Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

Agree, with that, although I do think that there has been some damage done by man. Whether this has caused warming or cooling I can't say.

Sorry to be pedantic but what do you actually mean by 'damage'?

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

Agree, with that, although I do think that there has been some damage done by man. Whether this has caused warming or cooling I can't say.

Few would argue that we've been ecologically friendly as a species over the last couple of hundred years, for sure. Looking at photos from 100 years ago, though, we've been a heck of a lot more visibly filthy in times past.

As I've said before in this thread, I'm keen to see investments in alternative energy conversion technology research. We get the sun for free. All we really need are methods of bagging the radiation and storing it effectively for use later. The waves are another freebie, as are the tides. I'm keen on seeing more wind turbines - though it'd be better if they didn't kill sheep in the future and it'd be a lot better if we didn't need to ring the UK 4-deep in them in order to generate enough power to keep us going. Current issues are efficiencies in conversion and storage, but the clean energies are there for the taking.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

I don't know of any other 'gates' currently in use, but I don't usually follow such things anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-gate

No need to follow - there are so many of them that they eventually follow you. Amusingly the closest to you geographically was a "Utegate". Motorsports-wise there were a couple regarding McLaren.

Quote from amp88 :

I'd like to ask you this: When was the last time you heard of scientists falsifying data and that falsified data being used as the basis for hundreds of billions of dollars in spending by the majority of the world's governments? The problem isn't just the fact that the scientists have falsified data...it's the end result of what happens with that falsified data. If you can't understand that then you seem unreasonable to me.

whether or not global warming really is a problem bruning loads of fossile fuels to provide energy for an exponentially rising number of people is not sustainable on the simple grounds that fossile fuels are naturally bound to run out before long
point is those billions will need to be spent on alternative energy soruces at some point either way so where the problem with doing it proactively now instead of in some future which may or may not be in trouble due to global warming and certainly will be a lot more dirty and polluted from all the other emission besides co2 that result from bruning coal and oil?

Quote from 5haz :

Yeah so scientists fiddle with results to fit their hypothesis, but is that an acceptable reason to just brush this whole thing off as insignificant and blown out of all proportion?

no but you guys desperately need some perspective

Quote :

I've done it myself, but the only thing at stake in my case is my Geography/Geology A level grades, while what has gone on in these CRU's has worldwide consequences for everyone.

one research group is not the centre of the world no matter how high their citation index may be
again perspective

Quote :

You also ask others to tell you what scientific experience they have, but when they ask the same of you, you go all vague and try to get out of it.

because the specifics of my scientific experience dont matter to argueing whether or not this practice is common in science
it might matter if id argue about global warming which as you may have notice im not

Quote from Shotglass :

whether or not global warming really is a problem bruning loads of fossile fuels to provide energy for an exponentially rising number of people is not sustainable on the simple grounds that fossile fuels are naturally bound to run out before long
point is those billions will need to be spent on alternative energy soruces at some point either way so where the problem with doing it proactively now instead of in some future which may or may not be in trouble due to global warming and certainly will be a lot more dirty and polluted from all the other emission besides co2 that result from bruning coal and oil?

Ah, so now we actually get the basis of your "argument". You want the world to look for alternative energy sources now so you're happy for any evidence that leads to that end, no matter the cost to the taxpayer just now. That goes a long way to explaining your posts in this thread thus far. I happen to agree with you, by the way, but I don't think the stimulus for change should come from falsified data.

Quote from amp88 :

Ah, so now we actually get the basis of your "argument". You want the world to look for alternative energy sources now so you're happy for any evidence that leads to that end, no matter the cost to the taxpayer just now.

again for the hundredth billionth time when have i ever said that and would you please stop putting words into my mouth thats way more direspectful than id ever consider being to anyone on this forum

Quote :

I happen to agree with you, by the way, but I don't think the stimulus for change should come from falsified data.

neither do i
although its hard to argue with the result of getting the blithering idiots we call our world leaders to actually do something

Quote from SamH :

[...]

Anyone got any more interesting reads?

Thanks for those. Nothing to read right now, but something to lighten the mood a bit.

Jon Stewart Talks Climategate.
"Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented."

Quote from Shotglass :

point is those billions will need to be spent on alternative energy soruces at some point either way so where the problem with doing it proactively now instead of in some future which may or may not be in trouble due to global warming and certainly will be a lot more dirty and polluted from all the other emission besides co2 that result from bruning coal and oil?

Of course, but that dosen't make taxing people on the amount of carbon they produce for dubious reasons any more reasonable.

And you'd be naiive to think that the money gained from these taxes would go into developing methods of alternative energy production, it'll most likely go into some war that nobody wanted or pay for an MP's porn collection.

