I am actually open on the issue. The evidence for catastrophe has been lacking in my view. I'd like to see a shift toward renewables when it makes sense economically - and it eventually will. It makes no sense to me to artificially raise prices on energy and thereby cause immediate and real harm to literally billions of people across the globe when past dire predictions have not come true and there is no evidence that future changes will cause such dire circumstances. Imagine if there were focused effort on solar panels that were more efficient and capturing wave energy and wind and making that affordable instead of all the money and time spent on calling people deniers when they oppose spending trillions to make a miniscule difference. Not to mention the effect on the poor of the world, who have the most to lose by forcing a scheme that punishes energy use with draconian economic measures. These are the people who would benefit most from expansion of energy availability and therefore have perhaps the most to lose. So I am as pragmatic in my approach as I am skeptical. And my skepticism does not mean I am entrenched and unmoveable. But shouting down opposing voices does nothing to advance science or humanity.The subject is climate change, no? There is a lot of misinformation out there - and it's not just one-sided.
It's a very complex subject. Trying to distill multiple facets into one post is stupid unless your position happens to be "it's a conspiracy!" or you have too much time on your hands.
True.
As for that site, not impressed, once again. Clearly a spin.
Why am I not surprised? The fact that Taylor misinterpreted the study is just that. 100% fact. Again, duly noted how sources fail your ideological purity test regardless of how correct they are.
I have repeated the fact that I am not impressed by majorities or consensus. I am not impressed with your sources. In particular, that source states this:
Climate Science Watch is a nonprofit public interest education and advocacy project dedicated to holding public officials accountable for using climate research effectively and with integrity in dealing with the challenge of global climate disruption.
They arrive with a predetermined viewpoint and advocate that viewpoint. That's fine, but not convincing.
And clearly an ad hominem attack on the oil and gas ties without mention of government grant ties of other scientists or of the concerted effort to keep skeptical articles from peer-reviewed publications.
I don't think you know what an ad hominem attack is.
Attacking the person as opposed to their argument, as in "they get money from the oil and gas industry" with the implication being" they are dirty lying people". See this comment:
The APEGA survey is noteworthy for its exposure of the disparity between the views of engineers and geoscientists employed by petroleum companies, vs. the rest of the community of actively publishing climate and earth scientists. Denialism increased still further among the top-level oil and gas engineers. Although the cause behind this trend is unclear, it shows at the very least a correlation between ties to oil and gas and climate denial views. In no way does it undermine the strong agreement among publishing scientists that human-caused global warming is real and a problem.
There is a blatant disregard to objective principles. Use of the term "denialism" is an attack on the person, not the argument. The term plainly states that people are denying reality and has also been used to link "climate change deniers" to holocaust deniers. It is used to undermine credibility and attack the people, not the science.
So, if you want to talk global warming it's really simple - prove that it's anthropogenic since you want to spend trillions of dollars fixing the problem. Prove the models spelling gloom and doom are accurate. It's not my burden to prove a negative. That's just not possible. I know the Earth has warmed in recent times. I know it was very cold recently as well, with "The Little Ice age" and even a "Year Without a Summer".
Prove the models are right? LOL. Pick out a specific model or graph and let's go over it. No model will ever be 100% percent accurate. It's a model after all.
But, again, they have been more accurate than you seem to realize:
150 years of predictions? pffft. How old is the Earth again? Do the models follow our temp proxies from at least the past few hundred to few thousand years? Speaking of, why just include the past 150 years in most climate graphs? Can we see the graphs with the Roman and Medieval Warm periods and the Little Ice Age we happen to be coming out of?
So what is Earth's "normal" temperature and what has been man's direct impact on that? Remember always that correlation does not equal causation.
There is no "normal" temperature. There are periods of equilibrium, but the climate has and always will react to whatever forcings are acting upon it. We're currently the dominant one.
We are far from being the "dominant" source of forcings. Are our GHG emissions enough to nudge temps upward a tick? Possibly, but 30 billion tons of CO2 is a small amount compared to nature's input. Again, it might be enough to nudge things, but let's be real. The same goes for most other GHG's, and those having the most effect are almost entirely nature driven. CO2 has a rate of diminishing returns in regards to temperature and the models I have looked at in the past which predicted wild temp fluctuations largely relied on a positive feedback mechanism regarding water vapor to get there. They didn't pan out. Neither have the wild predictions of some of the frontmen for the climate change crowd.
Remember also that attacking the skeptical messenger does not prove your point. At all. Not even a little.
So pointing out something is wrong and explaining why constitutes an attack? OK.
No. See above regarding use of certain terms and implying that industry ties are the cause of their views. Do I think it's good to know potential biases? Yes. Is calling someone a "denier" living in "denialism" an attack on them? I think so. It's certainly not based in the science and is meant to do nothing more than impugn their character and intelligence.
ditto
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