APS and the Global Warming Scam

[moralist]

There are more trees in the US now than there were 100 years ago.

In the United States, which contains 8 percent of the world's forests, there are more trees than there were 100 years ago. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), "Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s. By 1997, forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920." The greatest gains have been seen on the East Coast (with average volumes of wood per acre almost doubling since the '50s) which was the area most heavily logged by European settlers beginning in the 1600s, soon after their arrival.

Read more: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/more-trees-than-there-were-100-years-ago-its-true#ixzz3dY6yyYKW

...so quit your bitchin', Bob... get up off your ass and go plant a damn tree!

Greg

I have paid for 100 trees to be planted in the name of my departed relatives. I did plant one sapling with my bare hands back in Massachussets. My son got it when he graduate from Rutgers. I sold the house in 2005 by the tree was tall and strong when I ldeft it.

Good for you, Bob.

The point of that joke is the quality of the environment around each of us is our own personal responsibility... and not others or government bureaucrats. They can't even solve their own problems, so it's stupid to expect them to solve ours!

So rather than to become focused on what others or the government are doing, my approach is to grab a shovel and use it to earn the right to harvest the fruits of what I plant.

Greg

[Peter]

The misdirection continues.

Sixth mass extinction is here: US study, Miami (AFP) The world is embarking on its sixth mass extinction with animals disappearing about 100 times faster than they used to, scientists warned Friday, and humans could be among the first victims. Not since the age of the dinosaurs ended 66 million years ago has the planet been losing species at this rapid a rate, said a study led by experts at Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley. The study "shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," said co-author Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University professor of biology. And humans are likely to be among the species lost, said the study -- which its authors described as "conservative" -- published in the journal Science Advances.

"If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on," said lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico. The analysis is based on documented extinctions of vertebrates, or animals with internal skeletons such as frogs, reptiles and tigers, from fossil records and other historical data. The modern rate of species loss was compared to the "natural rates of species disappearance before human activity dominated." It can be difficult to estimate this rate, also known as the background rate, since humans don't know exactly what happened throughout the course of Earth's 4.5 billion year history. For the study, researchers used a past extinction rate that was twice as high as widely used estimates. If the past rate was two mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per 100 years, then the "average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 114 times higher than it would be without human activity, even when relying on the most conservative estimates of species extinction," said the study.

"We emphasize that our calculations very likely underestimate the severity of the extinction crisis because our aim was to place a realistic lower bound on humanity's impact on biodiversity." The causes of species loss range from climate change to pollution to deforestation and more. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, about 41 percent of all amphibian species and 26 percent of all mammals are threatened with extinction. "There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead," Ehrlich said.

The study called for "rapid, greatly intensified efforts to conserve already threatened species, and to alleviate pressures on their populations -- notably habitat loss, over-exploitation for economic gain and climate change."

[Peter]

I certainly don't want to see animals become extinct but many will and not because of human intervention. Adopt or die out is evolution's dictum. It is the Law of the Universe. Bye, bye Birdie, Bye bye Dodo.

We can certainly do ourselves harm as a species as shown in the movie, "Interstellar," and I am always aware of nuclear bombs, or an asteroid strike, but we have something the other terrestrial animals do not and IT will pull us through. Amen.

[william.scherk]

Ellen's husband, Larry Gould, sent a letter to the APS President last month, along with William Happer and Roger Cohen It takes issue with the process at APS. Here is the full text as published at the Global Warming Policy Foundation:

May 8, 2015

Samuel Aronson
President, American Physical Society
One Physics Ellipse College Park, MD 20740-3844

Dear Dr. Aronson,

As three members of the American Physical Society, we are writing on behalf of the nearly 300 other members who signed our 2009 and 2010 petitions to the APS taking strong exception to the 2007 Statement on Climate Change. Those petitions called for an objective assessment of the underlying science, leading to a more scientifically defensible Statement.

