As I mentioned a couple of posts back, the claim that mainstream science is totally wrong about global warming is an orthodoxy that is almost universal among commentators, bloggers and thinktanks on the political right in Australia, even though the great majority of ordinary Australians, including Coalition supporters, believe the science.
The great majority of Australian take the view that, while scientists aren’t always right, it’s much better to act on the basis of the best available science than to assume that the scientists are wrong. For this, they are attacked by rightwing commentators as religious fanatics or, at best gullible innocents.
One limited exception to this appeared to be the Centre for Independent Studies. A while back Andrew Norton got stuck into Clive Hamilton for listing CIS in the delusionist camp on the basis of some fairly tenuous links. As Norton observed, the CIS had never published much on the topic (though what it did publish was in line with delusionist orthodoxy) and had published nothing since 2003.
CIS has made up for it now, with this piece by Arthur Herman (also published, less surprisingly, in the Oz). It’s got everything – “global warming as a religion”, Al Gore conspiracy theories, Godwin’s Law violations on eugenics, the Spanish Inquisition and so on, backed up by some typically dodgy Internet factoids. As with much in this genre, it’s important to note the call for the replacement of science, as it currently exists, with “real science” in which people like Herman (self-described as “an historian and author”) will lay down the rules.
What’s striking here is the contrast between the willingness of just about everyone on the political right to sign up to a set of beliefs that are dictated entirely by political tribalism and their self-perception as brave heretics, spelt out in more than usually ludicrous fashion by Herman.
Tim Lambert does garbage pickup on Herman’s “facts”. Strikingly, given that he’s supposed to be an (sic) historian, Herman seems to have a lot of trouble with dates and references. And there’s more from Nexus 6 and Gary Sauer-Thompson.
Update: In a comment from Jennifer Marohasy it was announced that Michael Duffy was willing to give $1000 to anyone who would nominate ““Some work/some research results that have been published in reputable scientific journals that:
1. examine the causal link between anthropogenic carbon dioxide and warming, and
2. quantify the extent of the warming from anthropogenic carbon dioxide. ”
Several people provided responses and, after coming back from my hiatus I wrote to Duffy asking the status of my offer. He replied “I asked Jennifer Marohasy about this, because she’s the one who needs to be satisfied. ” and appended a response from her indicating that she was, in fact, not satisfied.
From the original statement, I didn’t realise that Duffy meant to include “satisfactory to Jennifer Marohasy” as a term of the offer. Now that we’ve cleared that up, I think we can regard the offer as in line with the Socratic irony approach to scientific discussion.
There seems to have been something of a meltdown chez Marohasy, so I think we can take this offer as being off the table for all practical purposes
John Quiggin 
A link for those who are open to new ideas on climate chnage:
Click to access IanwilsonForum2008.pdf
Sure the science is all settled
FTA:
This is exactly why we mathematically literate sceptics (mostly engineers and physicists) have not been convinced by the supposed “consensus”. The climate models are very limited and prone to overfitting.
If that makes me a “delusionist”, so be it. I’d rather be that than a fool.
This is Jennifer taken from CIS’s idiot twin – Institute of Public Affairs.
Taken from website:
Jennifer Marohasy
Senior Fellow
Dr Jennifer Marohasy is a Senior Fellow at the Insititute of Public Affairs, a Director of the Australian Environment Foundation, a columnist for The Land and has her own blog at http://www.jennifermarohasy.com. Jennifer has a Bachelor of Science and a PhD from the University of Queensland and over a dozen research papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals mostly from her work as a biologist in Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s. Jennifer is well known as a ‘global warming sceptic’ and like many of the early naturalists, including Thomas Huxley, considers scepticism important for the progress of science.
Rog – Ditto. From our srub by the highway this yerar our year long rain data again shows @70% decrease and this is now a confirmed decadal trend. Temps up about 1.5 to 1.8% C over the same period. Outcome plans for carrying only about 20% of previous stock numers hold. Current stocking possible – nil. No end to the great dry here.
