Letters to the Editor
droogoy
Published Letters: 567 Editor's Choice: 9
-
@Solarpower (2)
[Read the article: Desperate times, desperate scientists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Solarpower wrote:
No body realises that the data upon which these ‘opinions’ (can one really qualify them as scientific findings?) is frequently questionable. For example, the refusals to make public the algorithms used to calculate the hottest summers Bug in the Software?
I think this is overblown. For example, if it is that big an issue, there ought to be at least one paper somewhere exposing the deficiency. Nothing I have seen discloses that. Or any "bug". I also don't count the papers backing the IPCC position as "opinions" (See e.g. the current issue of 'Physics Today', p. 22).
There are over 1800+ papers that have gone into the IPCC report process, all published in major climatic science, or paleo-climatology journals. Not in little blogs, or think tank mags. This is a substantial backing.
As quoted in the selfsame PT article, George Monbiot notes on the IPCC:
"This must be the most maligned institution on Earth, in that it's a very conservative scientific panel which chooses only the science which is rock solid.
Yet it's often portrayed as an insane, radical organization that is trying to overthrown civilization as we know it"
---
Surely these scientists have been airing their views for at least as long as the establishment has been riding the climate change hobby horse, but their views and findings have been marginalised so as to better push the desired outcome.
I dispute that. If the science is good enough, these "marginalized scientists" can still be published, but they have to be prepared to withstand the objections that follow. S. Fred Singer is one who knows all too well about this! Almost every paper he's had published in Eos Transactions has seen multiple comebacks showing how his assumptions or data are deficient.
The reason these contrarians aren't heard so much, is that the science - yes the science - has reached a point of reinforcing additions and consolidation. The squeeks heard are then minor quibbles which we tend to find in all of science. Christ, there are still nitwits in solar physics claiming the solar flare is a "myth" since it cannot be 100% determined to the last decimal point of time whether CMEs (coronal mass ejections) precede flares, or follow them. This gets old after a time, and the rank and file of researchers tire of the ceaseless attempts to be heard.
Most of which arise because the complainers have not established their own bona fide research area to promote, or do independent work in. They need to be "contrarians" to arrive at even a first rung of originality.
I do not agree that “we know” global warming is human engendered, since in the past we know the planet has experienced similar periods of increases (and decreases) in ambient temperature, well before we began producing Co2 ourselves.
Yes, but that was in the context of exceptional CO2 generation by the planet, i.e via massive and extraordinary chemical and geophysical changes.
In the meantime, the CO2 data very well support the global warming thesis. For example, even a tiny, minuscule amount of CO2 is vastly more efficient at blocking the re-radiation of energy than any amount of water vapor- at those bands. (See the NRC Report published ca. 2001 that gives the relative W/m^2 forcing contributions of each GH gas)
Part of the misconception arose because early researchers, lacking the current technology of infrared spectroscopy, assumed that water vapor bands already blocked out most of what would (ordinarily) be taken by CO2. (Cf. The Discovery of the Risk of Global Warming, by Spencer Weart, in Physics Today, Jan. 1997, p. 34).
It is also known that other planets, further away from the sun, are also undergoing ‘climate change’ for reasons common cosmology cannot explain
Yes, I am aware of these other planets, but their cases are not germane to Earth's. Many commentators have cited evidence of temperature increases measured from Mars, Titan and Neptune "showing an increase concurrent with increases in the northern hemisphere of Earth.” However, and let’s be absolutely clear on this- melting of polar caps on Mars, Titan or Neptune is not the same thing as one Earth. Particularly since the Martian caps are comprised of carbon dioxide ice with different chemical properties, as well as melting point, etc Titan and Neptune, meanwhile, have materials composed of ammonia and methane ice. Different melting temperatures and properties, different chemical and thermal dynamics.
Such comparisons are also quite idiotic since NO ONE inhabits Mars, Titan or Neptune – so no one will suffer any consequences from their climate change! Thus, the consequences of any 'warming' to a lifeless world with no economies of scale or human interests, welfare, investments can’t be compared to those on Earth. This is also what we call “false analogy”.
Surely a ‘precautionary principle’ would involve a more rigourous scientific debate, with contributions from those who are currently outside the loop of the politically correct, rather than a global campaign to frighten entire populations into submission to the official policy- i.e a tax on the air we breath?
There is NO such "global campaign to frighten" anyone. What we have is hard core, consolidated, and consensus science forged by some of the brightest minds on the planet. The traegedy is that the corporate press has managed to paint the participants as nutwhacks. And brainwashed many in the population to that perception.
No, in this light, a precautionary principle - given the Earth can tilt toward the runaway effect- means we take action from NOW. The IPCC has done its work and we cannot afford the luxury of time to await the last "convert" - or if you prefer, "persuaded one". In a time or on a planet that we we had 20 or more years to fart around, I would say 'sure!'. But we don't. We have - as Rajendra Pachauri noted in the 'Physics Today' (ibid.) maybe four years, max.