Guest Blogger here;
It's always disheartening to see a huge mistake in the first paragraph when the Star-Phoenix writes an editorial. Unfortunately it's not a rare occurrence. The SP's editorial on the NDP's wind power pledge is a good example. (SP Sept.20, 2011) The editorial states, "it's understandable that the provincial NDP would seek to capitalize on growing public concerns about global warming." That line might have worked 4 years ago but polls from the major public opinion consultants show that concern over global warming has cratered in the past 4 years. In the past couple years, since Climategate, not only has the public's belief that global warming is primarily caused by human activity dropped, the number of people who think that global warming is a serious concern has dropped as well.
If the Star-Phoenix was up to date on the latest information from NASA and CERN which discredit the basic assumptions of global warming, they wouldn't only be asking Link to cost out his proposals, they'd be asking why we are spending any money at all to solve a problem that doesn't exist. If the SP didn't want to join the growing ranks of sceptics they could at least ask whether the proposed action will make a difference in global CO2 emissions thus making the expenditure worthwhile. The answer, as it is to all such inconvenient questions, is NO! The truth is that our emissions are best described as completely insignificant. Our emissions are a rounding error when compared to the really big emitters like China. Saskatchewan could close down, move everyone out and leave the province to be repopulated by buffalo and it wouldn't make any difference. Link's proposal would cost a mint and accomplish nothing at all. In other words, par for the course. The SP got the first part right in wanting to know the cost. It's too bad that they didn't take the next step to look at the effectiveness of the proposal as well.
Maybe the problem is their taste in music. I'm sure that in the offices of the David Suzuki Foundation, the NDP, and the SP editorial staff an endless loop of Neil Diamond's I'M A BELIEVER, plays at top volume, drowning out rational scepticism.
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If only all our scientific research was based on public opinion instead of data and facts - imagine the utopian world we'd live in!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the Mistress has appointed an anon guest to break open the huge conspiracy being perpetrated by thousands of scientists from across the globe! It's about time their secret was laid bare to the world!
It's too bad this poster didn't see the articles that showed that 'climategate' was blown well out of proportion and didn't actually disprove or discredit anything of significance. Of course the media is partly to fault for this, it wasn't nearly as sensational of a story so was not front and centre like the big conspiracy of someone hacking into scientists computers to find out that they, like most people, get frustrated and say demeaning sarcastic things about the public from time to time.
ReplyDeleteI think there is plenty of evidence for both sides of the argument.I would not dismiss either very quickly...
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile where do you stand on Creationism versus Evolution?
Obviously we've got a couple of posters who haven't done there homework. Just because 'thousands of scientists from across the globe' believe something doesn't make it a fact. Throughout history, there are many examples of established scientific thought which was found to be in error which required the consensus view to be replaced. The Ptolemaic view of earth's place in the universe being replaced by the Copernicus' heliocentric view of the universe.
ReplyDeleteNASA and CERN devastate global warming theories to the core. Global warming depends on CO2 forcing in which this gas is assumed to have the power to hold in the heat of the earth to a disproportionate degree. In popular illustration the CO2 acts like a blanket around the world, holding in heat. However, NASA recently discovered that our atmosphere has been acting more like a poorly insulated house with heat escaping to space at a much higher rate than the global warming models show.
CERN's contribution to destroying the model based global warming theory is in showing that the main 'greenhouse gas' in our atmosphere (H2O) in the form of clouds reacts to conditions from space and is affected by the state of the Sun. The information from CERN contradicts the standard assumptions used in the models by the global warming cabal.
Either one of these two developments should have had climate scientists running to the computer models and reassessing their assumptions and replacing them with hard data. At least that is what would have happened if global warming investigation actually followed the scientific method.
If anything the reporters on the 'climategate' file did everything they could to downplay the significance of the climategate files. I went though all of the emails and also through the Harry_read_me file. I'm willing to bet very few reporters or pundents did that.
Fortunately I have a background in computer programming and I could evaluate the notes written by the programmer in the Harry_read_me. Without going into detail, there is no way Harry's work would get a passing grade at the U of S. He describes operations where inputs are chosen specifically to be able to force the reproduction of past results. This alone should have been enough to bring everything done at East Anglia into disrepute.
