On Tuesday, June 5, 2018 at 6:27:42 AM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

Peer review is usually okay, but there are problems when it's controlled
by one faction.

Peer review is *always* controlled by "one faction", it could be argued. After
all, how many published papers on astrology or alchemy do you see in scientific
journals?

So opposition to AGW, like any unorthodox idea in science, can be smeared by
association very easily, if nothing else.

If the debate is to be conducted by people doing the science from scratch
themselves, it will be a very slow one. But I can't deny that the alternative,
of simply ridiculing the unorthodox for their outsider status doesn't prove
anything.

To me, though, the difference between an "independent variable" and a "dependent
variable" is often a fundamental thing. So it's highly plausible to me that
while the direct effect of carbon dioxide levels on the heat leaving the Earth
is so small as to be "lost in the noise", with everything else being out of our
control, or following predictable cycles, and with things like water vapor quite
clearly and obviously acting as amplifiers, not independent contributors, those
carbon dioxide levels could be what is causing change.

And while I would suspect the conclusiions of environmental activists,

and I'm aware of the extent to which political correctness has created a
unanimity of thought in liberal arts departments on college campuses,

back when I was a student myself in the 1980s, the rot had not started to set in
within the physical sciences.

I don't think that a legitimate researcher who found that there's no need for
undue concern about fossil fuel emissions just yet... would meet the same fate
as a researcher who claimed that he could prove that white people were more
intelligent.

Unfortunately, though, I can understand all too well why someone of a
conservative view might not be so sure.

So, while to me the surface appearance is that the AGW consensus is a legitimate result of the science, and it isn't because the environmental activists have taken control of the campuses and the journals, since the reputation of academia has been compromised, I am not really surprised that others may have different perceptions.

I am dismayed by this very much, as a society that has lost its ability to
perceive reality is likely to do itself in even before the effects of rising
global temperatures become noticeable. The current toxic political climate needs
to be fixed.

John Savard