I guess it has been caused by alarmist greenies in priestly outfits incanting doom and gloom for coal and fossil fuels.
Fed up with city arm chair know alls opining that it is all good and there is nothing unusual happening, look out the windows guys!
Postscript – unlike many with a view, I actually completed a professional course in meteorology. The science has always been understandable and relative to what I have been observing for decades now. Enough said, back to planning for adaptation not going to waste any more time in useless exchanges with fools.
I ahve a book suggestion for Ms Marohasy. It’ll explain it all to her by someone far more qualified than me (or anyone here):
Climate Change: Turning up the Heat by A. Barrie Pittock. That weblink includes a lot of fundamental references in an attachment. Hopefully she can go out, read and digest the book, and not bother a non-expert blog with a petty attempt to score some obscure point.
I am confident she will find that if she approaches all of the arguments for and against with an appropriately sceptical mind, she will end up agreeing with the world’s meteorologists, who collectively agree that it is ‘very likely’ (90%+) that there is an anthropogenic cause to climate change.
Ninderthana @ 101, the Lavoisier Foundation wouldn’t recognise a new idea if it bit them on the arse. They are not a credible source.
Huh? @ 102, I too am mathematically literate (I have a degree in mathematics), and I find the climate models quite credible. I suggest you take another look, this time with an open mind.
Jennifer really p’ed me off last night with her non-expert opinion (“critique”) on the work of a real climate scientist. It seems quite unfair to have these snake-oil salesman sniping from the sidelines, without any venue for their targets to respond.
So, I decided that I’d send an e-amil to Thomas Crowley, giving him Marohasy’s “critique” and asking for his response.
I didn’t actually expect one, but here it is. Thomas Crowley, author of “Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years” from Edinburgh on Jennifer Marohasy’s “critique”:
Thank you for the opportunity to respond
I disagree with the assessment of my paper.
If you consider the observational reconstruction as model output, the reader is correct. But the statistical reconstruction of observations is completely independent of the climate model, so any statistics derived from a correlation are still legitimate to assess, and the correlations are highly significant.
The correlation with my own reconstruction is obviously not dependent on Mann et al.; the purpose of the study was to show that it is a reconstruction-independent conclusion
The Wegman committee, at which I attended and testified, did not disprove Mann. Wegman merely pointed out that there was an error in the Mann approach. But another person testifyied that the error did not matter much, and I further showed my own reconstruction done in an entirely different manner.
The skeptic is correct that correlation does not PROVE causality (although comparison of individual years of cooling with independent assessments of volcanism – which cause the cooling – shows a remarkable level of agreement). I suppose “blackening” of skies by volcanism and cold years is just accidental? You can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink it.
No one can PROVE global warming. It is like using circumstantial evidence in court and the conclusion is based on the weight of evidence in favor of the conclusion – the melting of Greenland and the Arctic ice cap, independent evidence from proxy data, record temperature increases, increases in precipitation in northern mid- and high latitudes, the near-global scope of the warming, decreases in precipitation in the U.S. southwest, increases in global ocean heat storage, and sea level, the agreement in global warming trends over the last twenty years with a model prediction from 1988 – all consistent with model predictions, one can go on and on. The pile of evidence in favor of global warming is quite convincing, which is why IPCC made such a strong statement.
Alternate explanations do not wash either, nor does the natural variability argument, which I showed cannot explain the unusual nature of the 20th century warming (when compared against the background of the last 1000 years).
One can choose not to believe in global warming, but it is a choice, a believe, and trying to change the minds of people with that mindset generally does not work because very often (although not always) their mindsets are grounded in emotions, resentments, political leanings, etc that are concealed under a hazardously thin cover of “logic”.
Tom Crowley
With all due respect, having a degree in mathematics is not quite the same as being a practitioner in the field of modeling (I have a PhD in mathematics and build models for a living).
I suggest you take another look: climate models are overparameterized and as the link above demonstrates (along with countless other examples), their ability to model the climate is weak.
Michael, thanks for emailing Tom Crowley (and thanks to Tom for replying so quickly).
