[Winstonm]

 hrothgar, on 2012-March-14, 04:10, said:

No doubt about it. Winston stated that this seemed plausible on multiple occasions, over a long course of time.

Here's the difference...

Winston eventually changed his mind (which is a very hard thing to do)

I can clarify this. I had a lot of questions and doubts and thought that a conspiracy was within the realm of the possible. I was shown to be wrong in that thinking, and I changed my mind about the matter.

[luke warm]

 hrothgar, on 2012-March-14, 04:21, said:

You know, like the good old days when Buckley helped drive the Birchers out of the Republican party and out of political discourse.

yep, good old bill... there hasn't been one as honest as him since he died

 kenberg, on 2012-March-14, 06:24, said:

We make such judgments all the time, or at least I do. I suspect others do too, and for that matter I imagine Al does.

everybody appeals to authority of one sort or another... it is, strictly speaking, a fallacy to do so, but what choice do we have? Michelangelo isn't coming back

 Winstonm, on 2012-March-14, 11:34, said:

I can clarify this. I had a lot of questions and doubts and thought that a conspiracy was within the realm of the possible. I was shown to be wrong in that thinking, and I changed my mind about the matter.

okay, i must have missed your post about changing your mind... mea culpa

[Daniel1960]

I some are still referring to the Doran survey, which only says that 97% agree that the planet has warmed, and that humans have contributed. For a more thorough survey, check the following:

http://www.ametsoc.o...ry-Findings.pdf

[Winstonm]

 Daniel1960, on 2012-March-15, 12:10, said:

I some are still referring to the Doran survey, which only says that 97% agree that the planet has warmed, and that humans have contributed. For a more thorough survey, check the following:

http://www.ametsoc.o...ry-Findings.pdf

My personal view on this George Mason survey is that it is pretty worthless - asking an association of meteorologists what they think about global warming and climate change is only slightly better than taking a poll of random college students. I'm really not sure what this particular poll was trying to accomplish.

[luke warm]

 Winstonm, on 2012-March-15, 16:15, said:

I'm really not sure what this particular poll was trying to accomplish.

just trying to get a consensus i imagine

[Winstonm]

 luke warm, on 2012-March-16, 03:35, said:

just trying to get a consensus i imagine

A concensus of the 25% of the association members who bothered to respond?

[luke warm]

 Winstonm, on 2012-March-16, 07:02, said:

A concensus of the 25% of the association members who bothered to respond?

hey, you build yours your way

[jonottawa]

Deal with overpopulation and you solve this problem. Don't deal with overpopulation and even if you manage to solve this problem another one will crop up that is just as bad.

[kenberg]

 Winstonm, on 2012-March-15, 16:15, said:

My personal view on this George Mason survey is that it is pretty worthless - asking an association of meteorologists what they think about global warming and climate change is only slightly better than taking a poll of random college students. I'm really not sure what this particular poll was trying to accomplish.

A reasonably well-designed survey of reasonably informed people does not sound crazy to me. By itself, I wouldn't think of it as conclusive of much of anything, but I would expect that the people who were asked, and who bothered to respond, probably know a fair amount more about the subject than I do.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2012-March-17, 12:06, said:

A reasonably well-designed survey of reasonably informed people does not sound crazy to me. By itself, I wouldn't think of it as conclusive of much of anything, but I would expect that the people who were asked, and who bothered to respond, probably know a fair amount more about the subject than I do.

It seems rather pointless is all.

[Al_U_Card]

 luke warm, on 2012-March-16, 15:45, said:

hey, you build yours your way

Can you cherry-pick a survey? With 97% confidence, apparently...

As noted by Lawrence Soloman of the National Post:

This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2009 online survey of 10,257 earth scientists, conducted by two researchers at the University of Illinois. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers – in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout.

The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth – out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists and astronomers. That left the 10,257 scientists in disciplines like geology, oceanography, paleontology, and geochemistry that were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided that scientific accomplishment should not be a factor in who could answer – those surveyed were determined by their place of employment (an academic or a governmental institution). Neither was academic qualification a factor – about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma.

To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response –just 3146, or 30.7%, answered the two questions on the survey:

1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

The questions were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims that the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think that humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming – quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say that human are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming.

Surprisingly, just 90% of those who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen – I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today.

As for the second question, 82% of the earth scientists replied that that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe that human activity been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a 10% or 15% or 35% increase to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t.

In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus – almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for subsets that would yield a higher percentage. They found it – almost — in those whose recent published peer-reviewed research fell primarily in the climate change field. But the percentage still fell short of the researchers’ ideal. So they made another cut, allowing only the research conducted by those earth scientists who identified themselves as climate scientists.

Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers were then satisfied with their findings [2]. Are you?

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com

[PassedOut]

As climate changes, Louisiana seeks to lift a highway

Quote

On a broader level, the Transportation Department is already analyzing how global warming will affect the gulf. Its preliminary assessment, issued in 2008, estimates that relative sea-level rise “will make much of the existing infrastructure” in the region “prone to frequent or permanent inundation.” It will complete a study this year examining climate impact on transportation infrastructure in Mobile, Ala.

Tim Osborn, NOAA navigation manager for the central Gulf Coast, describes the Highway 1 predicament as “a way we can look at climate change as having near-term impacts that are national in scope and impact.”

A group of area residents and businesses, dubbed the LA 1 Coalition, have spent the past 15 years lobbying for funding to build the highway well above any possible storm surge or sea-level creep. Replacing the 10 miles closest to the port cost $371 million, paid for with local, state and federal funds plus a new bridge toll.

Folks fuss about the cost of reducing the billions of tons of CO2 that mankind dumps into the air each year. But continuing to spew so much CO2 has costs as well -- immense costs. Seems that the fussers calculate that those immense costs will be borne by others, but that fantasy might turn back around on them...

[Al_U_Card]

 jonottawa, on 2012-March-16, 15:51, said:

Deal with overpopulation and you solve this problem. Don't deal with overpopulation and even if you manage to solve this problem another one will crop up that is just as bad.

Interestingly, the only sensible correlation with falling birth rates (and therefore an eventual reduction in population) comes from rising standards of living which, in turn, are related to energy availability as well as energy density/GNP. This implies that cheap and available energy is the key. Coal, gas and oil while we wait for fusion, perhaps?

Unless you are willing to sacrifice your first-born?

[Al_U_Card]

 Winstonm, on 2012-March-16, 07:02, said:

A concensus of the 25% of the association members who bothered to respond?

OMG! I may just have to change my mind about consensus...

97% agreement must surely mean they are right!

[Cthulhu D]

Al_U_Card: Was the US Government behind 9/11?

[Winstonm]

 Al_U_Card, on 2012-March-22, 07:01, said:

OMG! I may just have to change my mind about consensus...

97% agreement must surely mean they are right!

Who or what is the source of your funding, Al? Keeping this thread alive seems to be your primary activity.

[luke warm]

 Cthulhu D, on 2012-March-22, 18:53, said:

Al_U_Card: Was the US Government behind 9/11?

the 9/11 thread is down the hall and to the left

[Al_U_Card]

 luke warm, on 2012-March-23, 03:48, said:

the 9/11 thread is down the hall and to the left

Would that be by the EBE door where they sell the tin-foil hats?

Right now, it looks as if the banks are a bigger threat than any (other) terrorist organization...

[Al_U_Card]

An interesting image of what (among other things that 9-11 has meant to the US and its citizens...

[blackshoe]

I wonder how many folks have quit flying because of TSA?