rejection of climate change theory closely linked to conspiracy ideation

A skeptic, unlike you, question the validity of unproven claims.

 

so, why are you not sceptical of denialist claims?

do you not understand the meaning of the word "sceptic"?

 

According to you anyone that is not a true believer is a denialist so skeptics conveniently fall withing that category you use so you can ignore anything that does not fit your world view.

 

well yes - a sceptic does, which is why you are not a sceptic.

I never claimed to be a sceptic, btw - however I would be interested to know which claims you think are unproven.

 

don't be silly!

you said yourself that a sceptic questions the validity of unproven claims ... can you prove the denialist claims that you do not question?

 

Hmm I have Cass on ignore for racebaiting. But that is a rather interesting point when you consider that if you go on the skeptic blogs like climateaudit the readership is absolutely brutal to preliminary drafts that get posted. The early Loehle thread at climate audit is evident of this. In fact many warmmongers point to the criticisms of the original Loehle draft at climateaudit as evidence against Loehle.

Contrast that with realcimate or SKS where criticism is moderated out and all you see is a giant circle jerk.

 

You are missing the entire idea of being a skeptic.

As the presenter of a theory (conspiracy or otherwise), it is up to the presenter to give all evidence, and then to verify that evidence.

And myself, I question a lot of this "evidence". I find great amounts of it hypothetical, with gigantic amounts of supposition thrown into it. I have even gone to such web sites and tried to question some of the results (not in a "buster" style, but simply wanting to get a question answered), and came under attack for daring to question the "experts".

For example, I once tried to ask how they could get such exact results from the Greenland Ice cores. And that the belief that they were 100% correct discounts the rather obvious fact that not only can they not be exactly sequential like tree rings, but at least some times there must have been melt-offs that leave gaps in the records. But no, the ice is 100% pure, 100% unchanged, and it is proven.

If several thousand years of ice melted off, then more was laid on top, how can you prove it? Yes, I admit there is a lot of compelling data there, but I believe it is an incomplete record. And ask about things like the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period and there is lots of "ummm, well, we can't fully explain that" going on.

And of course I remember a lot of the exact same scientists around 40 years ago looking at the exact same data, the exact same beliefs in "human caused climate change", but instead were saying that we were causing a new Ice Age.

So yes, I am a skeptic. Now this does not mean I think we should do nothing. I believe in trying to protect the environment whenever possible, and am very much a Conservationist. But I see a lot of people now almost jumping so deep into Global Warming that it is almost like a cult.

I generally do not listen to what you call the "denialist" claims, since that is such a loaded way of putting things that it really does not apply. To a lot of Global Warming fanatics, andybody that is not fully into the belief is by default a "denialist". And you can't tell somebody who outright rejects it, from somebody like me that wants to see more concrete proof, and that this is not just a natural part of the cycle.

And I always find it somewhat amusing when people scream such things at me, since they obviously know little to nothing about me or my lifestyle.

 

Easy enough.

First and foremost, that there is a "tipping point" or runaway greenhouse effect, second is that warming is bad, third is that it can be stopped by man, forth, taking 150 years of data to prove an overall trend during the Holecene, and fifth that the computer models are correct.

 

This is the part I actually question most about the science they use. At heart, I am more of a geologist then a climatologist. And I look at scales of hundreds of millions of years. Heck, compared to the climate of the Earth during most of it's lifetime, we are still in the depths of one of the coldest periods ever recorded



Only 2 times in the last 650 million years have global temperatures dropped lower then they are right now at this time. Looking at the vast history of our planet, temperatures have been significantly higher then they are now. Yet people jump up and down and wave their arms saying "It has never been this hot ever!"

This puts me more in mind of a cult then anything else. And we have been warming for tens of thousands of years already. There is absolutely nothing new here at all.

And as I said before, this warming trend was something I rmember discussing in class decades ago. Ice caps tend to cool a planet much more then is natural. A lot of sunlight and heat is reflected back into space by all of the ice on the surface. And once this ice starts to melt, it then reflects less light, so the melting accelerates. This here is basic science, and we have seen it in action the last 30,000 years. And as the ice melts more, this warming trend will also accelerate. This is basic science here folks.

"The ice is melting faster then ever!"

Well, duh! I am sure the Neanderthol said the exact same thing as the glaciers started to rapidly recede to the North 30,000 years ago.

However, I am much more concerned with the destruction of the "Global Oxygen Factories" in places like the Amazon then I am about "Carbon Dioxide Emissions". Our planet has some remarkable checks and ballances, part of it is our plant life. Increased CO2 emissions (be it from fires, volcano eruptions, or cars) tends to create an increase in plant life which takes advantage of this gas to increase it's own growth. And our cutting of such superforests I think is of more danger then worrying about cars.

 

Im not much into conspiracy theories, but I do believe one is happening in the name of the human effect on global warming. A conspiracy is not always a refusal to accept facts, its a refusal to accept facts on blind faith.

