Do Climate Change Skeptics Distort The Scientific Evidence?

Yes. The denier noise is tiresome. 97% of the most informed scientists (the ones performing climate research and publishing results) believe that mankind is causing warming:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.p...

Hearing anything else from or about the paid advocates that are presented as "scientists" (but who have published nothing relevant to climate science) is pointless.

That basic fact of nearly unanimous agreement among climate scientists should be known by every man, woman and child in the United States. There is no other poll that I'm aware of that questioned a cross section of actual working scientists at research stations to get an accurate picture of what the level of certainty is, and which further narrowed down the opinions to also count the scientists which are most informed (the ones actually working and publishing in the field of climate science).

All of the contrary lists claiming to name skeptical scientists are self-appointed, make no attempt to count only qualified, informed, working and publishing scientists, and they rely on misleading things like out-of-context quotes (many of which do NOT question that mankind is having a definite influence on climate) from people with questionable knowledge and involvement.

When you dig into this issue in any depth, it's easy to see that the skeptical papers that should provide contrary theories or which debink key aspects of anthropogenic global warming theory simply don't exist, and the whole appearance of a "debate" is faked. Consider how easy it would be for "skeptical" people to post links to such papers, yet they NEVER do! Hmm... why is it that NO ONE can find peer-reviewed and published scientific studies if there supposedly exist some skeptical scientists? It's pretty obvious. Most of the "scientists" that the media quotes as doubtful are not current working research scientists, except that many of them are accepting money to serve as a "scientist for hire", essentially a spokesman to serve as a public relations figure for the fossil fuel industry.

So how does the public in the Untied States get so grossly misinformed?

If we look at research on the media itself, that research has documented that the media promotes the false appearance of controversy over the science to sensationalize the topic and boost ratings and revenues, in part due to the well-funded propaganda tactics used to block public understanding, similar to those used successfully to delay and soften action against the tobacco industry:

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/assets/pdf/Nieman%20...

Disinformation, Financial Pressures, and Misplaced Balance

A reporter describes the systemic forces that work against the story of climate change being accurately told.

By Ross Gelbspan

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=...

Global Warming: What’s Known vs. What’s Told

‘Americans could be forgiven for not knowing how uncontroversial this issue is among the vast majority of scientists.’

By Sandy Tolan and Alexandra Berzon

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=...

Knowing Uncertainty for What It Is

In reporting on the science of global warming, journalists contend with powerful, well-funded forces using strategies created by tobacco companies.

By David Michaels

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/topics.aspx?...

The people who promote the misinformation provided by the corporate propaganda mills, and who promote fear of the media (or the government) have no such research to base their skepticsm or their wild conspiracy theories on.

People shouldn't be so fearful or so gullible that they fall for it. We'll all need all of our mental capacity to focus on minimizing the damage that is being caused (as soon as possible), and to survive the future warming and its inevitable effects that we've already built into the global climate system.

The one fast fix we have available is to prevent all of this would be to rapidly and globally reduce black soot, which has up to 60% of the effect of CO2,

http://www.physorg.com/news125500721.html

and which is the one factor that can be addressed the fastest, at the least cost,and with the greatest short-term and long term benefit (CO2 reduction has only very long term benefits).

http://www.igsd.org/docs/BC%20Briefing%20Note%2027...

Since developed nations addressed their air pollution 80% decades ago, the responsibility for addressing this issue currently lies squarely on the shoulders of booming economies in Asia, particularly China (remember air quality during the Beijing Olympics?) and India, with 500+ additional dirty coal plants being completed at a rate of 2 per week.

I'd recommend first educating politicians ASAP on the importance of reducing black soot globally to minimize and push out the date of climate challenges.

