In article ,
says...

On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 9:53:07 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 6:31:39 AM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

First of all, it appears to me that nearly EVERYONE is forming their
opinions on emotion. Second, I don't really care WHAT you think about
me as you have demonstrated a biased view (like equating not being a
gung-ho supporter of AGW with being a flat-earther).

While the position is overstated - even being a Creationist is not flying as
directly in the facts as believing the Earth is flat - thie basic principle,
that questioning AGW is a denial of the current consensus of the scientific
community is true, not biased.

I claim the current consensus is biased and those who fawn over it are
likewise biased,

It indeed is ... biased towards the truth. Do you prefer some other kind
of bias?

even to the point of denigrating skeptics

Skeptics are of course ok. Deniers are not ok.

with claiming
that "overstatement" is not bias. It CERTAINLY is since they're concocting
a false argument. This is baloney. It's also ad hominem rather than to
the discussion.

You seem to have missed my earlier point that water vapor is a red herring;
it may contribute more to the greenhouse effect directly than carbon
dioxide, but it's an effect, not a cause.

I think I answered it, but I'm not sure. It's not necessarily an effect.
Certainly, air can hold more water vapor if its warmer, so IF CO2 causes
an increase in temperature, there will be more greenhouse effect than
what comes directly from the CO2. For some reason, however, this effect
is less than what the climate models predict.

On what do you base this claim? Cherry-picking empiical data? Something
else?

And I've mentioned other problems with the models. So there is NOT
universal agreement about AGW, as advocates are VERY prone to claim
Saying that MOST scientists agree with AGW is just saying that voting
counts in science, which is total bull plop.

It is true that scientific questions aren't decided by counting heads.

The fact that most of the "climate skeptics" among scientists have turned
out to be in the pay of oil companies, though, is indicative.

And "climate scientists" work for governments, which they rely on for their
paychecks.

Which makes them much more unbiased than if they get their paycheck from
some private company with a business agenda. You do recognize that
researchers are humans too which must make their living somehow, don't
you? Give one example of making your living in a way which makes you more
unbiased than if you get your salary from the government.


If dissenting views have trouble getting published in orthodox peer-
reviewed venues, that usually says something about the quality of the
work involved;

Or it says something about the bias of the "peers."

Precisely that argument is used by flat earth activists....

So you don't like peer review. With what would you like to replace it? No
review at all?

I could has easily accuse a "conspiracy" of preventing chemical journals
from publishing papers on the chemical (as opposed to nuclear)
transmutation of lead into gold.

The true sciences are much more "settled" than climate change is. We know
A LOT about the energies of the nucleus versus electron energy levels.
There are no "big problems" hanging out there in chemistry, and there are
few in physics.

"Most" is one thing. "Nearly all" is another.

Funny, I know a few PhDs in science ranging from physicists to soil scientist
who claim AGW is bunk and politically motivated. I know none who are AGW
advocates. So my own "survey" is in stark contrast to the claims bandied
about by the advocates.

How many of those are climate researchers?

Physicists are used to simple problems where fundamental effects are
researched. In addition, physicists are used to systems they can perform
experiments on. They are not used to very complex systems like the Earth
with its atmosphere and its climate. which they can only observe, not
experiment on.

There are working electrical engineers who are Creationists.

John Savard

Even a few climate scientists :-)

So what is being suggested is a radical re-orientation of our society
towards less dependency on energy and less energy use. This would downgrade
heavy industry, and thus impact the military defense capabilities of the
United States of America.

Indeed, but there are other consequences. Anthropologist Carleton Coon
pointed out that civilization itself is determined by converting
available energy into social structure, so less dependence on energy
means a debasing of society.

Furthermore, the developing countries are where the increasing CO2
emissions will be coming from, so it is pointless to harm the USA
in a fanatic process of self-immolation.

Yep -- "harm the USA" -- that's the main preoccupation of climate
deniers. They think it's better to make our civilisation collapse than to
"harm the USA". But they'll shoot themselves in the foot, since a
collapse of our civilisation **also** will "harm the USA"....

Doing something about it, in the way we're generally told to, actually
is the alternative that seems to have genuinely devastating consequences,
while it's the risk of doing nothing that's small.

Exactly. I'm not saying to do nothing, but I am saying to take it slow,
improve the climate models, gather more data and move incrementally
toward reducing greenhouse gases (but not water vapor :-)

If you were an extraterrestial, observing the Earth from space, you could
argue like that. But you are a human living on Earth and whatever happens
here will affect you too. The situation here on Earth is a bit more
urgent than you realize. Waiting a century or so (which would be required
to meet your demands) is very likely waiting too long...