The historical record shows that climate is cyclic. Local records show it's cyclic. Government records show it's cyclic. Why was the name changed from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change"? Could it be the polarization of the phrase? Everything happens for a reason. Why would there be government funding to research Global Warming in a cooling phase of this cycle?
The cynical side of me is firmly entrenched that "politics" drove the name change. The human side of me is firmly entrenched in the cyclic nature of the climate.

Where's your scientist side? Mine looks for the best scientific information and a good place to start is with the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, probably the two top scientific establishments on the planet. They have plenty of guides to the science for the public, see http://nas-sites.org/americasclimat...te-change/climate-change-evidence-and-causes/. Another good site is at the American Institute of Physics where Spencer Weart has placed the text of his scientific history of The Discovery of Global Warming (also available in print). http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm

On the issue of private funding, just like you, the Koch brothers can fund whatever research they choose. Where they put their money is their business. Are you saying there are no private funds in the non-skeptic camp? Should they not be treated the same as the skeptic camp?

I was only showing that it was possible for scientific 'contrarian' research to get funding from a variety of sources. The result of this research is also interesting. You don't get to be a professor of physics at Berkeley without knowing how to do scientific research.

Does Kert Davies get a free pass or do you think he is pursuing an agenda?

I had no idea who he was, but Google tells me he is involved with Greenpeace. I prefer to stick with scientists for advice, not activists.

 

And here is the rest of the scientific story that gets conveniently overlooked every time. Co2 is FOLLOWING not LEADING the temperature changes.

We know that CO2 causes warming, and we also know that warming causes the release of more CO2. In the past something else has initiated the warming that then released more CO2 and hence caused more warming, and so in the record in the ice cores the rise of temperature has preceded the rise in CO2. Unfortunately no previous species has managed to set up an industry capable of doubling the atmospheric CO2 by burning fossil fuels, so the paleo climate record doesn't tell us what will happen if we do. We have to do science to try to understand that.

I can only point you to this booklet produced by the Royal Society in England (along with your American Academy of Sciences one of the top scientific bodies on the planet), "Climate Change Controversies - a simple guide", look at Misleading Argument 3.
https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2007/8031.pdf

With respect tcmtech, google is a very poor guide to the scientific research as the web has been thoroughly polluted by non-scientific bloggers, activists, politicians etc... My advice is to go to the respected scientific institutions, in the case of the US you have some of the best scientists in the world! I would suggest your National Academy of Sciences and the American Institute of Physics for a start. I don't know anyone who is suggesting that the scientific advice produced by these institutions is compromised. I also have great respect for NASA, I don't know why it is popular to knock it.

 

With respect tcmtech, google is a very poor guide to the scientific research as the web has been thoroughly polluted by non-scientific bloggers, activists, politicians etc... My advice is to go to the respected scientific institutions, in the case of the US you have some of the best scientists in the world! I would suggest your National Academy of Sciences and the American Institute of Physics for a start. I don't know anyone who is suggesting that the scientific advice produced by these institutions is compromised. I also have great respect for NASA, I don't know why it is popular to knock it.

And now you have pointed out the very problem of the whole debate.

No matter who references what no one will agree that the referenced sources are valid. I gave the most open unbiased search criteria I could think of and yet you were still able to find a flaw in its credibility despite my having never pointed to any source or work particular.

I could point out a solid scientific fact and still someone will come along and argue that its not valid because it does not fit their agenda or belief system or search criteria or whatever else.
Good, Bad, Right, Wrong, Scientifically proven and vaid, or made up political and media BS there will always be someone who will call it or claim it's the opposite of what it is or what is happening.

No win until nature has done what it choses to do whether us humans like it or not.

Personally so far given natures track record VS the politicians and medias I have very strong suspicions that life will get better for the majority if things warmed up more not worse. I know for a fact from where I sit and live life has gotten better not worse which gives me every reason to not want to stop whatever is happening.

