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VincentML
Predictions. Hypothesis. Mine. But just as probable as your doomsday scenarios.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

* climate change scientist Prof. Stephen Schneider

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change.

To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."[2]

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

I feel people have enough evidence in front of them now to gain whatever benefit they're going to gain from this exchange. So I'm happy to leave things as they are.

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...if I may, can I point out that, when copying and pasting text from a source, it's considered good form to clearly identify the copied text as different to one's own.

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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam

LaT. A lot of folks on both sides confuse weather which is a local short term phenomenon with climate which is a worldwide long term thing.

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ORIGINAL: MasterSlaveLA

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

...if I may, can I point out that, when copying and pasting text from a source, it's considered good form to clearly identify the copied text as different to one's own.

I did use quotes... I generally try to use a different color as well, but forgot in the last post (OOPS).  However, given I'd provided a link, it clearly shows where the text came from.

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Hell, at least you give links.  I've asked tweak twice to source something she quoted, and she simply ignores the request.

Firm

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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Hell, at least you give links.  I've asked tweak twice to source something she quoted, and she simply ignores the request.

Firm

Firm, this is becoming extremely tedious. I have already indicated to you the source of the relevant piece twice. I also advised you of the author of the quote I used (the FIO at the Uni of East Anglia).

So for the third and very last time:

The source was identified in the very next sentence after the extract quoted. The sentence reads:
"This advice was given to a complainant associated with the ClimateAudit blog and appears on the page you linked." (Hint: "This advice ... appears on the page you linked" ... Geddit?)

If you can't work out from that sentence that the quote appears on the ClimateAudit blog then I'm left speechless. You already have the link to that site (you must - you supplied the link in your post #29). If getting your head around that is beyond your abilities, then your project of overthrowing an existing scientific consensus appears hopelessly doomed - such an intellectually demanding project requires talents light years beyond those you're currently exhibiting. My 7 year old niece could accomplish the task that is defeating you in less than 30 seconds.

However because I'm nice and helpful, here's yet another 2 clues to help you solve this apparently unfathomable mystery: There are only 3 links in your post #29. Therefore the source must be in one of those 3 links. Further hint: It might be the link to the ClimateAudit site.

Stop bellyaching and go and find it. It's only a click away from your post #29.

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

well I found it..whats the problem?

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

http://www.lucylasticslair.com/

ain't that it right there?  right out of her post, Firm.


LOLOLOLOL.  Gawddam I am funny.

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Every householder or car owner faces a decision of this type when they consider insuring their possessions. If there was a 10% probability of catastrophic damage to your house/car and a 90% probability of some negative consequences it would be sheer insanity not to insure your house/car and to take whatever steps you can to minimise risk. The sensible decision is self evident. I find it difficult to see why this example cannot serve as an accurate analogy for climate change.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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Every householder or car owner faces a decision of this type when they consider insuring their possessions. If there was a 10% probability of catastrophic damage to your house/car and a 90% probability of some negative consequences it would be sheer insanity not to insure your house/car and to take whatever steps you can to minimise risk. The sensible decision is self evident. I find it difficult to see why this example cannot serve as an accurate analogy for climate change.

Hi tweak! To my mind there are two major reasons why the home/car insurance model fails as an appropriate analogy.

Firstly, home and auto insurance premium rates and catastrophic probabilities are calculated by underwriters based upon past history of recorded events. The numbers of accidents per number of vehicles in a particular postal zone are no mystery. Not estimates by any means.

On the other hand the probabilities of catastrophic climate events are based upon computer models – forward looking assumptions derived from guess work and controversial theory.

A second problem arises from the fact that when one person insures her home or car she is not depriving another person of health and welfare, or of a paycheck. Purchasing the insurance does not carry the seeds of detriment to others. The Kyoto Protocol on the other hand is a mechanism that requires the industrialized nations who were signatories to reduced their greenhouse gas emissions to approximate 1990 levels by 2012.

In 1999 as I understand it the world population was estimated at six billion people. Today it is estimated at seven billion. With an additional billion people in the last dozen years the Protocol would place limits on the growth of industries. Potentially a very negative economic impact for the health and well being of the growing world population. And of course that population growth has been greatest among the poorest people of the earth. The rich are taking out insurance that will probably lead to a greater incidence of starvation and/or subsistence wages for the poor. So, not at all the same as purchasing home/auto insurance. Failed analogy, methinks.

Regards

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

How is it that so many learned climatologist have formed a settled consensus for anthropogenic climate warming? Here is a possibility of how these things occur. Taken from chapter 3 of the “The Art of Controversy” - Schopenhauer

“When we come to look into the matter, so-called universal opinion is the opinion of two or three persons; and we should be persuaded of this if we could see the way in which it really arises.

We should find that it is two or three persons who, in the first instance, accepted it, or advanced and maintained it; and of whom people were so good as to believe that they had thoroughly tested it. Then a few other persons, persuaded beforehand that the first were men of the requisite capacity, also accepted the opinion. These, again, were trusted by many others, whose laziness suggested to them that it was better to believe at once, than to go through the troublesome task of testing the matter for themselves. Thus the number of these lazy and credulous adherents grew from day to day; for the opinion had no sooner obtained a fair measure of support than its further supporters attributed this to the fact that the opinion could only have obtained it by the cogency of its arguments. The remainder were then compelled to grant what was universally granted, so as not to pass for unruly persons who resisted opinions which every one accepted, or pert fellows who thought themselves cleverer than any one else.

When opinion reaches this stage, adhesion becomes a duty; and henceforward the few who are capable of forming a judgment hold their peace. Those who venture to speak are such as are entirely incapable of forming any opinions or any judgment of their own, being merely the echo of others’ opinions; and, nevertheless, they defend them with all the greater zeal and intolerance. For what they hate in people who think differently is not so much the different opinions which they profess, as the presumption of wanting to form their own judgment; a presumption of which they themselves are never guilty, as they are very well aware. In short, there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?

Since this is what happens, where is the value of the opinion even of a hundred millions? It is no more established than an historical fact reported by a hundred chroniclers who can be proved to have plagiarized it from one another; the opinion in the end being traceable to a single individual."

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As I said ... "consensus" isn't science. Neither is much of the information and conclusions about AGW "science", since the basis of it isn't based on the scientific method of inquiry.