*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by eric3579.

The McExperts just got owned.

>> ^ghark:
The McExperts just got owned.


Facts haven't stopped them before, why would it now?

Booya, can I double *quality this? Great talk.

This video has already declared quality - ignoring quality request by KnivesOut.

Up yours, sifty.

Perhaps the first time I've ever heard a AGW advocate admit that C02 isn't the only factor influencing temperature! This is a red letter day.

Let's see - he criticizes others for not spending more time winnowing scientific journals... I guess in all the time that he spent in all those journals he just MISSED the truckloads of reports that solar activity has radically decreased over the past several years, and that 2009 alone has had the lowest amount of solar activity in the past 100 years. Yet he says "solar activity has been more or less constant for 30 years". Yeah, whatever.

And then he goes on and says "C02 levels have been constant for the past thousand years". Oh - REALLY? An AGW proponent says that C02 has been 'constant' for a thousand years? So - there's no problem with human generated C02 then, right? Because clearly all the C02 human have been generating hasn't effected the "constant" nature of our C02. Sun is constant... C02 is constant... AGW proponents blame a global temperature increase of ONE degree in 100 years on human C02. Then they ignore a global temperature decreases of one degree in ONE year.

It reminds me of Saruman in Lord of the Rings. This guy is your Saruman, and you're his hillmen. "It was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire woke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves." Dance, mice. Dance for your piper.

They ALL admit that CO2 isn't the only factor Pennypacker, the only problem is they always get selectively quoted by the antis and the MSM. If you'd bothered to inform yourself in the past you'd have realized that.

"More or less constant for 30 years" is not incompatible with "Lowest amount in 100 years" if the variance is low for that time period both statements can be absolutely true. It's not that tricky to figure out.

He also didn't say that CO2 had been constant for the past 1100 years, he said for all but the 30 most recent years it's been relatively constant. But I guess you weren't listening with an open mind, you appear to have come with an opinion and are simply trying to fit this information, which is inconsistent with your world-view into your world-view rather than accepting that your vision may be flawed. Perfectly normal human reaction, but none of the points you raised are valid, so go on living the delusion, it's much easier than having to live with hard truths.

>>Winstonfield_Pennypacker
Perhaps the first time I've ever heard a AGW advocate admit that C02 isn't the only factor influencing temperature! This is a red letter day.

I have never heard anyone say that CO2 is the only factor. What people are saying is that CO2 is the main factor in driving the most recent climate change.

I guess in all the time that he spent in all those journals he just MISSED the truckloads of reports that solar activity has radically decreased over the past several years, and that 2009 alone has had the lowest amount of solar activity in the past 100 years. Yet he says "solar activity has been more or less constant for 30 years".

Solar activity periodically varies over an 11 year cycle, and we are currently at the minimum of this cycle. Besides this periodic variation, solar activity has been more or less constant.

And then he goes on and says "C02 levels have been constant for the past thousand years".

Obviously, he means that CO2 levels have been constant for the past thousand years until the industrial revolution. One of the main reasons for believing in anthropogenic climate change is the good correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature.

AGW proponents blame a global temperature increase of ONE degree in 100 years on human C02. Then they ignore a global temperature decreases of one degree in ONE year.

Climatologists deal with long-term trends and global means. Differences in temperature between one year and the next is expected and difficult to explain, but models for long-term and large-scale means have turned out to be quite good. They only work, however, when CO2 is taken into account.

Great video, only he can't really blame armchair scientists for not checking out scientific literature. Because most of that is only accessible at high price or via university subscriptions (at very high cost for the university).
We need science to go into public journals. The high price for articles goes mostly to the publishers of the journals. While the submitting scientists get almost nothing for the paper, only a place in a big journal if he's lucky. And the peer review of the papers is also usually done for free. Therefor all science should be published in big open-source databases. It would give everyone access and also allow much better technological improvements, because even people with low budgets could work on these things if they were open.

^ I heartily agree. I've tried to look up sources for scientific journals many times, and if you're lucky you get an abstract, and that's about it. The day of the high cost scientific journal should be over.

Don't feed the trolls.

and now for a bit of global warming/climate change humor.

Since global warming is so controversial and hard to prove why even mention it? Air quality should be plenty of reason to lower emissions and this problem has plenty of non-controversial proof. Why even talk about global warming when it basically impossible to prove when there are plenty of other reasons to lower emissions.
-Karl

Yup, and PLoS is proving that decent quality control and open access can both be had by the same journals.

...ok PLoS, I put in a plug for you; now stop rejecting my manuscripts without review!

>> ^cybrbeast:
..can't really blame armchair scientists for not checking out scientific literature. Because most of that is only accessible at high price or via university subscriptions (at very high cost for the university).
We need science to go into public journals...

