Cotour: Your link has been promoted to the main page. Good catch.

wodun: Very good stuff!

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/28825/

“The point of departure for this course is based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring. We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course,”

Argue all you like.

The absolute nut baggery that goes along with “climate science” is insane.

I live in a place that was scoured by the mega floods that occurred at the end of the last glaciation. Floods that were incomprehensible in scale that altered the topography in incomprehensible ways. Truly astounding acts of nature.

And the floods uncovered basalt miles deep that traveled hundreds of miles from where it upwelled from dikes.

It was settled science that the floods didn’t happen and the man who came up with the theory was treated just as horribly as the AGW Alarmists treat others. But the consensus was wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Harlen_Bretz

The silly notion that the climate never changed is retarded. I have no idea why AGW Alarmists keep pushing this. The climate has always changed and it always will. We can’t stop it. Even if every single item off the AGW Alarmists wish list were enacted, the climate would not stop changing. Why do they always claim it will?

We live in an interglacial, a climate optimum called the Holocene, but still technically an ice age. The climate we have now is just about the most favorable it gets for life on Earth, unless it gets warmer. The fear mongering over this is a crime against humanity and civilization.

We have a small group of people using the evolutionary fear of an uncertain future to control other people by claiming that the sacrifices they demand will appease Mother Nature and get her to stop “punishing” us. It is literally the most primitive form of religion and it is crazy to think that people who think they are the smartest humans to ever walk the Earth and are more evolved that everyone else are not even self aware.

1) Mann’s Hockey Stick hypothesis fails to predict the MWP and the LIA. However, you argue that it is valid anyway, even finding a graph, comparing the Hockey Stick with various graphs of derived historical temperatures, that obscures the Hockey Stick in order for you to argue that the Hockey Stick is the same as reality. You also tried to use revisionist history to suggest that the MWP and the LIA occurred at different times at different locations around the globe, in order to suggest that they were barely consequential, thus would not show up in the Hockey Stick graph. By the way, both the MWP and the LIA are prominent, not inconsequential, on that composite graph.

Once again, you cherry pick your data to fit your argument of the moment.

2) All of the climate models that are generally accepted by a majority of climate scientists failed to predict the recent “pause” in warming (the word “pause” is intended to suggest that warming will continue, but there is no reason to believe that it is more likely for temperatures to rise next than that they will decline). Almost all of these climate models predicted higher temperatures than we have today. These faulty models are the major argument that AGW is happening. Yet the faultiness of these important models does not disrupt your belief in AGW.

3) Various politicians and celebrities have, over the past quarter century, have warned us that if we do not solve the global warming problem by a certain date, then it will be too late to solve it. Then when that date nears or arrives, and global warming has not been solved, the warnings are either forgotten or updated deadlines are announced. However, you have used mere misstatements by politicians as evidence that all skeptics must be wrong, even though incorrect predictions by AGW advocating politicians does not disrupt your belief in AGW. You are inconsistent, here.

Skepticism should not be confused with denial, as often happens. This is the “if you ain’t fer us, you’re agin’ us” philosophy. If skeptics do not agree, they must be shouted down (or our papers not be published, opinions expressed in the LA Times, etc.), even if they do not disagree.

The problem between the skeptic and the believer (even the global warming advocates use the word “belief”) is that the believer acts like climate science is a faith, like a religion, and the skeptic is looking for hypotheses that better agree with observation (as Feynmann explained as the key to science). The believer treats the skeptic as a heretic.

We have seen over the past half century that no one has correctly predicted future temperatures, from warnings of a coming ice age, to warnings that global warming must be solved quickly, to climate models that fail, to a Hockey Stick model that failed not only to show the MWP and LIA but failed to predict the current “pause.” Thus, skepticism is justified and faith has been shown to be blind to our observations of nature.

Unfortunately, too many people are too emotionally committed to their AGW faith to admit that they could possibly be wrong. These people often use convoluted logic, cherry picked evidence, and inconsistent arguments to rationalize their continued faith in their unscientific belief, yet insist that their belief actually is scientific.

Since it has been shown that global warming need not be solved by any date, we see that we have plenty of time to further study the issue in order to determine the additional factors that our models currently lack but must include in order to more correctly predict future temperatures. There may even have to be corrections made to the CO2 feedback assumptions that have been used in these models, as these assumptions seem to be greater than observation suggests.

Unfortunately, there is an insistence that current models must be correct and a denial that other factors must be found to improve these faulty models. This insistence and this denial are preventing climate scientists from working toward finding the necessary factors for correcting the models, and the necessary knowledge needed to model nature will not be found very quickly.

The scientific method has been short circuited in climate science. This is why skeptics are disappointed with climate science as it is currently practiced. Skeptics would rather that the scientific method be applied to climate science, too.

