Global Warning/Climate Change

[JimFoxvog]

But nobody ever talks about where many pro climate change scientists get their funding. Or the fact that much if their data continues to be fudged.

I'm not sure where you're looking, but this is the sort of thing that interests that deny the scientific consensus allege all the time.

[temporal1]

But nobody ever talks about where many pro climate change scientists get their funding.
Or the fact that much if their data continues to be fudged.

I'm not sure where you're looking, but this is the sort of thing that interests that deny the scientific consensus allege all the time.

Not nearly as effectively. Not close.
To be credible, there needs to be equal, or balanced, scrutiny. There is no balance, the strong preference is to minimize+silence those who question.

[Bootstrap]

But nobody ever talks about where many pro climate change scientists get their funding. Or the fact that much if their data continues to be fudged.

In the scientific community, claims about fudging data are taken very seriously, and people lose their jobs. Funding sources are transparently disclosed. Errors are discovered and corrections are published. You don't have to look hard to find this information.

Not so much in the lobbyist community or the politically charged media. And in a thread like this one, it doesn't matter how many times those people are shown to have fudged data or shown to be acting as lobbyists, those sources continue to be believed. After a claim is proven wrong, it often resurfaces a year or two later with a slightly different headline. I mean ... why do some people seem to trust Breitbart rather than scientific journals for scientific questions?

This is not a thread about scientific fact or scientific process. You don't really trust scientists anyway, or you would take the scientific community's findings seriously. You can't have it both ways - if funding sources and trustworthy fact are what you care about, you need the rigor of the scientific community and scientific process. If you really want to determine who is falsifying facts, you need to take the effort to do so, looking carefully at the data involved, asking who has looked into these allegations and what they have found.

If you just don't trust scientists or science, then trotting out scientists from political sources or lobbyists does not help your case.

[Bootstrap]

Solar is knocking on the door of our neighborhood. The two farms that join our sawmill location are in talks with a solar company to put 500 to 600 acres in solar panels. I'm not a scientist and not all that smart otherwise, but I have some questions. Sure, that is a lot of "free" energy from the sun. Of course, the panels aren't free, the lease payment to the landowners isn't free and the sun isn't always shining.
But beyond that, I wonder how values of saved carbon emissions (from the "free" solar energy, as compared to natural gas or coal) would compare to the carbon intake if that 600 acres was instead planted in trees. Not to mention, the trees would be giving off oxygen, which won't happen with the solar panels. Is it possible that "going green" might not be as green as one might think? Any scientists out there that can weigh in on this?

Well, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, and solar also has environmental costs. This study looks at some of that:

Impact of solar panels on global climate

By using RCP2.6 as the background reference climate, our results suggest that idealized massive-scale installations of solar panels can generate enough power for human usage now and in the future, although there are consequences that involve impacts on the climate system. Such a large number of solar panels redistributes the incoming solar radiation and changes the local radiation balance, resulting in changes in atmospheric circulation, thus affecting regional and global climate. Overall, regardless of its capacity (as large as ∼800 TW or a more realistic projection of 45 TW), the potential global mean climate changes induced by the use of solar panels are small in comparison to the expected climate change owing to fossil fuel consumption, which could raise the global mean temperature by a few degrees by 2100 relative to pre-industrial climate. However, some of the regional climate changes induced by solar panels could be much greater than the global mean.

Incidentally, natural gas is much more friendly to the environment than coal, so the shift from coal to natural gas has been a big plus.

[appleman2006]

But nobody ever talks about where many pro climate change scientists get their funding. Or the fact that much if their data continues to be fudged.

In the scientific community, claims about fudging data are taken very seriously, and people lose their jobs. Funding sources are transparently disclosed. Errors are discovered and corrections are published. You don't have to look hard to find this information.

Not so much in the lobbyist community or the politically charged media. And in a thread like this one, it doesn't matter how many times those people are shown to have fudged data or shown to be acting as lobbyists, those sources continue to be believed. After a claim is proven wrong, it often resurfaces a year or two later with a slightly different headline. I mean ... why do some people seem to trust Breitbart rather than scientific journals for scientific questions?