If governments and scientists could just be (relatively) honest and say we need money to develop sustainable energy generation, it'd be fine. Rather than trying to generate a 'global warming' scare (which for all we know could be a massive lie).

Quote from Shotglass :

one research group is not the centre of the world no matter how high their citation index may be
again perspective

How does anyone know that its not going on elsewhere? And even if it is only one research group, that isn't an acceptable excuse.

Quote from Shotglass :

because the specifics of my scientific experience dont matter to argueing whether or not this practice is common in science
it might matter if id argue about global warming which as you may have notice im not

Right then, well don't go questioning other people's scientific experience as a way to counter someone else's post.

Quote from xaotik :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-gate

No need to follow - there are so many of them that they eventually follow you. Amusingly the closest to you geographically was a "Utegate". Motorsports-wise there were a couple regarding McLaren.

Quote :

Winegate — A beat-up over a bottle of wine on a jet landing in an alcohol-free Aboriginal community

Can't believe I didn't hear about that one

Something interesting and something funny:

http://www.nature.com/nature/j ... 2/n7273/full/462545a.html


and

Quote :

“From: [email protected]
Sent: 29th October 2009
To: The Knights Carbonic
Gentlemen, the culmination of our great plan approaches fast. What the Master called “the ordering of men’s affairs by a transcendent world state, ordained by God and answerable to no man”, which we now know as Communist World Government, advances towards its climax at Copenhagen. For 185 years since the Master, known to the laity as Joseph Fourier, launched his scheme for world domination, the entire physical science community has been working towards this moment.
The early phases of the plan worked magnificently. First the Master’s initial thesis - that the release of infrared radiation is delayed by the atmosphere - had to be accepted by the scientific establishment. I will not bother you with details of the gold paid, the threats made and the blood spilt to achieve this end. But the result was the elimination of the naysayers and the disgrace or incarceration of the Master’s rivals. Within 35 years the 3rd Warden of the Grand Temple of the Knights Carbonic (our revered prophet John Tyndall) was able to “demonstrate” the Master’s thesis. Our control of physical science was by then so tight that no major objections were sustained.
More resistence was encountered (and swiftly despatched) when we sought to install the 6th Warden (Svante Arrhenius) first as professor of physics at Stockholm University, then as rector. From this position he was able to project the Master’s second grand law - that the infrared radiation trapped in a planet’s atmosphere increases in line with the quantity of carbon dioxide the atmosphere contains. He and his followers (led by the Junior Warden Max Planck) were then able to adapt the entire canon of physical and chemical science to sustain the second law.
Then began the most hazardous task of all: our attempt to control the instrumental record. Securing the consent of the scientific establishment was a simple matter. But thermometers had by then become widely available, and amateur meteorologists were making their own readings. We needed to show a steady rise as industrialisation proceeded, but some of these unfortunates had other ideas. The global co-option of police and coroners required unprecedented resources, but so far we have been able to cover our tracks.
The over-enthusiasm of certain of the Knights Carbonic in 1998 was most regrettable. The high reading in that year has proved impossibly costly to sustain. Those of our enemies who have yet to be silenced maintain that the lower temperatures after that date provide evidence of global cooling, even though we have ensured that eight of the ten warmest years since 1850 have occurred since 2001(10). From now on we will engineer a smoother progression.
Our co-option of the physical world has been just as successful. The thinning of the Arctic ice cap was a masterstroke. The ring of secret nuclear power stations around the Arctic Circle, attached to giant immersion heaters, remains undetected, as do the space-based lasers dissolving the world’s glaciers.
Altering the migratory and reproductive patterns of the world’s wildlife has proved more challenging. Though we have now asserted control over the world’s biologists, there is no accounting for the unauthorised observations of farmers, gardeners, bird-watchers and other troublemakers. We have therefore been forced to drive migrating birds, fish and insects into higher latitudes, and to release several million tonnes of plant pheromones every year to accelerate flowering and fruiting. None of this is cheap, and ever more public money, secretly diverted from national accounts by compliant governments, is required to sustain it.
The co-operation of these governments requires unflagging effort. The capture of George W. Bush, a late convert to the cause of Communist World Government, was made possible only by the threatened release of footage filmed by a knight at Yale, showing the future president engaged in coitus with a Ford Mustang. Most ostensibly-capitalist governments remain apprised of where their real interests lie, though I note with disappointment that we have so far failed to eliminate Vaclav Klaus. Through the offices of compliant states, the Master’s third grand law has been accepted: world government will be established under the guise of controlling manmade emissions of greenhouse gases.
Keeping the scientific community in line remains a challenge. The national academies are becoming ever more querulous and greedy, and require higher pay-offs each year. The inexplicable events of the past month, in which the windows of all the leading scientific institutions were broken and a horse’s head turned up in James Hansen’s bed, appear to have staved off the immediate crisis, but for how much longer can we maintain the consensus?
Knights Carbonic, now that the hour of our triumph is at hand, I urge you all to redouble your efforts. In the name of the Master, go forth and terrify.
Professor Ernst Kattweizel, University of Redcar. 21st Grand Warden of the Temple of the Knights Carbonic.”