An important point which Prof. Crowley didn’t mention is that the model that he used was an energy balance model. This type of model is considerably simpler than the Global Climate Models that are more commonly used. The major feature is that they are have a heavily reliance on the fundamental physics (but they sacrifice transient responses) which makes them much more resistant to the standard hand waving global warming “sceptic” criticism.
I suggest you take another look: climate models are overparameterized and as the link above demonstrates (along with countless other examples), their ability to model the climate is weak.
I’ll just point out that the parametrisation of GCM’s have been extensive studied in the scientific literature and the effects of adjusting the parameters through a sensible range isn’t particularly significant. The ability of GCM’s to model is the climate is far from weak. I would suggest that Huh? get some basic familiarity with the scientific literature before making such sweeping statements.
Thanks to Tom Crowley.
But…
Pearls. Before. Swine.
Huh
I build mathematical models for a living too but they are not in climate forecasting so I don’t pretend to be an expert in that field. Even so, saying that something is over-parameterised and dismissing it this is hardly a counter argument. That is a very purist argument for an applied field. Not many areas of science or economics would pass such a test.
Many types of mathematical models suffer from too many parameters and/or too little data. We still test them and use them where justified. There are many problems with long range predictions of climate because they depend on assumptions of future human behaviour. That doesn’t stop us from using such models to test outcomes of various (realistic) assumptions about current trends continuing. Provided the theory the model is based on is sound and the base model has been calibrated reasonably the predictions should at least be comparaatively valid. That is normal practice in many fields. Current climate models are not perfect, but they are good enough for anyone but an extreme skeptic to accept and use. That is the point – once they are good enough to reach a conclusion that we need to change current behaviour, then we rationally should do so. We will not have absolute proof till its too late.
Huh 109
Further to my above, I build models of transport systems for a living. What sort of mathematical models do you build? I find it odd that any practitioner would accetp the over-parameterisation argument, even if true, and as Ken has said, it may not be anyway.
I see “delusionist” is the new “denialist”.
I remember reading in 2001, that there was a 95% confidence that the temperature of 1998 would be exceeded in the following years. Apparently the science was settled, the debate was over, anyone who questioned it was spouting nonsense. (“Denialist” had not yet been coined.)
Protests by sceptics that 1998 was an exceptional El Nino, and didn’t really count, were dismissed. Of course, positions on the importance of 1998 have reversed.
Now we have the disparity between the predictions, the “committed” warming, and the actual temperature.
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTYwMjRiZjJhMmUxYWE2MmQ0NDZhOGM0M2Q3ZWUzMmE=
Ok, temperature could start rising again, but attempts to deny that it has fallen for the last few years seem a bit, well, delusional.
Can somebody help me with Thomas Crowleys comment? He seems to suggest that in 1988 a climate model predicted the climate for the next 20 years (or some limited variable such as temperature perhap) and that the predition has subsequently been shown to have been highly accurate. Can anybody point me to the prediction made in 1988 that he is refering to? Or have I misunderstood his comment?
p.s.
Based on the following:-
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/
One model used in 1988 made predictions and today we know that those predictions might have been right. However it seems that it is still too early to say if the model from 1988 was reliable. It might also have been wrong. In fact if we had a model that took the same input data (ie temperature from 1959 to 1984) and assumed that the trend would continue totally independent of CO2 levels we would also be in a position today to claim that our model might have been right.
Calling all modellers.
Please help me with next year’s crop. I need to know if there will be drought, the price of fuel, the world price of my crop and the interest rate so that I know how much my borrowins will cost. Kind regards
Terje,
I think the post you’ve linked to explains pretty much the whole story. Three scenarios were run, so there was no definitive prediction made, but it’s a general approach. Hansen claimed success in hindsight. Given the state of the science at the time, I think it’s pretty good. Gavin discusses (also in hindsight)the strengths and weaknesses of the approach used at the time.
The models all show that if you run them without greenhouse forcing, temperatures do not rise as experienced.
