Google's lobbyists go big on climate change denial, raise money for Inhofe & Competitive Enterprise Insitute

Nobody has brought them up here, but they have been mentioned on the internet many, many times. Generally they’ve been cited as good evidence for the link between carbon dioxide and temperature - just like climate scientists predicted!

On the other hand the existence of natural changes, the very largest of which are drops of about 100 ppm over the course of tens of thousands of years, does not speak much to the origin of the current rise, which is surpassing that in maybe 1-2% the time. Anyone who proposes it can be accounted for by variations as seen in Vostok is either ignorant of the vast difference in scale, or hoping their audience is.

By the way, are you going to comment on your nonsense here, or are you hoping we’ve forgotten? Because it’s only been a day.

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As seen here, both sides seem to be selective on what data they present and how, which leads me to distrust either of them.

It’s funny you should say that. I’m only selective in that I reject studies (or interpretations of studies) that have been roundly disproven as industry-sponsored half-truths that rely on selective, cherry-picked data to push an industry agenda.

You may have missed this post I made on the rise in sea levels that a ridiculous denier keeps trying to say is “lies”, etc. You know how I found those charts? I simply searched scientific charts and pulled up what most of the entire world is recording along with general, scientific consensus based upon proper research. I didn’t seek out a single website and it’s not some selective, fringe science I had to dig up just to prove my point.

On the other hand, If you want to find truly selective data, type in crazy-pants things like “sea levels hoax” and shit. There you’ll be “taught the controversy” with selective (as in cherry-picked) data, half-truths and fringe “studies” that are rejected trash. They simply lie and say they’re peer-reviewed when they’re not. There is not a single, properly widespread peer-reviewed study that rejects 97% of climate scientists. If your mission is to truly look at the science, then you can’t possibly ignore that.

I assume you’re not anti-evolution. (if you are, stop reading here, and let’s just agree to disagree, thx)

How did you come to find that evolution is valid science without removing some religion-sponsored, half-truths and fringe “studies” from your final conclusion? Do you think public schools should “teach the controversy” based upon roundly disproven myths or should we focus on actual science? There is not a single, properly widespread peer-reviewed study that rejects evolution. If your mission is to truly look at the science, then you can’t possibly ignore that.

I guess I am just not convinced that the changes seen and predicted aren’t “normal”.

You don’t have to be. It’s time you refer to true experts in their field who aren’t just studying climate science part-time, but are dedicated scientists.

97% of actual climate scientists agree (which is an incredible amount) that climate change is real and that it’s very likely due to human activities. What valid research have you done or found that rejects what the vast majority a climate scientists have determined that isn’t cherry-picked rubbish?

If you do more research you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of those that are deniers tend to be anything but climate scientists. This video below is humorous, but it represents a lot of the frustration that actual climate scientists are having with all the anti-science dolts that are rejecting their consensus for no other reason than that they’ve been “taught the controversy” by industry-sponsored, libertarian “think tanks” that have little or nothing to do with actual science and more to do with propaganda.

I commend you for taking some classes, but until you become an actual climate scientist I hope you learn that good science is also based upon being humble and listening to those who know more than you. That’s not me or anyone else, it’s the world’s climate scientists.

It’s the height of arrogance and ignorance to ignore them and think you know better without doing equally rigorious and truly peer reviewed studies to back you up. I encourage you to question any science and start your own studies to disprove them if you can, but posting conjecture that they’re wrong without backing yourself up without rigorous studies and becoming an solid, seasoned expert in the field is ignorant and disrespectful to those that do.

If you’ve got valid data that turns upside down what 97% of the world’s climate scientists are studying, then you need to come forward with that data and get it peer-reviewed by said scientists. Sorry, that’s how science works. Otherwise, you’re off to a really rough start on getting educated on climate science and climate change as it applies to our modern world with our human activities.

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This term “denialist” needs to be abandoned by climate science journalists. It bears no meaning when the models are under-performing. If you are a fan of science, then you should respect somebody’s – even an organization’s – right to disagree with a model that is not working so great. If you don’t see that the models aren’t working so great, then good arguments can be made that you are not listening to the critics. Critics serve an important role in our society; there is no sense to simply ignoring them.

It’s important for people to realize that “thinking like a scientist” is no longer just a collection of methodologies and values. Ideology is now an important aspect of education. You don’t agree with climate change theory? It’s going to be a hell of a lot harder to get a PhD, to begin with. Soooooooo … What does this say about the meaning of consensus? Is consensus something that simply emerges independently in the minds of each scientist? Or, is it an artifact of the university system itself? Jeff Schmidt seems to answer this question in his important critique of our PhD system, Disciplined Minds.

[quote=“chenille, post:78, topic:9709”]By the way, are you going to comment on your nonsense <a href=“Google’s lobbyists go big on climate change denial, raise money for Inhofe & Competitive Enterprise Insitute”>here</a>, or are you hoping we’ve forgotten? Because it’s only been a day.
[/quote]

No because my being wrong makes you look better, doesn’t it? (don’t mention it!)

