IGX

Or even a relatively conservative review of how bias may occur. No conclusions that it does, just how you might determine (other than whinging about like most of the Alex Jones types you all love so much) whether or not bias occurs.

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/f ... per-29.pdf

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Sangoma wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:The data says what it says.

If there is data out there suggesting research and tenure positions are being withheld you should find it for us. It's a commonly made point, that I've never heard quantitatively or qualitatively described.

As per above, the data is circular. Try to get a research grant or a university position by stating that you don't agree with the current consensus.

Enjoy your grassy knoll.

What DATA do you have that this is the case? It certainly COULD be the case...but what tacit knowledge, third hand knowledge investigative journalism or credible papers can you point to that this is the case?

That is a vast preponderance of interests for whom this conspiracy would be useful to out...are you telling me Exxon or Shell can't dredge up some legit journalism on the subject to cast legitimate doubt?

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying given all that we know about conspiracies, this one is pretty damn hard to cover up.

The trouble with serious science is - always - the complexity of the debate. Journalists pretend to get the point across in 1000 word snippets, which invariably fails.

If you want to get into the beginning of the debate check the book by AW Montford, The Hockey Stick Illusion. It is the story of the debate around probably the most important GW publication where one Mann demonstrated that the extent of current temperature increases is extraordinary and that warming of this degree has never happened in the past 1000 years. He used tree proxies to do that, and the article was a sensation at the time of publication.

Unfortunately for Mann there was this retired Canadian geologist Mckittrick who was interested in the subject and was enthusiastic enough to be willing to play with Mann's data. So he requested it. His inability to get the same results from Mann's data using the same statistical methods triggered the debate that lasted over a decade and that is described in the book. The way the debate has been handled by Mann himself, journals and pro-climate scientists is severely biased towards the science du jour. And we are talking about one aspect of this debate. How do you structure this kind of data to include it in the published/unpublished biases?

The synopsis of the hockey stick debate here: The rise and fall of the Hockey Stick

It is not a conspiracy, there are simply interest groups that have the podium at the moment. There are many examples from other areas of science. Cholesterol lowering, saturated fat scare, wholegrain bread, meat causes cancer, hypoglycaemics for type 2 diabetes, anti-depressants and so on - are all examples of this kind of phenomenon, in spite of vast evidence to the contrary. Except that climatology has gained tremendous power in the recent decades.

I can't think of other sciences where opponents are called deniers. Can you think of a science where calls are made to prosecute those who openly argue with the scientific findings? The character pf opponents is blatantly attacked by the media, while shortcomings of the conventional climatologists are benevolently overlooked. "Independent" IPCC consists exclusively of greenies and climate scientists, dissenters are kicked out and their complaints are never given place in the media.

I don't pretend to know the truth, but all this strikes me as seriously abnormal.

exxon's position on climate change:

Our position on climate change

We have the same concerns as people everywhere – and that is how to provide the world with the energy it needs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The risk of climate change is clear and the risk warrants action. Increasing carbon emissions in the atmosphere are having a warming effect. There is a broad scientific and policy consensus that action must be taken to further quantify and assess the risks.

emphasis added

http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/curr ... r-position

Sangoma wrote:I can't think of other sciences where opponents are called deniers. Can you think of a science where calls are made to prosecute those who openly argue with the scientific findings?

health consequences of smoking. tobacco companies lost a federal lawsuit.

health consequences of concussions. nfl settled a lawsuit.

The government suing companies is one thing. Individual scientists suing other scientists is anti-science. It makes no difference on which side of the debate you reside.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Here you go...Look..Journalism...

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/ ... e-is-done/

One of the unfortunate memes that has made repeated appearances in the climate debate is that money isn't just influencing the public debate about science, but it's also influencing the science itself. The government, the argument goes, is paying scientists specifically to demonstrate that carbon dioxide is the major culprit in recent climate change, and the money available to do so is exploding.

First, the money for climate science research did explode from 2008 to 2009 (looks to be about a 20-33% jump in funding-- that's significant). My guess is that it increased more over the period 2009 until the article was written. Second, I've never seen government grants requirements in science that don't have an inherent bias written in-- they tell you what outcome they're looking for. I looked at the author's bio-- he should know better.

Until you can engage on an actual topic...with like thinking and shit...or at least references, there's really no point, Turd. You waste everyone's time.

Personally I have no dog in this fight. Global Climate change is pretty impossible to deny, and yes, the cause and the modeling are worthy of a lot of scrutiny. Not a single climate scientist, meteorologist, geologist or Oceanographer would disagree. But the "debate" here mirrors the domestic conspiracy theory lunacy. People who don't understand science yell sloppy science without knowing anything about any of the underlying assumptions.

