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Comments 95851 to 95900:

  1. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    " then we will only have to adapt to the probably few and minor consequences that will eventually occur, and not until they occur, and only where and to the extent that they occur. " Does he know any civil engineers or town planners? What to do about bridges, railway construction, road construction, dams, sewage treatment plants, housing construction standards? Many of these things are designed with 60 to 200 year life expectancy. Does Monckton really think that we should blithely go on as though 'very little' will happen, and then relocate or repair or rebuild or abandon these major projects when storms or floods or fires ruin them? "Redoing" multi-billion $ infrastructure every few years because we look the other way sounds like the road to bankruptcy to me.
  2. Coral Reef Baselines
    correction; just heard Hugh asked to write a response as a post at climate shifts...
  3. Coral Reef Baselines
    Humanity rules, What have they got to do with science? Are you kidding? Science isn't just numbers in a lab notebook. If it isn't communicated (with peers, the public, policy makers) it isn't science. Addressing the distortion of science and attempting to explain that distortion (and explain the science clearly and honestly) is part of the job of a scientist (and of an educator, which I also am). "Can I just clear something up? You seem to be labelling Sweatman a skeptic/denier. At the very least it looks like guilt by association. Is this true?" No, not at all. Hugh is not climate change skeptic. "Do you think it's appropriate to vent your spleen here. Surely the review process was the correct place for this? I guess I'm talking professionally here. As an individual you have every right to say what you want, where you want, however you want to say it." Fair point. My view is that this post-publication review is part of the review process; how the broader field discusses and decides "collectively" about the veracity of the findings and arguments in a paper. I think the internet, eg, blogging, is becoming a big part of this. Not so much in coral reef science but certainly in climate change science and other areas. One thing the skeptic are right about: peer-review is pretty dang flawed. A lot of crap gets through and a lot of good science doesn't (often for idealogical reasons). "One final question. Have you told Sweatman you're airing your opinion of his work publically on a blog? Maybe he has a right to reply here?" Yes certainly. We have discussed it a bit by email and he just posted a response at climate shifts. He is certainly able to respond here.
  4. Coral Reef Baselines
    Hello Humanity Rules, yes that would be accurate. You can go read my long appendix about potential sources of bias (PLoS One is open access). And note in this post I stated; "Regardless, I agree site selection biases, both then and now, complicate long-term trend interpretation." "Given your robust criticism of Sweatman’s position here does this mean you now deny the possibility of this being the case? " of course not. "I’m curious to know whether you do see a step change in the data at the onset of AIMS and what your explanation for it would be?" I don't about a "step change" but there is obviously a reduction that coincided with the advent of the AIMS surveys. Why? I don't know. But I agree with Hugh that it could be due to the change in methodology (go see my extended post on this at climate shifts where I discuss this in detail). My beef isn't about whether there is a step change, if so what caused it, etc. It is about what the GBR looked like before people, ie, what is the baseline. I don't think reef state in 1986 represented the baseline. Make sense?
  5. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    but Mozart, ethanol is only one source of CO2 mitigation. An electric powered bus carrying 30 people-even if the electricity were supplied from coal-would generate as little as 1% of the CO2 that would be generated by 30 cars plying the same route-& for a fraction of the cost required to run a car, or diesel fueled bus over the same distance. So whilst there would be an initial upfront cost for the infrastructure needed for a fleet of electric buses, the various savings (both societal & individual) would more than compensate for those costs in the mid-term. Also, its been my experience that the free market has done more to promote food shortages & high prices than a pursuit of ethanol (especially as ethanol/bio-diesel can easily be generated from the crop *waste*).
  6. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    $20 trillion in damages by 2100 and $70 trillion by 2200??? The US GDP is approximately $14 trillion per year and $74 trillion for the entire world. I think AGW is likely to cause a mass deflation in the world's economy in the decades to follow. Did this report even try to take positive feedback loops into consideration like the Arctic ice cap collapse and the massive disruptions it will cause? Or were their estimates simplistic projections based on present damage? In my opinion we won't even get past 600+ ppm due to economic collapse. The US is not likely to have a federal government by 2100 and the world will be lucky to have a feudal fiefdom by 2200.
