An Inconvenient Scientist

[Rsak]

If you are so deluded and need it spelled out for you then look at the Amish. They advocate not using technology and automobiles.

[Partha]

Bwahahaha! Idiot.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007 ... ultim.html

It might sound strange to people who think of the Amish as 19th century holdovers, but that's an oversimplification. Instead, after considering the impact to their values and way of life, Amish communities decide communally whether to adopt new technologies.

[...] In the early 20th century, the Amish rejected the enticements of the public power grid, deciding they did not want to be too directly linked to, or dependent on, the outside world, said Donald Kraybill, a senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist & Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.

But they never dismissed electricity wholesale. Over time, the Amish have turned to a range of energy sources -- water, wind, batteries, gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, propane gas, coal and wood. The application of solar energy has increased rapidly in the Amish community in the past five years, Kraybill said.

You are the BIGGEST fucking moron on the board. Hands down.

Tell ya what. Next time you get a bright idea, hit yourself in the head with a hammer until the feeling goes away.

[Lurker]

The point is, Rsak, you came up with an absurd example and are using it to justify inaction.

You may think it is a silly example, but there are people in this world that advocate such actions. Without understanding the ramifications of certain actions we most certainly are committing hysterics over the issue.

See! We're committing hysterics over the issue! Except that your example was silly. Nobody with any power or authority has proposed such extreme or irrational solutions to the problem. It would be like being against tax reform because some nutjob somewhere wants to abolish the IRS.

In short, how much do you damage your economy to work on minimizing impact?

Those aren't the only two options.

how could you still be asking such shallow and dishonest questions

Still? What do you mean "still"?

This is the first time I have asked such a question if memory serves.

I mean 'still' as in after all your research. You listen to all sides of a scientific discussion before making up your mind, and you've examined all the available evidence to such a degree that you can confidently declare that there isn't enough evidence to make a judgement, and yet you still ask such shallow one-sided questions. Like I said, it just boggles the mind. It's almost as if you really didn't examine all sides. . .but that just can't be, can it?

[Rsak]

So because you found one group of Amish that use Solar Power from a Wired.com article (great bastion of authority on Amish) you think that changes the fact that there are Amish who advocate not using technology from the 20th century. "Fucking Caught" denied!

the point is, Rsak, you came up with an absurd example and are using it to justify inaction.

Completely and utterly untrue. I do not advocate inaction. I want measured and reasoned actions that spawn from a scientific and intellectual debate on the matter, not a political win that serves no true purpose in change (Kyoto). I am not saying that the IPCC report is wrong because I don't have the science to say one way or another, but I want to be able to ask questions about it and see my questions answered without being made out to be a "liberal hating denier" which is exactly what you are doing. I also want there to be actual thought into the impact of what it takes to "solve" the problem and right now that information is not available.

You claim the example was extreme or irrational, but based on everything your general consensus of scientists have said it would solve the problem with global warming (unless the system is unrepairable). So now we have a baseline of what it would take to solve the problem and then we need to find the equilibrium of solution and sustainable society. You call it a call for inaction... I call it the start of a useful conversation that actually is open minded. Even if there is no proof that a plan will solve the problem if there is a clear understanding of what the ramifications of the plan on society then people can make a decision on whether to support it much easier.

You really need to stop the denials and open your mind to the facts that just because someone has doubts that does not mean they are advocating inaction.

[Trollbait]

I mean 'still' as in after all your research. You listen to all sides of a scientific discussion before making up your mind, and you've examined all the available evidence to such a degree that you can confidently declare that there isn't enough evidence to make a judgement, and yet you still ask such shallow one-sided questions. Like I said, it just boggles the mind. It's almost as if you really didn't examine all sides. . .but that just can't be, can it?

This is exactly what I meant when I talked about you turning people off to your side of things.

THAT actually boggles my mind. The fact that you think a person cannot possibly have looked at the same information as you and not yet drawn the same conclusion that you have....

Your arrogance and vitriol will not win anyone over to your cause, Lurker.

[Lurker]

If I thought for a second you were looking for an honest and open discussion I'd approach it differently, but I don't. Your two 'Gore is full of shit' threads on the topic make your dishonesty about just wanting an open and honest discussion about climate change crystal clear. It also makes your incessant whining about my 'zealotry' and 'vitriol' and 'arrogance' a bit of a joke.

[Rsak]

If I thought for a second you were looking for an honest and open discussion I'd approach it differently, but I don't.

Then open your mind and have an honest and open discussion with me. Somehow you keep avoiding it.

[Harlowe]

Well everyone avoids that Rsak, because it turns into a war of attrition - not at all an open and honest discussion.

Seriously.

[Rsak]

If you bandy about labels like deniers and take a stance like that then you are only proving your own hypocrisy.

Seriously!

[Lurker]

Damn! Rsak just totally disemboweled you with that stinging rebuke, Harlowe.