The guest blogger is right. There is no point in spending money when the prescribed action will only make us feel good without really accomplishing anything substantive.
I don't think anyone here is qualified to speak definitively on this matter quite frankly. Furthermore, I don't think a background in computer programming gives anyone the vast knowledge base required to analyze the incredibly large number of studies that have been done on this subject. I am quite happy to admit that I don't know whether climate change is real or not. Does this mean then that we shouldn't do anything at all to alleviate gas emissions? I'm not subscribing to wholesale green energy because I don't think it's feasible for people have to pay it, but I do think we should attempt small steps in the meantime to protect the climate we do have.
ReplyDeleteIn Toronto, you can see the air that you breathe and I can assure you that it makes for an unpleasant environment.
There is a huge difference between air pollution from particulates in Toronto and CO2 emissions. CO2 is NOT a pollutant. All concerns about CO2 come from its alleged role in global warming. If NASA and CERN are right then any concern about CO2 is misplaced and billions (trillions) of dollars will be wasted. If you spend money on limiting CO2 that is money that can't be spent on providing clean water or removing real toxins from the air or environment.
ReplyDeleteSpending any money on addressing CO2 is like spending money on removing salt from the oceans. It's completely unnecessary, is counter-productive (ocean creatures like salt and plant life likes CO2) and it would divert much needed resources from real problems.
As far as the background in programming is concerned, it truly does give me the knowledge base to evaluate the quality of work done by the climate scientists. Climate science is all based on computer models. If the basic programming is sloppy and does not meet rigorous standards then the results are suspect.
I know someone who does systems analysis and his job is to make sure that there is no programming bias to the trials that are being run. He knows nothing about the theories that the cancer researchers are following but its up to him to make sure that the computer programming is on the up and up.
You don't have to understand programming to know what the program is doing at any point along the way. All of his functions, procedures and variables are noted in plain english and can be followed easily.
The difference between the standard that he follows and the one displayed in the Harry_Read_Me file is like night and day.
For those of you who have not read the Harry_Read_Me file. Some comments of the programmer attempting to make some sense of the computer program that is used as a basis for prescibing wholesale changes to our way of life might be illuminating.
Excerpts from Harry:
"So, uhhhh.. what in tarnation is going on? Just how off-beam are these datasets?!!"
"Unbelievable – even here the conventions have not been followed. It’s botch after botch after botch"
"What a bloody mess"
"Now looking at the dates.. something bad has happened, hasn’t it. COBAR AIRPORT AWS cannot start in 1962, it didn’t open until 1993!"
"So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"
Anon 3:13, and others, I can go on and on but why bother you've already made up your mind, move along, nothing to see here.
Advocates of climate change quickly throw out the criticism that anyone who speaks against climate change has no knowledge to do so, laughably their best argument for is the vague "thousands of scientists believe it" that has been used for years. They haven't educated themselves, and don't care to. People who have read on the subject see the obvious flaws in the research and inconclusive results, sadly when they raise them the uneducated point them to the thousands of scientists. Frustrating subject.
ReplyDeleteWow - the egos on this forum! You can just dismiss anything out of hand if you don't like it. I haven't actually seen a lot of proof yet- just opinions. And I'm sorry- what are those Harry excerpts supposed to prove?
ReplyDeleteThe Harry excerpts are programming notes from the computer models at East Anglia (one of 3 major sources of modeling for global warming theory.)
ReplyDeleteHarry was going through the computer program line by line. Assume that a computer is being used to analyze cancer tests and it keeps coming back with the fact that everyone tested has cancer. The doctors believe the results and tell everyone that there is a unprecedented rise in cancer cases. Other doctors look at the results and they agree also. The program analyzing the results has grown over time and a computer programmer is hired to do maintenance on the code. As he looks through the code he can't believe the mess that it's in. He writes down his own observations as he makes a valiant attempt to fix the code.
Harry's notes tell you the condition of the code that made all the cancer predictions. Do you believe the doctors about the rise in cancer because the computer told them it was real or do you look at the programmers notes and realize that the program is in such bad shape that you can't trust the results?
