Official Global Warming thread (merged)

[BartW]

Worst definition of junk science ever.

The term "junk science" refers to inaccurate analysis and data that is used to skew opinion or push agenda. Junk science may be used by a variety of people for a variety of purposes. The best way to be able to identify junk science examples is to know who are the users, what are the popular topics, how was the information gathered and what was the source of the information.

Some examples of those who may utilize junk science and their reason for use include:

1. Media: To sensationalize or increase its audience. Additionally, biased media sources may use junk science to support their own agenda.
2. Lawyers: To win cases or deceive judges and juries. Social and political activists: To support their own agendas and build membership.
3. Government regulators: To change the opinions of others or increase their scope of regulation.
4. Businesses: To advance their brand or degrade the products created and sold by competitors.
5. Politicians: To perpetuate their agenda, to bad-mouth an opponent's record, and to garner votes.
6. Scientists: To propel themselves forward in their field for the purpose of awards or compensation.

I highlighted the important ones in regards to scary "climate change" (aka seasons). Read the last one a few times..

And remember science is not as infallible as you imagine it. It wasn't long ago that blacks had smaller brains that whites and incapable of things like reading and writing..you know..based on science. Or when Carl Sagan predicted nuclear winter from nuclear war and how we would have "climate change" and be in an ice age again..Ooops they fudged the data a bit..lots of that goes on in the scientific community (read #6 again).

Climate change worry = Y2K

See you need to have some practical non agenda driven scientific education with a dash of common sense to see past the climate change worry. Stick to not polluting rivers, littering, recycling, you'll be fine with the planet. You know..until an asteroid crashes into us and kills most life (again).

Your definition of junk science is OK (and consistent with mine), but you fail to see that it's supported by corporations, creationists, and other conspiracy nuts -- not real scientists.

The term 'junk science' was popularized by market fundamentalist think tanks like Heartland that were paid by Philip Morris & co. to deny the health risks of smoking. These are the same think tanks that fossil fuel industries, Koch, etc. pay to spread misinformation about climate change. It's really quite obvious. The same organizations, same tactics, even the same fake experts are used in both denial campaigns.

'Junk science' in that sense has grown to encompass all environmental science and public health studies that suggests we might need regulation. The term is almost exclusively used by cranks to deny inconvenient truths. Again, the "sound/junk science" dichotomy is usually a sign that blatant pseudoscience is involved

Seasons are not climate change. You still haven't produced a specific example of climate scientists fudging data. If you published such libel you'd be sued for defamation like Mark Steyn. Your examples of bad science are borderline incoherent. Science is self-correcting; bad ideas get weeded out quickly (for example, nobody got famous for the 'discovery' of cold fusion or superluminal neutrinos). There is an overwhelming scientific consensus (over 97% of climate scientists and 100% of the world's national scientific organizations) that humans are causing global warming and over the past few decades that consensus has only gotten stronger. There is no mysterious agenda. Scientists don't need global warming.

Lots of innuendo and zero substance from the deniers, as usual.

 

[BartW]

You're the alleged scientist, using a political blog should be beneath you. You should give the Farmers' Almanac a look, especially since it's based on observation, not astrology.

Farmer's Almanac - Weather Prediction

Weather prediction has always been a major feature of the Farmers' Almanac. The Almanac Publishing Company claims readers of the Farmers’ Almanac have attributed an 80 to 85 percent accuracy rate to the publication’s annual forecasts. However independent studies that retrospectively compare the weather with the predictions have not shown them more accurate than chance.[1]

Predictions for each edition are made as far as two years in advance. The Farmers’ Almanac publishers are highly secretive about the method used to make its predictions, only stating publicly that it is a "top secret mathematical and astronomical formula, that relies on sunspot activity, tidal action, planetary position and many other factors." The Almanac’s forecaster is referred to by the pseudonym Caleb Weatherbee.[2]

I wasn't referring to the observations they're based on (though apparently that analogy holds too), but rather the method of making vague predictions so you can later claim victory for your psychic powers. Caleb Weatherbee's 'forecasts' are a joke. Yet, as the thinkprogress article points out, psychics are correct more often than deniers.

