Petition Project another strike against GW.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Mar 20 2007, 10:42 PM) [snapback]409364[/snapback]</div>

This is basically an argument from authority. 17K scientists! I'm impressed. why should anyone read the study? But can we check the authority? And, by the way, real scientists don't call them "facts". There are data gathered by measurements which have error bounds and may be misinterpreted.

 

I followed th link from Scientific American to a good history of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine at: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title...ce_and_Medicine

They notably make most of their money selling home-schooling kits based on the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica (i.e., pre-socialism) and videos on how to survive a nuclear war ( http://www.oism.org/nwss/ ). Robinson is conservative Christian along with his co-founder of the Insititue, Gary North, who is also a prolific author of doomsday books with titles such as None Dare Call It Witchcraft; Conspiracy: A Biblical View; Rapture Fever; and How You Can Profit From the Coming Price Controls.

Basically, the petition was mailed to an enormous number of scientists (the OISM will not reveal how many) with a paper formatted to look as though it had been published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

The NAS first heard of the petition when its members began calling to ask about it:

"The mailing is clearly designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article, which is full of half-truths, is a reprint and has passed peer review," complained Raymond Pierrehumbert, a meteorlogist at the University of Chicago. NAS foreign secretary F. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist, said researchers "are wondering if someone is trying to hoodwink them." NAS council member Ralph J. Cicerone, dean of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California at Irvine, was particularly offended that Seitz described himself in the cover letter as a "past president" of the NAS. Although Seitz had indeed held that title in the 1960s, Cicerone hoped that scientists who received the petition mailing would not be misled into believing that he "still has a role in governing the organization."

The NAS issued an unusually blunt formal response to the petition drive. "The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal," it stated in a news release. "The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy." In fact, it pointed out, its own prior published study had shown that "even given the considerable uncertainties in our knowledge of the relevant phenomena, greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses. Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises."

...

In addition to the bulk mailing, OISM's website enables people to add their names to the petition over the Internet, and by June 2000 it claimed to have recruited more than 19,000 scientists. The institute is so lax about screening names, however, that virtually anyone can sign, including for example Al Caruba, a pesticide-industry PR man and conservative ideologue who runs his own website called the "National Anxiety Center."

 

efusco,

I was in the same boat... but at our university we recently had a chief scientist of Environmental Defense speak about the science of global climate disruption... and it was excellent. I had emailed the speaker if a pdf of his ppt or a video of his lecture would be available online - so that I can post it to various sites such as this one.

Denialists like to claim that the science is based on a line graph to which scientists have attributed a causal relationship. It's absolute bunk... the science is NOT based on a line graph of CO2 and temperature. The Union of Concerned Scientists had a great article on their website on this.

Al Gore is definitely no scientist - but is acting as a sort of spokespersons (scientists are involved with research - and documentaries have been done - such as the one on the Discovery channel - but that doesn't hit the climax that sensationalist ideas like denialism for the sake of being contrarian... it's scientific, and to your average viewer this means boring. OK - going off on a tangent - but the point I am making is that Gore in his movie seemed to inadvertently stress causation from correlation... and that this is NOT the case.

(Good finds megansprius & efusco, btw)

 

I propose that all Wildkow and dberman posts such as this (not legitimate discussion posts, just the obviously BS ones) Should immediately receive a reply post saying:

"The preceding post is proudly sponsered by the US dept of neocon propaganda and various large energy companies."

Or maybe just: "Don't feed the trolls"

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 21 2007, 10:10 AM) [snapback]409615[/snapback]</div>

LMAO!

if it has to do with GW I would have to agree. Some of the stuff Wildkow posts up as "evidence" is highly amusing. Unicorn horns indeed. :lol:

 

I just don't understand the heated BS flying about on global warming.
I don't even care if GW is a crises. We can't do anything about it anyways.
We could stop using oil as a country tomorrow, and the world will still burn up all the oil its got, since China, India, et al would just have more of it to use at a lower price. They'd even be more competitive economically than us until the oil runs out.

Global Warming is just one of many reasons we need to wean ourself off the arab teet.
What's more important to me is starting the path to post oil economy now while we still have oil left to produce said economy, instead of waiting too long and finding ourselves up shiite creek without a paddle (pun intended).

Or how about solving our trade imbalance by producing our own energy (albeit at a higher price) rather than spending those dollars for energy imports.
Or how about not having those dollars go into the pockets of islam, only to ber turned around and used against us. (A point that I never see the resident right wingers make, despite their concern about islam wackos).
Or how about not getting screwed as a country if the straits of Hormuz suddenly becomes impassable for our oil imports.

Global warming is only one marketing point for selling the change, one that works well for lefties.
Why are the other marketing points that should resonate with righties NEVER discussed or debated?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 21 2007, 01:10 PM) [snapback]409615[/snapback]</div>

I agree that it is not worth responding to this drivel, but I find it fascinating that neocons like wilkow see fit to post it, and have no clue how idiotic they make themselves out to be by doing so.

I also find it very enlightening, that our mini community of rightards never criticize their fellows. Solidarity despite stupidity seems to be the motto.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 21 2007, 02:08 PM) [snapback]409656[/snapback]</div>

I think this is very astute, even if it is OT.

As we've seen many times in the past--you wanna stop a war? Cut off funding.