But I will clarify - I don’t dispute fluctuations in: temperature; CO2 levels; ice growth and melts. These things have been happening for millenia - ergo, man cannot be responsible.

If you think that you have used logic in the statement “These things have been happening for millenia - ergo, man cannot be responsible” then you are truly a fool. The millenias old events are coupled with massive CO2 spikes, albeit from natural occurences such as volcanic activity and perhaps asteroid strikes. No human involvement, true. The 20th and 21st centuries, however, are puncutated by massive CO2 spikes that are industry driven. See how that works? Stop being a shill. Greener polices and industries do nothing to hurt, they only benefit the planet. Not Big Oil, but then they are already in an end game, hence the ridiculous fracking we are witnessing.

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[quote=“creesto, post:82, topic:9709, full:true”]
If you think that you have used logic in the statement “These things have been happening for millenia - ergo, man cannot be responsible” then you are truly a fool. The millenias old events are coupled with massive CO2 spikes, albeit from natural occurences such as volcanic activity and perhaps asteroid strikes. No human involvement, true.[/quote]

I think you’ve just shot yourself in the foot.

As far as fracking goes, I was wondering how long it would take someone like you to raise it. Bingo!

What does this say about the meaning of consensus? Is consensus something that simply emerges independently in the minds of each scientist? Or, is it an artifact of the university system itself?

I’m sure it’s a bit of both and that’s why you don’t take seriously many scientists until their research has been rigorously peer-reviewed by a large number of other scientists so that a cog in their research can be found. If studies hold up after proper peer-review then we can make a reasonable assumption that the studies have value and can be used as precedent. That’s also very much how open source software works and that’s why openness and transparency is the best disinfectant to institutionalized decision-making.

That’s why climate scientists are continuing to study climate change. They all haven’t stopped and said it’s all settled and they know exactly how climate change is going to specifically affect the weather, sea levels, droughts, ice melt, etc.

The lie that climate change/impact deniers often propagate is that climate scientists refuse to even discuss climate change and global warning from a critical point of view anymore when that’s the furthest from the truth. There is ongoing, widespread research from climate scientists all over the world to continue to study climate change and bring new models forward for peer review.

On the other hand, you have fringe elements that manufacture consensus by positing fake peer-review and if they conduct real science they lose their funding from industry. Have you considered that’s what Jeff Schmidt is also warning about? That if scientists don’t tow the industry line, they can get rejected? These industry-sponsored “think tanks” thrive on being closed and having a lack of transparency. Why would you give these people equal credence to 97% of the world’s climate scientists who mostly work in the open with full transparency and proper “open source” peer review?

It’s a great way to muddle the waters instead of focusing on real science, that’s for sure.

This term “denialist” needs to be abandoned by climate science journalists. It bears no meaning when the models are under-performing.

Models always under-perform. There’s no such thing as exact science especially when dealing with something as vastly complex as climate science.

To start a semantic debate on what to call people who reject scientific consensus is useless. For example, there are studies that say that hurricanes may be pushed further east away from the East Coast due to climate change’s effects on the jet stream. No one is saying that’s climate change/impact denial, it’s the study of climate science and scientists are looking into it now (as they should).

On the other hand, the ones called climate change/impact deniers are typically people that aren’t climate scientists and they’re sponsored directly or indirectly by industry and their “studies” don’t hold up to true peer review so they (or their handlers) attempt to manufacture consent with “think tanks” that have very little to do with actual science and everything to do with a political and industrial agendas.

It’s important for people to realize that “thinking like a scientist” is no longer just a collection of methodologies and values. Ideology is now an important aspect of education.

You know what’s vastly better than “thinking like a climate scientist” and focusing on ideology? It’s being a climate scientist, rejecting ideology and focusing on true, properly peer-reviewed studies so we all can get somewhere instead of spinning our wheels in industry FUD.

What do you propose is better than peer-reviewing each other? Just taking each other’s conjecture on things and calling that science?

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[quote=“synthnseq, post:81, topic:9709”]
No because my being wrong makes you look better, doesn’t it? (don’t mention it!)
But I will clarify - I don’t dispute fluctuations in: temperature; CO2 levels; ice growth and melts. These things have been happening for millenia - ergo, man cannot be responsible.[/quote]
Holding you to your misrepresentations isn’t some kind of cheap shot to make myself look good, the way you’re trying to paint it. It’s to discourage that sort of dishonesty, or at least make it clear it won’t get you anywhere.

It looks like that lesson hasn’t sunk in yet. I just finished noting how anyone who proposes what we’re seeing today is comparable to the variations as seen in Vostok “is either ignorant of the vast difference in scale, or hoping their audience is”. And you’re still trying to pretend the one, which everyone agrees is natural, is just like the other, a rise nearly two orders of magnitude faster than the largest falls? Not impressed.