We wish to call attention to important issues relating to the processes that led to the 2007 Statement and the Draft 2015 Statement. In developing both the 2007 Statement and the current Draft, the Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) failed to follow traditional APS Bylaws. In particular, regarding APS statements the Bylaws state: “The Chair of POPA has the responsibility for ensuring that the statement draft incorporates appropriate APS member expertise” (XVI.B.2), and, “Anyone, particularly POPA and Council members, who can reasonably be perceived to have a conflict of interest, shall recuse themselves from all aspects of the Statement process, including drafting, commentary, and voting. The President of the APS shall be the final arbiter of potential conflicts of interest” (XVI.E). Examples of relevant process exceptions include:

1. APS email records show that the original 2007 Statement was rewritten “on the fly, over lunch” by a small group of firebrands who arbitrarily inserted themselves in the process, thereby overruling the prerogatives of POPA and the APS Council. Thus, in “reaffirming” the 2007 Statement, the current Draft is referring to one that was produced by a bogus process and led to much ridicule of the APS, especially for its use of the infamous “incontrovertible.” In an attempt to disown this public relations fiasco, in 2012 APS (presumably POPA) quietly introduced a new paragraph break in the 2007 Statement so as to alter the original intent of the passage. Thus, the description of the Statement presented today as “Adopted by Council on November 18, 2007” is untrue and a violation of APS Guidelines for Professional Conduct (http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/02_2.cfm, paragraph two).

2. In the process of developing a Draft 2015 Statement, APS failed to consult any of at least 300 members, including Nobel Laureates, NAS members, and many Fellows, who were deeply dissatisfied with the 2007 Statement. Thus POPA deliberately failed to seek and incorporate interested and appropriate member input, as required in the Bylaws.

3. In the process of developing a Draft 2015 Statement, POPA failed to take into account the findings of the broad-based workshop, chaired by Steve Koonin, which faithfully and expertly executed its charge to assess the state of the science in global warming. The Koonin committee did the APS proud, conducting the only serious review of global warming science by a major American scientific society that we know of, while simultaneously realizing the objectives of our 2009 and 2010 petitions. Having thus advanced the interests of physics and the Society, POPA subsequently ignored the Koonin workshop and its product. POPA once again returned to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as its sole source of authority on the science, thereby abrogating its responsibility to the membership to properly conduct independent scientific assessments.

4. The Chair of the POPA committee has failed to identify serious conflicts of interests by its members. For example, a few years ago, one member of POPA, representing himself as an agent of a politically active nongovernmental organization, demanded that a Cleveland-area television station fire its meteorologist for expressing some doubt about IPCC statements on global warming. On every scientific point, the meteorologist was right, and we are glad to say that he retained his job.

These process exceptions by POPA cloud the legitimacy, objectivity, and content of the current Draft. In considering this, along with the strong basis for continuing investigations of unresolved key scientific questions in the global warming issue, it is clear that the best course of APS action is simply to archive the 2007 Statement without further attempts to replace it. We ask that you take this step in the interests of the Society and its membership.

We trust that you will share this letter with the APS Council. This is a very serious matter, and we intend to pursue it. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Roger W. Cohen
Laurence I. Gould
William Happer

[moralist]

...said a study led by experts at Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Government funding whores.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

There's no other way to say this... feminized leftists are insane.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is not evil. Without it all plant life on the Earth would die.

Greg

CO2 is plant food. And plants are what produce the O2 we breath by way of photosynthesis. It is a balanced cyclic system driven by our Sun.

[moralist]

There's no other way to say this... feminized leftists are insane.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is not evil. Without it all plant life on the Earth would die.

Greg

CO2 is plant food. And plants are what produce the O2 we breath by way of photosynthesis. It is a balanced cyclic system driven by our Sun.

You're preaching to the choir, Bob. Surrounding our house is all orchard and vineyard.

...but you'll never convince a hysterical feminized leftist that carbon dioxide isn't evil.

It's their religion.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

There's no other way to say this... feminized leftists are insane.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is not evil. Without it all plant life on the Earth would die.

Greg

CO2 is plant food. And plants are what produce the O2 we breath by way of photosynthesis. It is a balanced cyclic system driven by our Sun.

You're preaching to the choir, Bob. Surrounding our house is all orchard and vineyard.

...but you'll never convince a hysterical feminized leftist that carbon dioxide isn't evil.

It's their religion.

Greg

Do you mean the religion that humans are evil? .

Sounds like Christianity--a Christian sect.