 

And here is the rest of the scientific story that gets conveniently overlooked every time. Co2 is FOLLOWING not LEADING the temperature changes.

Here is the graph again. Co2 is clearly and obviously not following temperature. They are rising together. Co2 concentration levels have roughly doubled since the beginning of the industrial age, when industry began to burn fossil fuels. Many studies have confirmed the rise in CO2 levels is due to the use of the fuels. The rise in temperature corresponds better with the rise in CO2 levels better than any other supposed cause.



Here is another chart that shows the beginning of the temp/Co2 rise. As this clearly shows, the rise in CO2 proceeds the rise in temperature.

 

You make it so that only those who believe your studies are accepted.

And then you want us to go to those accepted studies.......to prove your point.

"I don't know anyone who is suggesting that the scientific advice produced by these institutions is compromised."

I certainly are one. There might be one or two more.

That data is the most massaged data in history.

This "passion" is not scientific. It is political.

I just hate to see the authoritarian nature, causing division and the waste of resources.

No mater what we do.....the weather will be the weather.

 

Leads, follows, spins in circles before exploding I personally dont really care.

Every indication of what has happened in the last 30+ years of my life in my regional climate changes has pointed to whatever is happening being highly gainful to me and people like me so I have zero reasons to want to stop whatever is happening from continuing on its merry path to making the climate in my life better.

Around here the milder winters along with warmer rainier summers is a win win for people like those around me who depend on farming for a living and by that reasoning every single person who buys the products made from the crops we have is gaining from it as well.

As far as we see it more CO2, warmer seasonal temps and more consistent rains makes our crops grow faster and healthier meaning more profit and less operating expenses in return so why would we want to put a stop that let alone reverse it?

 

And now you have pointed out the very problem of the whole debate.

No matter who references what no one will agree that the referenced sources are valid. I gave the most open unbiased search criteria I could think of and yet you were still able to find a flaw in its credibility despite my having never pointed to any source or work particular.

And this neatly brings us back to the topic of the thread. If you are going to challenge the experts you have to first identify who they are.

Your National Academy of Sciences, an organisation of about 2000 of your top scientists, with about 220 Nobel prize winners, surely qualifies as an expert body in science. They have earned some respect. Don't they rate above a google search? If they take the time to produce material for the public on the science of global warming, if you are interested in the subject wouldn't this be an authoritative place to start? Have you read any of their publications? Again, here is the link:
http://nas-sites.org/americasclimat...te-change/climate-change-evidence-and-causes/

Google measures populism and activism, what we really need is reason, one place to find this is in organisations devoted to science.

Life may be good for you now, even improving, but are you sure your children and grandchildren will thank you for ignoring the advice of your top scientists? Google gives many hits to support you, I challenge you to name one significant scientific organisation that supports your view.

 

As far as we see it more CO2, warmer seasonal temps and more consistent rains makes our crops grow faster and healthier meaning more profit and less operating expenses in return so why would we want to put a stop that let alone reverse it?

I can almost understand this from my limited knowledge of North Dakota, but at the risk of being ever so slightly political, I am amazed at finding the same reaction in the public figures from Florida.

 

Thats because all of our older citizens move to Florida when they retire and everyone knows it can never be too warm for old people.

 

Life may be good for you now, even improving, but are you sure your children and grandchildren will thank you for ignoring the advice of your top scientists?

I consider the 'Your Descendants' arguments/sympathy ploys to be very weak straw man tactics at best. My grandparents and great grandparents had no better knowledge of where or how I would live than I have of where and how my descendants will live some day in the future.

Given that for all I know my families descendants will be some of the people who are first to colonize other planets where the climates they will have to adapt to will make the worst of anything here on Earth seem pretty tame in comparison.

 

Given that for all I know my families descendants will be some of the people who are first to colonize other planets where the climates they will have to adapt to will make the worst of anything here on Earth seem pretty tame in comparison.

Yeah... lets turn this conversation around and start discussing global martian warming... and the role that all those man-made rovers have in that matter...