  7. Meet The Denominator
    "Do you support Dr. Pielke's position on hurricanes?" Sorry, but how is that even relevant? Whether or not we support Pielke's position on Hurricanes has absolutely no bearing on his position regarding your misuse of his papers on your list. He has been very polite in telling you-on more than one occasion-that his papers do not say what you claim they say, yet still you use them in your list. Are you calling him a liar? Are you calling him ignorant? Come on, Poptech, don't avoid the question: did Pielke effectively tell you that his papers do not say what you're claiming they say?
  8. Meet The Denominator
    "What is considered "quality research" is subjective." Well, with that one line, you've basically *failed* Science 101. Not only that, but you've also proven that any claims about how you've confirmed all the papers on your list cannot be taken seriously-as you clearly wouldn't know "Quality Research" if it punched you in the nose. In fact, most reputable Journals have very clear & objective rules for what defines *quality* research-& Beck's paper fails on pretty much every count. Yet still it got accepted by E&E. Also, what does Beck's paper qualifications have to do with anything? All you've done is proven my original point, that the guy lacked any practical research experience & is most *definitely* not an expert in Atmospheric Chemistry. Indeed, I'd argue that my own qualifications & background gives me *more* authority to speak on atmospheric chemistry than the qualifications of Beck.
  9. Meet The Denominator
    Poptech @149 Yes/No are not the only possible answers here. After reading through the response by Emanual linked by JMurphy@147 I think the most honest answer is "I dont know." It appears that Emanual and Pilke could both be right since they are talking about two different measures.
  10. Meet The Denominator
    villabolo - Ah, yes, sampling - a wonderful technique. I tried that on Googling 'anthropogenic "global warming"' applying only to biology, chemistry, and physics - no patents, no citations. I got 19,600 results. Reading five of the first 10 pages returned, I found only 1 (~2%) that did not attribute recent warming to anthropogenic causes, and another 1 (again, ~2%) that found it difficult to distinguish natural from anthropogenic causes. All of the results I looked at discussed global warming and anthropogenic causes thereof. PopTech - the consensus indicates that, while there are a few objections to AGW, the mass of people looking at the problem do not agree. There are definitely people who agree with your outlook - but they are the vast minority. There are always folks who disagree with the consensus (such as this one, or this). The existence of people who disagree with well established results and what is quite frankly established science does not invalidate established science, but is rather a commentary on the delightful perversity of humankind.
  11. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    "The choice of discount rate is rather subjective, and a case can certainly be made that the 1.4% value used in the Stern Review is reasonable. However, those who believe a 1.4% discount rate is too low can put more stock in the IPI study, which considered discount rates ranging from 2% to 5%. 3% seems to be the most widely-used value." The discount rate is not subjective. Nor is it emotional..."future generations" etc. It is the alternative return we give up, when we apply resources to global warming, that could, for example, be applied to expanding food production. When we look at the resources applied to ethanol, for example, these expenditures have to be questioned. Forty percent of our corn crop assigned to a fuel, which would be non economic in the absence of subsidies. In the meantime natural gas, which would cut CO2 emissions by 29% versus oil, receives no support. The most practical and effective thing we can do in the USA, is to convert our fleets to natural gas over a 15 year period. Yet that receives almost no support, as gas is a carbon based fuel. But there is a limit to the speed we can convert to non carbon forms of energy. And a cost. Make that cost too high and economic activity will be threatened. The complex linkages and dependencies we have in our now global economy, are at least as fragile and delicate as those in our eco system. Food shortages and famine are just a perturbation away. We have to be wise about all this.
  12. Meet The Denominator
    Please Poptech, reveal the 'validity' of your 850 "peer reviewed" papers by citing just one on a specific subject like "Global Cooling" since the late 1990s. Then have it subjected to critical analysis. Repeat the process 4 times with other subjects, chosen at random, and see how many of them withstand critical analysis. Here's what I'm getting at. Let's imagine a person of supposed confidence, in a work environment, makes 50 specific statements on a wide variety of work related issues. Then, upon actually investigating 5 of those 50 statements, chosen at random, you find out that they're either damn lies or half truths. Would you even bother to investigate the other 45 statements? Intuitively you'll know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if 5 statements are false then the other 45 have a very high probability of also being false. Falsification is a scientific proceedure. What attempts have you made at falsification?