Of course, that would require 3 things I haven’t had access to in decades: (1) time (2) money (3) getting back in very good physical shape. I blame the arrival of my kids, but all in all, I got the better of that tradeoff, so I can’t complain.

You really should read your own material better. For instance, the “travesty” topic was about the lack of increasing temperature. According to the global warming hypothesis, the rising CO2 should have translated directly into rising temperatures. The skeptics were right to use this admission to help conclude that the climate science was woefully lacking. That lack is what was being called a “travesty.”

Skeptics have not taken the “hide the decline” out of context. We are not nearly as stupid as silly politicians, such as Imhofe and Palin. Read your wiki link again, as it explains that the tree ring data was shown by the climatologists to be unreliable, and they needed to hide that unreliability. By the way, they were referring to the tree ring data that was used to create the Hockey Stick graph. That graph was based upon this unreliable data. By the way #2, when I was in school, tree rings were used to measure rainfall levels, not temperatures. I have always wondered how the climatologists were getting away with changing what measurement the tree rings were a proxy for. With the email scandal, we now know that tree rings are not useful as the temperature proxy they were being used for.

Once again, you are cherry picking your information, but this time it is out of the same paragraphs and sentences that you use for your side of the argument. In fact, you rely upon Wikipedia’s biased interpretations as facts. You fail to believe what actual skeptics say and prefer to use worn out, biased, misleading, and disproved evidence when discussing the topic with people who actually know about this topic.

My advice (and as with everything else I have said to you, I expect you to ignore it) is to listen to those who know the actual facts and not listen to those biased people who want to use you as a tool to gain power over you.

We skeptics do not deny that climates change or that temperatures have risen; we are merely skeptical that human activity is the driving factor. As I have pointed out a few times, now, the evidence is that there are one or more factors — more powerful than man — that drive the Earth’s temperature. Without these factors, there would have been no Ice Ages, or interglacial periods during Ice Ages, or Little Ice Ages, recoveries from Little Ice Ages, or even a Medieval Warming Period.

That some skeptics were incorrect is the nature of science, but then, you have not been paying attention to Robert Zimmerman’s opening lines, such as: “The uncertainty of science.” Instead, you believe in the certainty of AGW while emphasizing the uncertainty in those who are looking for alternate factors, and assume that if one alternate factor does not measure up then your belief is proved. That is not only cherry picking your evidence, it is hypocrisy. But you probably do not mind being a hypocrite, so long as doing so allows you to be certain of AGW.

You wrote: “if you look at the Guardian link I posted above you’ll find that the “we don’t know enough” strategy has been a political policy promoted by Frank Luntz to stall implementing methods aimed at mitigation.”

“We don’t know enough” is a scientific reality in every field of science. If we knew enough, then we would stop researching the topic. It is increasingly clear that you do not know enough about this topic to argue logically or accurately. You use other people’s arguments because you are unable to figure out the science or the topic by yourself. And you cherry pick the arguments you use, because you have not bothered to objectively research the topic. Those who do objectively research the topic become skeptics of anthropogenic global warming, finding that there is actually a lack of actual evidence as to how much man contributes — if any.

If you can say that the Oil Companies are biased and any studies that they fund are biased, then you must admit that government funded studies are just as biased. Or you have to admit to being a hypocrite (which, as I said, you don’t mind being one).

You wrote: “Regarding AGW vs Climate Change, I usually stick with AGW”

Which explains why you refuse to acknowledge the “pause” that even the climate scientists admit exists. by this refusal, you have abandoned all science, even abandoned the scientists who argue your case, just so that you can cling to an unsupported and easily disputed position. This is why almost everyone else, even the IPCC, have switched to the ludicrous “Climate Change” argument. Because it is ludicrous, many have started looking for other names, such as “Climate Disruption.”

You wrote: “I agree skeptical scientists need to keep those scientists honest by actually studying the data and the methodology – rather than just throwing innuendo around, and that’s exactly what most of them do.”

Your defense of the University of East Anglia’s CRU scientists and Mann’s Hockey Stick belies your statement. If you wanted to keep them honest, you would be outraged at their malfeasance. In context, those leaked emails document fraud, fudging, deliberate destruction of data, and silencing of critics. All of these actions are anti-science. All of them are dishonest actions.

You wrote: “I’m not saying there’s a simple answer, but if I come across a ‘skeptic’ claiming AGW is a fraud committed by lots of evil scientists, advancing theories that contradict well established science without an explanation for the contradiction, pronouncing certainty when they’re not qualified to judge the science and have demonstrated a political bias, color me skeptical about their claims of being ‘scientifically skeptical’.”