 

[MG1968]

Farmer's Almanac - Weather Prediction



I wasn't referring to the observations they're based on (though apparently that analogy holds too), but rather the method of making vague predictions so you can later claim victory for your psychic powers. Caleb Weatherbee's 'forecasts' are a joke. Yet, as the thinkprogress article points out, psychics are correct more often than deniers.

speaking of vague and worthless predictions, how is the snow cover in the Himalayas doing? One of your scientist buddies predicted it would be gone by now.

 

[BartW]

speaking of vague and worthless predictions, how is the snow cover in the Himalayas doing? One of your scientist buddies predicted it would be gone by now.

Specifically what prediction? While a few isolated glaciers are stagnant or even growing due to local conditions, the vast majority of Earth's glaciers are retreating (or have already disappeared entirely). And they're retreating rapidly at an accelerating pace.

If you're into nature photography there's an awesome documentary on Netflix called Chasing Ice. It's worth a watch, even if you have trouble stomaching climate change research. At the very least you should all watch this incredible glacier calving event:

"CHASING ICE" captures largest glacial calving event ever filmed

:yikes:

I posted the link a while back, but it's worth revisiting. Absolutely awe-inspiring...

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

The 97% consensus myth – busted by a real survey | Watts Up With That?

 

[Orangeslice13]

The 97% consensus myth – busted by a real survey | Watts Up With That?

That can't be right.

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

That can't be right.

Why not?

 

[Orangeslice13]

Why not?

I'm sure Bart has some reason and a gif that will clear it all up for us.

 

[BartW]

Consensus denial?

This is the scientific consensus on climate change

How’s this for a scientific consensus? The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society with a membership of 121,200 scientists and “science supporters” globally, just released an 18-page report confirming that the world is at growing risk of “abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes” due to climate change.

It’s called, simply, “What We Know,” and the facts it presents follow three basic assertions (presented here as summarized by its authors):

1. The reality:

“Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening. This agreement is documented not just by a single study, but by a converging stream of evidence over the past two decades from surveys of scientists, content analyses of peer-reviewed studies, and public statements issued by virtually every membership organization of experts in this field. Average global temperature has increased by about 1.4˚ F over the last 100 years. Sea level is rising, and some types of extreme events – such as heat waves and heavy precipitation events – are happening more frequently. Recent scientific findings indicate that climate change is likely responsible for the increase in the intensity of many of these events in recent years.”

10,883 out of 10,885 scientific articles agree: Global warming is happening, and humans are to blame

As geochemist James Lawrence Powell continues to prove, the only people still debating whether or not climate change is “real,” and caused by human activity, are the ones who aren’t doing the actual research. In an update to his ongoing project of reviewing the literature on global warming, Powell went through every scientific study published in a peer-review journal during the calendar year 2013, finding 10,885 in total (more on his methodology here). Of those, a mere two rejected anthropogenic global warming

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

Poor ol' Bart still trying to make a point. Just won't stop. Thanks for wasting everyone's time with the cute little pictures though.

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

Poor ol' Bart still trying to make a point. Just won't stop. Thanks for wasting everyone's time with the cute little pictures though.

It's funny isn't it? Any evidence provided by anyone else besides him is automatically dismissed. He believes everything the government says. I bet if Einstein was alive and presented evidence that global warming could be wrong, Bart would call him a conspiracy theorists lol:

 

[BartW]

Poor ol' Bart still trying to make a point. Just won't stop. Thanks for wasting everyone's time with the cute little pictures though.

My pleasure

 

[Orangeslice13]

Poor ol' Bart still trying to make a point. Just won't stop. Thanks for wasting everyone's time with the cute little pictures though.

97% of VN politics posters think he's FOS.
This is from peer reviewed data. We didn't actually ask if he's FOS. We just took the info from randum posts we agree with.
TRUT was the lone hold out but I think he was just being difficult.

 

[BartW]

It's funny isn't it? Any evidence provided by anyone else besides him is automatically dismissed. He believes everything the government says. I bet if Einstein was alive and presented evidence that global warming could be wrong, Bart would call him a conspiracy theorists lol:

Ironic coming from a climate denier, creationist, and anti-vaccine nutter

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

Consensus denial?