  13. Meet The Denominator
    I gave up on reading all these comments, back and forth about the numbers of papers supporting or not supporting AGW. I fail to see why this criterion measures anything. (See Malcolm Gladwell's discussion of college rankings in the Feb 14 and 21 2011 New Yorker. The metrics challenged in this post are probably not reflective of anything, since it is not clear what is being measured.) In any case, the most recent (2009)Census figure for BS and above is 60 million (you can get the spreadsheet here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2009/tables.html .
  14. Coral Reef Baselines
    I had a thought about the science here. I’m not an expert on reefs obviously but I do know how to look at a graph. In your fig 1a there may as well be a large flashing red arrow with “STEP CHANGE” written next to it. If you took the mean and sd of the pre-AIMS and AIMS data separately they look like they’d be very different. How the trends for each period related to the overall trend on the graph I think would need explaining also. Sweatman in his paper suggests in your 2007 paper you acknowledged the possibility that there may be data artifacts, this is what he wrote. “The apparent abrupt drop in average coral cover on the GBR in 1986 is most probably due to theinclusion of AIMS monitoring data with cover estimates from small selected patches of reef from small-scale studies. Bruno and Selig (2007) identified these as potential biases in their analyses.” Would it be accurate of Sweatman to say in 2007 you acknowledged this as a possible source of bias in the data? Given your robust criticism of Sweatman’s position here does this mean you now deny the possibility of this being the case? I’m curious to know whether you do see a step change in the data at the onset of AIMS and what your explanation for it would be?
  15. Temp record is unreliable
    GISS Temp is the obvious place to start where the papers referencing the methodology method are given. You might like to look at Ned's post above #102 to help you guess whether the hadcrut method (use global average to interpolate) or GISS method (infer for local station analysis) might give best answer for Arctic.
  16. Temp record is unreliable
    RickG, have a look at GLOBAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE CHANGE, J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, and K. Lo
  17. Meet The Denominator
    the irrefutable fact that E&E is peer-reviewed. When E&E editor gives papers that suit her agenda the "peer-review" of a tobacco science journal, then the term comes to mean something very different for what it means in rest of science (essentially "peer" means someone of same ideological leanings and with complete disrespect for process). This is reflected in way real science (and citation index keepers) treat the journal, and frankly those who publish in it. Peer review was created as a gate-keeper to ensure quality and when a journal repeatedly fails to use it the way intended, then articles will not be considered peer-reviewed by the rest of the community.
  18. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    I wonder if Monckton would ignore a bulge in the sidewall of one of his tires knowing full well that he can adapt when (x) it goes flat, but ignore the risks involved such as (y) it goes flat and he narrowly misses running into another car, but (z) he slams into a tree.
  19. Meet The Denominator
    FYI...PopTech is mainly rehashing the same arguments deconstructed here (warning: politicalforum.com is much more lax with civility, so hold your nose). PopTech TrainWreck Among many things, when requested to provide specific objective criteria for defining "alarm" (such as a value for climate sensitivity), PT dodges and just repeats the same arguments ad nauseum. The only thing to add since then, regarding the political journal Energy & Environment, even postnormal Judy Curry knows this journal does not have a credible peer review process. JC: "His insistence on not even responding to these criticisms leads people to regard him as a crank/crackpot. Based on Part II, he can probably get this published in E&E, but certainly not in any scientific journal of any repute or credibility." PopTech might want to submit his result to E&E, or perhaps the Cato Journal.
  20. Temp record is unreliable
    I am looking for information on how NASA GISS fills in the gaps on the Arctic temperature grids. I just want a better understanding. Thanks.
  21. Meet The Denominator
    This has been a fascinating set of comments. But everyone is missing the obvious: Poptech, when are you going to re-write your list into a scientific study and get it published in a peer-reviewed journal? There's one other document out there that is worthy of this sort of study. That is U.S. Senator James Inhofe's annual list of "scientists" who dispute global warming. I don't know if anyone has taken the time to analyze it completely, but Inhofe's definition of scientist includes people who are, e.g. TV weatherman.