 

I had no idea who he was, but Google tells me he is involved with Greenpeace. I prefer to stick with scientists for advice, not activists.

He is one of those who are filing FOIAs to find out who is funding the scientists in opposition to the currently held opinion. He then releases the information in the form of a press release to discredit the opposing scientist steering the argument that "being paid" by commercial activities means a particular outcome. He muddies the intercourse, because he supports one side of the issue. No investigation into the other side. This provides the media with fodder to exploit, and drive public opinion.

As far as our scientists ... visit NOAA's web site and you can get the "raw" monthly highs/lows/averages ... unfiltered or filtered, as they describe it.

They also indicate which number was "Estimated" I've seen where 18 percent of the annual average "minimums" were "estimated".

The problem with this issue is the implicitly intertwining of the body politic and the body scientific and there is no way to ignore one or the other.

“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

 

“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to prove with the Oppenheimer quote, he was actually talking about the political process, not science. If you go to the source (which is a great article):
April 14, 1950, Vol. 111 SCIENCE
Encouragement of Science
Robert Oppenheimer

the quote in a slightly expanded context is (my emphasis added)

Our own political life is predicated on openness. We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to enquire. We know that the wages of secrecy are corruption. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

Let me be clear. Science is not skepticism. It is not the practice of science to look for things to doubt. It was not by deliberate attempt of skepticism that physicists were led to doubt the absolute nature of simultaneity, or to recognize that the ideas of strict causality embodied in classical physics could not be applied in the domain of atomic phenomena. There is probably no group of men who take more for granted in their daily work than the scientists. Common sense, and all that flows from it, is their principal basis for what they do in the laboratory and for what they make of it on paper. But for scientists it is not only honorable to doubt, it is mandatory to do that when there appears to be evidence in support of the doubt. In place of authority in science, we have and we need to have only the consensus of informed opinion, only the guide of example. No scientist needs to order his colleagues to use a new technique of experiment or to enter a new field of discovery. If he has done this, it will be an invitation to his fellows to follow.

It's the informed opinion that I contend is provided by the professional science organisations. People taking snowballs into Congress is not informed opinion.

Things were clearly a bit different in Oppenheimer's day, in another part he says

Science is not based on authority. It owes its acceptance and its universality to an appeal to intelligible, communicable evidence that any interested man can evaluate.

he clearly never envisioned the sort of misinformation campaign we see today,

As far as our scientists ... visit NOAA's web site and you can get the "raw" monthly highs/lows/averages ... unfiltered or filtered, as they describe it.
They also indicate which number was "Estimated" I've seen where 18 percent of the annual average "minimums" were "estimated".

If you can demonstrate that this seriously compromises the data, write a paper. As Oppenheimer says, science "owes its acceptance and its universality to an appeal to intelligible, communicable evidence that any interested man can evaluate". If you can demonstrate that the warming signature is caused by 'estimated' temperature readings, you'll be a hero. I suspect that the scientists may be onto this though.

 

If i looked at the cyclic historical record and if i averaged the data between peaks or nulls, then summed them, there would be little concern to take action. The problem lies in the fact that few entities IF any, would fund a project that was tens of centuries in length.

Why should scientists not be accountable for their predictions?

If a marketeer wasnt producing results, the would be looking for new employment.

I dont recall any newscaster state a margin of error when talkong climate change.

Its like the wording differences. Discernable to more than likely ... which phrase will win the funding?

One of the biggest polluters is the lawnmowers.

Oppie may have wrote that with scientists being exempt, but, there could have been a personal bias towards scientists. The last time I looked, scientists were human with all the faults of the rest of humanity.

 

Mod note: Please steer away from politics. There are other websites for that.

 

Scientifically I always find these debates to be so lopsided that they are laughable. If you ask the believers side who there is there are only two sides, Believers and Deniers.
If you ask the scientifically rational people there are two sides the believers and the skeptics.