This is the scientific consensus on climate change



10,883 out of 10,885 scientific articles agree: Global warming is happening, and humans are to blame

UPDATE 3/26/2014 9:27 PM: The headline of this post has been corrected to reflect the correct number of articles referenced by Dr. Powell’s research. Powell also clarifies that many of those studies were authored by multiple scientists, so the complete number is actually higher. The headlines has been updated to reflect this as well.

On his methodology, Powell notes, he only verified that two out of the 10,885 articles he found concluded that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is wrong: “It is a safe assumption that virtually all the other 10883 do not reject–that is, they accept–AGW but I can’t say for sure that each one of them does.”

So in one instance this consensus is rock solid. Yet here he says " it's a safe assumption and that he cannot say for sure that each one does accept AGW." Good job Bart. Very fascinating. Safe assumptions? Why are we dealing with assumptions?

 

[BigOrangeTrain]

Ironic coming from a climate denier, creationist, and anti-vaccine nutter

Your statement just shows how big of a liar you are. I stated I am 100% pro vaccine. Now not only do you look like an idiot, but a liar that distorts facts whenever it suits you. If you really think anybody takes you seriously, you're living in a dream world. Congrats Bart.

I do like your goofy gifts and fancy government "charts and graphs." Please don't stop posting them. We all need a good laugh every now and then.

 

[BartW]

UPDATE 3/26/2014 9:27 PM: The headline of this post has been corrected to reflect the correct number of articles referenced by Dr. Powell’s research. Powell also clarifies that many of those studies were authored by multiple scientists, so the complete number is actually higher. The headlines has been updated to reflect this as well.

On his methodology, Powell notes, he only verified that two out of the 10,885 articles he found concluded that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is wrong: “It is a safe assumption that virtually all the other 10883 do not reject–that is, they accept–AGW but I can’t say for sure that each one of them does.”

So in one instance this consensus is rock solid. Yet here he says " it's a safe assumption and that he cannot say for sure that each one does accept AGW." Good job Bart. Very fascinating. Safe assumptions? Why are we dealing with assumptions?

It is a safe assumption. Scientific papers in ecology and evolutionary biology don't start out by stating "we believe in evolution". It's such a commonplace fact that it's not worth mentioning. It's obvious which papers reject climate change -- the few that sneak by peer-review get quite a bit of attention.

This is only one of several surveys of the literature, including Cook et al. 2013 which asked authors to self-rate their papers' position on climate change. Consensus denial is really grasping at straws.

Your statement just shows how big of a liar you are. I stated I am 100% pro vaccine. Now not only do you look like an idiot, but a liar that distorts facts whenever it suits you. If you really think anybody takes you seriously, you're living in a dream world. Congrats Bart.

I do like your goofy gifts and fancy government "charts and graphs." Please don't stop posting them. We all need a good laugh every now and then.

You never responded to my post after you asked me to refute your anti-vaccine BS

I never reversed anything. You're just deflecting because I asked you to refute things which you didn't. Spin it however you like. You just don't understand things about medicine. It's okay. Most here on VN don't.

Refute what? If we now agree that vaccines do not cause autism then there's nothing to refute.

Nice flip-flop:

Vaccines can be a cause of autism.

Maybe it doesn't. We don't know yet…
Vaccines don't cause autism. There is a chance they CAN be a cause of autism.

I do not believe vaccines cause autism.

so I took your silence as an admission of defeat.

I'm glad you enjoy my funnies. Here's another one:

 

[FLVOL_79]

Reality Denial by Climate Change Nutters is pretty hard core.

 

[FLVOL_79]

DEMING: Another year of global cooling - Washington Times

It is true that the extent of sea ice at the North Pole is slightly below the 30-year average. However, an event near Antarctica reminded us that sea ice there is near an all-time high. In late December, a ship of global-warming researchers became stuck in Antarctic sea ice. The ice was so thick that two icebreakers sent to rescue the scientists were unable to break through. Passengers had to be removed by helicopter. Despite all the claims that the poles are melting and polar bears drowning, the global extent of sea ice remains stubbornly and significantly above the long-term mean. Apparently, the buildup of heat from global warming is producing more ice, not less, in defiance of both the laws of physics and common sense.

Silly geophysicist climate denial nutter!