  22. Meet The Denominator
    KR... I'll tell you what prompted me to write this. I was posting on a denier site called NoTrickZone and a regular there, someone who says he has a decades long background in physics, trotted out the 850 peer reviewed papers. I was taken aback. Why does this guy think that that list has any weight? The list gets trotted out like a lame old show horse to give people this image that there is merit to their skepticism. And my immediate mental response was, "Yeah, but what's the denominator?" Let's put that old show horse in a real race. See how he runs. You're totally right, PopTech causes a total ruckus where ever he shows up. He lives in an alternate universe of logic that makes no sense to anyone else. But I think there is a teaching moment here. Numbers need context. I really don't care how PopTech chooses to slice and dice the data. He's always going to try to find a way to contort logic to fit his conclusions. But what I do care about is that there are other people who read the article who might have a minor epiphany about numbers and their relationships. The article is not aimed at people with PhD's in physics. They know this. But there are obviously people who have not figured this out, like the guy at NTZ, and other people who are snowed by having a "big" number tossed in their face without context. I wish this were the conversation taking place here rather than PopTech running around knocking over the furniture.
  23. Meet The Denominator
    #149 Then Pielke truly contradicts himself if you will as he states in Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900–2005. "Unless action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and properties in coastal areas where hurricanes strike, damage will increase, and by a great deal, as more and wealthier people increasingly inhabit these coastal locations." So by his own admission, damage will increase, and by a great deal, and if damage increases, then so does the trend.
  24. Meet The Denominator
    john byatt - Well said. Rob Honeycutt - While I would agree that this contribution did act as a honeytrap, and brought PopTech online to flail about on his list of contradictory, poorly reviewed papers, I have to say that as a frequent visitor and occasional posting contributor to this site; it's not worth the hassle. The signal to noise ratio is far too low for my tastes - I would prefer that in the future similar posts be either more clearly targeted and more informative regarding individuals promoting "skeptic" views without support, or alternatively avoid calling such individuals out, and describing the weight of evidence and consensus without insulting particular people. Either way works - but the current topic is riding down the middle - calling out particular people without sufficient exposing of their faults. It's an enjoyable post, but again; the noise level here has been far too high.
  25. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    I should also point out that Monckton has it backwards. As noted in the article, 'y' and 'z' are things like ocean acidification, other pollutants, dependence on foreign oil, etc. We basically get the advantage of addressing these other problems for free through carbon pricing.
  26. Meet The Denominator
    "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all." Through the Looking Glass.
  27. Meet The Denominator
    ""When I use a word,"poptech said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said poptech "which is to be master - that's all." Through the Looking Glass.
  28. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    For the sake of clarity I've revised the text in question to read "less than or equal to" instead of just "equal to".
  29. Meet The Denominator
    #146: "Here is a challenge... " Albatross, Since this should be about climate change science vs. Poptech science, I'd add one more item to your challenge: Count the number of non-scientific papers. Note that his definition of peer-reviewed starts with "scientific or scholarly writing or research" which should preclude such titles as: -- Ecological Science as a Creation Story -- Climate Policy: Quo Vadis? -- The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security -- An Alternative View of Climate Change for Steelmakers (from Iron and Steel Technology) Note too that many papers are behind paywalls. Without access (some don't even have accessible abstracts), who can say if the inclusion of a paper is really justified?
  30. Meet The Denominator
    Albatross, having read many threads on this little list, on many websites over the last year or so, I think you may find that the vast majority of the papers have already been looked at and shown to be not what anyone in the real world would take to be 'AGW Alarm' - whatever that actually means. Examples are Greenfyre and here (both of which have other links), and THE GUARDIAN, for a start. Once you start searching into Poptech and his little list, you see that he pops up everywhere, posting scores of the same old stuff. It makes me wonder whether he has time to do anything else all day ! Anyway, perhaps the best thing to do with such people is to not give them the legitimacy they are looking for - one's attention. Ignore him and he will wither away - all rational people can see his little list for the numbers game it attempts to be (albeit not very many numbers, especially after taking into account that none of them would conform to any definition of 'AGW Alarm' in the real world), and it is going the way (into obscurity) that all such desperate lists or petitions go. If it wasn't for all those who are going to his site to find out which papers he claims back-up his own beliefs, he would probably have very little traffic at all. Perhaps someone can get hold of the list and post it elsewhere, so we can all look at it without increasing his traffic ?
  31. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    BillyJoe - you're quoting a different part than I'm referring to, which is this:
    It follows that adaptation to the consequences of “global warming” will get easier and cheaper the longer we wait: for then we will only have to adapt to the probably few and minor consequences that will eventually occur, and not until they occur, and only where and to the extent that they occur.
