Is it reasonable to be a global warming skeptic?

[JonNC]

=“lynnvinc, post:34, topic:450179, full:true”]
Denialist is an appropriate term.

Then you won’t mind if AGW proponents are referred to as alarmists, or GW authoritarians, since there is a constant effort to silence those who disagree with the ACC movement.

Skeptic refers to a person who does not accept something due to lack of evidence, but is willing to accept it if good evidence and theory are given. For CC such has been given since 1995, when warming reached 95% confidence, and the theory has been with us for some 200 years and is solidly accepted by science. Since then the evidence has become much stronger, and the last of the skeptics switched to accepting anthropogenic CC by 2005.

Actually, the evidence is not stronger, since there has been a roughly 18 year period where ther has been no warming. The computer models and predictions are consistently wrong, the data often manipulated by the GW authoritarians.

So we are now 12 from then, and those who do not accept it by now should most certainly be called denialists, because there is no evidence whatsoever – even if Hurricane Zelda were to crash into their mid-western houses 10 or 20 years from now – that would ever convince them. Nothing at all could ever convince them.

Ridiculous hyperbole, just like the use of the term denialist is.

BTW, there are still a good number of Holocaust denialists over 70 years after the fact. Don’t know where you got the idea they had all disappeared or switched into accepters.

It is instructive that this is included in your post. It confirms the hideous use by progressives of this linkage between those who question the often flawed models that are used to as “evidence” for ACC, and those who make the idiotic claim that the Holocaust didn’t happen. Use of the term denial in the discussion of climate change is shameful.

 

[dvdjs]

Fascinating post.
What is the logic: some predictions were wrong, there all predictions are wrong?

 

[Rau]

Eventually, though, the 25 million or so folks that live there will demand cleaner air.

To varying degrees they demand it now. To the extent that they understand the future trajectory of their air quality and what drives it, they’ll know what changes to demand and will demand change sooner.

Those requiring absolute proof and demonstration of the cause will not demand anything for some time. At which point they will become very angry that the better informed did not deliver action earlier.

 

[midori]

No. Just examples of how people are happy to make up oversimplified, scary, dramatic statements, make little mention of information to the contrary, and deliberately err in favor of impact rather than honesty. And then let’s lump people who aren’t convinced in with the Holocaust deniers, or the conspiracy theorists.

That’s not good science. Good science stands on its own feet, and doesn’t care if you believe in it or not.

 

[dvdjs]

That’s not good science. Good science stands on its own feet, and doesn’t care if you believe in it or not.

That’s true. But lumping the community of scientists working in the climate field in ACC and AWG with some particular examples of individuals of on a tangent is not fair.

You might compare the number of publications and citations of publications related to ACC and AWG to those related to the speculations of Harrison Brown, or Kenneth Watt, etc. This would make it easy to differentiate a serous field of study from the work of a gadfly, publicity hound, or even an earnest scientists whose working hypothesis was wrong.

 

[JButky]

But no sensible person would do that

And yet that is precisely what they are trying to do with statistically insignificant model conclusions
.
To answer your other question
Patrick Frank 2015 in Energy and environment,
Vitaly Semenov/Lennart Bendtsson 2002 in Climate Dynamics.
Judith Curry “climate Models for the Laymen”

Even the IPCC is admitting it, They are preparing to issue a public report according to Professor Myles Allen

The climate prediction that have been correct are still in the statistical realm of chance and considered insignificant
conclusions. Even the researchers themselves can’t agree on what data is correct.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

But that’s just it— you can have plain old …

Noting you wrote had anything to do with the portion of my post you quoted, much less answered it. So why did you quote me and then ignore what you quoted?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

dvdjs:

But no sensible person would do that

And yet that is precisely what they are trying to do with statistically insignificant model conclusions…

I don’t think you understood dvdjs’ post. No sensible person would try to predict specific weather events far into the future, such as saying that there is going to be a hurricane on September 3, 2035 that will hit the Florida coast at Orlando :: No. No one is trying to do that with statistics or a Ouija board or by any other means. That is not what climate science does. It predicts statistical trends. As for things being statistically significant or insignificant, that also is part of the science of statistics. (Yes, it is really a science.). “Statistically significantly” is not just a wishy-washy term of belief or support, although you are using it that way.

 

[ChunkMonk]

Global Warming is pagan Earth-worship in disguise. Sacrifice appeases the spirits and prevents the doomsday event. Really creepy stuff.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Irrelevant observation because it is much harder to predict the course of a specific event than it is to predict a statistical trend, which is all AGW does.

And unfortunately for the AGW proponents, there is no significant statistical trend. It has been demonstrated by scientists that the models cannot accurately predict what has already happened.

The models do accurately predict the long term trend up to now. They don’t predict short-term trends of specific events because they were never intended to do that. And no, that is not what “they” are doing.

 

[midori]

I’m sorry. Without specific examples of specific rich industrialists profiting from convincing people that polar bears are not on the verge of extinction and that New York City is in imminent danger of being under five feet of water if we don’t pay attention to carbon dioxide, I went off on my own thoughts about how people can be environmentally conscientious without buying into the man-made climate change part of things, but how that’s not enough for some people.

I was enjoying a nice conversation and trying to give examples of why it’s not unreasonable to be skeptical. But I forgot this was the internet.

