Even in its inferior condition, now that it is a Murdock newspaper, the non-editorial reporting in the Journal is excellent. And the editorial slants are somethings refreshing and challenging. But on issues relating to ecology, the Journal tends to “flat-earth” thinking.

I agree; the more you know about science and the world in which we live, the more you realize that science is still not ready to make reliable conclusions about it and especially to make predictions of future climate catastrophe. The less you know about science and the world around us, the more you must rely on intuition and on the authority of those who claim to be experts. Unfortunately many people consider the media to be that authority. The media of course, just wants to sell stories to make a buck.

For the scientifically literate the greenhouse effect is undeniable as is the logic behind the hypothesis that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane etc… should enhance the effect with a commensurate effect on global climate. Unfortunately, the purveyors of CAGW don’t stop there. They insist that models with recognizable limitations will somehow produce nigh-irrefutable outputs and choose to omit serious considerations of uncertainty.

For those of us used to seeing error bars; levels of significance based on testing; and qualifiers in reports the outputs from much of the field of climate science is frustrating to say the least. In the IPCC reports we are presented with levels of confidence which are nothing of the sort. They are unsupported by statistical rigour and while they may be correct are not in the least reproducible.

Were I confident that the “confidence levels” were reliable I would argue that immediate responses were necessary and “damn the expense”. However even in the original version of the Precautionary Principal from Rio there is a qualifier for cost-effectiveness: “In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”

As a numerate and scientifically literate individual I am skeptical, not of the science, but of the purveyors of the message. I do not deny the plausibility of the results, but I do not believe the unsupported and unsupportable spin placed on those results. As a Canadian, I cannot approve of any plan where all the efforts and sacrifices of myself and my countrymen (and women) will be erased in less than a single month’s construction of Chinese power plants. I will not seek to beggar my neighbour when I have absolute certainty that it will have no net effect on the global picture. Until someone presents a plan that can be demonstrated to have a reasonable opportunity to have a significant effect I will not be pushing for immediate action on the climate change front. That doesn’t make me a denier it makes me a realist. Instead I will push for increased resources to be allocated to projects that have the potential of demonstrable and definable positive outcomes like ecosystem restoration and preservation.

“no … calling irrationality “whackjob” IS rational.”

Is it? Excellent! Then I can at last join the ranks of the rational!

You’re argument is whackjob.

There! An irrefutable demonstration that I’m right about everything. Case proved, and logically watertight, right?

This is the standard of debate you guys consider polite and rational?!

If this is how you want to portray liberal standards of logic and reason, and how you’re so superior to those nuke-supporting conservatives, then go ahead. You’re not fooling anybody, and neither is Jamie. It’s a shame – liberals are certainly capable of a higher standard, as this site has shown in the past. It’s a shame when some let them down.

And you’re still not reading that last paragraph.

Besides, I’m not alone. Jamie Vernon “called you out” on the fracking post, even more than I did.

See you in the funnies. Along with the Johnny who thinks you’re smarter than Vernon.

Are you saying you weren’t ignoring/discounting me before?! I’m flattered!

You evidently missed my last paragraph. And just calling anything you don’t like “whackjob” isn’t a rational argument. But I’m sure you knew that.

42. Epsilon Given Says:
June 25th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
“It is both extremely hypocritical and logically nonsensical for people to cry out loud against alleged conspiracies to impose a “world government” and in the same time say that because the current system doesn’t work, nothing should be done.”
I have not cried out loud against a “world government” in my comment–although I would certainly oppose any action taken to create such a government. That is not the issue, though.
The issue is the idea that we “just have to do something” and the alleged problems will naturally go away. You complain that the Europeans didn’t do enough–that production was outsourced–and that the outsourcing may or may not have had anything to do with the carbon credit system. So your solution is to pass laws that will “fix” the outsourcing.
Yeah, sure. Like *that’s* going to work! No individual, no corporation, no government in the world is *ever* going to think of ways to either ignore the law, or find one of a dozen loopholes to work within the law, to really mess things up even more, all in the pursuit of just trying to get things done within their own lives.

My solution isn’t to pass laws against anything. You just have absolutely no clue about the situation and that’s why you think in terms of laws against things. That’s never going to be adequate.

And I didn’t talk about world government, what I pointed out is that the whole world has to act in coordination. The deep problem is that even a world government of the brutally totalitarian type would never be able to implement the kind of changes that are needed. It simply isn’t going to last if it tried. On the other side, if the population had developed intellectually to the point where they would understand the need of the kind of measures that have to be taken, then there would be absolutely no need for any kind of government. But we don’t live in such a world, so nothing ever is going to be done.

It is *this* that I despise. The delusion that, if only we can control the masses with laws and regulations, all our problems will go away. The problem is that we create a massive chaotic system of laws, regulations, lawyers and judges, to influence another chaotic system, that composed of individual initiative, corporations, and social institutions, to affect a third chaotic system, that of weather and climate. In each system, a tiny change can have profound and unexpected–sometimes severely negative–results in that system. Yet you would have me believe that we can control the environment, if only we pass the right laws!

That’s once again completely missing the point. The whole system of heavy bureaucracy, lawyers, regulation, and everything else is itself a product of the kind of thinking that has to go away completely.

I would rather take my chances, keep my freedoms (I’m a migraine sufferer, so I want my incandescents, darnit! At least, until LEDs become affordable), and see what I’ll need to do to adapt to the changes in climate as they present themselves, thank you VERY MUCH.

You have a lot less freedom than you think you do, very little in fact. But if it makes you happy to think you’re free, so be it. However, you once again fail to understand the basics – dead people are not free people, and there can be no democracy and free markets on a dead planet. So why people would readily kill the planet to protect their imaginary democracy and free markets is beyond me.

The problem is that *every* law is “gameable”; this is one of the things that contributes to the unpredictability of the entire chaotic system. It’s why I have no confidence that we could just pass a “law” and fix everything.

@ Nullius 38 … that’s a more whackjob conspiracy theory than anything Johnny’s mentioned. But, thanks for saying that. Now I know how much to discount/ignore you on future posts on this subject.

@ Epsilon 39 … Many of us who believe in the seriousness of the issue likewise know carbon cap-trade isn’t near the best solution, primarily because it’s too “gameable” by big biz. Carbon taxes are another issue. And, per Johnny, that’s part of why they’re getting such blowback. Businessness know they can’t be gamed,so they talk about passing all the costs on to John/Jane Q. Public, and ramp up the hysteria in the process. (Witness Eric Cantor walking out of debt negotiations in a snit when part of the terrible “tax hikes” proposed was to kill some Big Oil tax breaks.)

@Menth 40 … you forgot the scare quotes around “skeptic,” or else forgot to distinguish between skeptic and pseudoskeptic. Just as PZ Myers, Jerry Coyne and other “Gnu Atheists’ make me less and less commonly calling myself an atheist, so Michael Shermer, Brian Dunning and other libertarian pseudoskeptics make me less likely to call myself a skeptic. And, really, that’s what this is all about. Libertarians opposing regulation.

Otherwise, your observations are things Chris has written about in depth.

The global mean temperature data shows no accelerated warming due to increase in human emission of CO2 as shown in the following graph.

http://bit.ly/lUQBhX

The IPCC interpreted the data by comparing the global mean temperature trend for one period that has only one warming phase with the trend for a longer period that has both a warming and cooling phases, and it then declared accelerated warming. This is fraud.

http://bit.ly/b9eKXz

The AGW scare has no scientific foundation.