You don't have to be an astrophysicist to understand how supporting a scientific theory such as man made global climate change is profitable for those who support it.

We have been running out of oil for nearly 3 decades now, give me a break! Just another scare tactic by those who's green agenda started out by saving trees, to realizing that saving trees is not very profitable, but creating a science that causes people to buy certain products that you are invested in inventing and creating, is very profitable. How else are you going to get people to pay twice as much for something less efficient unless you scare them into doing it.

It's the me-me-me problem that has created this theory to begin with. Saving the enviornment is the least of many of these people's concern. They are concerned with making money off of 'saving the enviornment'. I don't see people trying to solve the real enviornmental issues such as deforestation, water contamination or overdevelopment anymore. Because these things are not PROFITABLE to support. There is tons of money to be made in supporting the global warming theory world however.

 

This is also why I question some of the science. To me, many of these people that are screaming "the sky is falling" lost all credability long ago.

I remember the 1970's. New Ice Age, running out of oil, polution, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Has anybody ever heard or read some of the predictions of the first Earth Day? It is quite funny:

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

And wait, this is my absolute favorite!

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Now these predictions were all made 42 years ago. How many of these came true? These "expert predictions" turned out to be nothing but a lot of hot air. So is it any wonder why I question them now?

"Oh, we were wrong then, but we are right now!"

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

And now I present to you my candidate for the Earth Day mascot:

I do think that there is a grain of truth in this as well. I am sure everybody remembers Y2K, and all the people out to make a ton of money off of people for that non-event.

I am all for preserving the environment. But there are limits there as well. Because unless we are willing to cut the human population back to around 1 billion people and return to subsistance hunter-gatherers again, I do not see that happening.

 

To be sure. Unfortunately that cannot be said for the actual climate said models are supposed to represent - a point which will no doubt be lost on warmist airheads.

Well that would certainly explain why you lap them up like a dog lapping up antifreeze.

As for understanding, is it not a shame that nothing I've said is over the head of anyone with a high school level comprehension of English, yet you have obviously comprehended not a syllable of it?

If my claims in this thread can be so characterized, why the hell would I question their validity when not one of you Gaea-worshipers has been able to find fault with any of them?

 

Your latest ridiculous rant ignores the greenhouse effect, AGAIN. At least admit you don't believe in the greenhouse effect. You can't factor it, into your own predictions! So you load up a lot of crazy RWNJ language, and you post your nonsense, like it's the best mystery meat, ever!

NOT.

1. We haven't been warming, for "tens of thousands of years." Get this through your geologically -deprived noggin. Here is a graph, which represents temperatures and CO2 levels, for 450,000 years:




The cycles of warming and cooling in the last 800,000 years lasted 80K-100K years. The 15K-year interglacials may be defined by an onset and a decline, which declines are more gradual. We are due, for a decline, according to the behavior of the interglacial, 400,000 years ago, since MIS 11 happened, with similar orbital behavior.

Now take a look, at the red line, on the FAR RIGHT, of the graph. That is CO2, leading temperature, which will eventually shoot up, to about 25 C, which is the usual temperature, on YOUR graph. On the way there, most life on Earth will die out and become extinct because the CO2 is rising, TOO FAST. Creatures can never adapt, to such a rapid rise.

Our CO2 is rising, more rapidly, than ever before, to be joined, by CH4, industrial GHGs, and eventually, by a lot of NO2 and SO2, from volcanoes, even if we keep the NO2 and SO2 out of coal emissions. This will happen because CO2 is the main climatic forcer. No two ways.

2. Since this "duh" science is so basic, WHY HAS IT TAKEN YOU SO LONG, TO ADMIT THIS? You have to admit to runaway global warming, "duh!" You have to admit more heat and water will enter the cliamatic system, "duh!" Can you remember how when rain passes, through CO2, SO2, and NO2, it acidifies? Did you put it together, how this process will whack all desirable ocean species? "Duh," whut?

So, when you finally start adding up the components of climate change, and mass extinction is the ultimate outcome, do you put up an empty chair and say "duh," to an invisible straw Neanderthal?

So you ARE concerned, about forests. What a surprise. And you have to admit people have been harming the forests, good. Then that means AGW is happening. You still aren't as cool, as Clint Eastwood. He is actually showing other Republicans, how logical fallacies are part of the theater, of the absurd.

Moreover, here our Holocene interglacial looks like this, but it is headed, to an average temperature, more like what YOUR graph shows, in a geologic instant:





That last little bump on the above graph is our modern warm period, which will head UP, toward an Anthrocene Thermal Maximum, which is where YOUR plot usually is. Lots of drought, deluge, and extinctions are on the way, to that plot getting, to where it is going.

Are you in possession of enough perceptive abiltiy, to put all this together? "Duh," whut?

 

Unless you have other 'facts' to offer in rebuke of the overwhelming scientific data that exists to support global climate change, and when coupled with your other comments, like about profitable and peak oil, then you are just choosing to ignore people and institutions who are much smarter and knowledgeable than you or I.