--Brant

[moralist]

There's no other way to say this... feminized leftists are insane.

Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is not evil. Without it all plant life on the Earth would die.

Greg

CO2 is plant food. And plants are what produce the O2 we breath by way of photosynthesis. It is a balanced cyclic system driven by our Sun.

You're preaching to the choir, Bob. Surrounding our house is all orchard and vineyard.

...but you'll never convince a hysterical feminized leftist that carbon dioxide isn't evil.

It's their religion.

Greg

Do you mean the religion that humans are evil? .

Sounds like Christianity--a Christian sect.

--Brant

Only humans are capable of evil, Brant.

Carbon dioxide can't be evil.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Not even Zyklon B? A lot of what we say is shorthand. Of course that shorthand can be exploited by the ignorant and unscrupulous as in making CO2 "evil." Thus if CO2 is evil you get to be evil too by implication by the environmental moral elite that shuts up the discussion. Evil is not debatable.

--Brant

[moralist]

Yeah, the debate is always over whenever you hear any of these these religious words of the left:

Racist

Sexist

Bigot

Xenophobe

Homophobe

Islamophobe

Greg

[william.scherk]

Greg asserts that there are more trees in the US today than there were 100 years ago, citing an article at the Mother Nature Network. In the linked article, the supporting information is taken from the Food and Agricultural Organization and the United Nations Forum on Forests**. The FOA is of course also a body of the United Nations.

Earlier in this same thread, Greg aims his moral telescope at the scientists behind a study on extinction events -- scientists from Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley (Peter forgot to add a link, but the full story is here at Yahoo, and the actual scientific article can be found here).

Greg says the scientists responsible for the study are Government Funding Whores. Fair enough. That's what he thinks.

But, isn't it ironic that Greg gives credence to the findings of two United Nations bodies? Are his preferred sources not Government Funding Whores as well? Maybe it just depends on whose ox is being gored.

Whores at Stanford. Whores at Berkeley. Whores at Princeton. Non-Whores at the UN.

Me, that makes no jesusfreaking sense. Perhaps my expectations of consistency are misplaced.

___________________

** The UN Forum on Forests is, er, tied up with several environmental constraints. From their website, as cited by Yahoo's AFP article:

”based on the Rio Declaration, the Forest Principles, Chapter 11 of Agenda 21 and the outcome of the IPF/IFF Processes and other key milestones of international forest policy.

The Forum has universal membership, and is composed of all Member States of the United Nations andspecialized agencies.

[moralist]

Greg says the scientists responsible for the study are Government Funding Whores. Fair enough. That's what he thinks.

It's just a subjective opinion...

Generally, government funded leftists are whores who prostitute themselves to get funding. This is because they don't actually produce anything useful. So they'll do anything to get the government funding they need to survive.

If they did anything real by actually working to produce something useful, they would be sovereign independent productive self reliant Americans instead of weak liberal government-needy blind scribes babbling reams of bureaucratize.

Greg

[Selene]

Greg asserts that there are more trees in the US today than there were 100 years ago, citing an article at the Mother Nature Network. In the linked article, the supporting information is taken from the Food and Agricultural Organization and the United Nations Forum on Forests**. The FOA is of course also a body of the United Nations.

Earlier in this same thread, Greg aims his moral telescope at the scientists behind a study on extinction events -- scientists from Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley (Peter forgot to add a link, but the full story is here at Yahoo, and the actual scientific article can be found here).

Greg says the scientists responsible for the study are Government Funding Whores. Fair enough. That's what he thinks.

But, isn't it ironic that Greg gives credence to the findings of two United Nations bodies? Are his preferred sources not Government Funding Whores as well? Maybe it just depends on whose ox is being gored.

Whores at Stanford. Whores at Berkeley. Whores at Princeton. Non-Whores at the UN.

Me, that makes no jesusfreaking sense. Perhaps my expectations of consistency are misplaced.

___________________

** The UN Forum on Forests is, er, tied up with several environmental constraints. From their website, as cited by Yahoo's AFP article:

”based on the Rio Declaration, the Forest Principles, Chapter 11 of Agenda 21 and the outcome of the IPF/IFF Processes and other key milestones of international forest policy.