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‘Dishonesty’…‘lessons’…‘ignorant’…‘confusion’…‘misrepresentations’.

There is no confusion.

Global temperatures have been fluctuating since waay before man walked the earth.

They will continue to do so long after we’ve gone.

You can support your argument with as many barbed comments you can muster but the fact that things don’t stay the same can’t be attributed to man.

Incidentally, chenille - you know this. You don’t like it, but you know it. No amount of graphs and links can disprove it.

(Incidentally, your intelligence is a credit to you).

Now Cowicide posts about the NSA instead of doing something about it

That’s amazingly pretentious. Then again, by your past behavior I guess I should expect you to be perfectly comfortable making false claims about someone you’ve never met in your life.

like I did back in 1994 as the PGP interface developer -=Xenon=-, seen

You’re a legend in your own mind.

My work helped to popularize PGP enough to create awareness about the Republican
congressional Clipper Chip dictate which were hardware backdoors meant
to go in all personal computers!

You did a fantastic job. They utilized the Clipper Chip anyway in secret.

Thank you for educating me on the Clipper Chip. I had never heard of such things before. It was very prescient of you to know that I have zero IT security knowledge and professional experience whatsoever. Thank you!

Global temperatures have been fluctuating since waay before man walked the earth.

Thank you, captain obvious, for sharing your cutting edge knowledge of paleoclimatology.

I also heard from a libertarian “think tank” that a food policy analyst (fuck climate scientists, what do they know?) from an institute funded by ExxonMobil wrote an article that some random scientists agree with you that warming has nothing to do with human activity. You’re on the right track, mister!

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Telegraph is a right-wing newspaper with dubious credentials.

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See, I have agreed as much, no climate scientist has ever tried to argue against it, and actually there is a lot of interesting investigation into the subject. Pretending it’s something we don’t like and would try to disprove because we disagree with this…

…is just another example of dishonesty, in this case trying to paint a false dichotomy between all climate changes being natural and all artificial. Or am I really to suppose you don’t understand how one doesn’t follow from the other, or what it means for one effect to be orders of magnitude more than another? In that case, maybe you should listen to what other people are telling you, because your argument is risible.

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Chenille, I am always prepared to listen; I just don’t like bigots and unfortunately, the topic of climate change easily provokes strong reactions.

I have a hunch it is not a cognitive but a fiscal bias. Is is most likely synthseq’s pocketbook that is in charge of his thinking. A good portion of posts like this end up being done because the poster was paid to post that.

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Let me get this straight: your friend is:

  • A lawyer (specifically in copyright law)
  • Also has a doctorate in chemistry
  • Is is not stated that she has a degree in either physics, meteorology, climatology or any similar field
  • Bases her view on climate change on a novel by Michael Crichton
  • Works for Google AdWords

This seems to be a classic case of the trap many geeks fall into, that achieving expertise in at least one field makes them qualified in all fields. And I am not even sure your former date is a geek, as she may just be another selfish lawyer and not a Happy Mutant.

Cheers!

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I’m too lazy to look it up now, but ice cores are pretty important.

Normally, carbon trapped under the ice is released during the warming cycle and trapped back in during the cooling cycle. The driver there is the Milankovich cycles, which are basically the oscillation in the orbit of the earth. When we’re slightly further away, we experience cooling, and when we’re closer, warming. When enough heat is produced, more CO2 is released, which leads to more warming, which leads to more CO2 being released and so on in a positive feedback cycle. In this case, CO2 rise lags the temperature.

The problem is that today, there’s no corresponding Milankovich cycle. There’s a temperature uptick without the sun acting up. And now, the CO2 rise is leading temperature rise. This means that there’s an effect besides the natural oscillation which normally produces the initial impulse for CO2 rise to occur. That something else can only be traced to anthropogenic causes.

The main reason that the heat gets trapped in the atmosphere is always GHGs, of which water vapour and CO2 are the most important. Just enough CO2 to start the process off, and you start seeing the ice caps and permafrost melting and the trapped CO2 and water vapour getting into the atmosphere. This means that the earth retains more heat, and the global average temperature rises. Thing is, it doesn’t take all that much CO2 rise to lead to warming. The initial impulse can come from anywhere - the sun, or humans, it doesn’t matter. The scientific debate - insofar as there exists one - is the question of the temperature sensitivity of CO2 in the atmosphere; ie, what’s the curve of CO2 concentration vs temperature rise? And how fast does the temperature rise? Right now, the consensus of research results suggests that it’s pretty high, and that it increases exponentially (if I remember right) depending on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Human caused CO2 rise is somewhere from around .03% to .05% of the atmosphere, so that’s quite a large change - nearly doubling the amount of it in the air. Now, if that concentration seems extremely low, let me offer an analogy: what’s the dosage difference of certain drugs that will kill you as opposed to curing you? Milligrams or micrograms in a 70kg person?

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