    Basically Monckton is saying that adapting to consequence 'x' would be more efficient than reducing carbon, which might prevent consequence 'x' but also 'y' and 'z', while we might not even want or need to prevent 'y' or 'z'. So in Monckton world, adapting to 'x' is overall orders of magnitude cheaper than preventing 'x, y, z'. But this only holds true if adapting to 'x' has the same cost as preventing 'x', which it does not. My statement that you quote is talking about just the costs of preventing 'x' vs. adapting to 'x'. Monckton's entire argument refers to preventing 'x, y, z' vs. adapting to 'x'. Clear as mud, right? To make a long story short, the two statements are not equal, they're just referring to slightly different things.
  32. Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
    To simply ignore the effects of solar, because it doesn't correlate well in the last 30 years seems unwise....particularly as it was solar irradiation fluctuations that took us in and out of the little Ice Ages.. Mozart, with this and other questions, you are inquiring about what is called attribution. You would do well do look at the IPCC WG1 Chp9 for the science in review. However, to get some idea about relative effects consider that solar change from pre-industrial is estimated at 0.12W/m2 whereas CO2 alone is estimated at 1.66W/m2 let alone other man-made gases. Also LIA has volcanic effects. Furthermore, while there was an LIA in Southern Hemisphere, it would appear to be not as cold. The mountain glacier features look very different.
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] fixed open html link tag.
  33. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    GISS record years are just artifacts due to homogenization and unjustified interpolation. Again, "Skeptical" Science does cherry picking and pickes the only dataset which shows any warming on this ENSO-neutral interval which is 1998-2010. As far as I can see, every statement in here is incorrect. If you are going to make a claim like this, then please present data to support it. This appears to be channelling of some pseudo-skeptic site (like other of your posts). Tell me, how many articles on such site would we have to refute before you realized that you were being suckered and stopped reading it? I'm curious.
  34. Monckton Myth #5: Dangerous Warming
    Well, a 2 degree increase temperature change is very important for the corn growers of America. From the farmers, I understand that most of the entire corn crop of the U.S. would be lost. Too hot to pollinate. We would then be buying most of the corn from the Canadians.
  35. Monckton Myth #11: Carbon Pricing Costs vs. Benefits
    Monckton: "Every serious economic analysis...has demonstrated that the costs of waiting and adapting to any adverse consequences that may arise from “global warming”...would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective than any Canute-like attempt to prevent any further “global warming” by taxing and regulating CO2 emissions." Dana: "Here Monckton is implicitly assuming that the cost of preventing consequences will be equal to the cost of adapting to consequences." How does "orders of magnitude cheaper" become "equal to"?
  36. Meet The Denominator
    Poptech wrote : "It simply has to do with whether a paper(s) or results from their paper(s) support skeptic's arguments against AGW Alarm." Why does it appear so difficult for you to understand the simple fact that, as Pielke Jr has already told you (no, not in a private correspondence or email - why would he bother wasting his time telling you privately what he has told you publically ?), your little list supports only your definition of what a 'skeptic' is and what 'AGW Alarm' means. The list means nothing outside of that, apart from a number that the more credulous of so-called skeptics can use to try to claim that it is a lot. Try to see things as they are in the real world and in other people's minds. Try to come outside your bubble and understand that, just because you think you can self-determine what a particular word means, doesn't mean that it has any validation to anyone else. Try it. Poptech wrote : "I am entitled to the context of the words I use. What is amazing is you believe that a word with multiple definitions, that I use in my own context, must not mean what I say but what you want." I'm not too sure what you're trying to say here. Is it that you determine the meaning of words and can use any meaning of any particular word (that has more than one meaning) as you see fit, and that everyone else in the real world then has to try to work out which meaning you are using in any particular moment ? That the context you have in your head (which is usually hidden from everyone else) should be evident to everyone else in the real world ? Hm, I have news for you - if you play with words and try to claim that their meaning is determined by yourself, you are being shifty, insincere, shallow and untrustworthy. Sorry. Poptech wrote : "Do you support Dr. Pielke's position on hurricanes? "My analysis of a long-term data set of hurricane losses in the United States shows no upward trend..." Roger Pielke Jr." As usual, we have the Poptech shuffle, where nothing is as it seems and words are used to suit the Poptech agenda. The rest of that quote (from 2005) is : ...once the data are normalized to remove the effects of societal changes. That was a response to a K. Emanuel paper, to which Emanuel also responded, but to which Pielke didn't again respond. Ultimately, Pielke's paper is not against 'AGW Alarm' (except in Poptech's version of 'AGW Alarm'), and Emanuel's response took into account Pielke's claims. No 'AGW Alarm' here...only in Poptech's world.