Or was that aimed at me?

I can't tell.

Seriously.

[Harlowe]

Well, you'd think posting after me would mean it was directed at me, but I haven't been labeling people deniers so ....maybe it's you.

Seriously.....dude.

[Trollbait]

If I thought for a second you were looking for an honest and open discussion I'd approach it differently, but I don't. Your two 'Gore is full of shit' threads on the topic make your dishonesty about just wanting an open and honest discussion about climate change crystal clear. It also makes your incessant whining about my 'zealotry' and 'vitriol' and 'arrogance' a bit of a joke.

Well....if you do not believe my questions are in good faith then I am struck by two things:

1) You are more the fool for responding to them at all

and

2) It is pointless for me to discuss this with you further.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Hey, Embar, if you do nothing else in this thread, please back up your statement that the "hockey stick" "misrepresented the true picture" and was "largely discredited by the scientific community".

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1511

Sorry about the delayed timing, been out of town. Anyway, that link shows just how unreliable the data is for the hopckey-stick graph. Hell, even the IPCC couldn't decide what the data represented, and when it did, the IPCC concluded something different than Gore.

Have a look, make your comments, and we'll continue.

[Chants Evensong]

I'm not anti-skeptic; I'm anti-denier.

Ok. Name some skeptics of anthropogenic global warming you support or that you do not oppose.

[Partha]

Sorry about the delayed timing, been out of town. Anyway, that link shows just how unreliable the data is for the hopckey-stick graph. Hell, even the IPCC couldn't decide what the data represented, and when it did, the IPCC concluded something different than Gore.

Have a look, make your comments, and we'll continue.

Having read the commentary, I have to wonder what the effect of Aussie/NZ wines has on the discussion.

[Rsak]

*yawn*

Are you done stroking your own egos? Of course it was directed to you Harlowe since we were analyzing Lurker's avoidance of any open and honest discussions. So instead of accepting relevant and important questions on the matter that do not even challenge his holy grail premise that humans are the leading cause of global climate change he avoids the issue because he can't accept the question coming from someone who he doesn't like.

Modus Operandi for priests of the holy church of global warming. You have so much faith in your position that you deny the possibility of its error.

I will state again that it very well may be an accurate position, but if it cannot stand up to challenge then we had best not take drastic measures that could harm our society.

[Harlowe]

Dude, then you obviously have ADD since I have been neither zealous OMG EARTH EXPLODES about it nor called anyone a "denier".

[Rsak]

I never said you did... one would think that the pronoun "he" would have given it away. Yet you certainly enable Lurker to do just that.

[Lurker]

Embar,

I think you are conflating issues. The McIntyre article you linked does not address or support the statement you originally made.

Your original statement implied that the Mann "hockey stick", which was challenged by McIntyre for data errors that led to a mathematical artifact, had been discredited. It hasn't been. The small errors did not change the overall findings or the shape of the graph, and the results have been corroborated by many proxy studies. You also said it "misrepresented the true picture". I'm assuming you mean it minimized the Medieval Warm Period. Do you have a graph that you feel more accurately shows the 'true picture'?

On the McIntyre article you linked, I think he's overstating the controversy over whether ice core records are a precipitation or temperature proxy. McIntyre tries to paint Lonnie Thompson as someone standing alone and resisting new information, but Thompson was involved in the precipitation studies mentioned later.

McIntyre is not accurate when he says 'Based on the IPCC, Al Gore’s Hockey Stick is simply showing that there is increased precipitation in the 20th century in high altitudes'. The studies mentioned do not conclude that ice core records only show precipitation variability, and that temperature variability can't be obtained. Also, the more recent records contain the most accurate temperature data - It's only going back thousands of years that the accuracy becomes less - so it's sort of ass backwards to claim that the drastic increase in the last hundred years is the questionable portion.

McIntyre is also being disingenuous when he says, 'Of course the increased precipitation may be due to increased warming, but this interpretation of the Thompson ice cores tends to undercut the dire warnings of drought that crop up elsewhere.' Nobody has claimed that there would be droughts everywhere, and increased rain in some areas obviously doesn't preclude a drought in other areas.

=======

Ok. Name some skeptics of anthropogenic global warming you support or that you do not oppose.

John Christy is one I can name. On the larger point, I think all scientists need to be skeptics or the science is meaningless, and I think most of them are. As I said, a denier is someone that makes proveably false statements or otherwise misrepresents the available information.

=======

Harlowe,

Stop enabling me. How am I ever going to get help if you keep doing that?

[Harlowe]

I never said you did... one would think that the pronoun "he" would have given it away. Yet you certainly enable Lurker to do just that.

That pronoun would have given it away, but you didn't use it, you said "you".

If you bandy about labels like deniers and take a stance like that then you are only proving your own hypocrisy.
Seriously!

Lurker is a big boy, he seems perfectly capable of saying what he wants regardless of what I think.