toldailytopic: Do you believe mankind is causing global warming?

[El DLo]

Causing? No.

We know for a fact that periods of cooling and warming are cyclical, and this is no different.

Hastening though, I'm sure we are. With the amount of toxins and pollutants we pump into the environment, I'm absolutely confident that our effect ON global warming is worse than it would be if not for our presence.

 

[Selaphiel]

Charts can be exaggerated folks. They are not proof. They have been altered. This was exposed when a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. I added the link to the site that showed the exposed emails. 61 megabytes of this stuff was released on the internet. This site was kind enough the redact the emails of the guilty parties.

Here's one of them:

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm, Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. 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) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998. Thanks for the comments, Ray.

This is only a hint that warming data has been fudged. Where I live I see no evidence of warming. The Summers and Winters have been getting colder in fact. This year is exceptionally stormy and damp.

Watch the video I linked, this mail is explained in it. You will see what "Mike's nature trick" really is. The mails has been cleared, there is nothing suspicious about it once you understand what they are actually referring to.
The temperature where you live isn't representative of the global average temperature which is what is at stake here. The scientific data is conclusive on the fact that the average global temperature is rising.

 

[Granite]

Where I live I see no evidence of warming. The Summers and Winters have been getting colder in fact. This year is exceptionally stormy and damp.

Well all due respect, Kett, but climate change doesn't mean it will get warmer everywhere. And anecdotal evidence can only go so far. NH is getting increasingly violent thunderstorms and even tornadoes, something we haven't seen with any kind of frequency for the greater part of a century. Does that prove the planet's going warmer? No. But as part of a bigger picture, what you and I are both seeing--unusual weather patterns--makes sense. Something is broken, and I don't think human activity is helping matters.

 

[Sherman]

Watch the video I linked, this mail is explained in it. You will see what "Mike's nature trick" really is. The mails has been cleared, there is nothing suspicious about it once you understand what they are actually referring to.

Not convincing--a half hour's worth of spin. Those that push the anthropogenic warming myth spin--that all they do.

 

[Selaphiel]

Not convincing--a half hour's worth of spin. Those that push the anthropogenic warming myth spin--that all they do.

What is it that was not convincing? What you called merely a trick was a valid scientific treatment of data, thus there is no "hide the decline". THERE IS NO DECLINE in the global temperature data.
Show us what's invalid about their treatment of the data. Calling good scientific work for a myth does not make it so, you need actual data and the ability to point out actual (as opposed to fantasy which is the case in the "hide the decline" movement) flaws in their methods.

 

[eameece]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for July 13th, 2011 10:01 AM

toldailytopic: Do you believe mankind is causing global warming?

It's not a question of belief, but of fact. The facts are easily available. But thanks for raising the issue.

 

[Sherman]

What is it that was not convincing? What you called merely a trick was a valid scientific treatment of data, thus there is no "hide the decline". THERE IS NO DECLINE in the global temperature data.
Show us what's invalid about their treatment of the data. Calling good scientific work for a myth does not make it so, you need actual data and the ability to point out actual (as opposed to fantasy which is the case in the "hide the decline" movement) flaws in their methods.

All of that business about tree rings and deposits doesn't even relate to the letter. They load down the listener with a flood of data in hopes to confuse him. Then they bash the people that don't accept the anthropogenic global warming model. I smell back pedalling and coverup.

 

[Selaphiel]

All of that business about tree rings and deposits doesn't even relate to the letter. They load down the listener with a flood of data in hopes to confuse him. Then they bash the people that don't accept the anthropogenic global warming model. I smell back pedalling and coverup.

The tree rings don't relate to the e-mail? That is curious considering that "Mike" is Michael Mann who is a dendrochronologist and that what is referred to as a "Nature trick" is a reference to this scientists article in the renowned scientific journal "Nature":

"The "decline" refers to a decline in northern tree-rings, not global temperature, and is openly discussed in papers and the IPCC reports." (http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm)

So of course it is relevant to the mail that you cited.

And the second part of your statement is a misleading comment. He does not bash them for holding a particular opinion, he bashes them for willfully misrepresenting scientific research to support that opinion.
I'm still waiting for you to demonstrate the flaws in their methodology and the error of their data.

 

[Alate_One]

All of that business about tree rings and deposits doesn't even relate to the letter. They load down the listener with a flood of data in hopes to confuse him. Then they bash the people that don't accept the anthropogenic global warming model. I smell back pedalling and coverup.

The only decline being hidden IS the tree ring data which stopped matching the directly measured temperature data sometime in the 1960s for unknown reasons (perhaps due to rising CO2 or something else). So rather than confuse readers with proxy data (indirect measures of temperature) that is problematic, they show the instrumental record (real temps) as far back as it goes which does NOT have a decline in temperature. They labeled all of the lines on the graph as to where they came from.

Get it now?

 

[frostmanj]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for July 13th, 2011 10:01 AM

toldailytopic: Do you believe mankind is causing global warming?

It's not a question of belief, but of fact. The facts are easily available. But thanks for raising the issue.

