AGW Denial - The New Creationism/Holocaust Denial Anti-Intellecual Meme?

[Matilda]

Ugh. The debate is never over in science.

If new evidence overturning AGW emerged tomorrow, then the debate would reignite. Until then the scientific debate has moved on.

When you discredit other sources (ie. Alex Jones) and think this bolsters your sources any?

This thread isn't actually about the causes or existence of AGW, but the tactics used by AGW deniers and similarities with other purveyors of woo. Alex Jones is an example of overlap, which may be part of the reason for overlapping tactics.

AGW has not been proven

And I use the word proven...where? I don't use that word in this context because it isn't appropriate. Evolution, gravity, any theory isn't 'proven'. There aren't raging scientific debates about their existence either.

only conjectured.

Another inappropriate word in this context. AGW isn't guesswork.

The debate still RAGES about AGW.

There is something of a cultural and political debate, and this seems to be far greater in the US than in the UK. I was talking about a scientific debate.

Honestly, if we're ON THE BRINK of WORLD WIDE MELTDOWN, then say your prayers: it's too late.

I disagree. I wouldn't write off our collective ability to address an urgent issue. We've done it before with sulphates and CFCs, and while this is a very different challenge, I hope that we'll rise to it.

I think we have time to rationally think this through, and if we don't have time, then it doesn't matter anyways.

False dilemma. And people have been rationally thinking this through for a long time now.

 

[mythstifieD]

The growing earth idea is very, very funny. But not only does it lack evidence, it's falsifiable -- the existence of subduction zones.

Evidence.

 

[mythstifieD]

If new evidence overturning AGW emerged tomorrow, then the debate would reignite. Until then the scientific debate has moved on.

I'm actually more of a fence-sitter on this issue.

I'm fascinated by this comment, though. Are you seriously telling me that there is not ONE piece of evidence against AGW? That any "scientist" who claims to have evidence against AGW is committing pseudo-science? I'm blown away that there is any area of science that has a complete 100% consensus, no more questions left, time to build big machines.

 

[elbe]

You need to be more careful.

Global Warming is a scientific theory because there's actually data.

Anthropomorphic Global Warming is a hypothesis, which hasn't convinced me either for or against yet.

Is this just a game where people claim I say things I don't? I said global warming was a theory, I never said AGW was because I honestly don't know. It might be, and the evidence I've seen for it is far more compelling than that against, but again, I'm not a climatologist.

 

[The Painter]

Actually I was thinking of deniers in general, be it holocaust, evolution, AGW, or whatever.

OK,I believe in Evolution and the Holocaust but not AGW. I'm not even sure of GW. I know what warms the Earth.....It's the Sun. Without the Sun we're dead. There are credible scientists that dispute the current agenda. I do not base my opinions on politics. I base them on the scientific evidence that is in dispute. I lean toward the skeptic end of things. Don't you????

 

[elbe]

OK,I believe in Evolution and the Holocaust but not AGW. I'm not even sure of GW. I know what warms the Earth.....It's the Sun. Without the Sun we're dead. There are credible scientists that dispute the current agenda. I do not base my opinions on politics. I base them on the scientific evidence that is in dispute. I lean toward the skeptic end of things. Don't you????

Maybe I should clarify this again: I was talking about deniers. Deniers are different than skeptics. Skeptics != deniers. I really didn't think that would be a difficult concept.

 

[Matilda]

Are you seriously telling me that there is not ONE piece of evidence against AGW?

Evidence presented in peer reviewed journals and accepted by a majority of climatologists? That overturns AGW? I haven't come across any.

In 2004 Naomi Oreskes (I linked to one of her lectures on the previous page) analysed 928 abstracts and didn't find one that disagreed with the consensus. Not one. She explains the tactics and efforts of those who want you to believe there is a debate over the existence of AGW amongst scientists in the lecture I linked to.

That any "scientist" who claims to have evidence against AGW is committing pseudo-science?

Psuedo-science, pathological science or made a mistake (scientists are human, hence peer review, scientific method etc).

I'm blown away that there is any area of science that has a complete 100% consensus,

So, do you think there's a big scientific debate about the existence of evolution? Or perhaps the scientific debate moved on from there and centres on the intricacies of how it happens. And while there is a consensus about evolution, nitwits like Behe still exist.

no more questions left, time to build big machines.

There are huge numbers of questions about AGW. There will be questions about AGW we haven't even thought of yet. But there's no debate raging about its existence. There is a scientific consensus.

 

[mythstifieD]

Evidence presented in peer reviewed journals and accepted by a majority of climatologists? That overturns AGW? I haven't come across any.

Would anyone here like to disagree with that? It's intriguing that it's such a rock-solid case. Possible, but still quite amazing that we figured it out SO well!