  37. Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
    johnd @28, "perhaps you need to go back and carefully read my post that you were replying to, in particular the second last paragraph, and you will see that my post was in fact a response to your comment "Yes, something very different is going on alright." " First, if you are going to speak to a particular point/sentence, please quote it in your reply at the beginning as I have done here. Second, what you claim in the quote above is not strictly true. You took spent a long time taking issue with the start and end dates and made insinuations of scientific malpractice against the authors. You do later say this: "Therefore before one can conclude that something very different is going on, other than some short term aberrations, one needs to consider if the beginning and ending points of the study were firstly moved back, say a nominal one decade, and then secondly moved forward one decade, would the same conclusions be reached. " The trends are statistically significant, which means that there is enough data to extract a statistically robust/significant signal. I again challenge you to demonstrate that moving the start and/or end dates refutes their conclusions-- anything else on your part is hand waving, speculation and void of science. and again I remind you that this work does not stand alone, but forms part of a much larger coherent body of evidence which shows that rainfall extremes around the globe (including Oz) are increasing. And Rob painting @36 makes an excellent point when he says (well when the research has demonstrated): "I do hope you understand that rainfall totals can fall in a region yet extreme rainfall events can increase." And it still appears to me that you are criticizing a paper which you have not even bothered reading (in full). Have you read the paper johnd?
  38. PMEL Carbon Program: a new resource
    Guiganbresil - I did a little reading up and quickly came to the the conclusion that much (i.e. all I saw) of the hype was unwarranted Ah, so therein lies your problem. A little reading?. You're going to have to expend more energy I'm afraid. The global oceans are acidifying not just upwelling regions. Seriously, did you not think that scientists studying this problem gloss over the obvious?. You're asserting that upwelling itself is somehow increasing the acidity of coastal regions over the last couple of centuries. How does your novel mechanism work?. Citations?. Note how the scientific studies on climate show consilience?. For example: Continued fossil fuel burning leads to increases in atmospheric CO2 which in turn leads to more dissolved into the oceans via Henry's Law. Notice the the relationship here?.
  39. Meet The Denominator
    Skepticalscience readers, Here is a challenge that I hope someone with more time than I will follow though on: 1) Find out how may papers on the list are also cited in the IPCC reports. 2) As I mentioned in my previous post, papers which have been overturned/refuted in the literature are also still on the list-- find all the papers which have been refuted. 3) Find all the papers which are inconsistent with each other or contradict each other (e.g., papers saying it was warmer during previous interglacials or MWP, and others claiming that equilibrium climate sensitivity is low). If the skeptics want to overthrow the theory of AGW they need to present a cohesive, consistent and coherent picture, not one that includes a wide myriad of logical fallacies, contradictions and refuted science.
  40. Meet The Denominator
    140 Ron Thanks. So not really a "typical" example of anything. I guess the rest Of the list is equally dubious? So: what Dana said. 2/10 to Mr PopTech; amusing, but could try harder.
  41. Meet The Denominator
    Oh dear, not the infamous list again. I'm sure that the creationists have compiled similar lists in a (futile) attempt to challenge the theory of evolution. One hardly knows where to begin with the issues. First, the title does not make sense. what does the author mean by "skepticism"? Scientists are by their very nature skeptical; and the author seems to be confusing "uncertainty" with the actual meaning of "scepticism". Why is "man-made" in quotation marks? That is usually done to imply that something is not real, when AGW is in fact an established theory, some might even go so far as to argue it is a "fact". And it is not sure what the term "alarm" is meant to convey, is it pejorative, or is it a claim that the impacts of AGW will not be "alarming"? Moreover, there is clearly a mismatch between the papers cited to support the title. There are also gross contradictions in the list-- some papers like G&T09 which essentially deny the existence of the greenhouse effect, others which deny it is warming, others which say it is warming but that that the warming is caused by natural cycles, others which claim that the warming is there but that is is nothing compared to the warming observe din previous interglacials, others which attribute the warming to the sun (an external driver)...I could not compile a more incoherent, contradictory potpourri of papers if I tried. There are also some beautiful examples of how the list has some serious issues and not to mention the numerous examples of own goals. An example of an own goal is citing a debunked paper like G&T09-- a fundamentally flawed paper which has been soundly refuted in the literature. Including such a fatally flawed paper (which is wrong) is not a reason to be sceptical of AGW, in fact it is a reason to be skeptical of the sub-par "science" undertaken by so-called "skeptics" contrarians and deniers of AGW. In fact, all those papers written by "skeptics" which have been overturned in the scientific literature (and there are quite a few) should be removed from the list. I could go on, but this really is like shooting fish in a barrel....
