What do you think of climate change?

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Ender said:
Scientists should at least be held to the standards they profess, and one of those is transparency. “Trust me” is not a scientific concept, yet what NOAA has done with the adjustments is exactly that: they alone know why the data have been manipulated as they were.
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The reason there is what is called an adversarial structure to the legal system is to provide each side with the proper motivation to make the best case. The judge or jury is the neutral and balanced arbiter that decides which side can muster the best case.

We hear a great deal about “vested” interests, often with the underlying implication that one side or other is biased and therefore cannot be trusted. However, having vested interests within an impartial juridical process offers the best opportunity and likelihood that each side is motivated to present the strongest case they can.

The problem with the “consensus” view is that by citing the consensus in science, advocates of that view free themselves of any burden to actually defend against new allegations and evidence by citing the consensus as a defeater to all upcoming potential objections.

Science, and any other endeavor, could be well serviced by those who are highly motivated to present the best case for the side of the argument they represent, as well as forcing the dominant position to not “rest on its laurels,” so to speak.

There is no reason that the discussion and truth about climate change couldn’t better be advanced by more of an adversarial approach, as in the judicial system. Each side, highly motivated to express their findings, data and conclusions could be afforded a full opportunity to do so, while an impartial body (a jury of qualified scientists with no skin in the game) could arbitrate the case.

What we have now is a skewed system where one side has most of the funding, much of the motivation, and the great bulk of media cheerleaders promoting the cause. There is no reason to think such a one-sided “consensus” is actually interested in the truth or true state of the climate, (as opposed to consolidating political power) precisely because there is so much at stake.

Imagine a highly funded climate scientist proving finally that CO2 isn’t the problem it is made out to be. What would happen? All the climate scientists currently being lavished with funding BECAUSE the pending catastrophe had been heretofore made out to be so dire, would be bereft of funds precisely because there would be very little need to investigate the climate long-term.

Sure fossil fuel companies have a vested interest, but so do climate scientists who are regaled with money because they have convinced a great mass of the population, the press and left leaning politicians that the climate situation is so dire.
 
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HarryStotle said:
The problem with the “consensus” view is that by citing the consensus in science, advocates of that view free themselves of any burden to actually defend against new allegations and evidence by citing the consensus as a defeater to all upcoming potential objections.
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This is how it has always seemed to me. It is not the “deniers” who dismiss data or arguments because the source doesn’t have sufficient credentials. You can either support your position or you can’t, and pleas that you don’t need to because your opponent isn’t an expert are a bit hollow. After all, who would be easier to refute than a non-expert?
 
Regarding the issue of the money involved in studying climate change:

Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009,” says the GAO. Not a penny goes to anyone who believes it is mostly natural.
 
HarryStotle said:
The reason there is what is called an adversarial structure to the legal system is to provide each side with the proper motivation to make the best case. The judge or jury is the neutral and balanced arbiter that decides which side can muster the best case.

We hear a great deal about “vested” interests, often with the underlying implication that one side or other is biased and therefore cannot be trusted. However, having vested interests within an impartial juridical process offers the best opportunity and likelihood that each side is motivated to present the strongest case they can.
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That may work for legal questions, but it is not the way science is done. You don’t go out looking for vested interests to “argue” one side or the other. You rely on the scientific method and the integrity of scientists, which I have to say is orders of magnitude better than the integrity of lawyers.
 
HarryStotle said:
The problem with the “consensus” view is that by citing the consensus in science, advocates of that view free themselves of any burden to actually defend against new allegations and evidence by citing the consensus as a defeater to all upcoming potential objections.
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This does not happen among scientists. Citing the “consensus view” is something that non-scientists do who have no means of competently analyzing the data. But among scientists, previous theories are challenged all the time.
HarryStotle said:
Imagine a highly funded climate scientist proving finally that CO2 isn’t the problem it is made out to be.
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Imagine a highly funded fossil fuel lobbyist finally admitting that it is.
 
Ender said:
You can either support your position or you can’t, and pleas that you don’t need to because your opponent isn’t an expert are a bit hollow. After all, who would be easier to refute than a non-expert?
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You are right. A non-expert is easier to refute. But the non-expert will still not believe he has been refuted. Scientists are busy enough with their research and presenting it in an academic forum. If non-experts are too lazy to read what those scientists have published to support their views, it is not the responsibility of scientists to leave their work and embark on a hopeless campaign of convincing people who have no understanding of the scientific method of the validity of their claims.
 
I don’t think some understand that if a research scientist compromises his/her integrity by falsifying research and data, they’re basically done as far as the scientific community is concerned. OTOH, if they work for a business or lobbying group or political entity, then they may even get a promotion within them for distorting the research.

IOW, within science integrity is paramount or other researchers will simply not take one seriously, but that’s not necessarily the case in business and politics.
 
Metis1 said:
I don’t think some understand that if a research scientist compromises his/her integrity by falsifying research and data, they’re basically done as far as the scientific community is concerned. OTOH, if they work for a business or lobbying group or political entity, then they may even get a promotion within them for distorting the research.
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You are comparing apples and oranges

Research Scientists are judged on their published research, wherever they are employed, public or private.

I’m not aware of lobbying groups or political entities directly funding research, they get the Govt to do it for them.
 
