rocketride Loc: Upstate NY

And what percentage of the authors were "taking the king's shilling" and therefore writing what the king wants to hear?

Lazy Old Coot Loc: Gainesville, Florida

Don't we all understand by now, the sun won't rise until the rooster crows?!! ........ Coot

venturer9 Loc: Newton, Il.

Sorry DEBJENROB but even though I have very little concern actually on the subject, I loved your words about the esteemed scientest you mentioned... where you said...

did you win a Nobel Prize

Not much of an endorsement when we realize that our illustrious President won one almost immediately upon winning the Election in 2008

Mike

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

Before I answer this question, give me one good reason why I should waste another minute on you considering that as soon as it looked like you'd been bested in the debate, you instantly sunk to sophomoric name calling? If you can give an intelligent answer to that question, I'll consider answering yours.

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

Just saw this on facebook, seems appropriate for the present thread.

DEBJENROB Loc: DELRAY BEACH FL

You missed the point .... why are your "facts" any more credible than ... not mine .... but the vast majority of scientist who disagree with you .... do you have information that over 90% of the scientific community missed .... give us all a break .... your statements are about as creditable as those of Lindzer .... and his claim to fame is that will disagree just to disagree ... and as for a closed mind .... I think your problem is that you can't see the trees because of the forest .... but you are correct about one thing .... some people are dense as a board ...

DEBJENROB Loc: DELRAY BEACH FL

Actually you don't have to convince me of anything .... my purpose for entering this thread was not to learn anything from you ... because there isn't anything of value that you have to share .... I just enjoy "pulling your chain" ... I always enjoy precipatating conflict with those who appear intelligent but have a weak self image ... now this conversation is boring ... and closed

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

Now that's funny, a banker and a psychologist! My self-image is quite healthy thank you, but since I'm not the one who sinks to name calling when he's bested, I think it's obvious to the others on the thread who has the issues.

Oh and I don't care if a million pseudo-scientists, buy into the global warming crap, the fact remains it has been proved, and consensus isn't science and science isn't consensus. I would love to sit down and discuss this subject with your hero, Mario Molina, since he seems so convinced of a link between man and the supposed warming of the climate. I did find a link to a speech he gave in 2012 where he spoke of such a link, yet at least had the intellectual honesty to emphasize that there is "no absolute certainty" that global warming is causing extreme weather events.' (Quote taken from the text of the speech, emphasis added)

You may not have entered the thread to learn anything from me, but like it or not, and believe it or not, you have. And even more importantly that fact only shows you to be foolish for failing to admit it to yourself.

rocketride Loc: Upstate NY

But there is absolute certainty that they would be quite happy to use the slightest inkling that it might conceivably be happening as a pretext to expand and consolidate their power. Mind you, they'd be just as happy to hang that power grab on any other climatic vagary.

hondo812 Loc: Massachusetts

The global warming/cooling/warming/dimming/warming debate has been going on for years. I am inclined to agree with Heyrob that this has largely been a "solution in search of a problem" situation. Our government and others have proposed a Carbon tax to be levied based on a Carbon footprint. It's interesting that government isn't looking to reduce carbon, just tax it.

Just as interesting is the alternate fuels (corn based)fiasco perpetrated by the Obama administration. It seems that growing the extra corn required farmers to plow under many standing fields which released ridiculous amounts of carbon to grow corn for the purpose of turning into biofuels to reduce carbon. If we take that a step further.....that means the original plowing of the midwest released insane amounts of carbon. That is a little factoid left out in most of the "global warming due to CO2 (aka Al Gore's slideshow)" theories. You would have expected that the global warming due to human activity would have made it's impact over 100 years ago.

There have been reports that a single active volcano can send more CO2 into the atmosphere in one day than the entirety of humans on the planet can in a year. We don't make that much of a difference. To suggest that we do only confirms that some have a rather bloated ego.

rocketride Loc: Upstate NY

The theory goes that if you tax some activity sufficiently, you will suppress that activity. And in the meantime, you're collecting the tax revenues. A win-win from a certain point of view. (Actually, it's the evil flip-side of Art Laffer's argument, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Economics a while back).

And, in all fairness, the "amber waves of fuel" debacle started some years before the beginning of the "Obamaschina", although, like many of the other current fiascoes, it came to full, rolling, boil during his charlie-foxtrot of a Presidency. The Kenyan village idiot did inherit a bunch if ongoing f---ups, but I bet you can't name one that he has noticeably improved (rather than exacerbating) any more than I can. He's had (almost) five years-- and counting-- to fix them. And nothing's fixed.

DaveMM Loc: Port Elizabeth, South Africa

There is a valid saying 'Never argue with a fool. He will only drag you down to his level and then beat you with his greater experience.'

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

What it all boils down to for these folks is "If it feels good, do it."

Dr.db Loc: Central Point, OR

I agree! Although the discussion seems to be ranging far afield at times... 7 pages and still fairly low entropy!

heyrob - I appreciate your bringing up the "scientific method" in this context, as it applies directly to something I see as often under-discussed when it comes to climate change science. That is, the real unavailability of any practical experiments - all we have is theory.

In most areas of science, experiments can be performed, modified and repeated to either prove or disprove any hypothesis. And even if those experiments yield results that are considered inconclusive, the original theories can be modified to accommodate new results, and general conclusions can usually be drawn as to the degree of "proof" achieved.

However, for any real theory on "climate change", we are in the middle of the one and only big experiment that can be performed - there are no extra Earths to fiddle around with in the lab! So any real scientific "proof" can only be achieved in the future, at which time it would be too darn late to modify the great experiment.

IMO, actions taken by our (US) government to address the "problem" of climate change have been completely misdirected and destructive to both the environment and the economy. ("Carbon tax?"-an impotent shell game; "Clean Coal?"-a PR joke; "Wind Power?"-where's the power?; "Net metering?"-a mass behavior modification tool... but lots of big energy companies are getting rich off taxpayer subsidies, aren't they!)

heyrob Loc: Western Washington

Great points ALL!

I have no objection to efforts to clean up our environment, but as you say it's all about money, and not about the climate. Time has proved out that the dire predictions of the climate models of the 1990's and early 2000's were completely baseless. Not a single one predicted what actually occurred during the first 12 years of the new century, yet they still keep peddling their silly BS. If we'd simply put the same time and effort into useful efforts to reduce pollution and urge third world countries like India and China to do likewise, the money would be far better spent than chasing this fantasy that we can control the climate.