>> ^swedishfriend:
Since global warming is so controversial and hard to prove why even mention it? Air quality should be plenty of reason to lower emissions and this problem has plenty of non-controversial proof. Why even talk about global warming when it basically impossible to prove when there are plenty of other reasons to lower emissions.
-Karl

Uhm CO2 does little to the quality of air. Air with a little added CO2 is not harmful in any way, unless it reaches ridiculously high levels. Air quality is mostly harmed by aerosols like soot and NOx. These are actually cleaned up effectively. Only problem is that some of these aerosols (SO2 in particular) acted like global cooling agents by making clouds more reflective. So cleaner air will actually increase global warming somewhat.

It's a bird, it's a plane! It is climategate!

Please read this link: Climatega
te: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

Yes it is ironic that it is a blog, but hopefully it will help you to think twice before blindly following anyone who speaks out about a supposed "good cause".

Have you ever done experimental research and tried to publish something?

I have... it is hard. When you say such and such experiment is crap, it is clearly out of a complete and thorough ignorance. If you are really passionate that an experiment is incorrect then you need to design another experiment to disprove it.

I trust experimental scientist because I believe that science and experiment are our only ways of really knowing something, and that is not to say I am not critical. The point is reading blogs and watching videos is fine but if you want to talk about something with any vague expertise then you need to get off your ass and go to a library and do a literature search. Libraries are free at least the last time I checked and most of them have access to scientific journals.

Some boiling frogs don't believe in thermometers.

>> ^crillep:
It's a bird, it's a plane! It is climategate!
Please read this link: Climatega
te: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?
Yes it is ironic that it is a blog, but hopefully it will help you to think twice before blindly following anyone who speaks out about a supposed "good cause".


Sorry bub, you may believe whatever you wish to believe, but if you wish to convince others you're going to have to make your point with peer reviewed research. Those are the breaks, kid. Life is hard.

^MycroftHomlz: Not that I disagree with your general point, nor do I have a solution, but the situation isn't as simple as you make it out to be. Most libraries are free, but most don't have subscriptions to a broad range of scientific journals, and None have archives for all journals. Some people are lucky enough to live near good academic libraries, like those of Harvard, but most people aren't. As cybrbeast pointed out,even online access to most journals is subscription based.
To compound this, even if everyone had access to all journals, they simple would not have the experience and education to understand publications from all fields.
So, "don't be an armchair scientist," you might say. Well, policies based on science affect all of our lives, global warming being a great example, habitat destruction and resource depletion being better ones. The lay masses must vote on these policies or vote on representatives who will shape these policies. When it comes down to it, a relatively uninformed public must follow the recommendations of sources they trust. The sad thing is we, as a people, don't seem to be well enough educated in the sciences to chose trustworthy sources.

>> ^MycroftHomlz:
Have you ever done experimental research and tried to publish something?
I have... it is hard. When you say such and such experiment is crap, it is clearly out of a complete and thorough ignorance. If you are really passionate that an experiment is incorrect then you need to design another experiment to disprove it.
I trust experimental scientist because I believe that science and experiment are our only ways of really knowing something, and that is not to say I am not critical. The point is reading blogs and watching videos is fine but if you want to talk about something with any vague expertise then you need to get off your ass and go to a library and do a literature search. Libraries are free at least the last time I checked and most of them have access to scientific journals.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:>
Sorry bub, you may believe whatever you wish to believe, but if you wish to convince others you're going to have to make your point with peer reviewed research. Those are the breaks, kid. Life is hard.


Funny that you would say that, I haven't seen your peer reviewed research. But that's right, you don't need it because you have a link to wikipedia about global warming consensus. A consensus given to us by the IPCC. You should know that the IPCC is not comprised of only scientists. There are many activists from enviromental groups such as greenpeace as well. So your statement about politics having nothing to do with climate change is truely wrong. They have everything to do with it.

Also you more than anyone should stay informed about the massive critic "aka hockey stick" that is hitting CRU right now, if you plan to keep tossing your wikipedia links. There are plenty unanswered questions.

I do not wish to convince anyone of anything, I'm just tired of the close mindedness around this subject. Unfortunately if you ever saw what happens to scientists who don't conform to your consensus you might understand why they aren't willing to risk their career because they think something sounds fishy.

I think the debate here goes right to the central issue about Climate change:
How do you make science and politics play well together?

In science, concensus isn't that important. Sure, people will be skeptical if you champion some way out there theory, but entertaining strange possibilities is seen as a good thing.

Climate scientists, however, suddenly found themselves in a position where they had to get into politics with the message they got out of their data. Politics, however, is another beast entirely. You have to deal with absolute truths, otherwise people won't give a damn about what you're saying.

How do you make an informed decision based on science? Since it doesn't offer absolute truths, there has to be some element of risk analysis behind your reasoning. But the problem isn't only that no one scientist is absolutely sure about his answer, it's that people disagree on how sure you can be. How do you perform risk analysis when you don't know the risk?

This is where consensus becomes important in science. You can't have a concensus about what's true and what's false, but maybe you can have a consensus about what the risk is. That is what the IPCC is all about.

Now, people won't just trust a consensus; they want to know what lies behind. That's why public access journals are so important.

That's my thinking on the subject, anyway. I, however, am no expert.