Many companies hire scientists, and some of these companies use the research, objective or not, to have their lobbyists do some “selling” to various politicians. One example I can use was the scientists hired by tobacco companies decades ago to argue that smoking was not hazardous to people’s health. Generally speaking, these scientists often do not submit to peer-reviewed sources because they have an “agenda” that they’re getting paid for.

Also, we often see some politicians who have a science background, such as Inhof from Oklahoma, who doesn’t see an oil well that he doesn’t love, thus cherry-picking “scientific” sources that claim that we ain’t got a problem. Of course, he doesn’t use peer-reviewed sources because that clearly show that he’s wrong, but he wants to get reelected because that’s more important to him.

Generally speaking, the most reliable scientific sources tend to be university professors who would lose all credibility if they fudged their research in order to prove a point, plus the university would be scarred. Thus, their most driving impulse is to be honest.

I did research with one of those back during my undergrad years, and the pressure to get it right is very strong, let me tell ya, and “getting it right” isn’t being dishonest so as to push an agenda. However, are all of them somehow perfect? Of course not.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
You rely on the scientific method and the integrity of scientists, which I have to say is orders of magnitude better than the integrity of lawyers.
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Can you cite a peer-reviewed scientific study to support that conclusion? Or do you ONLY defer to the scientific method when it appears to agree with your position?

On other questions — such as the integrity of lawyers — is a mere commonly-held belief sufficient?

That takes us perilously close to confusing “commonly-held beliefs” with scientific consensus, methinks.

Or is that what climate scientists are attempting to undertake?

Turn a supposed “scientific consensus” into a “commonly held belief” so it need not be subject to rigorous scientific questioning any longer?
 
Metis1 said:
Many companies hire scientists, and some of these companies use the research, objective or not, to have their lobbyists do some “selling” to various politicians. One example I can use was the scientists hired by tobacco companies …
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And another example is the green movement that has appropriated to itself huge amounts of funding from government, large tech companies, and the worlds wealthiest elites.

Jeff Bezos just set aside $10 B for global warming research.


No worries. The hearts of super wealthy billionaires are all in the right place, as long as they aren’t tainted by tobacco or fossil fuels.

😖

And the scientists who are beneficiaries of all that nouveau funding are also pure as the driven snow because… well … they don’t want that snow melting up north due to climate change.
 
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HarryStotle said:
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LeafByNiggle:
You rely on the scientific method and the integrity of scientists, which I have to say is orders of magnitude better than the integrity of lawyers.
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Can you cite a peer-reviewed scientific study to support that conclusion?
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What conclusion? That scientists have more integrity than lawyers? That is an everyday observation, not a scientific claim that requires technical expertise to evaluate. You have gone to that well far too often.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
Imagine a highly funded fossil fuel lobbyist finally admitting that it is.
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Highly funded fossil fuel lobbyists have given up trying to “admit” this because they aren’t taken seriously any longer by the “commonly held beliefs” of those indoctrinated by the scientific consensus.

I will say this…

Given the economic toll to virtually all of the world that the COVID-19 virus is going to take, IF these climate change scientists are knowingly spreading or going along with a politically or financially (to them) expedient narrative, they had better change their tune and change it very soon.

The truth will catch up with them because the climate will do what it does, and if their alarmism has caused a dire situation to be far worse due to their propaganda influencing political decisions, they will be held accountable. If not by the human community that will suffer because of their lack of candor, but by God who knows all things, including the deepest secrets of every human heart.

They had better be very certain of what they do and say.
 
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LeafByNiggle said:
What conclusion? That scientists have more integrity than lawyers? That is an everyday observation, not a scientific claim that requires technical expertise to evaluate. You have gone to that well far too often.
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Funny how you discount the “everyday observations” regarding the climate that have been reported in newspapers across the globe for the past century, that people like Heller point to repeatedly to show those are, astonishingly, NOT in agreement with the “scientific claims” of the “adjusted data” of NASA and NOAA, but here you want to promote “everyday observation” as sufficient when it suits you.

Consistency?
 
HarryStotle said:
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LeafByNiggle:
What conclusion? That scientists have more integrity than lawyers? That is an everyday observation, not a scientific claim that requires technical expertise to evaluate. You have gone to that well far too often.
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Funny how you discount the “everyday observations” regarding the climate that have been reported in newspapers across the globe for the past century, that people like Heller point to repeatedly to show…
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I’ll stop you right there because those everyday observations do not show that the NOAA record as homogenized is not in agreement with scientific claims. So of course I discount them.
but here you want to promote “everyday observation” as sufficient when it suits you.
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As I said before, the everyday observation I referred to does not require technical expertise to evaluate it.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
I’ll stop you right there because those everyday observations do not show that the NOAA record as homogenized is not in agreement with scientific claims. So of course I discount them.
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Heller has hundreds of examples of newspaper articles from the past, data on glaciers growing and receding, along with actual temperature records showing numbers of days over 90°, 95°,100°,105°F in past years that do not align with the current warming claims — among numerous other examples of information that doesn’t fit the narrative of warming.

You don’t so much “discount them” as don’t even allow yourself to look at them to fairly judge them as credible.

That isn’t science, that would be precognitive bias.

I am going to take a break from this thread.
 
I can certainly believe this. If you dig when it’s below freezing or even in the teens, the frozen part of the soil is very shallow; an inch or two. But anywhere where the ground is bare, it is frozen much farther down. As I understand it, warmth emanates constantly from inside the earth. If it’s insulated at the top by snow or thick grass, it won’t freeze very much. But if it’s bare it will.
 
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