Scientists respond to Gore's warnings . . .

[Sufferin' Prius Envy]

"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists
By Tom Harris
Monday, June 12, 2006 </span>

[snipped]<span style="color:#009900">
“Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?
No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."
In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change . . .”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

The whole article is quite a read.
And it is not from some rightwing mouthpiece. <_<
It is Canada Free Press dot com.
Enjoy, or cringe . . . depending on your bent.

[hycamguy07]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Jun 15 2006, 09:11 PM) [snapback]271925[/snapback]</div>

"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists
By Tom Harris
Monday, June 12, 2006 </span>

[snipped]<span style="color:#009900">
“Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?
No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."
In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change . . .”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

The whole article is quite a read.
And it is not from some rightwing mouthpiece. <_<
It is Canada Free Press dot com.
Enjoy, or cringe . . . depending on your bent.
[/b]

WOW, interesting read!

[NuShrike]

Hasn't it been established that Carter is on ExxonMobile's payroll, and hasn't had any peer-reviewed publications?

[galaxee]

being one of those non-climate scientists... all i can say is that i can agree with the fact that people forget that scientists tend to have very specific areas of specialty.

i'm a biochemist at heart, a pharmacologist in the making. so i'm a scientist. i don't know squat about bugs. i have an opinion on bugs. i don't like them if they're in my house. but that's a rather non-expert opinion. [sarcasm] but... i'm a scientist! gasp! [/sarcasm] yeah yeah. we can't all be the world authorities on everything.

both sides are equally capable of using the word "scientist" to push their ideas. this is not strictly a tactic of any particular party.

i have nothing expert to say about the issue of global warming, really. i'll leave that to someone who has, well, more expertise than i do. my belief is that we're destroying the planet by being wasteful.

but if there's ever a debate about cellular membrane proteins... i can debate you under the table.

[Godiva]

It was a lot more fun when Michael Crichton was the poster boy for "Global Warming is blah blah".

I really don't have time to research the latest naysayer du jour. Besides, everytime I do....they start another thread and ignore my posts.

You don't want to believe in Global Warming? Fine. You bought a Prius and I'm happy you did, even though that isn't the reason you bought it. As for Global Warming....I doubt you're going to change anyone's minds.

Shall we discuss keeping the net neutral next?

[fshagan]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 15 2006, 09:08 PM) [snapback]272029[/snapback]</div>

It was a lot more fun when Michael Crichton was the poster boy for "Global Warming is blah blah".

I really don't have time to research the latest naysayer du jour. Besides, everytime I do....they start another thread and ignore my posts.

You don't want to believe in Global Warming? Fine. You bought a Prius and I'm happy you did, even though that isn't the reason you bought it. As for Global Warming....I doubt you're going to change anyone's minds.

Shall we discuss keeping the net neutral next?
[/b]

Godiva, you and Galaxee are scientists, aren't you? Galaxee seems to say that it is true that a scientist may have an opinion about something, even a strong opinion, but it could be out of their field. But it seems to me that related fields might see something from a slightly different perspective, and be "more correct" than the folks in the specialty.

I just finished the book "Big Bang", a history of the development of the Big Bang theory. The theoretical cosmologists were at first criticised by the astronomers, but then the astronomers started producing evidence that supported the cosmologists. I could see the same type of thing happening with chemists and climatologists.

Pure science can be corrupted by outside interests, including politics, religion, and even funding from private sources, and individual scientists have their own array of private beliefs and prejudices. We always hope that the peer review process takes care of the individual prejudices, and over time, the truth wins out. The thing I worry about is the exercise of political power to enforce one side over the other in a scientific debate; we often forget that along with the Church, all the entrenched scientists of the time were in favor of sanctioning Galileo.

