Peer review among climatologist does have problems, try reading Wegman’s report. If the IPCC process was so open and conservative, then why do they place the comments from the reviews in a physical access only repository in Boston? They receive the comments in digital form. It would make what they produce more believable if the so called census could be seen.

The IPCC puts “leading climatologist” (CO2 AGW proponents) as the leads in the different chapters. They pick what goes in and how it is framed. Then the UN politico’s argue over wording.

Sorry, but I have a hard time believing anything that comes out of the UN.

Sorry about the dodgy link. You can access the Monbiot on climate change deniers (titled There is climate change censorship - and it’s the deniers who dish it out) from Heatisonlline.org

Some interesting excerpts:

The drafting of reports by the world’s pre-eminent group of climate scientists is an odd process. For months scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tussle over the evidence. Nothing gets published unless it achieves consensus. This means that the panel’s reports are conservative - even timid. It also means that they are as trustworthy as a scientific document can be. Then, when all is settled among the scientists, the politicians sweep in and seek to excise from the summaries anything that threatens their interests.

The scientists fight back, but they always have to make concessions. The report released on Friday, for example, was shorn of the warning that “North America is expected to experience locally severe economic damage, plus substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from climate change related events”.

This is the opposite of the story endlessly repeated in the rightwing press: that the IPCC, in collusion with governments, is conspiring to exaggerate the science. No one explains why governments should seek to amplify their own failures. In the wacky world of the climate conspiracists no explanations are required. The world’s most conservative scientific body has somehow been transformed into a conspiracy of screaming demagogues.

Vernon, I wasn’t having a go at you in particular. Regarding the people you say support your claims about CO2 rises not being linked to warming, I think I will stay with the IPCC process. Peer reviewed reports have credibilty.

There is no shortage of nutters (paid or otherwise) who will take extreme positions or have opinions on things. It is only scientific evidence that matters unless you are driven by beliefs (like creationism) or obsessions (such as the flat earth society). You could dredge up 50 out of 5.9 billion without too much trouble.

Since I know none of them personnally… . I was just asked to name three scientists that quit believing in the CO2 portion of AGW.

I do believe in man affecting climate change but not on CO2 being a significant issue. Lets clean up the man made causes which have real evidence for, dirty snow, which does have an impact on global climate change.

I don’t think you are being paid off etc etc.

But that is speculation, of course.

Nevertheless I’ve never paid much attention to David Bellamy after George Monbiot was finished with him.

Just a question, does BrianC’s saying that by my not agreeing with him on CO2 AGW that I am:

Either paided off, following the direction of my hidden masters, have a mental defect, or only want to distract everyone from fixing what is not broken count as an attack on me (and everyone else that disagrees with him) and not a discussion of the arguement?

Some how I think that the answer is going to be no but could not pass up asking

Yes, all those that changed their positions as new information became available where either paided off by big oil, following the direction of their hidden masters, have mental defects, or only want to distract everyone from fixing what is not broken.

Is your faith under attack because your ignoring the science?

Well, these are a few that I could think of:

Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States, converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006.

Geologist Bruno Wiskel of the University of Alberta recently reversed his view of man-made climate change and instead became a global warming skeptic.

Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, one of Israel’s top young award winning scientists, recanted his belief that manmade emissions were driving climate change.

Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans, who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. “I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause.

Climate researcher Dr. Tad Murty, former Senior Research Scientist for Fisheries and Oceans in Canada, also reversed himself from believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. “I stated with a firm belief about global warming, until I started working on it myself,” Murty explained on August 17, 2006.

Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a famed UK environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University and host of a popular UK TV series on wildlife, recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the science and now calls global warming fears “poppycock.”

Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z., also converted from a believer in man-made global warming to a skeptic. “At first I accepted that increases in human caused additions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere would trigger changes in water vapor etc. and lead to dangerous ‘global warming,’ But with time and with the results of research, I formed the view that, although it makes for a good story, it is unlikely that the man-made changes are drivers of significant climate variation.”

Global warming author and economist Hans H.J. Labohm started out as a man-made global warming believer but he later switched his view after conducting climate research.

Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa converted from believer in C02 driving the climate change to a skeptic. “I taught my students that CO2 was the prime driver of climate change,” Patterson wrote on April 30, 2007. Patterson said his “conversion” happened following his research on “the nature of paleo-commercial fish populations in the NE Pacific.”

Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw, took a scientific journey from a believer of man-made climate change in the form of global cooling in the 1970’s all the way to converting to a skeptic of current predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming.

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor of the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Ottawa, reversed his views on man-made climate change after further examining the evidence.

Environmental geochemist Dr. Jan Veizer, professor emeritus of University of Ottawa, converted from believer to skeptic after conducting scientific studies of climate history.

Is this enough to get you started?

Monbiot’s book Heat has a 23 page chapter on the denial industry with 131 references to sources. He establishes in some detail the genesis of the industry from a paid PR campaign out of Big Tobacco to counter concerns about passive smoking.