The Forum has universal membership, and is composed of all Member States of the United Nations andspecialized agencies.

William's deficiencies in argumentation are illustrated when he does this particular dance.

This is known as "negative evidence."

A...

[william.scherk]

Greg says the scientists responsible for the study are Government Funding Whores. Fair enough. That's what he thinks.

It's just a subjective opinion...

Generally, government funded leftists are whores who prostitute themselves to get funding. This is because they don't actually produce anything useful. So they'll do anything to get the government funding they need to survive.

So, why would you grant more credence to the findings of Government Funded Whores at the United Nations than to the findings of the Government Funded Whores at Berkeley/Stanford/Princeton?

What is the difference in putative Whoredom? (I suggest the difference is in whose ox is being gored)

Adam, I don't fully understand your comment about my generalized deficiencies in argumentation, nor do I understand what you mean by 'this particular dance.' Can you point to anywhere in the comment where I rely upon or adduce 'negative evidence'? (it is in my interest to discover and correct deficiencies in my arguments. Thanks in advance)

-- as I understand the phrase, it means "Evidence for a theory provided by the non-occurrence or absence of something" (definition from Oxford Dictionaries)

My 'theory' is that Greg is inconsistent in his appellation Government Funded Whores. There are Whores whose findings he accepts, and there are Whores whose findings he rejects. I don't see the rationale, yet.

For those who are not pettifoggers or debate specialists, here is an expanded definition of 'Negative Evidence' from the RationalWiki:

Negative evidence is a significant gap in expected knowledge or evidence for a phenomenon. If a proposed theory would logically produce a certain kind of evidence, then the absence of that evidence, or the negative evidence, is suggestive that the theory is mistaken. If your neighbor claimed that teenagers were racing their cars outside of his house, the absence of teenagers, cars and tire marks on the street would be negative evidence against his claim.

While useful in evaluating theories, negative evidence can be a dangerous tool. It is highly subjective, because it is predicated on our expectations, and it is always uncertain, because new evidence might be obtained to fill the gap.

Taken too far, negative evidence becomes an appeal to ignorance, the mistake of believing that because we have not found evidence, it must not exist. Negative evidence is often used in this capacity by advocates of creationism, who argue that we should have found more fossil evidence of intermediate species if evolution is correct.

Edited June 20, 2015 by william.scherk

[Brant Gaede]

Negative evidence, positive evidence.

Negative rights, positive rights.

How about this way: evidence and rights with the rest as sub-categories not used unless the conversation needs it (assuming the conversation is needed)?

--Brant

words, words, words

words, words, words

words, words, works

[moralist]

So, why would you grant more credence to the findings of Government Funded Whores at the United Nations than to the findings of the Government Funded Whores at Berkeley/Stanford/Princeton?

Simple.

The same way you are free to determine for yourself which of your colleagues are lying.

Greg

[Peter]

Roger W. Cohen, Laurence I. Gould, and William Happer.

Those guys deserve a fitting quote and here it is.

Steve Jobs said:

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

end quote

[Selene]

Roger W. Cohen, Laurence I. Gould, and William Happer.

Those guys deserve a fitting quote and here it is.

Steve Jobs said:

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

end quote

So Peter...you applaud Mao, Hitler, Genghis Khan?

[9thdoctor]

Here's quite a good (and lengthy) piece from "lukewarmist" Matt Ridley:

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/climate-wars-done-science/

It's always nice when you can fit in a Feynman quote:

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”

[Brant Gaede]

Very informative-and, at the base, wishy-washy. At least until I stopped reading maybe 1/2 the way through. He doesn't work off CO2 being beneficient and maybe the more the better. He says it's a "greenhouse gas." True. But that's like saying smoking causes lung cancer even if you only inhale one cigarette once. He does say, if I remember correctly, there's no telling the effect--or he's an agnostic. In common parlance a greenhouse gas causes global warming, but that's not true. I think water vapor is a greenhouse gas, for instance, exponentially more effective and important as a greenhouse gas than CO2. All we can say is that greenhouse gases play a role in temperature stability by damping down its volatility over decades, centuries and even much longer--and we would not/could not exist without them. Then comes the next ice age? This is why the demon of water vapor is hardly ever mentioned but the man-made demon of CO2 is, for, you see, man is the earth's demon so it's a good match. Shape up, man, for the Earth is in the balance.