Would you do as well on a prior trend model? No. There is a statistically signficant shift in the trend of global warming from 1976. The trend since is the one that models have been reproducing with forcing included. (No climate scientist would expect the Earth system to show a purely linear response to warming, despite the fact that models produce such a proportional response – this is a weakness of the current approach and rather than discount the models, we think that the chnace of a more complex response in the real world is a source of concern).
Crowley’s experience is in palaeoclimate. When we look at past changes in orbital forcing we see big flips in conditions regionally and globally. I have worked on this myself. The worry we have is, if we provide regular radiative forcing, will Earth systems flip? The only way we can test that (without hindsight) is with models and they’ve a way to go yet.
Anyway, as Crowley said, this is just one of the lines of evidence. You wouldn’t bet your farm just on this one, but when all the evidence is gathered …
chrisl – I hope you’re just taking the piss. No-one (except god, assuming there is one) can tell you what next year’s weather is going to be except in general terms (winter cooler than summer, that kind of thing). I can tell you with some confidence that fuel will cost more, but interest rates may be up or down, as may the world price for whatever you’re growing.
Terje
I don’t know what the 1988 reference was but I remember reading proceedings of a 1988 conference (in Australia) on atmospheric modelling that included a number of papers trying to estimate the future impacts of climate change. I can’t recall the title but from memory Pearson was the editor. My recollection is that subsequent trends have matched those forecasts quite well. they included predictions of both future temperature change and changes to average rainfall (dryer in SE Australia was forecast then). I think CSIRO ran the conference if it helps.
David,
chrisl is possibly not taking the piss. It is a standard complaint of many that the weather cannot be predicted – so many in the sceptical community will revert to simplistic attacks that because we cannot predict the weather reliably (even out to more than a few days) then we should not presume to predict climate out many years.
This is, of course, nonsence, as the models do not attempt to predict the weather day to day, but to look at trends in the climate.
In much the same way, I believe we will steadily reduce our dependence on fossil fuels over the next several decades in response to increases in its cost. I do not know when the various technological breakthroughs that will allow this will occur, or by how much each of them will reduce it, but the trends over the last several decades are heading in this direction.
Simplistic attacks like this are the easiest to deal with. Unfortunately they are the hardest to explain to the people that frequently make them.
Andrew, I’ve seen the “You can’t predict tomorrow’s weather, let alone the climate in 50 years time!” gambit before, and you’re right, it’s asinine. I thought chrisl might be taking the piss because I thought I’d seen that name elsewhere on the thread. When I checked what he/she had actually said, I realised you’re right: not taking the piss, just an empty vessel incapable of making a serious contribution to the discussion.
Models are the only way any prediction about the future can ever be made. So criticising the use of models would be foolish. In this regard we would seem to agree.
However just to be clear some models that predict the future work and some don’t. The key distinction between such models is their track record. The newtonian model of the world has demonstrated some remarkable accuracy in terms of ballistics and planetary orbits and it is on the basis of this track record that we regard it as a good (although still imperfect) model and adopt it for general usage. If it didn’t allow such predictions then in spite of it’s mathematical beauty it would have been disregarded long ago.
As such I think the predictive success of climate models matters. And the fact that todays climate model is newer than yesterdays model does not allow it to claim superiority in performance. Of course we should update our models but when it comes to relying on models I think we should go with the ones that have a track record of success. And if none has a track record of success then we should indeed be cautious. I’m still cautious because I can’t see the success. I’m not waiting for hindsight but neither am I ready to turn the world on it’s head for a model that has little history of predictive success. If and when a good model (based on successful predictions) is demonstrated I might become less resistant to change.
David, What is the point in predicting the climate in 50 years time? Why not put all resources into predicting it in one or 5 years time so we can either take advantage if it is good news or batten down the hatches if it is bad news.
In climate science, people come out all the time saying their new you-beaut computer model has provided the “smoking gun” that proves that AGM is real. Or they say their model has found the “fingerprint” of AGW, in a clear claim of unshakeable identification. In other words, in the climate science field computer model results are treated as evidence.
