anti-anything having to do with Al Gore" fans have seized upon this particular comment as a way to discredit the entire thesis of An Inconvenient Truth. Your claim that "sea level will rise 20 feet and the earth will turn into Venus" are commonly held perceptions should be backed up, as I have never heard any fair-minded person express such a view.

    With respect to Lomborg, his work and methods have been thoroughly debunked and discredited by actual scientists who know what they are talking about. Lomborg's entire approach to the world's environmental issues is naive, at best, and intentionally crafted to sow doubt and confusion, at worst. He provides a thin veneer of academic cover to the Cato Institute and other right wing groups that don't like what legitimate, rigorously reviewed science tells us about our global ecological crisis. If he wants to be taken seriously by the thinking world, then he'll need to do better than write polemical books that misrepresent actual science.

  • 1) Duh…human activity affects the environment.
    2) Duh…people stand to profit if: (1) they lead the charge against environmental damage. (2) they lead the charge against the people in group 1. and (3) there is an unresolved debate, and they make their money from provocative incitement.

    3) The word "hide" in the first quote *does* bother me, a bit.

    4) Isn't it *also* possible that the one institution in question *is* fraudulent, but that the CW case is valid? (If not, then I'm going to release a bunch of obviously hoaxed up data purportedly in support of causes I really oppose. Or something like that.)

  • Regarding #4: It's possible, yes, but the stolen, selectively e-mails contain no evidence of that, even when presented in the worst possible way and the worst possible light.

  • As I replied to an e-mail about a bill to require everyone to list all guns on the income tax forms. First I said "Sounds like Bullshit to me". Then, "Why is it that the more outlandish it is, the quicker those on the right swallow it hook, line, and sinker???" They'll jump at anything that seems to prove their argument and a bonus if it can be used to scare people.

  • Paradigm shift seems to go through similar phases as the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

    P.S.: anyone who hasn't read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn, should do so now. (Go ahead. I'll wait.)

    But here in Comment City, we're retreating to known territory by discussing the relativistic ways of very human scientists, certain nimrod laymen, and the language of argument. None of us seems to be qualified to discuss the actual merits of the hard sciences involved.

    Until we can move beyond a level of awareness on par with sympathetic magic, all we can do is plant our flags on the sides of those who have impressed us with theories that resonate with our own observations…which I think allows us to err on the side of caution to try to fix things…but which I hope we don't regard as the final word on the subject of global warming, or anything else.

  • Americans do seem to have 'faith' in all the wrong things. The USshould be planning and building towards the future instead of spending trillions on war and drugs and make-up and stupid fucking Lear jets.

    40.05 billion tonnes of CO2 emmissions per year does not make our environment any more congenial. Add to that the suspected 24 billion pounds of chemicals that are classified as known or suspected developmental or neurological toxins released annually into the US' air and water and it's not unreasonable for people to say if we don't modify our behaviour, the future is looking decidedly shitty. Then add water shortages, overfishing, unsustainable food crop practices, and the rapid population growth, and there's compelling reasons to get together and discuss what might be done to act a little more responsibly rather than wasting time setting off 2500 or so nuclear explosions, as we did over the last sixty years. Oh, and did I mention the 47,000 metric tons of dangerously radioactive spent fuel from commercial and defense nuclear reactors in the US? The 91 million gallons (345 million liters) of high-level waste left over from plutonium processing, scores of tons of plutonium, more than half a million tons of depleted uranium, millions of cubic feet of contaminated tools, metal scraps, clothing, oils, solvents, and other waste? And with some 265 million tons (240 million metric tons) of tailings from milling uranium ore—less than half stabilized—littering US landscapes?

    Bjorn fucking Lomborg is an elitist, catty little bitch and a whore to coservative interests because he wasn't just shitting on global warming projections, he was denigrating the the need for change in our current behaviour and the absolute necessity for consideration, planning and a rigorous environmental consciousness for the future.

  • 1) "Trick" within the context of the physical sciences does not mean some dishonest sleight-of-hand, but rather a very clever means of coming up with a solution to a fairly complicated problem. Thus, Feynman's renormalization technique in quantum electrodynamics for canceling out infinities is a very neat trick, as opposed to making elephants disappear in Vegas.
    2) The chances of the public knowing the difference in 1) are about the same as me shitting out a solid gold nugget without, you know, eating any gold.
    3) I could spew out arguments about how anthropogenic carbon emissions are having an undeniable effect upon the environment (*cough* oceanic pH values *cough*), but I realize that it would render this turd slick of a subject only slightly less wet and sticky and so…
    4) I'm going out into the snow and play, while its still there.

  • Mario Greymist says:

    Keith:

    People (Average people) tend to remember the most extreme images/claims and form opinions based on those. This is true of all political phenomena, and not just environmental issues. When Al Gore presented the most extreme scenarios while eschewing the fact that those ideas are further on the fringe than pure denial, he was engaging in an appeal to fear; a fallacious tactic well proven effective by his opponent in the 200 election when President Bush made a case for an immoral, unnecessary war.