 

[Meed]

GreNME,

I think the similarties you point out are valid. But there are some differences. Where those differences lie, better comparisons can be made to the relatively short-lived defense of tobacco movement and the defense of Reagan's "star wars" project. The Marshall Institute (not with actual research, but with a media campaign) supported star wars, defended tobacco and started what I think was one of the first big anti-AGW campaigns. Singer and Seik both defend tobacco and attacked AGW. The common theme here is a political/pro-industry motivation. Many libertarians and republicans hop on board with deniers either because they are against regulation or because they trust conservative politicians more than liberal ones and view AGW as a political issue. The CATO institute is another example of politically motivated opposition. As far as tactics go maybe there isn't that much difference... But there are big differences in power, money, politicization and motivation (and consequently, in success).

 

[varwoche]

Arguments using dissenting exceptions ... The tactic includes taking a dissenting opinion that directly opposes or seems to contradict a consensus (whether it actually does or not) and claims that as support for their ideological argument.

Worse than that. If someone is going to hold up a dissenting exception, at least acknowledge it as such. But no, then comes the meta bs -- the pretense there is no consensus. These bare naked displays of fact-free, cult-like zealotry used to astound me.

 

[Matilda]

GreNME,
The Marshall Institute (not with actual research, but with a media campaign) supported star wars, defended tobacco and started what I think was one of the first big anti-AGW campaigns.

Yes. They used the same tactic time and time again. Use the media to create the impression that there were big debates in the scientific community about subjects where a scientific consensus existed. They did the same thing over CFCs and sulphates, and they did it with AGW. Same groups, same tactics.

It's the exact same tactics intelligent designers have used -- create the impression of a controversy that doesn't exist.

 

[Matilda]

Would anyone here like to disagree with that? It's intriguing that it's such a rock-solid case. Possible, but still quite amazing that we figured it out SO well!

When multiple lines of independent data all point the same way, when a theory best explains that data, when no theory that better explains that data is put forward, when the strength of the theory has built up over decades, why would there be a big scientific controversy? It is amazing it's been figured it out so well, but science is full of amazing achievements. There's real scientific debate and it's on the impact of climate change.

There's another debate, and its rightly far broader than scientists - what we do about it. That debate has been happening at least since my childhood. The tragedy of the tactics discussed in this thread is that while so many have been giving thought and debating what to do, so many others who have a right to be a part of that international debate are excluded, because they don't see the need for it. Because they've been lied to.

 

[Trakar]

OK,I believe in Evolution and the Holocaust but not AGW. I'm not even sure of GW. I know what warms the Earth.....It's the Sun. Without the Sun we're dead. There are credible scientists that dispute the current agenda. I do not base my opinions on politics. I base them on the scientific evidence that is in dispute. I lean toward the skeptic end of things. Don't you????

But the Skeptical position supports the mainstream science and its supporting empiric evidences, which is typical and normal for skepticism. Surely you aren't arguing for psuedo-skepticism in defense of pseudoscience?

 

[daredelvis]

Evidence presented in peer reviewed journals and accepted by a majority of climatologists? That overturns AGW? I haven't come across any.

Would anyone here like to disagree with that? It's intriguing that it's such a rock-solid case. Possible, but still quite amazing that we figured it out SO well!

No. Sums it up pretty well. Someone needs to learn what a scientific theory is, how the scientific method works and slooooowly back away from the men of straw.

Daredelvis

 

[lomiller]

OK,I believe in Evolution and the Holocaust but not AGW. I'm not even sure of GW. I know what warms the Earth.....It's the Sun. Without the Sun we're dead. There are credible scientists that dispute the current agenda. I do not base my opinions on politics. I base them on the scientific evidence that is in dispute. I lean toward the skeptic end of things. Don't you????

Some basic science education may be in order. An object warms because the heat energy it receives exceeds the heat energy it gives off.

The Sun may be the source of energy the earth receives but it’s a remarkably stable source of energy that doesn’t show significant variation on anything less then million+ year scales. (Sunspot cycles are proxies for a 0.1% cyclical variation in solar output, a value to small to have measurable effects on climate. Longer term variations in solar output may be responsible for small global temperature changes of ~0.5 deg over periods greater then 200 years, but these are insignificant compared to what’s happening now)

There are credible scientists that dispute the current agenda.

Without resorting to conspiracy theories, explain to us why these credible scientists don't publish papers supporting their positions, and that on the rare occasion they do publish their ideas are broadly rejected/ignored.

I base them on the scientific evidence that is in dispute. I lean toward the skeptic end of things.

People dispute the scientific evidence for evolution as well. The key question is where those conversations are held. A real skeptic does not simply accept random internet posts as legitimately deputing peer reviewed scientific evidence.

 

[Peephole]

Hardly a tempest in a teapot. People are rightly outraged, for this is a crass abuse of trust. What people are angry about is the lack of faith these scientists showed in those of supposedly lesser intelligence, e.g., non-scientists: "Oh look, these results won't look good to the layman -- let's bury them!".

You are making stuff up, nothing in these emails suggested burrying anything.

