Socialized Health Care in the USA

[Jester]

Ok, so then Tim Ball, a climatologist and known global warming skeptic. Richard Lindzen an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT. Sallie Baliunas an astrophysicist (who maybe understands things like the sun, and planetary processes). Mark Z. Jacobson an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. OR, Gerd-Rainer Weber...

Hey, some scientists! Some of them are climatologists, even! At least it's better than Milloy. Now take that list, adding as many as you can, and compare it to the list on the other side, and see where the weight of consensus is. It's not hard to see.

There are many science trained, people who are qualified to question the supposed consensus on climate catastrophe.

Yes, and they are outnumbered about 10 to 1 by those who support the "supposed" consensus. This isn't a democracy, the question is the weight of the arguments. But, given just how much money has been thrown into clouding the waters by the obvious beneficiaries (coal, oil, gas industries, mostly), and how politically charged the issue is, it's actually kind of surprising that there aren't more climate scientists lined up against. Maybe this is a funding issue, and no doubt that has some effect, but there are obvious sources of funding for contrary positions as well, as a quick perusal of denialists' funding sources will almost always reveal.

You will attack them as a biased pro-industry sources. But, it seems to me that one of the problems here is the whole pro- and anti- bias in the first place. How can I trust your sources? They are biased against industry to the detriment of humanity. No one is claiming that the whole discipline is biased, however just as you find some scientists may be swayed by their funding source, so do I (as Pete noted, they do know which side of the bread is buttered).

Where do you get this Dr. Evil thing from? Are they supervillains? Do they get their "anti-industry" bias from anywhere in particular, or did they just all collectively decide on it one day?

Pro-industry bias is easy to detect: they're being given money. Like Lindzen. (Whaddaya know? Maybe you're better at predicting than I give you credit for.) But to just assume anti-industry bias? Where is this supposed to originate from, exactly?

Sure, I agree. The short term cooling period was unfortunate in making the claim that CO2 results in warming. Obviously there is something more complicated involved. To understand the data, you need to look at a longer period. But, then, if you choose one convenient to show warming you will find other anomalies due to larger cycles, such as solar radiation variability, distance from the sun, geologic activity, and other climate processes we might not understand very well.

This is what the whole field of climate science is knee-deep in, and while further refinements are obviously in the works, they are more or less absolutely sure that there is warming, and that CO2 causes warming. Now, the precise amount of warming attributable to that forcing, as opposed to others, is up for debate. But there is zero disagreement that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that increasing its atmospheric concentration raises the temperature.

Again, if you have evidence that one of these other factors is really driving the climate, please, present it. Get it out there. It would be a great relief to know that we are not really in any danger from the climate. But so long as it's just your opinion about what is or isn't driving the warming, rather than well-researched science, there's not really any reason for me to change my opinion here.

The period climate science uses to show warming is... well, almost any period. Look at the 50 year graph. The 100 year graph. The 1000 year graph (insofar as it even means anything going back that far). Look at almost any set of years, and you see the trend. It's only when you start slicing the data thin (like looking at the last 11 years exactly) that you see "cooling", although apparently even that interval shows a slight warming, though hard to percieve at a glance.

No. No. No. You've got this backwards. Shouldn't science be able to some what conclusively prove to us that what they say is fact before we jump in to spend trillions of dollars and reduce our standard of living resulting in millions of additional human deaths over the next decade?

Science doesn't "conclusively prove" things. But the overwhelming majority of those who study these topics tell us that the warming is real, and that it is anthropogenic. Nearly every major scientific organization has publicly expressed their agreement. What level of "proof" do you need here? Because it sounds like you're willing to cling to any doubt at all, because you've already decided that this is "junk science", "snake oil", and whatever else, regardless of the actual state of the science.

Also, millions of deaths? Are you kidding me? You chide us for talking about apocalyptic scenarios, and then throw this into the mix? Where are these millions of deaths supposed to come from, exactly? The third world is being asked to pay almost nothing for climate change. You're really telling me that first-world countries are going to experience millions of deaths over this?

Politically savvy snake oil salesmen have taken us down these roads before resulting in decades of needless regulation and wasted productivity. What makes this time different?

Because it's driven by the weight of climate science first, and politics second.

You can take a look at Lindzen yourself if you like. He ain't exactly squeaky clean.

-Jester