This is not a thread about scientific fact or scientific process. You don't really trust scientists anyway, or you would take the scientific community's findings seriously. You can't have it both ways - if funding sources and trustworthy fact are what you care about, you need the rigor of the scientific community and scientific process. If you really want to determine who is falsifying facts, you need to take the effort to do so, looking carefully at the data involved, asking who has looked into these allegations and what they have found.

If you just don't trust scientists or science, then trotting out scientists from political sources or lobbyists does not help your case.

You missed my point. I do trust scientists. I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of claiming that some scientists are more reliable than others when in fact we know that especially in this case scientists on both sides of the issue have been influenced at least indirectly from where their funding is coming from.
And right now there are very powerful people that have a huge vested interest in this on both sides.
And as has just come out on the news here in Canada in the last week. The data people have been caught with ignoring huge groups of years of weather data because it simply messed up their models.
I trust science. I am losing trust very quickly on the dooms day predictors that are so common today. The lobby industry has really skewed the whole picture and it is hard for a lay person like myself to know who to trust anymore.

[Robert]

In the scientific community, claims about fudging data are taken very seriously, and people lose their jobs.

How many from Climate Gate lost their jobs?

This is not a thread about scientific fact or scientific process. You don't really trust scientists anyway, or you would take the scientific community's findings seriously.

I presented two scientists. I have another I can post, yet every time I present one, they are claimed to be shills and lobbyists. Professor Happer is neither. He wrote the first paper back in 1962 about co2 and its effects. I consider him to be quite credible and informative. I am sorry he does not fit your worldview. That is okay. I do not need your approval. Science is about testing theories and concepts. I enjoy testing this one.

If you just don't trust scientists or science, then trotting out scientists from political sources or lobbyists does not help your case.

So trash the person instead of the data they present? I thought you just said that the data needed to be looked at. I see no response from you about any of the data these two presented. Feel free to trash them, but I find this to be of no help as we consider their viewpoint.

[Bootstrap]

In the scientific community, claims about fudging data are taken very seriously, and people lose their jobs.

How many from Climate Gate lost their jobs?

None, because eight separate investigations found that the scientists did not fudge data. But the claims keep getting repeated without taking these findings into account, as though they had never happened.

And people who clearly lied and misrepresented what the emails contained continue to be employed as lobbyists. The same claims get repeated over and over again as though they had not been investigated and disproven.

This is not a thread about scientific fact or scientific process. You don't really trust scientists anyway, or you would take the scientific community's findings seriously.

I presented two scientists. I have another I can post, yet every time I present one, they are claimed to be shills and lobbyists. Professor Happer is neither. He wrote the first paper back in 1962 about co2 and its effects. I consider him to be quite credible and informative. I am sorry he does not fit your worldview. That is okay. I do not need your approval. Science is about testing theories and concepts. I enjoy testing this one.

If you looked at scientific journals instead of political sources, you might have a better chance of finding people who are not lobbyists. The C02 coalition and the George Marshall Institute are both political think tanks. The C02 Coalition is located in Arlington, Virginia, right next to Washington DC. Guess where they received their funding from?

The best way to test his theories is in the scientific literature, but he has not published these claims in scientific journals. Second best is to see how the scientific community evaluates his claims in other settings. There's a fairly good discussion here.

But perhaps the best thing is to take one claim and ask you to take responsibility for it. Which of his claims would you like to defend scientifically? Could you pick one, we can look at what Happer says and what mainstream scientists are saying, and ask you to provide evidence that a scientist would accept?

[Robert]

[video][/video]

Computer models do a good job of helping us understand climate but they do a very poor job of predicting it.

That is according to physicist Freeman Dyson of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Dyson says, “As measured from space, the whole earth is growing greener as a result of carbon dioxide, so it’s increasing agricultural yields, it’s increasing the forests and it’s increasing growth in the biological world, and that’s more important and more certain than the effects on climate.”

He acknowledges that human activity has an effect on climate but claims it is much less than is claimed. He stresses the non-climate benefits of carbon are overwhelmingly favourable.

[Robert]

[video][/video]

I really was interested in what he said about climate models at 9:50.

I also think what he said at 21:50 about being optimistic is important to remember too.

I find this interview to be quite telling and informative. Well worth the watch of the entire interview. I hope Dan Z can find time to see it. I find it very balanced and quite educational.

[MaxPC]