I don't claim to have the correct answers, but I can smell a chickeshit from a mile a way.

Turdacious wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Here you go...Look..Journalism...

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/ ... e-is-done/

One of the unfortunate memes that has made repeated appearances in the climate debate is that money isn't just influencing the public debate about science, but it's also influencing the science itself. The government, the argument goes, is paying scientists specifically to demonstrate that carbon dioxide is the major culprit in recent climate change, and the money available to do so is exploding.

First, the money for climate science research did explode from 2008 to 2009 (looks to be about a 20-33% jump in funding-- that's significant). My guess is that it increased more over the period 2009 until the article was written. Second, I've never seen government grants requirements in science that don't have an inherent bias written in-- they tell you what outcome they're looking for. I looked at the author's bio-- he should know better.

They quote climate science in the low billions. That means it is not grants ($200K here and there) it is big things like satellites and supercomputers an what-not.

As far as inherent bias goes, it is the rare research grant that just says, "Flip over a rock and see what is there." They almost always have a hypothesis to be proven or dis-proven, with the concomitant allocation of resources to do so. The guys and gals who manage programs at NSF, for example, are chosen for his own scientific chops and given the tiller to exercise some leadership in where the science goes.

All that said, the idea of suing people for being climate skeptics is BS. They play a critical role in preventing group-think and red-teaming the whole thought process.

mann--the hockey stick guy--is suing a journalist for defamation. mann is a penn state prof, and the writer made some comparisons to jerry sandusky. he's not a scientist suing another scientist.

as for the government suing scientists, the conservative atty gen'l of va tried to sue mann for fraud for "manipulating data" (or some such). the ag's efforts got stuffed by the va supreme court. this is the more striking example of orwellian governmental intrusion in the climate debate.

as for mann's hockey stick graph, it remains broadly supported, despite some shortcomings in the original work. the mckitrick challenge is more than a decade old and was itself shown to be flawed.

by the way, did you see that the greenland ice sheet has started significantly melting a month earlier than ever previously recorded?

oh, and the forest-fire season in the west and alaska now begins earlier and extends later.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Until you can engage on an actual topic...with like thinking and shit...or at least references, there's really no point, Turd. You waste everyone's time.

You start with hyperbole and horseshit, and it's usually downhill from there.

nafod wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Here you go...Look..Journalism...

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/ ... e-is-done/

One of the unfortunate memes that has made repeated appearances in the climate debate is that money isn't just influencing the public debate about science, but it's also influencing the science itself. The government, the argument goes, is paying scientists specifically to demonstrate that carbon dioxide is the major culprit in recent climate change, and the money available to do so is exploding.

First, the money for climate science research did explode from 2008 to 2009 (looks to be about a 20-33% jump in funding-- that's significant). My guess is that it increased more over the period 2009 until the article was written. Second, I've never seen government grants requirements in science that don't have an inherent bias written in-- they tell you what outcome they're looking for. I looked at the author's bio-- he should know better.

They quote climate science in the low billions. That means it is not grants ($200K here and there) it is big things like satellites and supercomputers an what-not.

As far as inherent bias goes, it is the rare research grant that just says, "Flip over a rock and see what is there." They almost always have a hypothesis to be proven or dis-proven, with the concomitant allocation of resources to do so. The guys and gals who manage programs at NSF, for example, are chosen for his own scientific chops and given the tiller to exercise some leadership in where the science goes.

All that said, the idea of suing people for being climate skeptics is BS. They play a critical role in preventing group-think and red-teaming the whole thought process.

I don't think any of us disagree on the lawsuit idea.

$2b is 10k $200k grants-- assuming they are all for NSF type research. I am assuming that there are a lot of grants like this: https://www.doi.gov/csc/southcentral/ne ... nt-writing (smaller scale vulnerability assessments).

And there's always going full retard: http://irongarmx.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.p ... nt#p844427

dead man walking wrote:mann--the hockey stick guy--is suing a journalist for defamation. mann is a penn state prof, and the writer made some comparisons to jerry sandusky. he's not a scientist suing another scientist.

as for the government suing scientists, the conservative atty gen'l of va tried to sue mann for fraud for "manipulating data" (or some such). the ag's efforts got stuffed by the va supreme court. this is the more striking example of orwellian governmental intrusion in the climate debate.

as for mann's hockey stick graph, it remains broadly supported, despite some shortcomings in the original work. the mckitrick challenge is more than a decade old and was itself shown to be flawed.

by the way, did you see that the greenland ice sheet has started significantly melting a month earlier than ever previously recorded?

oh, and the forest-fire season in the west and alaska now begins earlier and extends later.