The problem is that this isn't the first time scientists were caught fudging data to make it more "dramatic" or "understandable" to the layman (in their view), as in the infamous "hockey-stick" graphs so often used to predict "let's do something NOW!" about just about anything.

There is nothing wrong with the hockey stick graphs. They have proven to be correct time after time.

Note that evolutionists and holocaust historians did not act in this way. Was there ever a case of an entire history department deliberately discarding historical archives so that the "official story" about how the holocaust occurred will not be "hurt" by confusing data? Had an entire paleontology department ever destroyed a fossil deposit because new creatures there did not "fit" with the current understanding of evolution and the public would just get all confused and think evolution never happened if they hear about it?

Nothing even remotely equivalent happened in climate science.

 

[Peephole]

Anthropomorphic Global Warming is a hypothesis, which hasn't convinced me either for or against yet.

No, it's not. There's tons of corroborating evidence for AGW.

What you think about it is completely irrelevant.

 

[Peephole]

Ugh. The debate is never over in science.

No fancy scientist is gonna tell me Jesus didn't ride around on dinosaurs! The debate is never over!

AGW has not been proven, only conjectured. The debate still RAGES about AGW. Copenhagen was incredibly premature.

As stated earlier, there's almost no research that points to something else than AGW. 99% of all published material on climate change agrees that AGW is fact, as does 90% of all publishers on climate change. There's the consensus established by the IPCC. And here's an incomplete list of organisations that agree AGW is reality:

• Academia Brasileira de Ciéncias
• Academia Mexicana de Ciencias
• Academié des Sciences
• Academy of Science of South Africa
• Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
• Africa Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science
• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Chemical Society
• American Geophysical Union
• American Institute of Biological Sciences
• American Institute of Physics
• American Meteorological Society
• American Society of Agronomy
• American Society of Plant Biologists
• American Statistical Association
• Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
• Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
• Botanical Society of America
• Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
• Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
• Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
• Crop Science Society of America
• Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina
• Ecological Society of America
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies
• Geological Society of America
• Geological Society of Australia
• Indian National Science Academy
• International Council for Science
• International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
• International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
• National Academy of Sciences
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• National Center for Atmospheric Research
• National Council of Engineers Australia
• National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Natural Science Collections Alliance
• Organization of Biological Field Stations
• Royal Meteorological Society
• Royal Society
• Royal Society of Canada
• Royal Society of New Zealand
• Russian Academy of Sciences
• Science Council of Japan
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• Society of Systematic Biologists
• Soil Science Society of America
• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

 

[varwoche]

And here's an incomplete list of organisations that agree AGW is reality ...

Yeah but we need to hold this up against the impressive list of organizations that oppose consensus:

• American Association of Petroleum Geologists

 

[skeptical]

AGW has not been proven, only conjectured.

Proofs are for mathematics. In the real world there is no such thing as proving something because new evidence can always come to light 5 seconds after you have concluded your "proof". There is only a preponderance of evidence. However, in some cases the preponderance of evidence can by quite high, in fact far high enough for a reasonable person to make a judgment.

In the case of Agw (The A being operative for the moment), we have 4 critical pieces of data:

1) Atmospheric Carbon isotope ratios that point strongly to human carbon release
2) Sophisticated tracking of how much human produced Carbon is being released into the atmosphere correlated against atmospheric Carbon increases
3) No known Carbon sink capable of absorbing this human released Carbon in the short/human lifetime(s) scale
4) Laws of physics which dictate that decreasing a thermal bodies ability to radiate infrared radiation MUST cause it to heat up

That is not "proof", but it is far more than "conjecture". If you require more than this, state exactly what data is required and why.

The debate still RAGES about AGW. Copenhagen was incredibly premature.

The "debate" among scientists, as opposed to bloggers, youtubers and politicians, is primarily about model accuracy, timeframes and solutions. There is no real scientific debate about whether GW is happening nor whether it is due for the most part to anthropogenic causes.

Other than the items listed, there is "debate" about AGW among climatologists in the same way there is "debate" about Evolution among biologists or Relativity among physicists, i.e. some tinkering around the edges and interesting but esoteric bickering by experts in the fields, but overwhelming agreement on the basics due to the vast weight of evidence.

Honestly, if we're ON THE BRINK of WORLD WIDE MELTDOWN, then say your prayers: it's too late. I think we have time to rationally think this through, and if we don't have time, then it doesn't matter anyways.

It depends on what you mean by "on the brink". 10 yrs? 20 yrs? Something like 20-50 years is what I have seen, which in human terms doesn't seem like "on the brink", except for one thing: governments and societies move GLACIALLY slowly to change their habits and policies. The point isn't that tomorrow Florida will be underwater, the point is that if we don't want Florida to be under water in 50 years we need to start making plans and goals NOW.

People with small children don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars for college NOW, but they will need it 20 years from now, so its best to start planning for that occurrence and arranging lifestyle such that when the time comes we AREN'T "on the brink". We do have time to do something, but we must START now and not wait until we are "on the brink", because then it will be too late.

Make sense?