PowerSwitch

Is Delingpole on the bung list ?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... te-climate

I am completely against any organisation that intentionally attempts to undermine or discredit climate science. Although I am sceptical of the AGW Theory, I feel it is completely unacceptable for an organisation to carry out this practice or have any mission to discredit science.
For what it is worth, I am also completely against Fracking, due to the environmental impact it no doubt has.

Another good reason to boycott Microshit (not that another one was actually needed but still).

Wasn't that the faked expose backed up by the stunning news that the Heartland Institute paid money to support research that chimed with its interests?

Although obviously biased and slightly demented this piece makes a solid point about where money is actually spent in the climate science debate.

GreenPeace $300million, WWF $700million.

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:Wasn't that the faked expose backed up by the stunning news that the Heartland Institute paid money to support research that chimed with its interests?

Although obviously biased and slightly demented this piece makes a solid point about where money is actually spent in the climate science debate.

GreenPeace $300million, WWF $700million.

Might it be that thr 'research' carried out was always going to chime with it's interests, commonly called a 'fix'.

This whole "leak" that was not a leak, seems to be back-firing badly on the folks who were trying to retaliate against sceptics........ key document was a fake!

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/02/update ... ider-leak/

eatyourveg wrote:
Might it be that thr 'research' carried out was always going to chime with it's interests, commonly called a 'fix'.

No.

When you falsify your results that is a 'fix'.

When you have doubts about a current theory and fund work investigating a counter argument that is called 'science'.

So long as the research is sound and the results are public then there is nothing wrong here.

Pretending that argument 'X' is less worthy than argument 'Y' because of who says it is akin to religion.

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:

eatyourveg wrote:
Might it be that thr 'research' carried out was always going to chime with it's interests, commonly called a 'fix'.

No.

When you falsify your results that is a 'fix'.

When you have doubts about a current theory and fund work investigating a counter argument that is called 'science'.

So long as the research is sound and the results are public then there is nothing wrong here.

Pretending that argument 'X' is less worthy than argument 'Y' because of who says it is akin to religion.

I don't quite agree with that. In 1919 a British expedition went to Africa to observe an eclipse and bending of light from occluded stars. The purpose was to confirm Einsteins Theory published in 1915. The results duly came in and the whole thing was hailed as former enemies now on the same side etc. The results were examined some years later and the errors were as great as the measurements. However the wanted result came in the range and was accepted.

I'm pretty certain that similar practices are going on today as well, if for different reasons. Vested interests in anything are bad, especially politics and science, when organisations fund research to further their commercial ambitions objectivity is the first thing to vanish. Very rarely (Welcome Institute) is science funded for the good of the population as a whole. There are plenty of examples in politics, science will be no different. Where the two meet the results are often tragic. Dr David Kelly springs to my mind.

The souce for the 1919 story is Prof S. Hawking for those who like to check my sources. I accept your line about the research being sound but that is, with respect, rather subjective. What's sound to one party may not be so to others.

Your last sentence is quite offensive, consider this
Theory X some people are more superior than others
Theory Y all people should be considered equal

Theory X supporters racists,eugenecists. Theory Y supporters moderates, socialists. But we're to consider them equally? I don't think so.

SleeperService wrote: There are plenty of examples in politics, science will be no different.

They are utterly different. Yes, there have been a few examples in scientific history of people being nobbled to fix results for commercial or political reasons. But not many. More frequently we see examples of scientists seeing what they want to see (instead of what is actually there) for purely science-oriented reasons (they want to believe they've proved something scientifically important.)

That is where the similarity stops, though. In the case of science, these mistakes/frauds are discovered, and usually quite quickly. It is an inherent feature of science that this sort of self-correction takes place. In the case of politics this sort of fraud and dishonesty is the rule rather than the exception. Politicians aren't even supposed to be honest. They are just supposed to not get caught lying.

Science seeks to uncover "the truth." Politics is about trying to achieve a particular result and the truth couldn't be less relevant.

