White house report on climate change

[JaneV2.0]

Problem is, science has been spectacularly wrong over and over again throughout history. The oft-quoted aphorism is "Science progresses one death at a time." The mossy old guard dies off, allowing new ideas their due. Science is easily manipulated by politics, money, fashion, personality--all the usual suspects. Innovation isn't promoted unless someone can make money off it. "Peer-reviewed" publication is mostly a joke when forward-thinking scientists go up against the old guard. That having been said, I'm willing to support technological (and low-tech) methods to address climate change, though I'm skeptical that they will make much difference in the long run.

Overpopulation is a problem, but developed countries are doing fine in that department--IMO--and developing countries will automatically produce fewer offspring--if history is any indicator. I read somewhere that world population is expected to stabilize at a relatively high but manageable level.

[Alan]

...... Not that I intend to sway you Alan as I know that is impossible......

That's interesting, as I didn't take a stance on whether Global Cooling or Global Warming or the Climate Change catchall is real or not, so I'm not sure which way I'm not capable of being swayed. If it helps, I've lived through both the Cooling and Warming scares, both of which were supported by the best science of the day.

I was addressing the percentage of people who may or may not attribute all the hub bub to "Democratic, liberal, left, treehugger propaganda" and a possible reason for it, if it were true. The one thing I feel strongly on is the way the climate change industry has hurt itself by its history of overstating the near-term threat and its questionable manipulation of data to influence public opinion. If you were to strip those two observations out of the equation, and if the climate change models which predict the effects of higher levels of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere duplicated real conditions over the past 15 or so years, I'm sure there'd be less skepticism.

Also, from a political perspective, if governments hadn't locked onto the premise of global warming/climate change as a means of regulating a global economy, most people could probably then focus on the pure science, whatever that may actually be.

[Rogar]

Problem is, science has been spectacularly wrong over and over again throughout history.

I'd probably want to see statistics on that. They have also been spectacularly right. Which is most probable.

[JaneV2.0]

Alchemy, phrenology, eugenics, the lipid theory...Pure science is a wonderful thing, and it's always being built upon--but the potential for harm is great (chemical weapons, the Tuskegee experiment) when the rewards are sufficient.

[Rogar]

That's interesting, as I didn't take a stance on whether Global Cooling or Global Warming or the Climate Change catchall is real or not, so I'm not sure which way I'm not capable of being swayed. If it helps, I've lived through both the Cooling and Warming scares, both of which were supported by the best science of the day.

I was addressing the percentage of people who may or may not attribute all the hub bub to "Democratic, liberal, left, treehugger propaganda" and a possible reason for it, if it were true. The one thing I feel strongly on is the way the climate change industry has hurt itself by its history of overstating the near-term threat and its questionable manipulation of data to influence public opinion. If you were to strip those two observations out of the equation, and if the climate change models which predict the effects of higher levels of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere duplicated real conditions over the past 15 or so years, I'm sure there'd be less skepticism.

Also, from a political perspective, if governments hadn't locked onto the premise of global warming/climate change as a means of regulating a global economy, most people could probably then focus on the pure science, whatever that may actually be.

The Gallop Poll I found did indeed align conservatives as cool skeptics and liberals as concerned believers. I don't remember the numbers and how strongly it correlates. If I'm reading you right, your saying that the scientists from the most respectable academic institutes all over the world, many of them independent of each other, are corruptible and have colluded to a false conclusion to benefit the politicians, and additionally have ignored obvious possibilities of why they might be wrong? I could see that for a smaller percentage than 97% or more. Or I might have misunderstood.

Another interesting statistic is that Americans are outliers. Quite generally over 50 percent of those in industrialized nations are concerned believers. Or at least that's how I read it. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/up...pgtype=article And actually, poor countries are more likely to be believers than rich ones.

