Socialized Health Care in the USA

[Jester]

What Carlin was saying (as I guess everyone else) is that temperature has many factors of which CO2 may be a lesser problem.

Right. And when he's got some peer reviewed science that actually supports changing our conception of the role of CO2 in climate change, rather than just taking various bits and pieces off peoples' websites, I'm sure he'll look a lot more secure in his conclusions.

The part of this discussion that is really disturbing to me is the general irrelevance of expertise. Someone's an economist? They must be qualified to judge the earth sciences, eh? Someone's a physicist? Sure, that must be about the same thing, right? Someone's a known shill with no relevant experience at all? Attack the ideas, not the person! But if someone's a climate scientist, or relies on them for their opinions? Well, the whole discipline must be biased! It's all Al Gore and the climate conspiracy, spinning out junk science!

It all seems a little topsy-turvy, no?

There appears (based on the 11 year trend) that there is not a direct correlation between temperature and CO2 levels. Maybe our bigger problem is aerosol emissions. Then in 5 or 10 years, after we've chased this rabbit, the science will reveal we've ignored the bigger threat for the red herring of CO2 abatement.

Let me count the ways in which this is wrong.

First, as I explained, looking at the "11 year trend" is specious. If you took random data, and cherry picked your start or end dates, you could find all sorts of "trends" that aren't trends at all, just statistical artefacts. Take a 10 year period, take a 15 year period, whatever, and you end up with more normal results. 11 in particular is poor because of 1998 being a peak year.

Second, CO2 emissions could have a direct, one to one causal relationship with temperature, and you still wouldn't see perfect correlation. (It doesn't, but that's another issue.) The "11 year trend" might prove that CO2 is not the *only* thing affecting climate variability, but that's a stupid position that nobody has ever held.

Third, if you seriously have any good evidence that CO2 is a "red herring", then publish it. Peer-reviewed journals are where science discussion takes place. Since (of course) you have no such evidence, then you should probably be at least a little hesitant before flat out declaring you know where the science is going to be in "5 or 10 years", especially when that result is suspiciously in line with what you'd like to be true, and completely against the vast majority opinion of climate scientists.

-Jester