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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Can we please stop the "Global warming evidence was faked" crap now?
Posted by Jill | 11:33 AM
Mr. Brilliant is a bit of a science geek. I can't tell you how many nights I've sat blogging, playing mahjong titans on Vista, trying to do the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle, or sitting around waiting for an Excel spreadsheet to load while I'm connected to my employer's VPN while he watches yet another program on plate tectonics, or black holes, or how the universe began, or something else that makes my eyes glaze over because if I pay attention I'll feel so insignificant that nihilism seems like a good way to go. He really does understand what the Large Hadron Collider is supposed to be doing.

You know what he doesn't really get, though? What the hell happened with the infamous Climate Change E-mails™. What he DOES understand, though, is that the scientific community and those who recognize that if we don't do something about climate change PDQ we are going to be in a world of shit, have done a really crappy job of explaining why these e-mails don't "disprove" that climate change exists, that we are largely responsible for it, and that if we don't do something about it, we are going to be in a world of shit.

It's unfortunate that it's up to the Associated Press, that wonderful organization that brought us Nedra Pickler, to do the job. AP has been known to be somewhat dickish when it comes to excerpting their articles, so you'll have to click over. Or, you can read the statement directly from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Yes, it was bitchingly cold in New Jersey yesterday. Yes, I know there have been blizzards in the midwest. Global warming doesn't mean "Everyplace gets hotter." Anyone who's enough of a dumbass (I'm talking to you, John Elliott, the nimrod on WCBS-TV in New York who says crap like this every time the temperature is below normal) to believe that one cold day means decades of science is bunk deserves to drown or die of tropical diseases that are going to be moving north. But I defy you to look at this, this, this, or this and tell me that there's nothing going on and that if there is, we have NOTHING to do with it, and then try to tell me that we have a God-given right to burn as much fossil fuel as possible driving our kids to soccer practice.

And how weird is it when I find a voice of sanity on all this over at Little Green Footballs? But I did, and found this:


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11 Comments:
Blogger Phil said...
I'm a bit of a science geek myself.
I remember explaining Plate Tectonics to a corn farmer Uncle in Nebraska back in 99.He was amazed and thought I was so me kind of genius. He is a damn smart guy in his own right.
I need to brush up on my particle physics though, woefully behind on that.
12/12/09, 11:55 AM  
Anonymous mandt said...
Insects like John Elliott,or Inhoff will survive along with cockroaches----feeding off one another.
12/12/09, 8:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...
Of course you're right, the leaked emails don't disprove AWG. They do, however, give a huge black eye and serious credibility problems to a very important and prominent core of the climate science community -- and, to a certain extent, to all us scientists in general. That is an inconvenient truth that there's no denying, and they've no one to blame but themselves and their own shoddy conduct. They just made their jobs that much harder.

Yeah, Bustednuckles, particle physics is really heating up again with the chase for the Higgs! Who would have thought?
12/13/09, 7:52 AM  
Anonymous Shared Humanity said...
What I want to know is how those Global Warming fakers got my forsythia bushes to bloom in December in Chicago?
12/13/09, 10:45 AM  
Anonymous JayDee said...
Yes, I'm sure they will give up their ridiculous claims when faced with actual facts. Just like they have with Obama's birth certificate, and the sanctity of free-market economics.

You should know by now that facts have nothing to do with this debate. It's always been about the brainwashing of the educationally-challenged into ignoring empirical evidence, even when it's right in front of their eyes.

It's easy to do that when in large part these same people already hold strong religious convictions which include the tenet that anyone who believes differently than they, or even practices their belief system in a different fashion, is practicing heresy.

This is the same battle that Galileo fought with the church 500 years ago. It's back with a vengeance. The obstinacy toward facing facts which is displayed by these denialists is the same now as it was then. Thankfully, they don't control the state now, as they did at that time in history. Not yet, anyway.

Then, as today, the hook used was selling the flocks on the idea that science too is a religion, based entirely on faith instead of empirical learning and rigorous testing, and therefore it also constitutes heresy.

So throwing up facts does nothing except convince them to harden their resolve in opposition to the minions of satan. Facts are ignored because they might contaminate the soul.