There is no single great truth in science. The best we can hope for is a better understanding of what is happening.

I'm rather weak on Climate Change but as I understand it the only certainty is that the CO2 concentration is rising. The theory is that burning fossil fuels is the cause. The antithesis is that it's natural cycling. It seems that there are plenty of scientists with equally credible claims on both sides. I can't help but wonder what effect 9 billion souls and their animals are having.

To anybody 'in' the argument their side is valid the other side isn't.

Go back to Galileo and everybody was convinced the Earth was the centre of the universe, he showed it wasn't but the idea took a very long time to gain popular acceptance even among scientists. Every scientist has to be a political animal, now more than ever, until there is an independant means of funding science it will always be so.

Alternatively find a way of doing without 'the market' and money altogeather and then pure scientists may appear.

Only the lunatic fringe would argue that the increasing CO2 level isn't directly linked to the burning of fossil fuels.

Similarly it is hard to imagine anyone with any credibility arguing against the increasing temperature of atmosphere wrt recent records - not that I accept the validity of global averages as a method of measuring it.

The big questions are whether the two events are related and what else is going on. Greenhouse theory was manufactured from the basis that all global temperature change is a direct result of increasing CO2 concentrations.
That is a convenient theory but convenience doesn't guarantee accuracy.

I have my doubts about the scale of the relationship and suspect other phenomena are making their presence felt in the results.

As to your reference to offence I can only suggest you read what I wrote again. You have to judge arguments on the basis of their merits rather than from the jaded perspective of our own prejudices.

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:Only the lunatic fringe would argue that the increasing CO2 level isn't directly linked to the burning of fossil fuels.

I hope Snow Hope is reading this...

I have no doubt that fossil fuel burning and other human activities including cement production, land clearance and animal farming is a significant portion of the increase in CO2, although not all of it.

I also have little doubt that global temperatures appear to be rising in all continents apart from Antarctica. The only reason I say appear is due to the issues of the urban heat island (UHI) effect and that poor suitability of placement of many weather stations. So there is some question of just how much temperature is rising, but I accept it has risen in the recent warming since 1988.

As I have detailed before on here and nobody has argued against me, the relationship between CO2 increase and temperature increase is logarithmic in nature, ie. an increase from 300 to 400 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 with have a much smaller effect on temperature increase than an increase from 200 to 300 ppm would have.

I consider that we under-estimate the solar impact on our climate and after 50 years of high solar activity, it is no wonder we have had a small amount of global warming over the last 25 years. Now that we appear to be entering a solar minimum period, it will be interesting to see if global temperatures begin to drop from the recent highs. If they do not then I will adjust/change my views on the AGW Theory.

When CO2 was at much lower levels than today, I wonder what caused the increase in global temperatures that we saw from 1910 - 1940? It appears from the records of the recent past (say the last 1000 years) that our global climate has the capability/variability to go up and down enough such that we had a medi-evil warm period and a Little Ice Age, so we have to be very careful before jumping to conclusions as to why our climate warms or cools a little.

These are my researched and considered thoughts, so please respect them as I respect the opinions of people who think we are warming the planet - you may be right, but I remain as yet unconvinced.

snow hope wrote: As I have detailed before on here and nobody has argued against me, the relationship between CO2 increase and temperature increase is logarithmic in nature, ie. an increase from 300 to 400 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 with have a much smaller effect on temperature increase than an increase from 200 to 300 ppm would have.

Yes it's logarithmic; that's why climate sensitivity is expressed in term of doubling of the greenhouse gas in question. But don't exaggerate this effect. You say 'an increase from 200 to 300 ppm' but the pre-industrial level of CO2 was c.270 and we've still way short of the first doubling.

I don't really understand your point Biff, but I am glad to see you accept that the effect is logarithmic.

Would it be fairer to say that, an increase in CO2 from 270ppm to 370ppm will cause a much greater increase in temperature than an increase from 370ppm to 470ppm?