--Brant

war on man so men and their families suffer through deprivation of energy and mis-allocation of resources, never mind anyone's intent which may be good or bad--even evil, albeit an unknowing evil (did Hitler think he was evil or the savior of the German people and Germany?)

[william.scherk]

Here's quite a good (and lengthy) piece from "lukewarmist" Matt Ridley:

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/climate-wars-done-science/

There is a blog post from HotWhopper that takes issue with the Ridley Quadrant article, in great detail. In Sou's eyes, it is a farrago of nonsense: Matt Ridley spins Lysenko conspiracy theories and more in a classic denial of science.

[Ridley] doesn't work off CO2 being beneficient and maybe the more the better. He says it's a "greenhouse gas." True. But that's like saying smoking causes lung cancer even if you only inhale one cigarette once.

I don't think the analogy is apt. CO2 is indeed one of several greenhouse gases. It is not a carcinogen^‡. The human body is not a metaphorical stand-in for the atmosphere and its greenhouse effect. It sounds like you do not understand what the greenhouse effect is. To argue effectively against AGW alarmism you need to understand what is generally accepted as the greenhouse effect. Even Matt Ridley does not deny there is a greenhouse effect.

Standing on one foot, I can try to sketch the important concept.

In a nutshell, the greenhouse gases (GG) are relatively transparent to the energy of visible light (a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum of energy streaming from the sun), but are not transparent to the energy of infrared light rays. They absorb and emit infrared (heat/thermal) energy. Here is a much-simplified graphic that depicts the energy equation:

What this means is that without the GGs in the atmosphere, the Earth's average temperature would be like the Moon's temperature.

Here is a slightly-less simplified explanation of the greenhouse effect from NASA's Earth Observatory site:

The Natural Greenhouse Effect

Just as the major atmospheric gases (oxygen and nitrogen) are transparent to incoming sunlight, they are also transparent to outgoing thermal infrared. However, water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and other trace gases are opaque to many wavelengths of thermal infrared energy. Remember that the surface radiates the net equivalent of 17 percent of incoming solar energy as thermal infrared. However, the amount that directly escapes to space is only about 12 percent of incoming solar energy. The remaining fraction—a net 5-6 percent of incoming solar energy—is transferred to the atmosphere when greenhouse gas molecules absorb thermal infrared energy radiated by the surface.

When greenhouse gas molecules absorb thermal infrared energy, their temperature rises. Like coals from a fire that are warm but not glowing, greenhouse gases then radiate an increased amount of thermal infrared energy in all directions. Heat radiated upward continues to encounter greenhouse gas molecules; those molecules absorb the heat, their temperature rises, and the amount of heat they radiate increases. At an altitude of roughly 5-6 kilometers, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the overlying atmosphere is so small that heat can radiate freely to space.

Because greenhouse gas molecules radiate heat in all directions, some of it spreads downward and ultimately comes back into contact with the Earth’s surface, where it is absorbed. The temperature of the surface becomes warmer than it would be if it were heated only by direct solar heating. This supplemental heating of the Earth’s surface by the atmosphere is the natural greenhouse effect.**

He does say, if I remember correctly, there's no telling the effect--or he's an agnostic. In common parlance a greenhouse gas causes global warming, but that's not true.

In common parlance, you are mistaken. Ridley is a 'lukewarmer,' meaning he understands and accepts the greenhouse effect of our atmosphere. In his own words:

“I am not a 'denier'. I fully accept that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the climate has been warming and that man is very likely to be at least partly responsible. […] you can accept all the basic tenets of greenhouse physics and still conclude that the threat of a dangerously large warming is so improbable as to be negligible, while the threat of real harm from climate-mitigation policies is already so high as to be worrying, that the cure is proving far worse than the disease is ever likely to be.”

I think water vapor is a greenhouse gas, for instance, exponentially more effective and important as a greenhouse gas than CO2. All we can say is that greenhouse gases play a role in temperature stability by damping down its volatility over decades, centuries and even much longer--and we would not/could not exist without them.