It's one thing to admit to the fact of global warming. But, that is not the question here. The question is whether man is causing it? Again, if we are it is by all evidence only negligible.

 

[lightbringer]

edited...oops!

 

[Alate_One]

It's one thing to admit to the fact of global warming. But, that is not the question here. The question is whether man is causing it? Again, if we are it is by all evidence only negligible.

Negligible huh? 90% confidence is negligible now. . . . I'd best inform our statistics professors.

Is Climate Change caused by humans?

 

[kmoney]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for July 13th, 2011 10:01 AM

toldailytopic: Do you believe mankind is causing global warming?

I think the evidence points toward us having an impact and I think we should take steps to reverse it.

I'm also a believer that doing nothing when it is our fault is worse than doing something when it isn't. Therefore, even with the presence of doubts, I am in favor of changes.

 

[The Barbarian]

Charts can be exaggerated folks. They are not proof. They have been altered. This was exposed when a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. I added the link to the site that showed the exposed emails. 61 megabytes of this stuff was released on the internet. This site was kind enough the redact the emails of the guilty parties.

Here's one of them:
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
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) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Here's a good example of the way the people who stole those emails carefully edited what they released to fool the gullible.

From the folks at Factcheck.org, who specialize in debunking all sorts of dishonesties:

Claims that the e-mails are evidence of fraud or deceit, however, misrepresent what they actually say. A prime example is a 1999 e-mail from Jones, who wrote: "I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline." Skeptics claim the words "trick" and "decline" show Jones is using sneaky manipulations to mask a decline in global temperatures. But that’s not the case. Actual temperatures, as measured by scientific instruments such as thermometers, were rising at the time of the writing of this decade-old e-mail, and (as we’ve noted) have continued to rise since then. Jones was referring to the decline in temperatures implied by measurements of the width and density of tree rings. In recent decades, these measures indicate a dip, while more accurate instrument-measured temperatures continue to rise.

Scientists at CRU use tree-ring data and other "proxy" measurements to estimate temperatures from times before instrumental temperature data began to be collected. However, since about 1960, tree-ring data have diverged from actual measured temperatures. Far from covering it up, CRU scientists and others have published reports of this divergence many times. The "trick" that Jones was writing about in his 1999 e-mail was simply adding the actual, measured instrumental data into a graph of historic temperatures. Jones says it’s a “trick” in the colloquial sense of an adroit feat — "a clever thing to do," as he put it — not a deception. What’s hidden is the fact that tree-ring data in recent decades doesn’t track with thermometer measurements.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/

Factcheck has a history of debunking both liberal and conservative bullhockey. You've been rolled, I'm afraid.

 

[Flipper]

It's pretty funny watching how the evidence trail breaks down in this thread - notice how GW denier posts are made up largely of personal opinion and the occasional well-refuted youtube videos.

The other posts present data based on temperature and ice-core samples from a variety of different sources, and peer reviewed research that represents the majority opinion of scientists from a wide variety of disciplines.

So much for common sense. As the British columnist Charlie Brooker once observed on the subject: "Hey, I'm no scientist. I'm not an engineer either, but if I asked 100 engineers whether it was safe to cross a bridge, and 99 said no, I'd probably try to find another way over the ravine rather than loudly siding with the underdog and arguing about what constitutes a consensus while trundling across in my Hummer."

 

[some other dude]

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.

In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

.................

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.

Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

 

[Flipper]

...says noted scientist Michael Crichton.

 

[genuineoriginal]

The consensus sounds like the old "4 out of 5 dentists" advertisements.
It is nothing more than playing on the Bandwagon effect

 

[Flipper]

So if there's one scientist who disagrees with E=Mc^2, it plunges the validity of the equation into doubt until said scientist is converted or dies of old age?

 

[The Barbarian]

One way to look at it:
As the British columnist Charlie Brooker once observed on the subject: "Hey, I'm no scientist. I'm not an engineer either, but if I asked 100 engineers whether it was safe to cross a bridge, and 99 said no, I'd probably try to find another way over the ravine rather than loudly siding with the underdog and arguing about what constitutes a consensus while trundling across in my Hummer."

an "alternative understanding":
The consensus sounds like the old "4 out of 5 dentists" advertisements. It is nothing more than playing on the Bandwagon effect


You know, if it's something with the potential to do great harm, I think I'll go with the red one, thank you. People don't know everything. But when the vast majority of people in any profession tell you something about their field of expertise, it's more than a little dumb to deny it.

A lot of people who dropped out before taking high school science don't get something very important about science. There is no official decider in science. There's no announcement "we are now going to accept the germ theory; we took a vote and germs won." All that happens is that when a majority of scientists accept the theory, it is considered settled. Science and scientists are open enough that they can deal with a period of time where there is no consensus. But eventually it goes one way or the other as more evidence appears.

It all works by consensus; that's all there is to go on. Crichton was as dinged-out on that as he was in his notion that frog DNA was the closest thing we can get to dinosaur DNA.

Talented writer. But a complete bozo when it came to science.