[Alan]

The Gallop Poll I found did indeed align conservatives as cool skeptics and liberals as concerned believers. I don't remember the numbers and how strongly it correlates. If I'm reading you right, your saying that the scientists from the most respectable academic institutes all over the world, many of them independent of each other, are corruptible and have colluded to a false conclusion to benefit the politicians, and additionally have ignored obvious possibilities of why they might be wrong? I could see that for a smaller percentage than 97% or more. Or I might have misunderstood.

No, you didn't misunderstand, although you may have possibly misinterpreted. I do believe that many researchers are corruptible, as their conclusions are susceptible to the influence of grants. Collusion isn't so much to benefit politicians as it is to receive funding from a political apparatus which requires a specific conclusion. I also believe that contrary opinions have a lesser chance of being presented in peer reviewed journals than Condoleezza Rice has of being universally welcomed to speak at Rutgers. Academia doesn't have a stellar reputation for diversity of opinion.

[JaneV2.0]

Egads--Alan and I agree on something. I must have slipped into an alternate universe...

[Gregg]

The Gallop Poll I found did indeed align conservatives as cool skeptics and liberals as concerned believers. I don't remember the numbers and how strongly it correlates. If I'm reading you right, your saying that the scientists from the most respectable academic institutes all over the world, many of them independent of each other, are corruptible and have colluded to a false conclusion to benefit the politicians, and additionally have ignored obvious possibilities of why they might be wrong? I could see that for a smaller percentage than 97% or more. Or I might have misunderstood.

Another interesting statistic is that Americans are outliers. Quite generally over 50 percent of those in industrialized nations are concerned believers. Or at least that's how I read it. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/up...pgtype=article And actually, poor countries are more likely to be believers than rich ones.

The climate watchers I have a chance to interact with generally manage to keep their integrity in tact and from what I've seen they are the norm. It is the interpretation of their research that can be skewed to reveal almost any desired cause and effect relationship. Once the required results have been prepared that information can be disseminated through channels that are by their very nature completely corrupt and typically controlled by those with motives other than the pursuit of pure science.

The outliers are (or should be) the group that questions whether or not the climate is warming. You are correct if you meant that 97% or more of the climate crowd believes it is. Why wouldn't they? Almost all the available evidence says it is. What it doesn't say is how much of that shift is due to human activity. Common sense says some of it probably is. If you throw a bucket of salt in the ocean it WILL raise the salinity to a degree. If you throw the same bucket of salt into a pitcher of water the result would be more dramatic. Which analogy is more accurate when comparing our activity to the global climate? Nobody knows for sure, even the 97%. That's the corruptible part and so the part politicians on either side of the issue latch on to in order to support their agendas.

[Rogar]

No, you didn't misunderstand, although you may have possibly misinterpreted. I do believe that many researchers are corruptible, as their conclusions are susceptible to the influence of grants. Collusion isn't so much to benefit politicians as it is to receive funding from a political apparatus which requires a specific conclusion. I also believe that contrary opinions have a lesser chance of being presented in peer reviewed journals than Condoleezza Rice has of being universally welcomed to speak at Rutgers. Academia doesn't have a stellar reputation for diversity of opinion.

I understand. That's pretty much the stance I've heard elsewhere among my cool skeptic associates.

My education is in the sciences and in my working days I worked with quite a few highly educated science types and some in academia. My take was mostly that they had a higher level of integrity than other professions I've known and many were proud to be unbiased . If they could disprove a popular theory it not only would be a great feather in their hat but an income gateway. To have a David slay a Goliath of some theory or another was a sure way to fame and riches. Some of the sciences are highly competitive and involve big egos, so they develop various following out to disprove each other, rather than to agree with the consensus. At least that's my experience. To have so many agree upon one thing is very convincing and almost seems like an anomaly to me.

[iris lilies]

Egads--Alan and I agree on something. I must have slipped into an alternate universe...

I had the same thought, wondered if you'd pick up on that! haha, and I agree with both of you.

If we could take the judgey judgeness out of the discourse about climate change, I would like it all better.