Climategate

[leo9]

I really shouldn't have left this thread on email alerts, I keep getting dragged back to it when I should have given it up. Because what can you say to comments like

considering earth is about 3,000 years past due for an Ice Age, I think its safe to say nobody really knows.

Or in other words, considering that there is more than one theory about climate, even though the other theories' predictions have not come true for a century and the AGW predictions have consistently come true for the last fifty years, we can still point to the other ideas to claim nobody "really" knows. On that basis, so longs as the Flat Earth Society still exists (http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djubl...rthsociety.htm) one can argue that nobody really knows the world is round.

Meanwhile, along with NASA http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/New...w.php?id=43306 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/New...w.php?id=43083, the US Geological Survey and the Pentagon, we now have to add to the ranks of the AGW conspiracy that well known organ of state socialist propaganda, the Economist: http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis...ry_id=14966227 Since it's a magazine for the rich, that's a paying link, but if you aren't interested enough to pay to know exactly what they think there are plenty of blogs with a summary.

In 97 years we humans have effected the entire planet so much that we've changed global climate????

Oddly enough, that's what an increasing number of paleogeologists think, to the point of changing the textbooks to say so: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0326101117.htm But of course you already list the world's geologists among the conspirators. Thank goodness we've got tabloid journalists to tell us why all these different scientific disciplines are wrong.

Government, lately ANY Government is of the opinion that what they "know" and "believe" is of more import than anything anyone else knows!

What can one say? Pot... Kettle... Oh, never mind.

I admire your strength for staying with this, Denu, I couldn 't face it. I'm off out again.

[lucy]

Even if man-induced global warming is (were, since i think all the scientists have it quite right) just a possibility, the implications and effects are so huge that it still would be smart to do everything we can do prevent it from getting any worse.

Alas, i'm a pessimist when it comes to believe in collective learning. Well, learning might be possible, but not acting accordingly.

[DuncanONeil]

But that then gives rise, again, to the question; "what is the proper temperature for the planet?"

Even if man-induced global warming is (were, since i think all the scientists have it quite right) just a possibility, the implications and effects are so huge that it still would be smart to do everything we can do prevent it from getting any worse.

Alas, i'm a pessimist when it comes to believe in collective learning. Well, learning might be possible, but not acting accordingly.

[lucy]

But that then gives rise, again, to the question; "what is the proper temperature for the planet?"

Sorry and with all due respect, but that is total rubbish. There is no 'proper' temperature for the planet. The planet gives a rat's ass about its temperature. We as a species, don't, or shouldn't, because large parts of our civilization pretty much depend on more or less the temperature we have now.

[DuncanONeil]

My point exactly!!

You are the only person to ever answer this question. And you understood the question quite well as well. You are correct there is no way we can know the answer to that question.

I do disagree with you last bit though. Perhaps the use of the word "depend" is a bit to strong.

Sorry and with all due respect, but that is total rubbish. There is no 'proper' temperature for the planet. The planet gives a rat's ass about its temperature. We as a species, don't, or shouldn't, because large parts of our civilization pretty much depend on more or less the temperature we have now.

[DuncanONeil]

But the AGW "predictions" have not been that accurate. In fact the penultimate Global Warming supporter at East Anglia himself has said there has been no warming in the last 12 - 15 years.
Added to that is data showing that the planet is in fact cooling.

I really shouldn't have left this thread on email alerts, I keep getting dragged back to it when I should have given it up. Because what can you say to comments like
Or in other words, considering that there is more than one theory about climate, even though the other theories' predictions have not come true for a century and the AGW predictions have consistently come true for the last fifty years, we can still point to the other ideas to claim nobody "really" knows.