    And Bjorn Lomborg (who, like me, accepts that AGW is happening) has been cleared of any academic wrongdoing. You can continue to make a case for him to be locked in the tower until he recants, and the groupthink crowd has so attempted. In an open debate, nothing has ever proven any of his methods dishonest. In fact, when the DCSD did censure him, their decision was overturned as a political character assassination, which it clearly was.

  • In the words of the immortal George Carlin:

    "Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We

  • Mario: On what basis do you claim the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is further on the fringe than pure denial? It is, after all, ACTUALLY melting. Will it completely collapse and cause a dramatic rise in sea level? I don't know–and I'm not aware of anyone who does know. But for Gore to use the example to help elucidate the non-linear consequences of burning our 360 million year endowment of buried sunshine in a mere 200 years is entirely appropriate. The evidence is overwhelming that the Greenland ice sheet is melting and receding. And massive breaches in ice dams have occurred historically. Gore used actual data to make a rhetorical point, whereas denialists, by definition, ignore the vast body of evidence so that we can continue with business as usual. A collapse of the Greenland ice sheet is indeed an extreme scenario, but a scenario well within the realm of possibilities, given what we already know about the natural world.

    And whether Lomborg has or has not been cleared of academic wrongdoing is completely irrelevant. There are plenty of academics who publish nonsense, but haven't technically done anything "wrong." Lomborg parses his arguments very carefully in his efforts to carry water for the status quo. And he's very selective in the kinds of data and assumptions he uses to make his arguments. Other researchers who know what they are talking about have pointed this out (Scientific American covered many of the arguments in depth years ago when Lomborg's 'Skeptical Environmentalist' book came out). I doubt anyone will ever "prove" Lomborg dishonest–but the fact remains that he is a hack.

  • "They'll jump at anything that seems to prove their argument"

    Well, of course. We value things that support our beliefs much more highly than things that conflict. It might be that the more outlandish and nonsensical the beliefs, the more eagerly we grasp at any (what was that word again?) that would seem to indicate that we are, in spite of all the evidence, correct. Human nature, for which P. T. Barnum, innumerable bunco artists and government lottery programs gave thanks every day. We _want_ to be fooled. We _demand_ to be fooled. It's better than worrying.

  • Mario Greymist says:

    So Greenland is losing ice (as are many northern glacial fields)…Al Gore's example requires the rest of the world remain at a stasis, while the reality is the antarctic ice cover is growing. And never mind that the actual result of rapidly (and all of it in a century is rapid in geological/climatological terms) losing the entirety of the Greenland ice sheet is far more likely to cool the climate (by altering the effects of the currents in the Atlantic[and no, nothing like the timeframe of the other sci-fi thriller about AGW]) than it is to warm the climate. Something as big as the Greenland ice sheet being melted will have about a thousand effects we can't accurately predict, because human history has never witnessed such a drastic natural event, barring maybe the 2006 tsunami and similar tectonic disasters. The bottom line is, the climate is far too complicated to describe things in such a clear cut manner as "we're losing ice, and water is rising." It just isn't that simple, even when pretending it is gets people riled up. (they have WMDs was simple too)

    Whether you think Lomborg is a hack or not, his treatment by the academy in Denmark, and continued here in this exchange, is all the proof I need of my point. This argument isn't about basing the policy on factual science, but on ensuring that the science supports the policy. Lots of well thought out studies which could (and often should) have proven current understandings of the effects of human activity on the climate have had less than perfect results. That doesn't prove it's not happening. It proves our understanding of the mechanism by which it is happening is imperfect.

    The real problem in this debate (counting out the idiotic pure denialists whose influence in the academy is nil) is that divergent political motives have taken over the scientific debate. Hell, I once thought Global Warming was a disaster, and that the radical left was on the side of the angels with it. I thought this, much as Ed pointed out just a couple days ago, because I generally agreed with the far left's positions on most things, so it seemed sensible. But when a friend prodded me into looking more closely, I saw through the emperor's new clothes.

    And remember, my problem here is discursive, not scientific. Paulo Freire, a socialist educational theorist once discussed how divergent themes have the effect of moving discussions away from what's real into the realm of belief. In his words:

    "Confronted by this “universe of themes” in dialectical contradiction, persons take equally contradictory positions: some work to maintain the structures, others to change them. As antagonism deepens between themes which are the expression of reality, there is a tendency for the themes and for reality itself to be mythicized, establishing a climate of irrationality and sectarianism. This climate threatens to drain the themes of their deeper significance and to deprive them of their characteristically dynamic aspect. In such a situation, myth-creating irrationality itself becomes a fundamental theme. Its opposing theme, the critical and dynamic view of the world strives to unveil reality, unmask its mythicization, and achieve a full realization of the human task: the permanent transformation reality in favor of the liberation of people."