I'm speaking more to things like described here http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2015/ ... tical.html. Note this is a WSJ article, but as the WSJ requires a log-in I figured I'd do the favor of finding an alternative posting of it. Scientists have written letters to the administration asking for investigations of naysayers. Not quite a suit and the methods are indirect, using the gov't as proxy, but the trend is bad and it's anti-science. Again, neither side has the moral high ground here.

Graph, no graph, support, no support, it's still the case that the model is diverging from observation. This is critical and this is the science part of all this and the science part demands that the why of it be fixed as it's the model that's making the predictions much deeper into the future. You can't be a scientist of any ilk or claim to be pro-science and ignore this. It's an apolitical statement. In finding what's wrong with the model you are likely to better understand the relative contributions to the climatic effects and therefore drive effective policy. To believe otherwise is to abandon science and debase it as a religion.

The Greenland ice and the start fire season (as related to the weather conditions that cause it) are examples of my earlier comment of trying to equate weather to climate. Even the IPCC does not claim that climate change has resulted in an increase in long term extreme weather events. And that statement is not anti-science, anti-climate nor the remark of a denier.

Sua Sponte wrote:The Greenland ice and the start fire season (as related to the weather conditions that cause it) are examples of my earlier comment of trying to equate weather to climate. Even the IPCC does not claim that climate change has resulted in an increase in long term extreme weather events. And that statement is not anti-science, anti-climate nor the remark of a denier.

drought, spring arriving earlier both represent trends--like rising sea levels, thinning of artic ice, and tick populations increasing farther north--and seem to be indicative of changes in climate as opposed to simply isolated weather.

I see where you're going, I understand it but it's just that climate is longer term. Those things when taken with others over years and decades can be part of showing climate change but, in and of themselves, don't represent climate change. This is how the debate spirals into uselessness as one can easily find weather events that run contrary to the predictions of climate change. That leaves aside that we don't have a particularity rigorous understanding of what 'normal' really is.

fair enough.

i just know that road-killed possum wasn't normal up here until a couple years ago. the fuckers have moved north, along with the ticks.

the ticks, by the way, are an example of disease vectors moving north into new areas. how long untill zika starts appearing in the south?

Turdacious wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Until you can engage on an actual topic...with like thinking and shit...or at least references, there's really no point, Turd. You waste everyone's time.

You start with hyperbole and horseshit, and it's usually downhill from there.

And yet, I'm rarely wrong and you are a cowardly shitbag.

Sua Sponte wrote:I see where you're going, I understand it but it's just that climate is longer term. Those things when taken with others over years and decades can be part of showing climate change but, in and of themselves, don't represent climate change. This is how the debate spirals into uselessness as one can easily find weather events that run contrary to the predictions of climate change. That leaves aside that we don't have a particularity rigorous understanding of what 'normal' really is.

"We" don't have an understanding, but there is an utterly vast collection of data on the range of temperature globally over the last few centuries. This part is shockingly well understood. What's at issue are two things, how the debate is framed (scientists who understand the subject are not co fused at all) and how good the model is.

The public debate is clearly crap on both sides. It's driven entirely by interests and fear, not by harm reduction or prudent policy. I won't pretend to fully grasp the science, but I know how you develop policy based on risk...potential, probable and known risks. That is precisely the debate that is over in most organizations (like DOD) who have a stake in the outcome. The change is not the debate, the debate is what caused it and how to respond.

Better modelng. More data, logical deliberate movement towards harm reduction. That's really the only pieces that matter.

dead man walking wrote: as for the government suing scientists, the conservative atty gen'l of va tried to sue mann for fraud for "manipulating data" (or some such). the ag's efforts got stuffed by the va supreme court. this is the more striking example of orwellian governmental intrusion in the climate debate.

as for mann's hockey stick graph, it remains broadly supported, despite some shortcomings in the original work. the mckitrick challenge is more than a decade old and was itself shown to be flawed.

Mann did manipulate the data, more than once, to get his graph, from selection of samples to statistical methods to give more weight to more recent data. Mckittrick challenge has never been refuted in a proper way. To the contrary, he has never been given a decent chance to publish it. Journals that published Mann's articles demanded that the comments had to be under 250-500 words, which makes it impossible to have a decent discussion of this kind of topic.

Sua Sponte wrote:
The Greenland ice and the start fire season (as related to the weather conditions that cause it) are examples of my earlier comment of trying to equate weather to climate. Even the IPCC does not claim that climate change has resulted in an increase in long term extreme weather events. And that statement is not anti-science, anti-climate nor the remark of a denier.

You have to understand the definitions. If the temperature is unusually hot, there are fires stronger than usual and a sever storm - it is Climate Change. If winter is the coldest in the last 10 years, the Arctic is gaining ice and it is raining during drought season - it is weather.

Blaidd Drwg wrote: The change is not the debate, the debate is what caused it and how to respond.

