I'm willing to be ridiculed for being totally wrong about climate change, but like some others, the charges of a deliberate hoax and conspiracy are growing wearisome. I'm not sure skeptics realize how much it degrades their talking points.
Mostly it does great disservice to some admittedly hyper-focused, but dedicated people of science who, along with their colleagues have lifted all our lives with their relentless pursuit of truth.
Like the oyster guys.
Whatever. Sure. But here's the thing I wonder. How do people who deny climate change reconcile that with guys like this, who are spending entire careers on teasing out really non-dramatic aspects of climate change? This guy is not measuring carbon concentrations in oyster shells for the glory. There are thousands of these people, dorkily and steadily piecing out the causes and predicting effects.
If it is all a conspiracy and nothing is happening, how do denialists conceive of these guys? Do they think these monotonous nerds who talk in jargon (don't take that the wrong way. I'm sexually attracted to every one of them.) are making it up to promote the conspiracy? Like, they spend the morning thinking up esoteric ways of measuring wave energy by sand lost at different gauges around the state, and the afternoon faking their data so they can please Al Gore? They've done this now for ten years and they plan to make an entire career out of making up the detailed groundwork for fake climate change? All of them? On nothing? Imagine the secret conferences they must hold to synchronize their stories and settle on an allowable variance between the made-up river data, the made-up precipitation data and the made-up ocean data. Besides the groupies, WHAT FOR? [More from another blogger with a similar viewpoint]
I'm fair game, and my assertions open to any criticism, but fer cryin' out loud, casting these guys as world class evil minions is surely absurd.
8 comments:
Yes you're right, the emails do nothing to change the science. But reemmber, the CRU is the spearhead in the AGW theory. They get the most money, they have the most powerful scientists, they get the glory. What if you have been studying oyster shells and your results disagree with the CRU? What happens to your study, what happens to your funding, what happens to your career? Don't give me that crap that they simply carry on, following what the science says and suddenly they are AGW skeptics. No, they will publish their results and add a little qualifyer at the end which helps explain why the results disagree. I've read these studies, and often they will say somehting like the equipent needs 'recalibrating', in others they introduce a fudge factor and suddenly the results agree and all is well. It's not a conspiracy, it's simply making the results fall in line with the general belief. I even read an article in Discover magazine a few years ago where a fudge factor was used to make the numbers match AGW and it was praised as a 'Breakthrough study". I call it fraud. It wasn't a conspiracy but they did make the numbers aline, and this was praised. If I had ever done that when I went through science, they would have tossed me out on my ear.
Point 1: Anon - You are correct! Follow the money and the fame!
Point 2: John - Please consider the reality for many of these people: climate change is their religion. If they believe it is real, they will dedicate their lives to proving it. And if they have to "select" their data to do so, what's the harm, right?
Many people dedicate their lives to proving the Bible and are ridiculed. When someone alters an artifact or data to provide "proof," they take a beating.
Why are climate change skeptics censored? It gives a new meaning to "inconvenient truth."
And remember this?
http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
John, People will do what they are paid to do and the government policy has a lot to do with what they are paid.
Just look at the Ag policy decades past. Farmers planted what they were "encouraged" to raise and even by what amounts.
That "encouragement" can effectively scew reality outcomes for quite some time but eventually things happen that will upright the problems created by going down the wrong path.
ie. In ag policy the solution to low prices is low prices. In science the solution to scewed results is the truth.
all:
This latest argument - scientists are in it for the money and the money tells them to find the answer of X - would be risible if it were not becoming more common.
Other than noting the enormous scope and depth of such a conspiracy - not to mention the cost - it is flagrantly dismissive of scientists scruples and moral integrity. It displays an ignorance of how government research is funded and begs such questions as why this has been the Required Answer through various administrations. Why didn't Cheney send down the Word that the results needed to be otherwise? Why weren't those evil grants canceled wholesale then?
The Beckian plot is paranoia enough for these times but completely without substantiation. Did you watch the presentation by the oyster guys? Are you calling them mercenary dupes?
Meanwhile it should be simple matter for skeptics to fund their own oyster guys and the ample evidence - not isolated curiosities - to prove these "corrupt" researchers wrong.
This reply may be worded too harshly - but charging climatologists like Gene Takle with falsifying results for money or "fame" is contemptible IMHO.
After a while, assigning all who disagree with you to the category of paid hacks is little more than a mass ad hominem attack - not a reasoned counterargument.
John
I find some of the comments of the AGW opponents (didn't use the term d****r) to be a reach. But beyond that and using history as a guide I predict that once the facts of AGW become really evident and society is struggling to cope, I think there will be a backlash against the most vocal and public obstructionists. Examples will be made of some of them. Human history is full of examples like this and scapegoats will be fingered. Some justified and some not. Just as one is held accountable for interfering with firemen putting out a fire the AGW opponents will be held accountable for their words and their actions. It will be interesting to see how this backlash manifests itself and how long it lasts.
The level of education shown in these comments by Anonymous have done much to "scew" my opinion to "aline" with John and the real scientists. No additional "qualifyer" necessary!
Dairy:
Loathe as I am to dissuade any positive commenter, I would suggest spelling is the least of our differences.
Without spell-check my posts would be virtually unreadable, and even then long-time followers have suffered through some embarrassingly bad syntax and composition.
It is the nature of blogs to be fast above all. Without editors we all look more illiterate than we really are. Likewise, posting in the heat of the moment will usually generate some profound regret.
My experience is never categorize your adversary by the strength of his browser.
Thank you for reading, and for giving a hoot about our magnificent language.
Post a Comment