You wanna stop terrorism? (Specifcally that kind perpetrated by Fundamental Muslims) Cut off funding, i.e. oil revenues.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 21 2007, 01:10 PM) [snapback]409615[/snapback]</div>

Mind if I cut and paste? :lol:

 

Please, cut and paste....

Frankly, I don't think that dberman and wilkow ( I will now throw desynch in there as well after his recent race baiting attempts) care "how idiotic they make themselves out to be".

Either they get a kick out of riling people up (troll).
Or they are paid or heavily invested in interests that keep them in line with the flat earth society.

The more they occupy our time here spreading disinformation and obfuscation, the less time the rest of us have to go out and convince normal Americans of the need to reduce consumption of oil.

If they hate the arabs so much, why are they NOT coming to the same conclusion of this need from a national security or financial security point of view that others come to from a global warming point of view?

It should be the same endpoint regardless of the concern, yet we bicker about specifics of wether global warming is a minor or major problems. Or on the other side, people argue about whether oil production will drop rapidly now, in 5 years, or in 20 years.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 21 2007, 01:10 PM) [snapback]409615[/snapback]</div>

I'm particularly fond of this icon:

 

Nice! Can I cut and paste that one?
Strange, the troll traffic seems to have stopped over the last hour....
I'm sure they will just rest while these topics calling them out drop down the page.

I feel bad about about even using the word troll, as I don't like namecalling, but if the shoe fits in their mouth....

 

Good point Evan. There's very little evidence of an open mind at the other end of the keyboard. Has anyone ever seen berman or wildkow use any of these phrases?

• "Good point"
• "I don't know"
• "I'm not sure"
• "I'll have to look that up"
• "As far as I can tell"
• "I think"

Ever?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 21 2007, 03:04 PM) [snapback]409701[/snapback]</div>

Of course. Although, I did find it on teh interwebs, so I can't really make a claim to it.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Mar 21 2007, 03:04 PM) [snapback]409701[/snapback]</div>

I have really come to the conclusion that it is, in general, futile to argue against some of the people in the forum. They have their way of thinking, and that's the way they are going to think regardless of the information put before them. Stephen Colbert said it best: "He believes the same thing on Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday." (He was talking about Bush, but there is definitely a subset of people on this board who fit that description.)

I should note that, while the conservative, neocon folks tend to get the brunt of the reaction here, I have noticed a few liberals that are rather set in their ways, themselves. I think they're better camouflaged since I mostly agree with what they're saying, but they can be just as stubborn and irrational.

I have a lot more respect for someone who thinks about a topic and comes to a different conclusion than me than I do for someone who doesn't think about the topic but comes to the same conclusion as me.

Let's see. . . how far off topic are we by now?

 

Sorry Wildkow - this IS pretty dated and I don't think is real reputable, my other concerns about global warming hysteria aside. There are reputable scientists (many) - including numerous ones who are / have been IPCC reviewers - who have serious reservations about many of the current global warming claims. One hardly has to reach back to a 10 year old survey of questionable integrity to prove the point.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Betelgeuse @ Mar 21 2007, 01:24 PM) [snapback]409714[/snapback]</div>

I'd agree with that if we were talking about, say, a book or a movie, where it's all opinion.

However, if I tell you if I drop a raw egg onto the floor from a height of four feet and it will break, and you try and tell me that gravity is "just a theory" and the egg MIGHT levitate in midair, no matter how many articles you quote from Newsmax and Fox News about levitating eggs, I'm not going to budge.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Mar 21 2007, 03:51 PM) [snapback]409726[/snapback]</div>

It isn't scientists that cause "hysteria". The majority of climate scientists believe that global warming presents a serious threat to our current way of living and must be addressed. There are, to be sure, respected scientists with dissenting opinions. But they question particular findings or hypotheses- they aren't saying, "Global warming is a myth." I'll give an example- Carl Wunsch (who was terribly misrepresented in that "global warming swindle" movie) is very adamant that he does not believe that global warming will result in the shutting-off of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current. This is a theory that was proposed about 5 years ago by a couple of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Ocean modeling is my field of work, and I am not really sure about the answer to this question- I would have to say that the jury is still out, as there are a number of variables to consider. It's a particularly difficult thing to model, as freshwater influx doesn't happen continuously but it tends to pool and release. And this is an important question, as it could significantly affect the climate in UK and northern Europe. But even though Carl Wunsch doesn't agree with the WHOI scientists on this, he still maintains that global warming is a serious problem.
These are the sorts of global warming questions that interest me- not how fat "algore" has become.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Mar 21 2007, 04:32 PM) [snapback]409760[/snapback]</div>

But there's opinion in science, as well. A lot of science is about looking at data and making up a story (a.k.a. a "theory"). Now, that story has to be supported by data and, more importantly, should make predictions about future data. However, it is possible that two people look at the same data and come up with different conclusions; it happens all the time.

Now, if you come up with a theory that is completely unsupported by data, then I agree with you; any story that you come up with needs to be supported by data.

The problem with a lot of global warming deniers is not that they've looked at the same data and come up with a different story, but that they haven't understood the story in the first place.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Betelgeuse @ Mar 21 2007, 03:01 PM) [snapback]409776[/snapback]</div>

That's true. The problem with climate change isn't that scientists don't agree; they all agree that it's real. Where they don't agree is on how bad it is and how bad will it get. Unfortunately, Joe Reporter sees these disagreements and says, "Well, they can't agree" in a way to make it sound like they don't agree if it's happening at all.