[Mirza]

Very nicely put fshagan.
------------------------------

As far as global warming goes... we can all hope that an accurate concensus is reached by all the scientists. I would like to add, however, that the potential negatives of human-induced global warming are far more devastating (including economically and financially) than those of corporations losing a comparatively minor percentage reduction in profits by reducing carbon emissions. I am more concerned about the potential impact that rising sea levels would have on people's wellbeing and health rather than how big a home a corporate ceo can buy. Look at Katrina: it is the poorest who are the worst off in any disaster.

Let's hypothesize that scientists a decade from now gather sufficient evidence that global warming is not strongly associated with co2 emissions. ASSUMING that reducing carbon dioxide means losing every possible way to get rich (there could be very some very economical technologies that would not cost much more) and please investors, losing a few billion from a bunch of companies is morally insignificant compared to being responsible for the potential destruction of ecosystems and people's lives. Cry me a new river! So what if you can't afford that new yacht?!

Some of the anti-environmentalists say environmentalists worship global warming. Rather, the anti-enviros worship the dollar. Some of them so much so (ex. Exxon-Mobil) that they forget they too are citizens of the earth.

[Mirza]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Jun 15 2006, 09:11 PM) [snapback]271925[/snapback]</div>

The whole article is quite a read.
And it is not from some rightwing mouthpiece. <_<
It is Canada Free Press dot com.
Enjoy, or cringe . . . depending on your bent.
[/b]

You should retract the idea that the canada free press is apolitical. Just because someone says they are "fair and balanced" doesn't automaticaly mean that they are so. The two hottest terms on the site are Lib and politically correct (that term which is so widely used these days that it is political doublespeak... the use of the term doesn't match the definition anymore... the one that is defined as avoiding saying something in order to not offend someone). Don't just go by what I say... explore the site yourself. Of course, generally speaking, one side is going to agree with it, and the other disagree (the way most debates seem to go these days anyways).

If there is anything going on that some of these authors don't like, they always find some way to insert the term liberal... and make it seems as though the said opinions are "liberal" ideas.
--------

"Here is the curious fact about Earth Day that is not widely known. It is the birthday of Lenin, the icon of Communism who led the Bolshevik revolution that brought the Soviet Union into being. In 1955, the then Soviet Premier, Nikita Krushchev ordered that April 22nd be designated a day to celebrate Communism.

Out of all the days in the year, the founders of Earth Day chose Lenin's birthday. Coincidence? I think not.

In the past, the former Soviet Union spent billions to perpetrate the lie of Communism on the world. On May Day they would stage a huge parade in Red Square. The inner core of the environmental movement today would have celebrated that event with the same fervor they bring to the celebration of Earth Day.

This mass nonsense officially began in 1970 and I am patiently waiting and hoping to be around on the last Earth Day when a grand total of perhaps eight people with nothing better to do show up for its final event."

WHAT BULLSHIT!

[Mirza]

I think I've heard enough from this site...

"Simultaneously, along the way, a new generation of super-secular Scientists replaced the Biblical account of Divine Creation as a manifestation of God's handiwork with the logically absurd theory that we humans have evolved from apes (recently) and pond scum (ultimately). Today these pseudo-intellectual, self-styled "genius experts" even ridicule the perfectly valid concept of Intelligent Design, derisively calling it "junk science." No inquiring open minds here: nothing but vintage Darwin will do for these Liberal denizens of our academic ivory towers."

"Embryonic stem cell research: it all comes down to murder"

[Godiva]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Jun 16 2006, 12:12 AM) [snapback]272065[/snapback]</div>

Godiva, you and Galaxee are scientists, aren't you? [/b]

I'm a librarian. My classes are in Library and Information Science. That includes not only searching but evaluating the results. That's why I look a little beyond who wrote it and what webpage it's on.

I agree we don't want to politicize science. But we also must take into consideration that if we adjust our behavior based on the premise that certain acts ARE causing Global Warming, we're not hurting anything except some bottom line profits. However if we don't and we're WRONG, well, it may very well be too late to say "sorry, oops". And "I told you so" won't fix it.

I say it's better to err on the side of caution.