In other engineering and scientific fields, this is absolutely not the case. Model results are treated as guides, as indications, as insights, as probes into unknown realms, as learning tools … but not as evidence.
chrisl,
The point is to try to avoid actions (or inactions) that are likely to result in seriously adverse outcomes. If we can take action(s) now that greatly mitigate bad outcomes 50 years from now, then it may be worth taking them.
For example, say a model predicted there was a 50% chance of Halley’s Comet striking Earth on its next circuit of the sun (resulting in, presumably, catastrophe) – but we could take action now that would reduce this possibility to, say 1%. Even though this would only see benefits more than 50 years from now, it may be worth taking the action.
What we would (under this scenario) know of Halley’s comet is simply data. The models turn it into information – in this case possibilities expressed as probabilities – from which we (as individuals or a society) can then choose to take action (or not).
Asking the people operating the models to predict the weather is (to use David’s wording) asinine – and clearly demonstrates either ignorance or disinformation. Attempting to validate the model, and examining the recommendations that flow from it (or them), is useful and productive.
In regards to the future, all we can do is model based on past experience and the best data we have (as Terje agrees above). We then have to, through various processes, take action (or not) based on our best information.
Sniping at the models as they are not able to do what they are not designed to do is worse than useless.
Andrew I would like to draw your attention to The Millenium Bridge in London. It was designed, modelled, constructed and failed. It was opened by the queen and closed by the police two days later.Google wibbly-wobbly bridge.
The question is, how to you validate a climate model that is predicting something 50 years into the future?
chrisl – I hope the engineers who designed that bridge are being sued to within an inch of their lives, however I don’t see its relevance to this discussion.
As I understand it, the models have been validated by starting them at some point in the past, then seeing how the results match up with, say, now. They’ve done pretty well, and I’m quite comfortable (after a fashion) in relying on them giving us a reasonable idea of what our future holds for us. (My discomfort relates more to the consequences of the predictions than the models themselves.)
If you’re unable to understand that, I guess it’s pointless to continue the discussion.
chrisl,
I was living in London at the time. I also crossed it during those infamous two days – so I do not need to google it. The wobble has been greatly overstated: it was safe to cross.
Back to the point – is it your contention, then, that we should never model or forecast anything? Any forecast could be wrong, so it is pointless to do anything in this line? Sorry – but nonsence.
.
At least we now seem to have moved on from the argument of weather over climate. Do you at least understand why your original attack was misguided?
Separating weather from climate is like splitting hairs to me because they are both localized and widespread phenomena in a sense. The ‘weather’ aspect comes from the need for local forecasts but that does not mean a weather system is local. We use the term ‘climate’ in the general sense to mean the ambience in a region over time. Is it wet, is it dry, is it hot or cold. Naturally, hot dry climes can be very wet at times and desert regions are famed for being hot in the day and cold at night. Those local ambient conditions can be due to local conditions, or affected by large scale weather systems.
The long term trend of weather systems is climate, would you agree? The climate in a region can be influenced by the climates in adjacent regions. For example, hot warm air rises in the tropics, condenses and cool. Precipitation removes moisture from the air and that cooler, dry air falls into the desert regions adjacent to the tropics. Precipitation and temperature are signatures of weather but also of climate.
How does one go about predicting climate change? The IPCC said they can’t do it. Then they go on to say the only thing they can do is use an educated guessing system in a computer model. If they can’t do it directly that presumes they don’t know what causes climate change in the first place. So how are models going to do it when they are programmed by the very thought processes that did not know how in the first place? There are no magical properties in computers and the program is a reflection of human thought with all it’s biases and distortions.
I’m still cautious because I can’t see the success. I’m not waiting for hindsight but neither am I ready to turn the world on it’s head for a model that has little history of predictive success. If and when a good model (based on successful predictions) is demonstrated I might become less resistant to change.
I think that climate models do a pretty good job at determining broad features of the climate system (localised effects are harder) for a couple of reasons:
* Real world climatic features such as seasonal migration of rain bands tend to arise spontaneously out of them without the model having any knowledge of these features
* The models have a good record of predicting trends before we know about them. The best example of this is tropospheric warming. The models predicting a warming troposphere whereas satellite data indicated that the troposphere was cooling. Surely a big tick against the models. However, closer examination of the satellite data showed that the calculations used to derive the trends were incorrect and the models were in fact correct.