Water vapour is indeed a powerful greenhouse 'gas' -- but bear in mind that water-vapour is part of a process, and part of the energy system of the atmosphere, and bear in mind that the energy (latent heat) of water in the atmosphere is variable according to its concentrations: vapour 'rains out' whereas CO2, methane, etc do not. They cycle in the atmosphere for a much longer time than does water.

Although water vapor is a powerful absorber of many wavelengths of thermal infrared energy, it is almost transparent to others. The transparency at those wavelengths is like a window the atmosphere leaves open for radiative cooling of the Earth’s surface. The most important of these “water vapor windows” is for thermal infrared with wavelengths centered around 10 micrometers. (The maximum transparency occurs at 10 micrometers, but partial transparency occurs for wavelengths between about 8 and about 14 micrometers.)

Then comes the next ice age? This is why the demon of water vapor is hardly ever mentioned but the man-made demon of CO2 is, for, you see, man is the earth's demon so it's a good match. Shape up, man, for the Earth is in the balance.

Again, you are mistaken. Water vapour is an integral part of any atmospheric 'energy budget' -- and it modulates/amplifies the effect of other greenhouse gases. See "water vapour feedback"†...

war on man so men and their families suffer through deprivation of energy and mis-allocation of resources, never mind anyone's intent which may be good or bad--even evil, albeit an unknowing evil (did Hitler think he was evil or the savior of the German people and Germany?)

It's a crap-shoot. Matt Ridley thinks that the costs of mitigation are the greatest danger to humans. His erstwhile opponents believe that mitigation is the better bet.

Even if one places all faith in Ridley's analyses and beliefs, there is still an ongoing debate. There is still another (or more) side. It does Objectivish good to rationally examine claims and 'evidence' -- from all sides.

______________________

‡

**

† from RealClimate "Water vapour: feedback or forcing?" (recommended for its clarity and detail; please read for comprehension):

Whenever three or more contrarians are gathered together, one will inevitably claim that water vapour is being unjustly neglected by ‘IPCC’ scientists. “Why isn’t water vapour acknowledged as a greenhouse gas?”, “Why does anyone even care about the other greenhouse gases since water vapour is 98% of the effect?”, “Why isn’t water vapour included in climate models?”, “Why isn’t included on the forcings bar charts?” etc. Any mainstream scientist present will trot out the standard response that water vapour is indeed an important greenhouse gas, it is included in all climate models, but it is a feedback and not a forcing. From personal experience, I am aware that these distinctions are not clear to many, and so here is a more in-depth response

...

Edited June 21, 2015 by william.scherk

[moralist]

Here's quite a good (and lengthy) piece from "lukewarmist" Matt Ridley:

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/climate-wars-done-science/

It's always nice when you can fit in a Feynman quote:

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”

I like that one. A favorite of mine that's similar...

"Studies either confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong."

-- Dennis Prager

[BaalChatzaf]

Here's quite a good (and lengthy) piece from "lukewarmist" Matt Ridley:

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/climate-wars-done-science/

It's always nice when you can fit in a Feynman quote:

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”

I like that one. A favorite of mine that's similar...

"Studies either confirm what you already know by your own common sense...

...or they're wrong."

-- Dennis Prager

dead wrong. Our best physical theory quantum electrodynamics is contrary to common sense. But it predicts correctly to 12 decimal places.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[william.scherk]

I've commented a couple of times on what seems like an ideological hinge in attitudes and beliefs about climate change and attendant global warming -- and beliefs in the level of 'culpability' of humankind in the changes we see (here, for example). With regional variations, it seems clear that Democrats/Leftists are much more liable to accept the so-called consensus than are Republicans/Rightists.

In an earlier post I also mentioned the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, and its excellent geographical depiction of various opinions.

Here is some intriguing information about US Catholics and their positions on the spectrum of opinion: Among Republicans, Catholics More Likely to Believe that Global Warming is Happening and Support Policies to Reduce It

From the article ...

Overall, we find that Catholic Republicans are more convinced that global warming is happening and human-caused, and are more worried and supportive of climate policies, than are non-Catholic Republicans. These differences between Catholics and non-Catholics are unique to Republicans; that is, we see far fewer differences between Catholic and non-Catholic Democrats and Independents on these issues