Quote:Perhaps you missed the part, Morganni, where when asked I presented the conclusions and reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Joint Science Academies, the American Meteorological Society, the Federal Climate Change Science Program, and the Geological Society of America, who all unequivocally declared that climate change exists and has man-made causes.
If you disagree with what Necratoid or anyone else is saying, fine. Present your evidence. An argument that boils down to "You're wrong because you aren't a professional" is about as useful and significantly less amusing than the average personal attack.
Perhaps you missed, also, that I posted the fact that there was not a single published scientific extract between 1993 and 2003 on the subject of climate change that didn't either prove man-made climate change, work off of models based on man-made climate change, or be dealing with subjects neutral to the questions.
I'm not certain how you missed it, though, since you posted directly after it.
(Though I didn't post it, perhaps you also missed the reference made to the Steve Project. Look it up, it's a hoot.)
Where exactly is your wild outrage that ECSNorway and Necratoid have never, not even once, directly addressed or adequetely countered the point that they are on the opposite side of this issue virtually every relevent association of science on earth? Do you think "Why the hell do you think you know better than thousands of people who do this for a living?" is a question that doesn't even deserve an answer? You're certainly incredibly defensive of their right not to answer why 99% of people who know they're talking about think they're wrong. Whereas, for instance, ECSNorway's assertions that, quote:
"Given that the Antarctic temperature is actually dropping and the ice cap there growing, I think you need to actually look at the scientific evidence rather than the deliberately and maliciously manipulated crap that you normally look for."
or
"It is my firm belief that Kyoto is nothing more than a deliberate attempt to strangle the economy of Western nations and set a precedent for a global taxation authority."
or
"Politicians in the early 21st century compare anyone who dares to question "Global Warming" to Holocaust-Denying Nazi fucktards."
...have never merited so much as a single peep from you. You're quite willing to speak up when you think I've said something outside the bounds of polite debate; do you think those above comments were within those bounds? If not, why exactly were you so damn quick to jump to their defence, but so resolutely silent when they get the same treatment they give?
But truthfully, I don't give a damn if you're tired of it.
It's a question that deserves to be answered, and will never get a better answer from them than rambling about conspiracies and wild God-of-the-gaps speculation. This is exactly what's wrong with this sort of debate, and you said it yourself in the first place: "it's too politicised".
No shit.
It's "too politicised" because for certain people, ideology trumps facts. Certainly it's hypothetically possible that the entire scientific community might be incorrect on a basic assumption, but they are not acting like they seriously are trying to prove this. Nowhere will you find an acknowledgement from them that the vast weight of scientific opinion against them means anything significant. It's dismissed - a bothersome detail that means virtually nothing, whereas the comment of any one single scientist that disagrees with the orthodox belief is instantly held up to be the gospel truth.
Why is it if one guy says global climate change data is falsified, that's incredibly meaningful, but if 5000 say it isn't, that's easy for them to disbelieve? Why is it if one person argues that Mars is warming because of increased solar output, that's a blow to the very foundations of the global warming belief and "very interesting and worth considering", but when it's immediately replied "No, that isn't the case" by a hell of a lot more people, that's dismissed without question?
Why is it the mainstream media presents there as being a debate in the scientific community about the matter, when the simple fact is that there's not? Hell, why is it that there's new stories every six months about "the smoking gun for global warming", when the vast majority of all researchers and qualified professionals in the field have acknowledged it and been doing research based on it for decades?
The reason this point keeps getting raised is because people like Necratoid and ECSNorway are fundamentally dishonest on subjects like this, and their dishonesty misleads others. The reason there is stickers in textbooks in Atlanta informing students that evolution "may not be factual" is because of people with the exact same belief - that the overwhelming weight of evidence and belief by trained professionals is entirely meaningless next to ideological convictions.
"It is my firm belief that Kyoto is nothing more than a deliberate attempt to strangle the economy of Western nations and set a precedent for a global taxation authority."
Of course it's his firm belief. Politics in North America has become a team sport. Despite the fact people from every political stripe have been convinced by the mountains of evidence supporting man-made climate change, it's an environmental issue, and that means it's "left". And because that makes it a "leftist belief", certain people are determined to oppose it regardless of the evidence. Of
course Western countries got together to create an accord to strangle the economy of Western countries and set a precedent for a global taxation authority. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but it's close enough to a hideous caricature of what "the left" wants, and that's good enough.
To hell with that. The computer you're typing on is an incredibly intricate machine, incorporating materials, knowledge and research from all over the world. It allows you to communicate with people from thousands of miles away. The reason it works is because the orthodox scientific beliefs about how it ought to work - and there are thousands, probably millions of scientific theories that come together to produce an Internet capable computer - bear out in reality.
The reason your computer works, the reason man has stepped on the moon, the reason we've altered plants at their genetic core - and why we know they have one to alter, the reason we've exploded atomic bombs?
All because the scientific community was right. The modern scientific community is very rarely NOT right when it adopts a theory - a theory, by the way, being the closest thing to "fact" science acknowledges... gravity and evolution are both "theories" - is in large part because they have a far more rigorous system for making sure ideologically-motivated bullshit doesn't get in the system than public debate does.
The fact is, even when it's "wrong", it's almost invariably more accurate to say "They were right about most of it, but there was an incomplete picture". The reasons many - NOT ALL - scientists believed that heavier-than-air flight was impossible were based largely on sound scientific principles that in most cases are still taken into account today. Where there was debate - and there was in fact debate - was whether other principles counteracted that, which is why there was a science of aeronautics and researchers like Otto Lilienthal that the Wright Brothers learned from before making their own breakthrough (to say nothing of breakthroughs in lighter, more powerful engines that made what they did possible). It is in fact absurdly incorrect and misleading to present that as a situation where "orthodox science said it was impossible but two non-scientists proved them all wrong!", but that misleading and incorrect conclusion suits certain people, so they like to present it that way.
Some people in these threads would like to pretend that the weight of scientific belief is essentially meaningless, that it's believable and common for the entire scientific community to just be wrong. It's not. They'd also like to pretend there is actually a debate in the scientific community about the matter; this, too, is a misleading falsehood. The very fact that both points are argued by the same people is a telling sign - what difference does it make if there's a debate in the scientific community if the scientific community's opinion doesn't mean anything conclusive?
You're not willing to call them on their bullshit, Morganni, so other people had to. I'm sorry that offends you, but maybe next time ECSNorway holds up a single dissenting scientist (or guy complaining about his university thesis) as the shining light of truth and dismisses the carefully considered research of 5000 other scientists, you can find a way more acceptable to you to point out what a hypocrite he is.