For an example of the CIS getting attacked from the opposite side of the climate debate readers might like to check out the following:-
http://rumcorps.net/mangledthoughts/2008/08/19/centre-for-independent-studies-demands-imposition-of-co2-taxes/
Tropical troposheric warming is a not necessarilly a good example of the models’ predictive ability. The GCM models all predict that this region should have warmed at a rate of 2 – 3 X the surface warming – if recent global warming (roughly 1975-2002) was caused by GHGs.
In fact the tropoical troposhere has warmed at the same rate, or slower, than the surface. If the models “were in fact correct” that would show that this period of warming was mainly not GHG related.
My god, Terje. I’m still wiping the spittle off my face from following that link you gave. The bloke who wrote it is clearly off his medication.
In fact the tropoical troposhere has warmed at the same rate, or slower, than the surface. If the models “were in fact correct� that would show that this period of warming was mainly not GHG related.
Sorry Bill, but you’ve been played by Dennis Evans or some other “sceptic”. Tropical tropospheric warming is an indicator of ALL warming, not just GHG warming. A better indicator of GHG warming is stratospheric cooling. Unfortunately our ability to measure trends in this region are limited and there are good indications that the dataset is poor.
ChrisL: I think Ian is confusing you with me. He has me pegged as a right wing libertarian ideologue because I sometime argue with immigration evangelists. On the global warming issue, I happen to think that (a) it is real, (b) there is a fair chance the effects could be way worse than the most likely scenario, (c) we owe our grandchildren a decent future, (d) a few percent of GDP doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. And yet I am still not keen on high immigration levels for this continent. Go figure Ian. Maybe the world isn’t one dimensional.
He seems to think the CIS is part of a conspiracy trying to impose a carbon tax on the Australian community. Then again on an earlier occasion he had me tagged as a hippie. Just for giggles see the following account of the incident by Catallaxy:-
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=3470
Thomas Crowley said above; 108
“No one can PROVE global warming. It is like using circumstantial evidence in court and the conclusion is based on the weight of evidence in favor of the conclusion”
“Circumstantial evidence is normally used in science only to support other forms of evidence, so that you can figure out what happened”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence
i.e. Direct evidence. You guys do not seem to have any direct evidence.
Both sides of the debate and the science seem to agree that carbon in the atmosphere is increasing.
Carbon is only a small percentage of the atmosphere, approximately 0.04% on a molar basis, although this is increasing it is far from proved that the small extra amount of carbon relative to the rest of the atmosphere is doing anything.
see these graphs and article;
Click to access Caseofthewarmandfuzzy.pdf
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003351.html
the dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
#139 Oddly enough, I read this aphorism this AM, attributed to Sir Montagu Norman in a Time article from 1941 (aren’t the Intertubes wonderful?). I assume you weren’t reading the same article.
Amazing that people can dismiss the work from every scientific body that studies climate in favour of a few articles by opinion writers who get their “science” only from sources that say what they want to hear – said articles when subjected to review by people who know the subject well being shown to lack substance. More amazing that the results of ongoing scientific inquiry get labelled cultish belief whereas unfounded opinion that it’s all cultish belief is believed cultishly.
Ken,
‘Circumstantial evidence’ is opinion not scientific method ;
“No one can PROVE global warming. It is like using circumstantial evidence in court and the conclusion is based on the weight of evidence in favor of the conclusionâ€?
People are still waiting “to get their “scienceâ€? from every scientific body that studies climate”
No, in fact that’s the first time I’ve heard of the 1st Baron Norman (and Czech gold). One of my favourite aphorisms, up there with “like herding cats”.
Back to delusionism. For those of us who are not climate scientists, what we are essentially asked to believe is that a global conspiracy has formed before our very eyes by all of the colluding evil climatologists, backed by the deep green communist cabal, which has totally co-opted every reputable scientific institution and publication, leading to completely erroneous claims about fundamental physical processes. And the only people wise enough to see this are a bunch of bored, almost universally far-right-wing, amateurs on the internet.