So anything with profits involved is a bad thing?

When you live in a nation which it and it's citizenry are 100% dependent on oil, only an idiot would ignore the potentials for less oil, more expensive oil, etc. No matter if it's called Peak Oil or any other name, a shortage of oil or higher costs of oil will bring this nation to it's knees! Well within your lifetime you will see $5/gallon gasoline and in parallel you will see the economic problems associated with higher costs. Look around the world and you can see that literally trillions of machines require oil/gasoline to operate. Ignoring the concept of Peak Oil would be foolishness.

You are so off base on your assertions about profits and 'don't see people trying to solve'?? Nothing much can be done regarding any of these issues unless the nation can find consensus; both on the root issue and the solutions. People everywhere are trying to make a difference and are doing so every day. People like you who are oblivious to these efforts in every community across the USA need to pay attention and get involved...

 

So...is it safe to ASSUME that there is an agreement that the earth is getting warmer?

If so... should we not prepare?

If someone thinks they can make enough money on oil to move to a cooler and wetter place and avoid the consequenses (if they are deniers for money) they are just plain wrong...political unrest will getcha.

 

What the hell good is agreement when nobody knows whether it's getting warmer or not?

 

Of course bobgnote cannot show a corresponding spike in temperature to go with his co2 graph.

 

sorry mushie - unlike you, I KNOW the meaning of "sceptic" - maybe in american it has a different meaning as well as different spelling.

since we are discussing an area of scientific knowledge, the true sceptics are those who question a belief ON THE BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING.

They do not question on the basis of political belief, or conspiracy beliefs.

denialists DO NOT question AGW on the basis of scientific understanding, therefore they can not realistically be regarded as sceptics ....

they may be regarded as sceptical of AGW, however if they were sceptics, (as in the general, non scientific usage of the word) they would be equally as sceptical of denier claims ... not march in step due to a simiar belief - whether based in political/economic ideologies, or conspiracy theories.

If you question the "evidence" it is based on the fact that you subscribe to conspiracy theories about science, or are lack the skills to differentiate between information provided by denier blogs and that which relies on scientific evidence.

 

but they do ... this is so well documented that your post is an insult to intelligent discussion.

 

Psst! The perennial ice is melting. Solar intensity is relatively low. The ratio of high-temp records to low-temp records just went from 2-1, 2010, to 3.5-1, 2012, still happening. The average global temperature just went up 1 F, since the 1970s, but hey! Climate is changing, and when that Arctic ice all melts, one summer, it is on its way, to melting every summer, and the northern hemisphere will REALLY heat up, but so will the whole planet, while sea level rise accelerates.

The rise in temperature is fairly level, but this will be replaced, by an accelerated rate, as Greenland sheet ice melts, and East Antarctic sheet ice starts to melt. Then the Greenland sheet will all melt, and the NH will REALLY heat up, even faster, while the SH heats up, and East Antarctica takes a good while, to finish melting, whereupon SLR will by 70 m, from today's level.

Of course, if you could read posts or websites on the internet, before you learned to type idiocy, in English RWNJ, you would have even the simplest clue, how CO2 is leading temperature, with an increasing array of other GHGs in the mix, so temperature has only started, to follow CO2 and the other GHGs.

We are on top of an interglacial period, but we won't be going down, to re-glaciate, I'm afraid. It seems people who learned English RWNJ can't understand the GREENHOUSE EFFECT, at all, and they won't run a search, to learn even the basics.

Of course, since all the ranters took off a lot of the research money, we have only a very few studies, which are directed, to REALLY predicting, what is going to happen, in detail, while fossil fuel companies scramble, to flood the media, with disinformation.

We know basically what will happen. It will happen in a geologic instant. But our lives are just specs, really. Somebody else wrote something like that, somewhere, so run a search and see if you can find any of it.

The internet! Reading! Try it, starting with the GREENHOUSE EFFECT. You know, atmospheric molecules with three atoms or more enhance the IR blanketing, which atmospheres all do, but ours is mainly O2 and N2, so if you have CO2, H2O, CH4, and the rest, you have a relative GREENHOUSE EFFECT, from concentration increases, of GREENHOUSE GASSES.

Hey, it's better if you run a search, instead of hit the button, to that Heartland Corp. denier-propaganda website. Heartland sites turn up, in searches, anyway, so try a government site, for once, or Wikipedia, even, if you won't look at Nature or SciAm or PopSci or AGU or NASA or NOAA or skepticalscience.com.

 

People do know -the stats are in and valid - but more importantly the ECOLOGY knows and is reacting

 

Then surely it will require only trivial effort to present documentation which addresses the specific issues raised here and here.

 

Here's a question to global warming deniers: If green house gasses aren't causing earth's temperatures to rise, what is?

 

I have done this countless times on these forums over many years.

if you can't be bothered educating yourself, then I can only assume you are here to troll.

 

The normal cyclical nature of climate?