Climategate: it's all unravelling now

[Taco John]

Here's a great overview of the things that are happening in response to the stories developing around this event.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ja...ravelling-now/

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by cdcox

BEP --

I doubt that Brooktrout Lake was one of those dead lakes that the Native Americans were talking about.

http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/...recoofxx6.html

I didn't say all lakes. FTR, I am not saying there hasn't been pollution of lakes at all either.

I looked briefly at your foresthistory link, what exactly am I supposed to see here?

Just showing where I got the data on the situation regarding our trees and forests. ( I already know about old growth vs new growth arguments....so there's even disagreement and controversy on that.)

[KC native]

Originally Posted by Taco John

We seem to be watching it play out live with this Climategate thing.

Not really, I was commenting on her, and since you want to join in too, your incessant labeling of everything as socialist or a socialist plot.

[cdcox]

This would be hilarious if it weren't so important. I decided to examine this consensus among climate scientists in the mid-1970 that we were entering an ice age.

THERE WAS NO CONSENSUS AMONG SCIENTISTS IN THE 1970s OF A COMING ICE AGE

http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/15...-89-9-1325.pdf

The consensus among climate scientists was that GW was the expected trend even back then. The coming ice age was a media fabrication based on a poor understanding of science. If you got a beef, it's with them, not with climate scientists.

The March 1st, 1975 issue of Science mentioned in the article that Brock posted (I went to look it up) doesn't even exist. Sheesh.

[KCWolfman]

Originally Posted by cdcox

I challenge those against any particular piece of environmental legislation to 1) insist on better science in your reading material and 2) put aside politics until you have sorted through the science to the best of your ability. Once a problem has been identified, then put on your political hat when the time comes to discuss how bad the problem is and what should be done about it.

The current anti-intellectualism among conservatives is a big turn off for me. If we as a nation can agree on what the problems are, and discuss them in an intelligent way, I'm going to side with conservatives more often than not. There are lots of good ways to solve problems. Pretending they don't exist by relying on politically-motivated irrational attacks isn't one of them.

How can anyone put aside politics when almost 100% of the funding comes from the government? The answers are forced toward a political side of the spectrum the first minute a check is signed.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Brock]

It was actually a Dec. 1976 issue. I have no idea why he got the date wrong.

[jjjayb]

Originally Posted by cdcox

THERE WAS NO CONSENSUS AMONG SCIENTISTS IN THE 1970s OF A COMING ICE AGE

WHICH IS WHAT WE ARE SAYING RIGHT NOW!!!!! There is dissent among scientists as to what extent man has on global temperature change. The same dissent the CRU scientist try to squash at every turn.

[Taco John]

Originally Posted by KC native

Not really, I was commenting on her, and since you want to join in too, your incessant labeling of everything as socialist or a socialist plot.

I don't label everything as socialist or a socialist plot.

But I do label things that are socialistic as socialist. Nobody has ever been able to show me where I've been wrong in anything that I've classified as socialist. Mostly, they just balk because they're uncomfortable with the word "socialist" being applied to something that they believe in - and since they don't like that word, they pretend that it isn't applied correctly.

When I call something socialist, it's because that's what it is.

[Taco John]

Originally Posted by KCWolfman

How can anyone put aside politics when almost 100% of the funding comes from the government? The answers are forced toward a political side of the spectrum the first minute a check is signed.
Posted via Mobile Device

There should be a seperation between science and state. Politics taints the science and makes it virtually unreliable and unusable.

[HonestChieffan]

Aside from all the garbage, you would have to admit I think, that with the current state of the debate and the loss of credibility from the emails,that in the short term no actions need to take place untill the questions can be reviewd, data evaluated, and some sort of picture can emerge from this mess.

This administration seems hell bent, regardless of the voters desires, to do anything they want. Under the current very clear public dissatisfaction over the health bills, the sart money is to punt, regroup, build a case that both parties can agree on in smaller pieces so each can be understood, then act. That would build tremendous credibility and demonstrate leadership and guts.

Same approach with this enviro thing. Killcap and trade. Its a loser under this cloud, tell the epa to cool their jets and after the key questions can be identified and answered, then and only then move forward.

To force these things through at this stage under these circumstances is self destructive behavior.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by jjjayb

WHICH IS WHAT WE ARE SAYING RIGHT NOW!!!!! There is dissent among scientists as to what extent man has on global temperature change. The same dissent the CRU scientist try to squash at every turn.

