On Wednesday, June 6, 2018 at 11:36:44 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

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?

I think that's a combination of excluded middle and straw-man argument.
I don't think any scientist advocates either of those "disciplines, and
lots of papers "out of the mainstream" are published in the journals.
Certainly, some scientists disagree with them and even ridicule them,
but they ARE published.

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.

But ANYTHING that causes a temperature rise is amplified by water vapor,
including the solar constant variations.

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

Indeed.

Pruitt himself, of course, ought to be able to explain where he got his
ideas from.

I don't know what his justification is, but the MODTRAN app certainly
confirms his position when a doubling of the CO2 level, which will take
200 years, produces enough direct effect to rival solar constant
variations. Cloud cover has a VERY large effect, initially to reduce
heat flux into space, but long-term to produce cooling by increasing
earth's albedo.

The graph of temperature vs. cosmic ray flux seems to show no correlation,
but the flux data only goes to 2003. The flux decrease has only been
observed for about 4 years. Furthermore, the initial effect of increased
cloudiness has a warming effect, but the long-term trend is to lower
temperature due to decreased input from the sun.

Gary