If the media found a file like this for making financial projections for the Canadian budget and it was leaked from the Finance Minister's office, they wouldn't let it drop. It would be a scandal large enough to bring down a government. That's the significance of the harry_read_me file.
One last observation about how much you can trust the warmist computer models, "OH F*** THIS. … I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found."
"This whole project is SUCH A MESS."
He's right, an expensive mess!
Wow, never mind the Finance Department, the media would be all over this story and never let it go if it was tied to George Bush or Stephen Harper or Rick Perry.
ReplyDeleteHow the heck did written comments like these from an insider not manage to lead the headlines for months. There was more discussion about the 'hacking' of the emails than their was about what was in them.
It's funny that 'hacking' emails of climate scientist is evil but if the New York Times gets an little brown envelope about Gitmo (under Bush) or drones (under Bush), etc (under Bush) then it was their civic duty to publish and stand up for the rights of the leaker so far as to go to court to protect its sources.
I'm going to buy the book Watermelons as a birthday present for myself. It's all about the scientific-academic complex using environmentalism to destroy capitalism. A watermelon, green on the outside, red on the inside.
"Advocates of climate change quickly throw out the criticism that anyone who speaks against climate change has no knowledge to do so,"
ReplyDeleteMaybe because every person who is even remotely qualified who "opposes" climate change is always paid by, or connected to an industry that will be adversely affected by any laws that require being more energy efficient, reducing pollution etc.
Hmmmm, I wonder why that is.
Kind of like all those doctors and scientists that said smoking is safe and healthy.
Evidence of that Anon 2:14?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, which scientists have been paid?
Or is it once again vague references to dismiss what you don't want to believe.
Michael Mann and Phil Jones have been handsomely compensated, not to mention a washed up politician by the name of Al Gore who is set to become a billionaire due to the global warming fraud. Climatology used to be a poorly paid subdiscipline filling in information in history, geology and especially any paleostudy. With global warming all these fringe scientists came to the forefront increasing their prestige, the importance of their work and the amount of money that they bring in.
ReplyDeleteYou can't go throwing around accusations of monetary gain at one side of the debate without looking at what scientists on the other side of the debate have received as well.
For those of you who missed this story in the past week, Dr. Ivar Giaever, a former professor with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the 1973 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, abruptly announced his resignation Tuesday, Sept. 13, from the premier physics society in disgust over its officially stated policy that “global warming is occurring.”
I wonder which Nobel Prize has more rigorous scientific standards, the prize for physics or the peace prize? Should we take our cue from Al Gore or Dr. Ivar Giaever?
A scientist is by definition a sceptic, each one is from Missouri (or should be). Michael Mann et al should be spending as much time looking at why he might be wrong as he does fabricating hockey stick graphs to support his beliefs.
Al Gore is just a rank opportunist, no different from Charles Ponzi or the guys at Enron who invented cap and trade, it's just that Al's not in jail yet.
There are scientists on both sides of the argument- why do you believe one set over another? Also, have you looked closely at all the financial dealings of all the scientists? Are you certain that it is only the scientists on one end of the debate are financially obliged to a special interest group. I just have to point out that there are some groups have pretty high stakes in the anti global warming argument- such as Big Oil for example.I just wonder why everyone is willing to believe one group over the other so blindly and definitively?
ReplyDeleteFirst CERN completely discredits the underpinnings of Global Warming Theory and now they are reporting the results of an experiment where neutrinos appear to travel faster than the speed of light.
ReplyDeleteSomehow we have to stop these irresponsible 'scientists' from questioning settled science. It's obvious that all of CERN is in the pocket of Big Movie and they are being paid off from profits of the last Star Trek film.
Has anyone studied the financial dealings of these scientists? The speed of light is not something to be trifled with. We need to start with personal attacks on those scientists who deny that the speed of light is an absolute limit.
The really troubling thing is that CERN is putting all of the data online for the entire scientific community to go through and look for errors. What if that kind of openness to review and criticism catches on? The next thing people will expect would be for climate scientists to embrace transparency. We can't risk that!
All hail the Goracle.