    And if you don't can't see the irrational sectarianism which has sprung up on both sides of this debate, you have simply chosen to not look.

  • A bit of repetition…a bit of self-centered observation, and an honest inquiry:

    1) "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick … to hide the decline." The thing that bothers me about this one quotation (used by all the GW deniers, out of the many, many e-mails posted online) is that italicized word, "hide". That's not easy to dismiss as science-lingo. (At least, it wasn't when I was in school.)

    2) While I don't really know what Kuhn has to do with this post, I was excited to see a recommendation for the very book I began reading last night.

    3) I'm a bit skeptical of the quantitative data on Global Warming. We just aren't measuring in enough locations, with enough frequency, over a long enough period, to establish how fucked we are with any decent precision. But the fact that we're causing some change seems undeniable.

  • Well, "Mario", the people of the Mekong Delta aren't climatologists, etc. either, but they will tell you, like they told me, that the weather is becoming increasingly erratic (dry weather in the monsoon and vice-versa) and rising sea levels are fucking up their harvests and their homes. And that's just one place. It's really bloody easy to quibble about "argumentation", hacked emails and colourful charts when it's not *your* home that is increasingly underwater, and *your* food source which is becoming more difficult to grow and predict. The developed nations are fiddling while Rome burns, or drowns, in this case.

  • Mario Greymist says:

    Appeal to emotion, insignificant sample…want to try for three fallacies in your next refutation Prudence? I am not suggesting inaction, nor am I suggesting that there is no cause for alarm. What I am suggesting is that appeals like yours are not valid justification tear down the world's economy. The kind of action being espoused by the political supporters of the IPCC requires the kind of political will which cannot be garnered with an honest representation of the science, which is why you think this approach is so strong. Environmental totalitarianism is hardly a solution worth considering for those of us who believe in democratic ideals.

  • Mario –

    Your argument is the most dangerous and disingenuous of skeptics. I will actually give you the benefit of the doubt and call you a skeptic, because I believe there is a class out there that accepts the basic science of anthropogenic climate change. It's pretty hard to refute that CO2 is causing an increase in warming and even harder to refute that humans are adding to the CO2 presence in the atmosphere.

    But to say that the warming does not justify action makes me think you've come to this argument with a forgone conclusion – hence the use of extremes such as "tear down the world's economy" or "environmental totalitarianism". Because when you say things like "The bottom line is, the climate is far too complicated to describe things in such a clear cut manner as "we're losing ice, and water is rising." It just isn't that simple, even when pretending it is gets people riled up.", you're just wrong. You claim you're making an argument about the argument, but you can distance yourself from the science. There is a large degree of uncertainty about the climate sensitivity, but developed models have been very successful in explaining current and historical trends.

    Why has climate become politicized? Because the science tells us that a lot is at stake, and the answer requires a public policy solution. But it's not a zero sum game as you try to make it out to be. We can control carbon emissions AND produce a healthy sustainable economy. Somebody has to produce, install, and maintain all of the clean energy resources of the future.

  • The facts in this matter are the date from the UK emails are about data from tree rings being used after 1960. This in no way contradicts over 10,000 peer reviewed papers on the fact global warming is occuring, and that this decade has been the warmest on record.

    The right give the perception that it's a 50-50 coin flip as to whether or not scientists agree global warming is occurring and that man is behind its acceleration. This '50-50' meme is a bogus perception. There is not one peer reviewed study that contradicts the over 10,000 peer reviewed papers on global warming or the fact man is a major contributor.

  • Mario Greymist says:

    Zach, you need to read the science. Seriously. Your belief that the world is so simple that losing ice means rising sea levels and nothing else is just absurd simplicity. And while it is true that CO2, and particularly anthropogenic CO2 emissions contribute to warming (this is where there is a consensus) is true, it is also true that CO2 is a fairly weak greenhouse gas (something only discussed on the scientific, not the political side of this debate) and that anthropogenic CO2 is only a small fraction of the total within the atmosphere. I read enough of the science to maintain an informed opinion on this matter. You read enough of the IPCC press releases to maintain your faith. That is the difference between us.

    Whatever science there is which justifies the massive changes suggested by the IPCC (and there is some, even if it's not a widespread concensus) would also necessitate (not simply justify) the planning for the loss of human habitability in low lying coastal areas and areas in danger of desertification. There is no scientific reason to discuss one and not the other. So the discussions in Copenhagen are based not on the science, but the politics which have sprung up around it. This is a power grab based on appeals to fear, emotion and simple hubris.