So why is pretty much everything you have said incorrect, yet you want to criticize skeptics. NASA GISS does not only use rural sites, they make corrections for the UHIE, because they acknowledge that this effect does indeed exist. No scientist doubts that the UHIE actually occurs. The question is whether they have done an adequate job of accounting for UHIE. And if the temps have been rising since 1850, as they do tend to rise coming out of a mini ice age, then why does this automatically point to man's involvement? Clearly the CO2 level in the 1860s were not such as to cause any degree of warming. Also clearly the UHIE would have increased dramatically in the 60s to today. Are you unaware that there are many factors that may contribute to warming? CO2 levels, clouds, suspots, circulation of the ocean, amount of H2O in the atmosphere, etc. etc. Your camp is stating that CO2 is the major driving force. That you can determine that temp 100 years from now because of the changes in the CO2 level. While using these models that send mankind into panic, your models have not been useful in predicting even the next years temps. They certainly have not predicted the leveling off in temps that has occurred. Thus the only conclusion that can be drawn is that you AGWers either don't know what they're talking about or they're deliberately lying and distorting the facts. Actually this is not true, just an illustration of your faulty logic. They are doing the best predictions they can on a chaotic system. The problem is that politicians and some scientists that want to be in the spot light have over-exaggerated both the problem and the amount of "proof" that exists. Most scientists do not hold with a 5-7 degree increase in temps in the next 100 years. Most scientists would not place bets on the comp models working. They know that the climate can easily fail to act as they think it should.

1) It was warmer in 1998 than it is today. That's a true statement. It was also no warmer in 2000 than it is today. It has not warmed since 1998. Or 2000. Those are facts.

2) No, the warmest year in the US was 1934. The point was that NASA GISS had previously claimed that 1998 had been the warmest year both globally and nationally. It's not that 1998 wasn't the warmest year - it's that NASA GISS made another error - it's their models that are used to predict the FUTURE climate.

3) Yes, it has recovered - relative to Summer of course but also relative to last year.

4) The proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 now that wasn't CO2 in 1800 is less than 1/10,000th of the atmosphere. That's a fact.

Distorting facts would be..... let's see..... re-writing the climate history to eliminate prolonged, natural warm periods. Another example might be to carry September temperature records for Siberia through to January. Another might be to locate surface stations next to HVAC ducts of buildings. Another might be to keep changing how you measure whether it's still warming - from year to year to five year average to ten year average.

Ignoring the evidence would be a better description. With few exceptions, they don't understand the science well enough to make more than superficial distortions that are easily recognized. The con artists selling kits to burn water in cars are much more skilled in distortion. Some of the very best con artists work for AIG. The climate change skeptics could take lessons.

In reality every bit of evidence for Global warming is hypothetical, or inconclusive. There are also recent discoveries that make it's fears look a joke:

For example, consider this:

----------

Considering the titanoboa was twice the size of today’s largest snake, the anaconda, the scientists estimated that the average temperature of its ecosystem would have been about 91 degrees Fahrenheit, 10 degrees warmer than the tropical forests which cover South America today.

"This temperature estimate is much hotter than modern temperatures in tropical rainforests anywhere in the world,” said Carlos Jaramillo, a paleobotanist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. “The fossil floras that the Smithsonian has been collecting in Cerrejon for many years indicate that the area was a tropical rainforest. That means that tropical rainforests could exist at temperatures 3-4 degrees Celsius hotter than modern tropical rainforests experience."

Such a discovery may have widespread implications as scientist attempt to predict how tropical forests will change in face of global warming. Many have feared the forest would become savannah due to higher temperatures, but if the climate of 60 million years ago is any indication some of tropical plants could survive temperature increases.

----------

So even if global warming is happening faster than it naturally happens(the earth cools and warms periodicaly), we still may be in the safe area for a long time.

If so, nowhere near as much as the alarmists exaggerate the hypothetical predictions of how severe it could be.

20 feet of sea level rise? 10° temperature increase? You tell me who is distorting the facts.

One could have made the same comment about the Geo-centric solar system skeptics. How dare a few people speak up about science that was taught for over 2,000 years, saying such garbage like the Sun was at the center of the solar system.

Yes, constantly. In fact, I created a global warming myths wiki article to address some of the main "skeptic" distortions of the scientific evidence.

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/global-warming-m...

When the science isn't on your side, your only options are to admit you're wrong (which is not possible when you're in denial) or distort the facts.

You've got it 'backasswards'. The self-proclaimed AGW climate gurus have been caught red-handed falsifying temperature data.

Nope, it is the other way around. There is no hard evidence that there is global warming. contrary to what you are being told.