The nature journal is pretty interesting in the way it pretends the content of the emails is not damming. It's also interesting how it refers to sceptics as a "delialist fringe". Many uses of derogatory terms, such as "paranoid", "obstructionist", "harassment" etc. I certainly learned quite a bit about nature.com from its own particularly loaded wording. It's pretty apologist.

The email you quoted was created by George Monbiot, a "green" journalist whose world has been shaken quite a bit. He's pretty embarrassed about being blindly led to champion the AGW cause and he says he's ashamed to have failed in his duties as a journalist to examine the evidence behind the politics that he's promoted in the articles he's been writing for years. I'm not sure what Monbiot's going to do now. He's been shamefully exposed as a 2nd-rate journalist, but judging by his attempt at writing satire I don't think he should try to get into comedy writing. That's perhaps another career floating down the stream over this whole scandal.

Quote from SamH :

The nature journal is pretty interesting in the way it pretends the content of the emails is not damming. It's also interesting how it refers to sceptics as a "delialist fringe". Many uses of derogatory terms, such as "paranoid", "obstructionist", "harassment" etc. I certainly learned quite a bit about nature.com from its own particularly loaded wording. It's pretty apologist.

There are a couple of other strange points that Nature seems to be trying to make. One is that

Quote :

If there are benefits to the e-mail theft, one is to highlight yet again the harassment that denialists inflict on some climate-change researchers, often in the form of endless, time-consuming demands for information under the US and UK Freedom of Information Acts. Governments and institutions need to provide tangible assistance for researchers facing such a burden.

Firstly, scientists would not be having this problem if they were to properly present their research methods and all data along with their results. Many tricks have been used by these guys in order to hide and obfuscate various data which would seem to take up more time on their part than simply handing over the data on request or doing the right thing in the first place. If all the data is out there, then there would be no reason for any kind of 'harassment', as they see it. They are making things more difficult for themselves.

If the scientists or readers of Nature are genuinely interested in progressing the state of climate science, then they will need to start acknowledging the input and work of scientists such as Steve McIntyre and others which have so far been doing their best to call attention to shoddy science and correct it. If not for Steve M, then the original M Mann hockeystick would probably still be regarded as correct (for example), and since it's been shown to be dodgy, then the science can move forward more quickly by not referencing and building apon shoddy work.

edit: the sentence "Governments and institutions need to provide tangible assistance for researchers facing such a burden" sounds scarily like Nature is supportive of the attempts by researchers to block or refuse FOIA requests. That's just not cricket!


Also -

Quote :

Denialists often maintain that these changes are just a symptom of natural climate variability. But when climate modellers test this assertion by running their simulations with greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide held fixed, the results bear little resemblance to the observed warming. The strong implication is that increased greenhouse-gas emissions have played an important part in recent warming, meaning that curbing the world's voracious appetite for carbon is essential

This implys that all the various natural forcings are known and accounted for, and are being simulated correctly in the models (a wild eyed claim as far as I'm concerned).




I agree that the overuse of the term 'denier' drags the article down.
The whole thing seems to be a gloss over.

PS, for those interested, here's a video interview with Steve McIntrye on the various hockeystick reconstructions- it's in Finnish (not Steve M though) but there are subtitles.

http://dotsub.com/view/19f9c335-b023-4a40-9453-a98477314bf2

More on the BBC's refusal to follow any story that goes against the party line...I watched the Channel 4 12 midday news earlier and the main headline was that the so-called 'grandfather of climate change' has said he wishes the Copenhagen summit to fail, and that it is based on totally wrong principles. Ah, I thought, I'd best watch the BBC News at 1 to see what they make of this...and, surprise surprise, nothing. Absolutely no mention made of it whatsoever.

Quote from mookie427 :

More on the BBC's refusal to follow any story that goes against the party line...I watched the Channel 4 12 midday news earlier and the main headline was that the so-called 'grandfather of climate change' has said he wishes the Copenhagen summit to fail, and that it is based on totally wrong principles. Ah, I thought, I'd best watch the BBC News at 1 to see what they make of this...and, surprise surprise, nothing. Absolutely no mention made of it whatsoever.

surprise surprise surprise....

the ONE time you would hope the BBC, the GREAT BBC would live up to what you pay your licence for and it FAILS!!! Say whatever you want guys... when you needed the BBC most it has failed you... just like I said it would!

