F1 Fanatic

I’d keep the f-duct and re-introduce refuelling.

Also regarding the “right wing blogosphere”, how are they any more a “secondary source” than the BBC? I suppose you’d say that I’m not supposed to believe “right wingers” but I should always believe the BBC because it’s full of perfect people who don’t have any biases at all?

If that explanation is true, why couldn’t it have been made a day or a few days after the CRU emails became the huge story that they did? Why did left wing sites like the Huffington Post wait for a week to feebly cover the story? Why did the BBC wait 3 weeks to even mention it on their TV news or website?

Of course there a million other suspicious emails, there’s not much of them I can remember off the top of my head this long afterwards. The next question of course is why I didn’t see that explanation on the news after the inquiry, why there wasn’t a detailed point by point explanation for those famous emails that became emblematic of the story? All I saw was that they were cleared, and then there was nothing much more than that. If global warming really is that urgent a problem then surely they would have wanted to explain this away in detail, instead of just rushing it, to make sure nobody was in any doubt? Could it be that they just didn’t have much of an explanation to give, and were deeply embarrassed at being caught?

Obviously you can see why someone would be suspicious if, after all the attention the story generated, the establishment responds by simply saying “they were found innocent, next story”. Compare the way the media reported the clearing of the CRU scientists to the Wikileaks “scandal” this week – they’ve spent every day reporting every little tidbit of utter trivia from these leaked American documents – criticisms about some European leader’s taste in decor merit a big scary “quotation marks” display by the BBC, and hand-wringing from their reporters ensues about how bad and arrogant it makes America look… or compare it to the various inquiries about Iraq, they pretty much devoted themselves to that. I didn’t see them saying “Well, maybe we shouldn’t go into such detail we might bore people” on those occasions…

It was a big story and essentially it was just swept under the carpet. So I don’t see why anyone should believe that explanation or any other given at an inquiry where the “impartiality” of the investigators is so obviously in doubt.

Also, I recall when this scandal happened, the attitude among some left wing people was quite disturbing to say the least – particularly the widespread attitude that the emails were “private property” that had been stolen. We’re talking about a research body that no doubt recieves squillions of taxpayers’ money. As all climate research has done. And they claim to be operating entirely in the public interest to save the world, or at least convince it that it’s in mortal danger, and yet some people seemingly demand that they should be granted “privacy”. Why the hell should they have anything to hide? Can’t you see how absurd that is and why it would lead people to the conclusion that climate change is nothing other than an excuse for control freaks in government to continue to intrude into people’s lives?

As for the other “independent” scientists who you say are part of the concensus – if you can name a good number of scientific research establishments anywhere in the Western world that say climate change isn’t really happening as it is apocalyptically described, or that it is not man made, who continue to receive central government funding (i.e. from the EU, or federal money in the US) (I doubt you can even name one) I will accept that there is such a thing as an “independent” scientist who is allowed to make up his own mind on this matter. I believe there is no such thing, they are all beholden to extremely disturbing persons such as Al Gore and George Soros.

All that about the CRU emails being said, you still haven’t answered my more important point: even if the scientists concerned were guilty of fraudulent practice, how does that discredit an entire body of scientific research? The CRU aren’t the only body performing climate change research: even if we threw out all of their work, there would still be huge amounts of evidence from other sources, all pointing in the same direction.

if you can name a good number of scientific research establishments anywhere in the Western world that say climate change isn’t really happening as it is apocalyptically described, or that it is not man made, who continue to receive central government funding (i.e. from the EU, or federal money in the US) (I doubt you can even name one) I will accept that there is such a thing as an “independent” scientist who is allowed to make up his own mind on this matter.

There are a number of scientists who do oppose the global warming consensus, many of whom continue to work for publicly-funded universities and research bodies (e.g. Jan Veizer of the University of Ottawa, Philip Stott of the University of London). But I can’t name any relevant research bodies that claim climate change isn’t happening, because there aren’t any. That includes privately funded bodies as well as government-funded ones – for example, the Association of American Petroleum Geologists, which is primarily funded by the oil industry (their stance on human-caused global warming is noncommittal, revised from an openly denialist position held previously). I view that as evidence of a broad consensus on the reality and cause of climate change, not of a funding conspiracy.

But, all this is beside the point. I’m not asking you to accept my authority or that of any scientist. The great thing about science is that when work is published, the methods and reasoning have to be published too, allowing anyone reading the work to replicate the experiments if they wish, or at least critically analyse and evaluate the strength of someone else’s conclusions. So why not do that? Why not go to the source and look at the science yourself? If you’re so sure that climate change is not happening, you’ll have no trouble explaining what is wrong with these papers:

Ghosh & Brand (2003). “Stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry in global climate change research.” Int. J. Mass Spec. 228:1-33. (This paper shows that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is the result of increased fossil fuel burning).

Harries et al. (2001). “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the earth in 1970 and 1997.” Nature 410:355-357. (This paper shows direct evidence of a greenhouse effect causing more heat to be retained by the Earth’s atmosphere).

To my mind these two papers provide a complete account of how human activity contributes to climate change (humans burn fossil fuels, burning fossil fuels releases CO2 into atmosphere, increased atmospheric CO2 produces increased greenhouse effect which warms the planet). Have a look. Where, in your view, is the science wrong?

I’m also curious about this idea that scientists somehow have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The most famous scientists throughout history have been the ones who have overturned established scientific thought – think of Galileo showing that the Earth revolves around the Sun, or Darwin providing a mechanism for biological change, or Einstein coming up with a new way of thinking about gravity – what Thomas Kuhn would call a paradigm shift. There would be far more wealth and fame attainable for any scientist who managed to disprove the established theory of global warming, rather than for those who shamelessly parroted a “party line.”

But the main thing I want you to do is to look at the evidence and decide for yourself.

…they would probably be the best regulations in the world.

I’ll think about my proposals a little more, but I think Andy’s are all good. I’d keep one tyre supplier myself, but if there’s going to be a war it should be a proper one, not a dichotomy. One cool suggestion I came across was having each manufacturer make a specific compound.

Of course I know how the Catholic Church “dealt” with Galileo. And so do you – which is essentially my point. Had he simply reaffirmed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, we’d likely never have heard of him.

Have you read those papers yet?

people who seek the truth are often persecuted and ridiculed. Just like then, we have the same situation now, only this time it’s not a religion it’s a cult – statism – and it’s much more scary.

Can you provide specific examples of people who’ve been “persecuted” for trying to publish evidence that climate change isn’t happening or isn’t caused by humans? That’s a pretty serious charge. We can drop Galileo if you like, but the point stands that the likes of Darwin, Einstein et al achieved their lasting fame by challenging the existing consensus, not kow-towing to it.

Look in any copy of Nature or Science. There are numerous examples in each of scientists testing and challenging each other’s theories by observation and experiment. If it was all about patting each other on the back science would be much less interesting.

No. Why would I want to read those old chestnuts. I’ve been asking you (repeatedly) to tell me why I should believe these people, I never asked you to tell me what they’ve already said 500 times.

I’m not trying to blind you with science or any such thing, what I’m trying to do is get you to look at the evidence for yourself and draw conclusions based on it. If you won’t do that, how are we meant to proceed?

Why should you believe “these people?” You don’t have to – but keep in mind that their methodologies, data, reasoning and conclusions are all published in the literature. It’s all totally transparent. Each paper I have cited is a complete account of the particular study those scientists performed. So if you don’t believe them, you can tell me specifically why not. You can pick out the flaws in their work and explain why you don’t accept their findings. Indeed, this too is an important part of science.