 

[neophyte]

The computer models can’t predict the path of a storm 24 to 48 hours out, but we are supposed to believe they can predict warming 80 years out.

That’s a very poor argument. Even if it were true that we can’t predict the path of a storm 24 - 48 hours out (which it isn’t), you’re comparing apples and oranges.

To illustrate, look at an engineering process; for example, the grinding of a bearing journal. If you measure the diameter of every journal as it comes off the grinder, you know it will be within a tolerance range but you can’t predict where in the range it will be before you measure it. If you reach over and slowly start to turn one of the adjustment wheels on the grinder, you know quite well that the average will change and exactly how much it will change for each turn of the wheel. The location of the average is analogous to the long term change in climate, and the journal-to-journal variation is analogous to day-to-day changes in temperature.

And in fact, we can certainly predict the location of a storm 48 hours out. For example, the September 6, 05:00 NOAA forecast for Hurricane Irma predicted that on September 11 the location of the center of the eye would be in Florida, at a location only about 50 miles away from where it actually passed on that morning and well within the known cone of uncertainly.

There are certainly reasons for skepticism about the claim that human activity is significantly affecting global climate change. But that isn’t one of them.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I’m sorry. Without specific examples of specific rich industrialists profiting from convincing people that polar bears are not on the verge of extinction …

Of course that is a straw man argument, as the main AGW argument is about changes detrimental to humans. As to examples you requested, consider Exon Mobil. They stand to loose huge profits if any policy is adopted that sees their product as detrimental. Therefore they have an obvious reason to want to see AGW discredited.

 

[midori]

Not a straw man, though possibly a tangent. But conversations have tangents. I have friends who are very passionate about climate change, and were in tears when that story about the starving polar bear with no ice to hunt on was running in the news, alongside the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge controversy, because of its impact on the Beaufort Sea population.

re: Exxon Mobil, that’s fair enough. There’s plenty of room in the world for Big Oil hate. But generally, I don’t think I’ve ever heard/seen/read any man-made global warming skeptics ever cite Exxon or its sponsored studies as their reason for skepticism. Regardless of man-made climate change or not, it would be nice if alternative energy could be a viable thing. But despite its subsidies and mandates, the wind farm just outside of town went bankrupt a year or two after being built. It’s still functioning; it got purchased by another entity. Got a spam call yesterday from a company that wanted me to do solar on my roof-- but they ended the call pretty quickly after I mentioned I was on co-op power. Competition is healthy, and people like clean and efficient and cheap energy. But that’s the product they need to be selling— not global warming/global cooling/climate change.

 

[dvdjs]

No that is not at all what "they are trying to do. Such a claim undercuts your credibility.

Thanks for the links. They were not what I expected from your earlier post. It appears that some people have written papers criticizing the work of others, but it is not clear that these criticisms have been taken as definitive by scientists within the field. I will look at this further.

 

[JButky]

I don’t think you understood dvdjs’ post. No sensible person would try to predict specific weather events far into the future, such as saying that there is going to be a hurricane on September 3, 2035 that will hit the Florida coast at Orlando :: No. No one is trying to do that with statistics or a Ouija board or by any other means. That is not what climate science does. It predicts statistical trends. As for things being statistically significant or insignificant, that also is part of the science of statistics. (Yes, it is really a science.). “Statistically significantly” is not just a wishy-washy term of belief or support, although you are using it that way.

Not talking about individual events. I understood it quite well. We’re talking about the general trend as the sources all point out and not specific instances. The model predictions of global warming are statistically insignificant and should be disregarded as such. Long term trends have also been proven to be negligible also insignificant. When you are forced to filter data to make model predictions fit your conclusion, (as demonstrated) that is indefensible before you even get to the general statistical analysis which is not in the theory’s favor at all.

See Eschenbach disputation of Shakun2012…(yet more scientists…)

It is still mind boggling to me that people actually believe in AGW and still attempt to prop it up.

 

[JButky]

The models do accurately predict the long term trend up to now.

False. See previous post.

 

[dvdjs]

So I peeked at:
Negligence, Non-Science, and Consensus Climatology
Patrick Frank,April 1, 2015; pp. 391–415.

I am intrigued by your calling attention to this article, that was published in a very low impact journal and has yet to be cited in the scientific literature at all, according to Web of Science. It does not seem that Patrick Franck has any other publications n this field. Why do you attach credibility to this article, when the scientists in the field seem to be totally uninterested in it?

And this from a not out-dated interview of Lennart Bendtsson:

LB: I believe the whole climate consensus debate is silly. There is not a single well educated scientist that question that greenhouse gases do affect climate. However, this is not the issue but rather how much and how fast. Here there is no consensus as you can see from the IPCC report where climate sensitivity varies with a factor of three!

Lennart Bengtsson speaks out

by Judith Curry The whole concept behind IPCC is basically wrong. – Lennart Bengtsson

judithcurry.com

Not sure what your point in bringing him up is.

 

[Rhubarb]

It’s as reasonable to reject global warming as it is to reject the germ theory of communicable diseases, the theory of evolution, and the theories of relativity.

They’re just THEORIES after all. And I’ve cherry picked like, 6 articles from fishy journals to back me up so it seems like I’m arguing properly.

 

[petra22]

Wirth, D-Colo., said: “We’ve got to … try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong … we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

This is down right scary!