  42. Meet The Denominator
    Ultimately the problem with lists like Poptech and the Oregon Petition is that they don't apply any filters. Poptech's response is that people can look at his list and evaluate the papers themselves. The problem is that when your list is 850 papers long, that becomes completely impractical. The length of the list is a detriment. If, for example, it filtered out garbage papers like those published in E&E, and categorized them by exactly what areas the papers are examining, it would be feasible to get something useful from the list. But as it is, it's just a list of every paper Poptech can find that he thinks are skeptical of AGW "alarm". It's pure quantity over quality, and the only thing anybody can get out of it is the number 850. And considering that the 850 includes garbage like EG Beck's paper, the number itself is utterly meaningless. So if all that can be gleaned from the list is the number 850, it's an entirely valid argument to point out that compared to the total number of scientific papers on the subject, 850 is a drop in the bucket. And it is. Poptech, you've clearly put a lot of time into compiling this list. I would suggest that your time would be better used applying some filters and organization than continuing to add quantity rather than quality.
  43. Meet The Denominator
    Nothing discredits poptech more thoroughly than dozens of posts by poptech himself. Nice honeytrap you've written, Rob!
  44. Meet The Denominator
    I represent that general population Philippe and I certainly don't swallow anything, I don't care what it is. It all deserves closer inspection. So I do as my mother taught me to do except I've changed the wording slightly to suit the modern age. I believe nothing of what I hear and only half of what I read. You could put fifteen pages of citations, appointments, etc. etc. to a persons name and I say, yeah, so what, the person is human and therefore fallible. I don't do science and these lists are meaningless to me, so I too have no reason to believe that anyone doing real science would care either. The world is no longer full of ignorant uneducated savages, yet there is always some predator waiting in the wings to prey upon sentiment.
  45. Meet The Denominator
    Yes Les Roger A. Pielke, Jr. is your man.
  46. Philippe Chantreau at 04:55 AM on 14 February 2011
    Meet The Denominator
    Rob, the general population will swallow just about anything anyway. The truth is that both the OISM list and PT list of papers are sad attempts at creating doubt about the general state of the scientific knowledge when there is no such doubt. Neither one of these things deserves any attention from one actually trying to understand the science. The only reason why they are attracting so much attention is because they are given such resonance by blogs and people in the press trying to spread doubt. Is there anyone out there doing science who gives a hoot about these stupid lists? Please...
  47. Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
    Gareth: Kudos on a great article! Please make it more SkS user friendly by adding "Related Articles" and "Further Reading" tabs.
  48. IPCC ‘disappeared’ the Medieval Warm Period
    Dana; Kudos on a great article! Please make your post more SkS user friendly by adding "Related Articles" and "Recommneded Reading" tabs.
  49. Meet The Denominator
    Could some please help me regarding Do you support Dr. Pielke's position on hurricanes? I'm not families with him... Is this Policy wonk our man? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Pielke,_Jr. Who posted this? http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/02/quote-clarification.html If so, this can't possibly be a good example of an unambiguous anti or pro anythin person??? Thanks for clarrificstion.
  50. PMEL Carbon Program: a new resource
    guinganbresil: Although I like Sigourny Weaver as an actress, I do not value her scientific reputation. If you use the search box in the upper corner and search "ocean acidification" you will find about 20 threads on this site that will fill you in on this issue. I like here and here for starters. If you inform yourself about the science you will be able to put together an argument that others might listen to. When your primary scientific reference says that ocean acidification is a severe problem and you hand wave their conclusion off it is not a very good argument. These professionals have measured a change in pH in an important location for fisheries. This is a big problem. What data do you have that they are wrong? If this was not an important issue the PNAS would not publish their paper. An amateur saying professionals are obviously wrong does not get very far.

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