But but..global warming! Global warming was the ecoterror trend of the 1980's and early 1990's. Then people wised up and realized not only was it BS but it was a natural occurrence. Global Warming became less trendy as a buzz word (like nuclear winter of the 80's) and became "Climate Change". Again as I have stated multiple times "Climate Change" is an ambiguous term coined to be applied to anyone's enviro/corporate/political/scientific agenda. It is the hot buzz phrase now and it is used in Politics to instill fear and is used by corporations to push worthless "green energy" contracts with the government**. It the scientific community it is the easiest way to get published. A scientist can pump out journal after journal on climate change with vague information, a ton of hersay, a few dashes on conjecture, and call it science. The vast majority of climate scientists are the red headed stepchildren of the scientific community and they eat each others BS up like a dog. It's a good old boys club of dumb with an agenda driven approach to research. Research requires money.

Scientists have to convince people that their research is worth funding. Fear mongering, woe, deception, gloom and doom, tools of religion and despots for centuries, finds its application in the modern world in the realm of "Climate Change". Everything in "Climate Change" and its horrors are hypothetical.

**Want to know why climate change is REALLY popular now?? $

Obama's Taxpayer Funded Green Energy Flops:
The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:

Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

*denotes bankruptcy filings

Another big reason behind the "Climate Change" hubbub that is never talked about is emissions trading (cap and trade). Cap and Trade literally does nothing to stop pollution and is used as a way to trick people into thinking something is being done about pollution. "Climate Change" is an effective tool in allowing emissions trading to continue. Instead of just capping emissions and actually reducing said emissions companies can just buy up emission credits from other people who have not met their cap yet. Sounds dumb? It is.

In the end it boils down to who do you believe? The rabid foaming at the mouth Climate Change proponents who want to yell and scream about it and pray for sheeple, or people who can use common sense and rational thinking to draw their own conclusions.

As an anti-religious person I find the climate change crowd crazier than the snake handling jesus loving 6000 year old earth crowd. I lump them in with the OWS morons.

In 10 years climate change science will take the backseat to the next liberal science hoax. I'm leaning towards something to do with the moon being pulled to the earth so we have to blow it up. I think that line of thinking would fit right in with their lunacy...lunacy..get it?



In conclusion I leave the board with climate change nutter nonsense of old. Yep..these people are who inspired a new crop of loonies:

By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half..." Life magazine, January 1970.

It is now pretty clearly agreed that the CO2 content [in the atmosphere] will rise 25% by 2000. This could increase the average temperature near the earth’s surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit. This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter.- - Presidential advisor Daniel Moynihan 1969

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind. We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation," - Barry Commoner Washington University Earth Day 1970

In the next 50 years fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees. Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, could be sufficient to trigger an ice age." – Washington Post - July 9, 1971

A number of climatologists, whose job it is to keep an eye on long-term weather changes, have lately been predicting deterioration of the benign climate to which we have grown accustomed….Various climatologists issued a statement that “the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure in a decade,” If policy makers do not account for this oncoming doom, “mass deaths by starvation and probably in anarchy and violence” will result. New York Times - December 29, 1974

A global warming trend could bring heat waves, dust-dry farmland and disease, the experts said... Under this scenario, the resort town of Ocean City, Md., will lose 39 feet of shoreline by 2000 and a total of 85 feet within the next 25 years - San Jose Mercury News - June 11, 1986

New York will probably be like Florida 15 years from now,' - St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sept. 17, 1989

(By) 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots... "(By 1996) The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers... "The Mexican police will round up illegal American migrants surging into Mexico seeking work as field hands". - Michael Oppenheimer, The Environmental Defense Fund - "Dead Heat" 199

Within a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting even. Children just aren't going to know what snow is," Dr David Viner, Senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia - Mar 20, 2000

Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer (2008), report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field. "We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history]," David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker. - National Geographic News June 20, 2008

 

[marcusluvsvols]

I don't know that vaccines cause autism Bart. Haven't done the researc or studied it enough. Why do scientists think the rates of children with autism have increased 100fold in the last 50 years or so? Serious question.

I read that the chances now o a child being born with or "regressing" to autism are around 1 in 1000. Which is insanely high. Do you know why?

 

[FLVOL_79]

Oh no more gloom and doom from the UN! Same old same old BS that's been yelled about for over 100 years now..with literally none of the predictions coming to fruition.

