Are we shooting the messengers, the climate scientists?
By calling working climate scientists "alarmists", and dismissing their warnings, are we inviting the collapse of civilization? Read the latest National Geographic article on "Hothouse Earth":
"In much of China, India, southern Europe, and the United States, summer temperatures would average well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, night and day, year after year. Climate scientists don't often talk about such grim long-term forecasts, Huber says, in part because skeptics, exaggerating scientific uncertainties, are always accusing them of alarmism. "We've basically been trying to edit ourselves," Huber says. "Whenever we see something really bad, we tend to hold off. The middle ground is actually much worse than people think. If we continue down this road, there really is no uncertainty". --National Geographic, Oct 2011. --Go to http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/hothouse-earth/kunzig-text/1
2011-09-22T18:36:39Z
MIKE L: You didn't read the article, did you. It was all about how the climate DID change before, like 56 Million years ago. Now WE are making the climate change like it did then.
2011-09-22T18:39:36Z
DONALD: That is a strawman attack. Stick with the subject. Is the climate changing or is it not? Are we causing it?
2011-09-22T18:46:11Z
MAXX: That's what the oil companies want you to believe. http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-04-big-oil-creates-phony-climate-denial-site-lies-about-it
2011-09-22T18:49:15Z
OTTOWA: Stick with the data. What in the article do you disagree with?
2011-09-23T17:24:26Z
ERIC C: Thanks for some interesting reading. I would congratulate Chris Landsea for resigning. He disagreed with what he saw as lack of objectivity on the part of his boss, and resigned. Good for him. Chris was the expert on hurricanes, and his boss ignored his advice. Maybe the his boss Trenberth was the one messenger that needed to be shot. And Chris was probably right: the connections of hurricane frequency to climate change is unsettled: http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming-basic.htm
So a few scientists got hyperactive and exaggerated for the press. Do we throw out the whole body of evidence because a few scientists acted like humans?
Anyway, I think the scientific process is working. If your boss exaggerates the science, you protest. Or quit.
Maxx2011-09-22T17:20:26Z
Favorite Answer
The messenger in this case needs to be shot, he's lying.
Not only is he lying, he's stealing our tax dollars by the billions and propagandizing and frightening our children.
But not only that, he is also attempting to destroy our liberties and dramatically increase our taxes.
Now shoot that Commie scoundrel before he gets away !!
**djrob1943 - apparently you think oil companies should not be allowed to defend themselves or enjoy free speech like your Warmist community does, while you relentlessly attack them. Not very American of you sir. And the oil companies' site states that plants need CO2 to live, do you deny that?
Oil is a wonderful thing, try living without it sometime and you will see what I mean.
*****pegminer - your statement that the Republican Party draws (and welcomes) support from militant extremists is a despicable and vicious lie that does violence to the truth. I seriously don’t know of a single recent political act of violence that was NOT caused by the Left-Wing (Democrats). Let’s review some, shall we...
Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber - Left Wing environmental nutjob): Media reports have tied Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, to environmental activists, and say that the 23 injuries and three deaths through letter-bombs were the acts of an independent eco-terrorist. Among those making such accusations were ABC, The New York Times, Time magazine, and USA Today.
Kaczynski, Earth Liberation Front (ELF) eco-terrorist, Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and a long list of other left-wing and/or environmental violence is found on the page linked below:
Behring Breivik, of Norway recently killed 76 kids in a youth camp and blew up a building in downtown Oslo. GUESS WHO BREIVIK'S HERO WAS --- Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Behring Breivik was NOT right-wing as the media widely reported, he was a Left-Wing environmental terrorist who’s manifesto was taken almost word for word from the first few pages of the anti-technology manifesto written by "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski.
Jared Loughner, the man that shot Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and six other innocent people including a child in January of 2011 was described by his classmates as a "left-wing political radical."
And let’s not forget eco-terrorist James J. Lee 'Awakened' by Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth' who held hostages at the Discovery Channel network for hours before being shot by the police.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38957020/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.TnzD4Ox3EmQ (and) James J. Lee, environmental militant, slain at Discovery building after taking hostages http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/01/AR2010090103911.html
Even Timothy McVeigh was influenced by Left-Wing thinking and was an agnostic. I could name more but I’m running out of room.
continually persist with the money. Many (so-observed as) scientists and universities see the $Billions of taxpayer-provided supply funds as an threat to maintain employment and faculty endowment funds, on a similar time as the politicians who allocate such investment see the 'guy-did-it' international warming theory as an threat for Trillions of $$ in tax sales coming doubtlessly from some form of carbon tax scheme. Many scientists are going to do each and every thing they might to maintain the Golden Goose alive, meaning that their examine is geared in direction of keeping the politicians chuffed.
You suggest that is what oil companies want you to believe. So who is the gullible one throwing accusations? Ottawa is correct. NG and many others have become little more than tabloids when discussing certain issues. It isn't anything new with National Geographic. I have been reading it since the 1960s and it always seemed to include a little bone to the lefties at the end of the articles but I was politically naive in the 1960s and I still recognized it. This sort of garbage article is a who different ball game. They are advocacy oriented to push political causes. All these people have are models. Their models haven't been shown to predict squat. They lost their credibility IMO.
You tell Mike to stick with the data. Which data are you referring. I am sure you won't provide any.
I will let you decide. Here is one example. Kevin Trenbreth (famous for his "we can not account for the lack of warming and it is a travesty that we can't" quote in an email that was reveal through climategate) was lead author on hurricanes for the IPCC AR4 report. He held a press conference to announce "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity" way back in 2005.
Lansea,who was a contributing author, was so disgusted by this that he resigned from the IPCC. In his letter of resignation he wrote:
Listening to and reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.
I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record....
It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming. Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity. My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings that this will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy.
I ask you, was Trenbreth being a good scientist when he stated his opinion, or was he an alarmist politically motivated scientist?