  • Complete bullshit, Mario. If you truly are informed on the science, then you will know what the IPCC recommendations are based on, and will have read their reports–it is not at all clear that you have. Here's a hint: they are based on thousands of scientific studies by researchers who know what they are talking about. The IPCC synthesizes and summarizes what has been published and undergone critical review. Within the community of climate scientists, there is a widespread consensus that humans need to reign in the absolute quantity of greenhouse gases we are releasing into the atmosphere. Yes, CO2 is only one of these gases, and one of the weaker ones in terms of radiative forcing, but it happens to be one we release in abundance.

    And you appear to be attributing an argument to Zach that he never made.

    We insure our lives and our houses for uncertainties far more remote and less likely than the uncertainties surrounding human induced climate change. Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions will be cheap insurance, and if we dodge the worst effects, then it will turn out to be the best public policy decision in the history of the world.

    Do yourself a favor. Put down the Bjorn Lomborg and Roger Pielke Jr. crap and read the latest IPCC report, educate yourself in ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, and agronomy and find out why so many other scientific disciplines take accelerated climate change seriously. While many of the worst effects may never come to pass (hopefully), the many threats from an unstable climate are sufficiently grave and irreversible to warrant swift, bold action. It is in our own self interest to do so. Oh, and a bunch of other species might not have to die, either.

  • Oh hey, Mario Fuckface,

    Let's look at another "tear down the world's economy" scenario opposed by lots of first worlders, shall we? Like, umm, slavery. Wilberforce's speech before Parliament was called exactly the same thing, i.e an "appeal to emotion" and "insignificant sample", but it was the right thing to do. As is limiting our impact on others so that they can *survive*.

    And those lofty "democratic ideals" you're whinging on about? I hope yours give you a good, hard kick in the taint, you heartless twat.

    And fuck you, you patronising bitch.

    Lotsa love,

    P

  • Mario Greymist says:

    I have read the science; at least enough of it to know that the IPCC is primarily a political and not a scientific organization. I think there are a lot of things that should be done to reduce human CO2 emissions. Cap and trade? Excellent idea, defensible by science. Substantial alternative energy research? An even better idea, also scientifically explicable. Convincing people humans can control the climate to gain political power? A pretty good idea if political power is more your guiding principle than is science. I should also point out that when I say I read the science, I am talking about scientific papers, and not the IPCC press releases which over-pimp their conclusions. You'd be shocked, seriously.

    I know that you mostly disagree. [url=http://www.ginandtacos.com/2009/12/02/natural-experiment/]Here's why. [/url] I know you don't believe it. The guy pointing to the emperor's ding-a-ling always gets laughed at by the crowd. I am okay with that.

    And Pru, if you feel that line of reasoning is appropriate: In the 1930's there was a scientific consensus for eugenics – the basis for most of Hitler's social policies. Wow, that makes for a fruitful debate? Who's a fuckface? If you can't defend your ideas rationally, go play in a sandbox and leave grown up talk to grown ups, will you?

  • If this post goes up, it will be my (mariogreymist's) last post here, as it will be evidence (as posts under my original name aren't going up) that this site and Ed are far more interested in sycophantic parroting of belief than reasoned public debate. Sad really…I thought he was interested in logic and breaking down commonly held misconceptions about the world.

    Don't go thinking kicking me out of the club makes you kids right or smart…just self congratulatory.

  • Mario: you really don't get it, do you? If you want reasoned public debate, you must first demonstrate that you know what you are talking about. You haven't done that, yet you present yourself as the only one who is rational and well informed. By your own admission, you are NOT well informed if you haven't read the complete IPCC report. Nor do you demonstrate any understanding about how the IPCC is structured as an organization, or you wouldn't make such a foolish claim that the "IPCC is primarily a political not a scientific organization." Do you have evidence of this claim? Start here for a primer: http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm . While you're visiting that link, download their latest full report and spend some time reading it.

    If the IPCC is primarily political, then so too is the National Academies of Science or the Royal Society of London, and all these groups, when they have looked at the science behind climate change, have concluded massive cuts in carbon emissions is necessary to avert destabilizing the climate that all our cultural, social, agronomic and economic systems have come to depend on.

    The IPCC, as with other professional scientific bodies, is inherently conservative in their interpretations and recommendations. In fact, they've been criticized (justifiably, I think) for downplaying the threats.

    And no one is kicking you out–you are just being called out and asked to do your homework before pontificating on this subject.

  • # waldo Says:
    December 12th, 2009 at 9:51 am

    I forgot the acidification of the oceans.

    That's a biggie! A third of the world can kiss their food supply 'bye bye'.

  • Oh Mario, don't you know? Godwin's = automatic fail. And which "last post" is your last post? I have the booze standing by to salute it.

    Ta ta, whiny bitch.

  • I would like to clarify that the Spam filter was trapping Mario's posts because they contained URL tags. I do not censor his or anyone else's comments. One would have to drift very far into troll territory to receive that treatment.

Comments are closed.