SamH start a new thread on the media coverage of this, coz there is no way I am going to! lol!

The MSM have written themselves into almost complete irrelevance when it comes to accurate reporting on climate change. Of that I have no doubt.

BBC does seem to be the worst of them.. but please let's not go there!

I think the BBC will be forced to do something at some point. They can't ignore it forever. However I shall bask in the glory while I can! Yh it's morally wrong to celebrate the failure of our national broadcastor but sometimes when you turn out to be SOOO right you can't help but feel good!

hehehe sorry guys can't help myself!

Quote from Intrepid :

surprise surprise surprise....

the ONE time you would hope the BBC, the GREAT BBC would live up to what you pay your licence for and it FAILS!!! Say whatever you want guys... when you needed the BBC most it has failed you... just like I said it would!

SamH start a new thread on the media coverage of this, coz there is no way I am going to! lol!

Yes yes the BBC is a bias, traitorous, menacing, wasteful and dodgy organisation we all know that, but please we don't need to hear it in each thread

Quote from boothy :

Yes yes the BBC is a bias, traitorous, menacing, wasteful and dodgy organisation we all know that, but please we don't need to hear it in each thread

The dream is over http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8392611.stm finally they had to come out with something but a line like "Climate "sceptics" have claimed that the e-mails undermine the scientific case for climate change being caused by humanity's greenhouse gas emissions, dubbing the issue "ClimateGate"." doesn't sound BIAS at all! The BBC can't help themselves sometimes.

But didn't they hold it off for as long as they could

also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8388485.stm

Thank god for the Blogosphere! The FREE service!

So many -ists being thrown about. :rolleyes:

Quote from Intrepid :

when you needed the BBC most it has failed you...

Why did I need the BBC the most just now? I need the BBC the most when Top Gear or F1 is on. It rarely fails in the regard.

Is the BBC biased? Yes, of course it is. Everyone is. Every newspaper has its bias. Every political party has its bias. Every human being has its bias. Is that the end of the world? No. Why pay your taxes to a government that should, surely, be unbiased?

Quote from Intrepid :

Sorry to be pedantic but what do you actually mean by 'damage'?

I expect nothing else from you.

By ‘damage’ I mean techniques and actions by man which have affected the earth in some way…be it over fishing (which up here is a serious issue and our fishing fleet continually gets battered…no pun intended), over mining or the heavy reliance of fossil fuels.

I think most of us would agree that the fumes emitted from cars/buses/planes/cows arses, plus the waste produced by factories and humans in general are in deed harmful and cause some type of damage, I think one of the key areas of debate is whether that damage is reversible or not?

Quote from v1rg0 :

Lord Monckton raised some interesting points on Glenn Beck's show.

Let me guess....did Glen at some point break down and cry over how the evil liberals/Obama/Socialism/The Red Army are ruining everything American and pure.

Glen reminds me of the Air Force guy who went a bit nuts and sent the entire fleet of B52 bombers into Russia in Dr Strangelove

Glenn Beck is a moron. That's a scientific fact for you. I can even prove it with a wealth of empirical evidence, and everyone would be welcome to check my work.

FOX's response to the politicizing of climate science that's been exposed is to deepen the politicizing of the exposé itself. Typical idiocy from FOX, but we'd expect nothing less. Heck, it's not like they've never tampered with "evidence" to support their theories, either. They're forever getting busted for lying and deliberately manufacturing stories.

Forget FOX News, Beck et al. They're insidious.

Quote from SamH :

They're insidious.

This may be the case, but as far as I am aware they are one of the only major news agencies making a big deal out of this.

Quote from Mackie The Staggie :

I expect nothing else from you.

By ‘damage’ I mean techniques and actions by man which have affected the earth in some way…be it over fishing (which up here is a serious issue and our fishing fleet continually gets battered…no pun intended), over mining or the heavy reliance of fossil fuels.

I think most of us would agree that the fumes emitted from cars/buses/planes/cows arses, plus the waste produced by factories and humans in general are in deed harmful and cause some type of damage, I think one of the key areas of debate is whether that damage is reversible or not

Damage to the excistance of humanity, arguable. But 'damage' to the earth? I am not sure we can actually 'damage' the earth. it is what it is. Essentially we are 'earth' so anything we do is of the earth. Earth can't damage earth.

The word damage is such an emotive term without a full explanation of what it means in relation to what we are talking about it doesn't have any real meaning. Otherwise we sound like a bunch of tree huggers!