Better modelng. More data, logical deliberate movement towards harm reduction. That's really the only pieces that matter.

These parts - the change and its cause - are often confused, and the former is used to prove the latter.

As far as modelling goes - model in such a complex process as climate is only a model, and its value is limited. Modelling the climate is similar to modelling financial markets, the results are going to be very poor. There is the fallacy that the more data you put into the model the better it is going to work. It won't and it is not necessary, and just like in financial markets meaningful predictions are a) impossible and b) not needed.

Policies should be directed at something that has good evidence and is likely to work. Sea level rising - plan the next city away from the coast. If the rise does not materialise you haven't lost anything. Drought - build desalination plant and transport the water to the area where it is needed. Drought not happening - switch off the plant for that season, the use of resources to maintain it will be minimal.

Even if I get convinced that AGW theory is correct I don't see a way to act on the root cause. Every country's economy requires growth, which invariably means increased production. You need to sell more shit that nobody needs in order to create jobs and keep improving the standards of living, and until this situation changes nothing will happen. It simply does not make sense when a documentary about melting Arctic ice and dying polar bears is interrupted by adverts of Jeep Cherokee STR or dream holiday several thousand miles away. Free trade agreements with China are going to enrich a few people, but will do nothing to reduce the use of resources and pollution. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am not aware of a precedent of reduced CO2 production by any country (maybe Iceland, but you see what I mean).

In the meantime governments are playing games that are not real solutions, making their election campaign supporters richer and mainstream climate scientists more influential.

The whole issue is more of an amusement to me than concern. As I said earlier, I am an asshole and I live by the sea. I like the fact that summers are getting longer and warmer and winters are getting shorter. I stopped arguing about cholesterol long time ago and now should quit trying to have meaningful conversation with climate theorists. It is quite frustrating when you spend considerable amount of time getting into the details of the the subject only to be refuted by the link to an article in women' magazine about the dangers of GW. The planet is heating up and is going to explode, terrorists are going to take over, every male is a misogynist and pedophile and we are all going to die. That is if sugar does not kill us before that.

Don't believe it. If I do believe it there's nothing that can be done ?

That's just drivel and irresponsible in the extreme. Rapid global climate change regardless of cause is a real threat (and let's be honest, a real opportunity). You're complaining about the media while e ergo D with a stake in mitigating the impacts is doing real risk analysis. That's what I find so staggering about this shit, the soup in people's heads used to prop up a narrative of denial. It reminds me a lot of the arguments of the regressive left on things like immigration, Islamic extremism and deficit spending.

Sangoma wrote: You have to understand the definitions. If the temperature is unusually hot, there are fires stronger than usual and a sever storm - it is Climate Change. If winter is the coldest in the last 10 years, the Arctic is gaining ice and it is raining during drought season - it is weather.

arctic ice has remained below the long-term average during the past decade (except for one month in 2012, i believe), so the example demonstrates the opposite of what you intend.

dead man walking wrote:

Sangoma wrote: You have to understand the definitions. If the temperature is unusually hot, there are fires stronger than usual and a sever storm - it is Climate Change. If winter is the coldest in the last 10 years, the Arctic is gaining ice and it is raining during drought season - it is weather.

arctic ice has remained below the long-term average during the past decade (except for one month in 2012, i believe), so the example demonstrates the opposite of what you intend.

Things like ice pack and species movement are integrators, too. They respond to the long term trends. They also lag the forcing functions, so when you see their response, you know something has been at work.

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Until you can engage on an actual topic...with like thinking and shit...or at least references, there's really no point, Turd. You waste everyone's time.

You start with hyperbole and horseshit, and it's usually downhill from there.

And yet, I'm rarely wrong and you are a cowardly shitbag.

And yet, you're frequently wrong, often making lazy arguments and praying that nobody sees through your bullshit. But if declaring yourself the winner makes you feel better, by all means give yourself a trophy.

Turdacious wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:

Turdacious wrote:

Blaidd Drwg wrote:Until you can engage on an actual topic...with like thinking and shit...or at least references, there's really no point, Turd. You waste everyone's time.

You start with hyperbole and horseshit, and it's usually downhill from there.

And yet, I'm rarely wrong and you are a cowardly shitbag.

And yet, you're frequently wrong, often making lazy arguments and praying that nobody sees through your bullshit. But if declaring yourself the winner makes you feel better, by all means give yourself a trophy.

You obfuscate, lie, shill shuck and jive and one can tell that you know next to nothing about the subject areas you engage on by your rapid spitballing and even more hasty skirt-hiking retreats. I don't have to declare victory at anything, You've yet to enter the game. From what I can tell...at anything. Ever.

Son, you are the paragon of cowardice. I look forward to your ever arcing downward trajectory.