Several posters have been citing the fact that "most scientists were telling us in the mid 1970's that an ice age was coming. Scientists are not reliable on this issue." Those posters include Brock, KCWolfman, and TJ. If you were not among those that were making this claim, fine.

As the climate reconstructions show, the dissent is published through peer review. Scientists weigh the various reports, do additional investigation and move toward a consensus position. That consensus has been moving toward a anthropogenically driven source of climate change for a while. It's not a conspiracy. It's how science works.

[jjjayb]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Several posters have been citing the fact that "most scientists were telling us in the mid 1970's that an ice age was coming. Scientists are not reliable on this issue." Those posters include Brock, KCWolfman, and TJ. If you were not among those that were making this claim, fine.

As the climate reconstructions show, the dissent is published through peer review. Scientists weigh the various reports, do additional investigation and move toward a consensus position. That consensus has been moving toward a anthropogenically driven source of climate change for a while. It's not a conspiracy. It's how science works.

You call it peer review when they withold data from anyone who might not "be on their side"? I hardly think so.

[PornChief]

unfortunately for some reason I'm not allowed to post links but you could find this story without too much bother. Let's say pulling shit off wiki isn't going to 'prove ' much in any debate on global warmi.. sorry, I mean climate change.


Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a “scientific consensus” confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works.

As you (or your kids) probably know, Wikipedia is now the most widely used and influential reference source on the Internet and therefore in the world, with more than 50 million unique visitors a month.

In theory Wikipedia is a “people’s encyclopedia” written and edited by the people who read it - anyone with an Internet connection. So on controversial topics, one might expect to see a broad range of opinion.

Not on global warming. On global warming we get consensus, Gore-style: a consensus forged by censorship, intimidation, and deceit.

I first noticed this when I entered a correction to a Wikipedia page on the work of Naomi Oreskes, author of the now-infamous paper, published in the prestigious journal Science, claiming to have exhaustively reviewed the scientific literature and found not one single article dissenting from the alarmist version of global warming.

Of course Oreskes’s conclusions were absurd, and have been widely ridiculed. I myself have profiled dozens of truly world-eminent scientists whose work casts doubt on the Gore-U.N. version of global warming. Following the references in my book The Deniers, one can find hundreds of refereed papers that cast doubt on some aspect of the Gore/U.N. case, and that only scratches the surface.

Naturally I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that Oreskes’s work had been vindicated and that, for instance, one of her most thorough critics, British scientist and publisher Bennie Peiser, not only had been discredited but had grudgingly conceded Oreskes was right.

I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so.

Peiser wrote back saying he couldn’t see my corrections on the Wikipedia page. I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made.

Turns out that on Wikipedia some folks are more equal than others. Kim Dabelstein Petersen is a Wikipedia “editor” who seems to devote a large part of his life to editing reams and reams of Wikipedia pages to pump the assertions of global-warming alarmists and deprecate or make disappear the arguments of skeptics.

I soon found others who had the same experience: They would try to squeeze in any dissent, or even correct an obvious slander against a dissenter, and Petersen or some other censor would immediately snuff them out.

Now Petersen is merely a Wikipedia “editor.” Holding the far more prestigious and powerful position of “administrator” is William Connolley. Connolley is a software engineer and sometime climatologist (he used to hold a job in the British Antarctic Survey), as well as a serial (but so far unsuccessful) office seeker for England’s Green party.

And yet by virtue of his power at Wikipedia, Connolley, a ruthless enforcer of the doomsday consensus, may be the world’s most influential person in the global warming debate after Al Gore. Connolley routinely uses his editorial clout to tear down scientists of great accomplishment such as Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service and a scientist with dazzling achievements. Under Connolley’s supervision, Wikipedia relentlessly smears Singer as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry.

Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, and it has a code of civility. Those rules and codes don’t apply to Connolley, or to those he favors.

“Peisers crap shouldn’t be in here,” Connolley wrote several weeks ago, in berating a Wikipedian colleague during an “edit war,” as they’re called. Trumping Wikipedia’s stated rules, Connelly used his authority to ensure Wikipedia readers saw only what he wanted them to see. Any reference, anywhere among Wikipedia’s 2.5 million English-language pages, that casts doubt on the consequences of climate change will be bent to Connolley’s bidding.

Nor are Wikipedia’s ideological biases limited to global warming. As an environmentalist I find myself with allies and adversaries on both sides of the aisle, Left and Right. But there is no doubt where Wikipedia stands: firmly on the Left. Try out Wikipedia’s entries on say, Roe v. Wade or Intelligent Design, and you will see that Wikipedia is the people’s encyclopedia only if those people are not conservatives.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.