Oh, the moon landings were faked too.
Tony G, anyone who regards Our Jennifer as an authoritative source is as delusional as she is. I won’t bother to go into detail or post supporting links (as I doubt if you’ll follow them up anyway), but she’s either a fool or a liar, but most likely both.
David, I base my opinions on information I source myself. There are radicals on both sides of the fence and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
“For those of us who are not climate scientists” there seems to be valid arguments regarding the science methodology used. To say the ‘science’ is settled is delusional, because generally science never is. There are credible climatologists and people with related scientific expertise that dispute AGW science.
No one is asked to believe that a global conspiracy has formed, but they are asked to believe ‘circumstantial’ as opposed to ‘scientific’ evidence. This ‘circumstantial’evidence is being put forward by people with vested interests.
There are many theories out there which cannot be tested, masquerading as scientific theories in order to have credibility AGW might be the correct explanation, but at this stage it is just not scientific-this could change.
The AGW lobby are proposing a major changes that could wreck the economy. Thank God they do not have a majority in the Senate, because it looks like they will have to prove their case there.
There are credible climatologists and people with related scientific expertise that dispute AGW science. Oh goody, you can easily identify them, and their particular issues.
It is a sheer impossibility outside of quantum physics to have evidence of the future. For you, climate science can never be ‘proven’, until it has already happened. You do realise the risks with this approach?
Why do people call this the “climate change debate”? the “debate” ended for the rest of the world years ago, you go anywhere in Europe, Brazil or the UK and you see solar panels on roofs, wind farms, economical vehicles, switch engines (100% ethanol or petrol vehicles), fantastic public transport and unpopular political action such as london’s congestion charging but in Australia apparently theres still a debate on whether there is a problem or not.
The real problem is this notion that everyone should be heard and given an equal voice.
Real balanced journalism or debate should reflect the views of society in other words if you have a debate on climate change there should be 1000 scientist arguing the case for action for every 1 who is arguing the case for selfish inaction.
How a lamen such as Andrew Bolt can be given more TV airtime than real climate scientists is beyond me and can only be explained by entertainment value for ratings.
“It is a sheer impossibility outside of quantum physics to have evidence of the future”
As I said above “The heart of science is once you have your theory, use it to predict the outcome of a future observation. This is the “testingâ€? part of science”. The most valuable theories are those which make precise and risky predictions, which could easily disprove the theory if they failed. If it does this it is classified as scientific evidence based on the scientific method.
AGW evidence is not based on the ‘scientific method’. AGW scientists do not test their theories in the real world and they do not make make precise and risky predictions, which could easily disprove their theory if they failed. The nexus betwenn anthropological activity and global warming is far from proved by a ‘scientific method’.
Computer models are not the real world and they inherently prone to making misleading predictions, ask anyone who relies on them to beat the TAB.
The case based on the‘circumstantial’evidence put forward by the proponents of AGW can and will be countered by circumstantial evidence put forward by the opposite side until ‘scientific methods’ prove otherwise.
Wilful We will just have to agree to disagree.
Shane A, if everybody started to jump off the harbour bridge would that make it right?
‘The rest of the world” could easily be wrong especially considering the science is not based on a ‘scientific method’.
Tony G, believe it or not, the predict-and-test stuff has already been done. The models predicted that the Arctic icecap would disappear, and it’s doing so, but rather quicker than the models predicted. There are probably other examples, but you should be as capable of finding them as I am.
Re #121 Socrates:
The 1988 conference you refer to Socrates, was probably the Greenhouse workshops that were held nationwide in November 1988. These followed on from the Greenhouse 87 symposium “Greenhouse — planning for climate change”; editor Dr Graeme Pearman, Division of Atmospheric Research, CSIRO.
Every state government should have published the outcomes of their workshop Greenhouse 88 as a book, held by your local or state library.
Regards,
Don.