When I googled I also found this one from the David Suzuki Foundation which is an excellent short statement with lots of links to further information.

The theory has not stood up and that is why many scientists have moved from supporting the theory to saying it does not match reality.

Name three.

Nice, you take what the proponents of CO2 AGW do to any that doubt their faith and claim that the “skeptics” are doing it.

“* to deny, without providing any evidence to justify the denial
* to make false comparisons and introduce red herrings (eg. “it doesn’t matter about climate change because the real problem is population growth�)
* to quote untruths and claim that there is scientific basis for them
* denigrate those who attempt to engage them and state a considered position (play the person and not the ball). This can be subtle, not always an obious attack�

* Please point out where I have denied anything with presenting evidence?
* Please point out where I have made a false comparison?
* Please point out where I have stated an untruth?
* Please point out where I have made an attack on anyone?

What I see is that I presented evidence that demonstrates that CO2 there is no evidence that CO2 has ever been a climate driver, only a lagging indicator. I have presented evidence that artic warming is not caused by CO2 and that there is no evidence of any evidence of Antarctica continental warming. I have pointed out that to make the CO2 theory work, almost all work in recording CO2 levels prior to 1957 have to be discarded even though the work is documented and reading are accurate (within 3 percent). I believe I pointed out that it is the CO2 proponents that be-little the person, the ideas, the evidence with out addressing the scientific issues.

It is the job of those that propose a theory to defend it in rigorous scientific debate. Those that are sponsoring CO2 AGW hide their raw data, hide their procedures, and hide their processes. They present spurious explanations in the place of evidence. Have you read what Mann’s explanation of the divergence issue is? Have you read how even though the ice core measurements show that CO2 lags warming and lags cooling, that CO2 is still a driver, even though warming takes place without it and cooling takes place with it. How about the fact that from the 1940s to the 1970s, while CO2 was increasing, global temperatures were going down? The theory has not stood up and that is why many scientists have moved from supporting the theory to saying it does not match reality.

You don’t talk to a global warming skeptic unless you want to engage in a dialogue of claim and counter claim, mixed in with obfuscation.

Their tactics are:

* to deny, without providing any evidence to justify the denial
* to make false comparisons and introduce red herrings (eg. “it doesn’t matter about climate change because the real problem is population growth”)
* to quote untruths and claim that there is scientific basis for them
* denigrate those who attempt to engage them and state a considered position (play the person and not the ball). This can be subtle, not always an obious attack

Why do they do it?

* some are paid to
* some are doing the bidding of their industry or political masters and use the PR tactic of creating confusion and argument rather than win the argument. The theory is that if the general public get too confused about any topic (logging native forests, climate change, tobacco etc) then they buy out of a strong opinion or position and the current paradigm prevails.
* in extreme cases, some may have a personality disorder condition where they enjoy always taking contrary positions and the ensuing heated arguments that follow
* to distract people from something (e.g. arguing about whether climate change exists, rather than discussing what should be done abouit it)

They don’t seek to win the argument and will never concede. They don’t necessarily believe their stated positions. Check out Disinformation and heatisonline.org.

“Healthy skeptics” will concede when the facts and basis for an argument is clear

“Unhealthy skeptics” (denialists, disinformation spreaders, astroturfers etc) just keep playing their peculiar game. Some are active posting comments on this topic, so you can see them operating at first hand.

PS: the scientific method doesn’t require certainty, 95% probability is the figure used for accepting most hyphotheses.

It may not be new but it is a major factor in why CO2 AGW has no supporting evidence.

It has never happened in the past and there is no proof that it is happening now. What there is now and has been in the past is climate change and afterwords, CO2 change.

I’m planning to pick up on the CO2 lag thing tomorrow, which isn’t exactly new either.

The ice core measurement methodologies are better and clearly show that CO2 levels lag temperature changes. Tree ring proxies when compared with instrumented temperature readings are shown to actually indicate cooling when the instrumentation is indicating warming. That alone shows that using tree ring proxies as temperature proxies is suspect.

The CO2 AGW proponents position as summed up by what I have seen here is that we believe this. We don’t need evidence, we don’t need empirical proof, we have faith and if you want to prove our faith wrong you have to come up with another theory because just pointing out the weaknesses in our faith is not good enough.

I emphasis the word ‘falsifiable’.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

In other words, the idea of “falsification” is just one term among many that philosophers use to describe the process of science. It is debatable how sufficient a condition it is for a theory to be valid.

Anyway, a scientific theory in itself would not fall on a single falsification. Creationists tend to make the same mistakes when they throw the concept of “falsification” around in their intellectual shenanigans.

Newtonian physics is wrong. I don’t know why and how it’s wrong, but it is and until someone can come up with some way to prove otherwise I’ll continue to insist that it’s wrong.

What is it about this that you don’t understand?