Sad but true. Now for those deniers who AREN'T religious, I really haven't a clue what's going through their heads. Someone else will have to take that one up.
12/13/09, 12:01 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...
The difference between now and Galileo's time is that now it's the "scientists" who are guilty of all the persecution and intolerance of dissenting views. I am a member in good standing of the American Physical Society, and that body stands poised to cleave in two over this issue.

If you folks truly understood the scientific method, you'd know why skepticism is in order. Science moves forward like this: one posits a falsifiable hypothesis and then tries one's best to falsify it. More importantly, one invites the rest of the scientific community to try to falsify it as well. The hypotheses which remain standing after this scrutiny are on much more solid footing.

Problem is, much of the high priesthood of climate science actively resists any serious scrutiny of its hypothesis. And they keep their data and computer models closely guarded secrets, which makes reproducibility (another key tenet of the scientific method) a near impossibility.

For the record, I am a Ph.D. physicist who does not dispute the recent warming trend. But I do know piss-poor science when I see it, and I'm seeing a lot of it coming from the climate science community right now.
12/13/09, 1:30 PM  
Anonymous elspi said...
Barry
I'll see your alleged PhD in Physics and raise you a real PhD (in mathematics). Your claims are all bogus, which makes me think your PhD is as well. All of the algorithms and almost all of the data is online and has been for years and years. A very small part of the date is privately owned (not by the scientists) and so they cannot release what they don't own (but the liar Barry knew this already). All of the e-mail allegations have been debunked on http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610.

The people at http://www.realclimate.org/ have put together a page of links to all the data and such. And now for future reference
DON’T FEED THE LYING TROLL.
12/13/09, 3:55 PM  
Anonymous tata said...
Anyone can make any claim to authority, but none of that is important, is it? What matters is who is acting in good faith, and who is acting in blind, selfish, bad faith?

Barry, it cannot be said you act in good faith here. And the Republicans confronting the President of the United States on foreign soil? Not enough can be said about they are on the wrong side of history, and we will all pay for it.
12/13/09, 5:14 PM  
Blogger Distributorcap said...
since when have the GOP ever let facts get in the way of a good story -- how about the death panels, fight them there so we dont fight them here, etc

what amazes me is how thoroughly stupid most of this country is - a country that 70% of the people cant find afghanistan on the map, a country that thinks fox news is legit as they put charts up that add to 193% and 120%, a country that voted 2x for george bush, a country that is actually spending money on a sarah palin book!

like tata said - like the dodo, we will pay being that dumb
12/13/09, 5:25 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...
>Barry, it cannot be said you act in good faith here.

Why not? Simply because I often disagree with the editorial content here? I can think of no other reason. And yet I'm the one who's been called a "liar," for no discernible reason (it seems that if I were to invent a Ph.D. I'd invent one in climatology rather than nuclear physics.)

The sad truth is that I admitted to the fact of global warming. More importantly, IMO, I see the very real and present need to curtail the use of fossil fuels.

The fact that someone like me can be so savaged for committing the sin (actually scientific duty) of being skeptical of certain methodologies does nothing but underscore the assumption that much of the AWG movement has become a secular religion, complete with heretics that must be burned at the stake.

I happen to agree with the British Copenhagen attendee who insisted that we need a *positive* vision for a future less reliant on fossil fuels. He rightly pointed out that if MLKJ's message had been "I have a nightmare," people would not have followed him. I think he has a point, since a recent national poll shows that AWG "deniers" outnumber believers for the first time ever.

Anyway, when that positive vision is formulated, sign me on, because I think it's important. But as long as it's wedded to some doomsday secular religion complete with fire and brimstone and apostates, count me out.
12/13/09, 7:40 PM  
Anonymous tata said...
Baloney. You're not a skeptic: you're a contrarian. You oppose whatever Jill favors, no matter how rational her view. You can't help yourself.

No one feels sorry for you, and no one is going to change his or her mind on your say so. If we're making you so, so sad, perhaps you should break your B@B habit.
12/14/09, 7:00 AM  
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