Now if yo ask me there are three sides to this. The believers who have had a rather poor track record of honesty being all they preach is gloom and doom for everyone that so far has never really came close to being a real event, The skeptics who picked them apart because so little of their gloom and doom ever comes remotely close to being accurate and then there is the third group no one seems to acknowledge.

The people who have looked at all the data from both sides and the theories and the projections and found that there's a lot of real good that has came from the presently notable climate shifts and that there is loads more potential good that could come still.

Now the way I see it those who are most set against the climate changes are those who perceive their climate as becoming inhospitable to them by their present standards. No one talks about all the already inhospitable places that are now becoming practical to outrightly favorable to live in or the places that were barely tolerable that are now becoming favorable climate wise.

As far as climate making a presently heavily inhabited region uninhabitable guess what? Human civilization is built on the countless thousands of past civilizations that for whatever natural changes went from being livable areas to being abandoned .
Given that historical track record of past civilizations I see absolutely no historically significant evidence to say that the climates today can not make some place now occupied uninhabitable for the foreseeable future while at the same time opening up a new area to be more suitable to live in.

As far as I am concerned I would greatly appreciate it if the people who are in fear of their lives becoming less convenient and tolerable for them would stop trying to take away my chances for where and how I live to become a more tolerable and favorable place to live for me and my future generations who may live here.

 

Yeah... lets turn this conversation around and start discussing global martian warming... and the role that all those man-made rovers have in that matter...

I bet you are starting to regret opening this can of worms.
Personally, I hope it stops before the Internet runs out of space.
I have 2 neighbors with dogs that stand at the fence and bark at each other.
I won't stick my hand into that discussion, either.

 

I bet you are starting to regret opening this can of worms.

A can of worms indeed... rub it in dude... rub it in...

 

If i looked at the cyclic historical record and if i averaged the data between peaks or nulls, then summed them, there would be little concern to take action. The problem lies in the fact that few entities IF any, would fund a project that was tens of centuries in length.

Now you are making scientific claims without doing the science. There is no "cyclic historical record", only the "historical record". If you analyse it you find that the temperature has started to increase. This has been confirmed by multiple independent analyses.

As far as your conviction that the science is biased to win funding, this doesn't make sense - the fossil fuel industry would dramatically out-spend any Government funded research program if it was possible to produce science that supported the continual burning of fossil fuels.

The last time I looked, scientists were human with all the faults of the rest of humanity.

This is true, but the scientific process, where scientists are forced to publish their results into an audience of paid whistleblowers, any one of whom gains kudos for finding errors in other scientist's work, is one of the most reliable things we have ever developed. Occasionally it makes mistakes, but even then it is self-correcting.

 

I bet you are starting to regret opening this can of worms.
Personally, I hope it stops before the Internet runs out of space.
I have 2 neighbors with dogs that stand at the fence and bark at each other.
I won't stick my hand into that discussion, either.

It's been interesting. I find it fascinating that folk that take a scientific approach to technical problems refuse to accept that there is a scientific approach to this issue. The top scientists in your country (some of the best in the world) have published material detailing the evidence and the choices that leads to, yet I suspect almost none of those with fixed views have read it. Supposedly they believe that this is some sort of conspiracy, that scientists globally are engaging in some sort of green-left conspiracy to deindustrialise the world. This conspiracy extends to your National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society in England, the national academies of France, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, India and many others I can't remember off the top of my head.

I engaged as I think it is an important issue and there is a (small) chance I may encourage folk to look at the science. It was also a challenge to have a discussion on GW and keep it about the science so that the thread wouldn't get shut down. I've probably spoilt that now.

It's a little sad that the country that dominated the last century largely through the pragmatic adoption of science and technology, is setting sail into the 21st with a weighty ballast of an energy policy committed to fossil fuels, supported by a misinformation campaign funded from fossil fuel profits.

I'm no alarmist, change is happening, it just could happen more smoothly if people knew who the experts were, challenged them through the scientific process not through google searches, and weren't prepared to rely on Dr Spock appearing to save their grandchildren.