Global warming dials up our risks, UN report says

The real gist of the story is that the rich countries need to redistribute wealth to poorer countries so they can better survive "climate change". And all this time I thought climate change was just about protecting the environment..

 

[BartW]

Sigh, same old disinformation… I'll just link the relevant posts.

Earth is still warming, despite the so-called ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’:

.

The Arctic and Antarctic (and glaciers around the world) are losing ice rapidly:

.

The term ‘climate change’ was not recently invented and doesn’t replace the term ‘global warming’:

.

While I agree that the government shouldn’t be subsidizing green energy (or big oil, for that matter), 97% of Obama’s taxpayer-funded green energy projects have been successful, which is par for the course:

.

Your suggestion that these relatively miniscule alternative energy companies could outfund the well-documented (and publically admitted) denial campaign funded by Exxon, Koch, etc. is ludicrous. If climate scientists were in it for the money, they’d be in the private sector or working for one of those industry-funded BS think tanks. Scientists don’t need global warming. If it weren’t real, academics would simply research something else.

Your complete lack of understanding of cap and trade is equally comical. You realize we’ve had a cap and trade system for SO2 emissions for decades? And that it succeeded in mitigating pollution at only a fraction of the predicted cost? Still, I prefer the carbon tax to cap and trade.

I’ve addressed these myths several times, and I even directly responded to you the last time you brought up the climate change terminology myth. As usual, you ignore my posts and come back and repeat the exact same myth over and over. It’s dishonest and makes you look dumb yet again.

In the end it boils down to who do you believe?

Do you believe the scientific community, or the same corporate shills that told people smoking has no health risks (despite the broad consensus to the contrary)?

Reality Denial by Climate Change Nutters is pretty hard core.

Wordage fail. One is not a denier simply because of their stance on an issue. Denialism describes the tactics one uses to support their argument when they face an overwhelming consensus and have little or no facts to support their case. And y’alls arguments follow the denial formula to a T. It’s quite fascinating really.

Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?
Denialism Blog

Oh no more gloom and doom from the UN! Same old same old BS that's been yelled about for over 100 years now..with literally none of the predictions coming to fruition.

Global warming dials up our risks, UN report says

The real gist of the story is that the rich countries need to redistribute wealth to poorer countries so they can better survive "climate change". And all this time I thought climate change was just about protecting the environment..

So is it a wealth redistribution scheme upwards or downwards? Will curbing CO2 emissions be harder on developing or developed countries? This thread is full of contradictory conspiracy theories. Indeed, one of the characteristics of conspiracy theories is that they are poorly thought out, consisting of an amalgam of loosely related (and often contradictory) sound bites. Is someone ever going to try to give a detailed explanation of the great global warming conspiracy? Maybe you can get some ideas from senator inhofe’s book:

(for those that still refuse to acknowledge they’re conspiracy theorists, just look at the title…)

 

[BartW]

I don't know that vaccines cause autism Bart. Haven't done the researc or studied it enough. Why do scientists think the rates of children with autism have increased 100fold in the last 50 years or so? Serious question.

I read that the chances now o a child being born with or "regressing" to autism are around 1 in 1000. Which is insanely high. Do you know why?

Vaccines don't cause autism. I question your numbers (100fold seems way too high and 1 in 1000 way too low imo) but it's not my area of expertise and I don't care to look into it too much. The primary cause for the increase in autism diagnoses is the reclassification of several disorders (e.g. Asperger's) under the Autism Spectrum and improvements in doctors' abilities to diagnose it. There may be other factors at play, such as those causing the increase of autoimmune or other genetic diseases. It's very much an area of ongoing research and I'm just speculating. But I will confidently state that vaccines are NOT causing the apparent increase in autism. This dangerous myth has been debunked countless times. Still, many people refuse to vaccinate their children and consequently diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, and whooping cough are making a comeback.

If you are really interested I would say just google it, but with all the misinformation out there I understand it can be difficult for a layperson to sift through the BS. I only skimmed these links but this might be a good place to start:

CDC Features - Why Are Autism Spectrum Disorders Increasing?
WebMD Special Report: Autism - Searching for Answers

 

[FLVOL_79]

Climate Change hysteria is similar to the propaganda movie Reefer Madness. It's like the science that brought ADHD to the forefront.