Is Global Warming a Myth?

WinePusher · Post by **WinePusher** » Fri Sep 20, 2013 12:31 pm

Some eminent scientists now believe the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century â€“ a process that would expose computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming as dangerously misleading.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tions.html

A report from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado finds that Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007. But didnâ€™t we hear from the same Center that the North Pole was set to disappear by now? We all deserve apologies from the global warming fanatics who wanted to reshape the world in their image and called those who objected to their wild theories ignorant deniers.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/wat ... p-growing/

1) Does this new information show that Anthropogenic Global Warming is false?

keithprosser3 · Post by **keithprosser3** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 1:26 am

This is solved by polling all the experts,

But I can't actually do that, can I? I can't very well e-mail my own questionnaire to all the experts in the field - I don't even know how many such experts there are, certainly not who they all are. So even an apparent consensus is only something else we are being told about, not something we can truly judge for ourselves.

But I strongly suspect AGW is a fact. I think if most people are honest, opinion about AGW is not a question of figures and graphs. It comes down to who you trust, or even more super-cynically, who you want to trust.

Philbert · Post by **Philbert** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 4:34 am

So even an apparent consensus is only something else we are being told about, not something we can truly judge for ourselves.

You can judge it for yourself by reading the writings of the experts if you wish to.

It comes down to who you trust, or even more super-cynically, who you want to trust.

I'm not sure why we wouldn't trust climate scientists, as a group.
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keithprosser3 · Post by **keithprosser3** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:05 am

I do trust scientists to be honest, if only because they operate in an environment where dishonesty is punished severely.

My point is that we - the public - don't have access to all the relevant information, and wouldn't be able to interpret it if we did have access. So we rely on sources that filter and simplify issues. Scientists have an incentive to be honest, but the media have an incentive to sensationalise, and vested interests certainly do intervene heavily in how issues are presented to us.

I confess that I lost a great deal of confidence in the honesty of what we are being told over the farago of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. To create a pretext for war, western governments lied to their people, and knew they were lying. Saddams's WMD were a myth. I don't think that global warming is a myth. I think that 'no global warming' (or no anthropogenic global warming) is the myth. The puzzle is why AGW is being suppressed - qui bono?

keithprosser3 · Post by **keithprosser3** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:05 am

I do trust scientists to be honest, if only because they operate in an environment where dishonesty is punished severely.

My point is that we - the public - don't have access to all the relevant information, and wouldn't be able to interpret it if we did have access. So we rely on sources that filter and simplify issues. Scientists have an incentive to be honest, but the media have an incentive to sensationalise, and vested interests certainly do intervene heavily in how issues are presented to us.

I confess that I lost a great deal of confidence in the honesty of what we are being told over the farago of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. To create a pretext for war, western governments lied to their people, and knew they were lying. Saddams's WMD were a myth. I don't think that global warming is a myth. I think that 'no global warming' (or no anthropogenic global warming) is the myth. The puzzle is why AGW is being suppressed - qui bono?

Philbert · Post by **Philbert** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:29 am

I do trust scientists to be honest, if only because they operate in an environment where dishonesty is punished severely.

Ok, same here. Of course it is possible they could be honest and still wrong. It seems unlikely almost all of them would be wrong, but that's most likely happened before.

My point is that we - the public - don't have access to all the relevant information, and wouldn't be able to interpret it if we did have access.

Fair enough. The only solution here would seem for everyone in the public to become a climate scientist. You know, having an advanced civilization requires us to outsource complex issues to dedicated experts.

Scientists have an incentive to be honest, but the media have an incentive to sensationalise, and vested interests certainly do intervene heavily in how issues are presented to us.

Yes, I agree about the media, they certainly have a strong bias for drama. They also have a strong bias for lowest common denominator programming, as that's where the mass audience is. Certainly many of the documentaries on global warming I've seen have used melodrama to make their point, but nobody would watch if they didn't, as the need for entertainment trumps all other concerns in the public's mind, generally speaking.

Saddams's WMD were a myth.

Yes and no. He had no WMD at the point in time when we invaded, that seems true. However, it is very well documented that he wanted WMD, and would happily use them if he did. Thus, there was a logic to taking him down when the opportunity presented itself.

As example.....

While many people are understandably upset about the maybe deception, nobody really cares that Saddam gassed his neighbors and Iraqis too. So, getting rid of a psychopathic mass murderer in such conditions is not as simple as it might seem.

Would you rather he was still there building up his WMD stockpiles again?

Well, there goes the thread.....

keithprosser3 · Post by **keithprosser3** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:16 pm

Yes and no. He had no WMD at the point in time when we invaded, that seems true. However, it is very well documented that he wanted WMD, and would happily use them if he did. Thus, there was a logic to taking him down when the opportunity presented itself.

As you say, there goes the topic! It is not a question of whether I am happy that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing for the west and/or Iraq (no doubt an interesting but different debate) but whether I am happy that if my government doesn't have any facts to back up its policy it will just make some up. I think that you, Phil, got dangerously close to condoning that. It can't be ok for the government to make things up for policies you approve of unless you are also happy that the government also has the right to mislead us on matters you don't approve of.

In the AGW debate, at least one side is lying to us. You pays yer money and takes yer choice, as they say.

keithprosser3 · Post by **keithprosser3** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:17 pm

Yes and no. He had no WMD at the point in time when we invaded, that seems true. However, it is very well documented that he wanted WMD, and would happily use them if he did. Thus, there was a logic to taking him down when the opportunity presented itself.

As you say, there goes the topic! It is not a question of whether I am happy that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing for the west and/or Iraq (no doubt an interesting but different debate) but whether I am happy that if my government doesn't have any facts to back up its policy it will just make some up. I think that you, Phil, got dangerously close to condoning that. It can't be ok for the government to make things up for policies you approve of unless you are also happy that the government also has the right to mislead us on matters you don't. approve of.

In the AGW debate, at least one side is lying to us. You pays yer money and takes yer choice, as they say.

bluethread · Post by **bluethread** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:29 pm

Well, there goes the illusion scientific humanism being objective and not a religion. Freeman Dyson has been accused of heresy. How can one be a scientific heretic?

Goat · Post by **Goat** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:40 pm

bluethread wrote: Well, there goes the illusion scientific humanism being objective and not a religion. Freeman Dyson has been accused of heresy. How can one be a scientific heretic?

You can't.. On the other hand, someone can make a skeptic, and not have the knowledge to understand. Just because someone is a physicist doesn't mean are a climatologist.

On the other hand, one physicist, who was a climate change skeptic, went so far as doing his own study using a different model,and changed his mind

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012 ... hange-mind

keithprosser3 · Post by **keithprosser3** » Mon Sep 23, 2013 3:26 pm

I think I better remind people that I do believe that AGW is real and a real problem. But I do have an issue with the way that mis-information is being used in this debate, e.g. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2fN3JUKW3