So let me see if I have this right. You are only willing to be skeptical of skeptics, but when the CRU does actual misdeeds; Mann eliminates known and documented temperature changes; and the American Geophysical Union’s journals and the Los Angeles times refuse to print anything that refutes AGW, that does not raise any red flags for you at all. Right? These anti-science actions are OK with you? That must be because they support your AGW belief, and you accept anything that supports and reject out of hand anything that shows otherwise — even realities such as the “pause.”

You wrote: “Perhaps you people are unaware that Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1998 and Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 have been arguably the most thoroughly investigated scientific papers recent history”

Yes, these papers have been looked at thoroughly. And Mann’s graph has been shown to be false. Mann can’t even defend his graph in a libel case against Mark Steyn on the fraudulent nature of Mann’s Hockey Stick graph. That is how unsupportable his graph is.

You wrote: “‘skeptics’ usually choose to ignore that the earlier Mann et al papers broke new ground”

This does not make his graph any more correct than before, when it was wrong. Mann’s earlier papers can be right as rain, but that does not mean that his graph is correct. The graph has to measure up. As I linked earlier, Feynmann said: “It doesn’t make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment [observation], it’s wrong.”

You wrote: “Anyway, you obviously aren’t interested in any facts that contradict the beliefs you religiously cling to, so no point in me wasting more of my time here.”

You have presented very little that is new information. Most of what you present is not only old but disproved. You think it is true because biased reports have said it is true, but you have not presented us with reports that actually support most of your beliefs — especially not any science that supports your religiously clung-to belief in AGW. Mann’s graph, whether or not it is true, does not indicate AGW, it only indicates GW — but we already knew that there has been warming of the globe. What scientists and the rest of us don’t know is *why* the globe has warmed, and we don’t know why it recently stopped. And if it has started warming again, we don’t know why that happened either.

You wrote: “If you’ve got papers using GLOBAL data sets showing extreme temperature variation over the last 2000 years, link please.”

Nice. If we are to disprove what you said, we have to provide links, but you get to say anything without providing supporting links. [I was sarcastic when I said “nice.”]

You wrote: “When scientists are talking science to each other the language is often gobbledygook to everyone else, I’ve often opened up links to papers on subjects I’ve had a lay interest in and been flummoxed.”

Yes, but your link was to a FAQ that was supposed to reassure the public, not scientists, that they had used good methods for good reasons. Instead, they wrote a bunch of stuff that seemed to be for scientists. Then when someone like you uses it to prove his point, he gets to say, “see, it’s all copacetic” without knowing what it means himself. Garry’s point is correct. It neither reassures the public nor does it reassure the scientists.

You wrote: “You obviously don’t live in New Zealand, we’ve (and other higher latitude SH countries) been stung with a 15% increase in UVb radiation as a result of the increased size of the ozone hole. NZ now has the highest melanoma rates in the world.”
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/ozone-hole
Not only is the hole decreasing in size, but it looks like the hole never got large enough to reach New Zealand or any other Southern Hemisphere country. It does not look like the Ozone hole does is responsible for increased melanoma rates in New Zealand.

You wrote: “Buried in this graph is one of the Man et al graphs (dark blue)”

The graph you linked to before, the one that did not obscure Mann’s Hockey Stick graph, clearly showed no evidence of either the MWP or the LIA. That you have to obscure Mann’s graph in order to make your point shows how weak your argument is.

We skeptics are willing to wait for actual evidence of what causes Earth’s temperature to change (but you chose to decide without any evidence that man is responsible), and we are seeking knowledge on how much or how little effect humans have on this process. You may not want to hear this, as you emotionally need an evil enemy to your “the sky is falling” Chicken Little hypothesis, but it is vitally important to the planet’s future that we be able to predict any future temperature declines, as they can have immediate devastating effects on our food supply. I am sure that you would rather we adapt before a temperature decline rather than hunt and forage, into extinction, all the animals and plants on the planet in an effort to feed ourselves during a devastating new Ice Age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_(climate)#/media/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

This is turning into an argument about how long is a piece of string or how high is up, it definitely needs an ending. Cheers.

You obviously don’t live in New Zealand, we’ve (and other higher latitude SH countries) been stung with a 15% increase in UVb radiation as a result of the increased size of the ozone hole. NZ now has the highest melanoma rates in the world.

Personally, the doomsday predictions about the ozone “hole” are probably the biggest reason I’m a skeptic. I don’t think that was a conspiracy as much as it was jumping to conclusions, making the dynamic much simpler than it is in reality.

It turned out to be a false alarm in that case; that doesn’t mean that these types of predictions are always false alarms.

Andrew_W wrote: “Truly Global data sets continue to show what the earlier studies showed, globally the MWP and LIA were not as extreme events as they were at any one locality.”

Ah yes, I am very aware that there is evidence that suggests that both events were not global. However, three points:

1. Not all scientists agree on this. Many instead have found evidence of their global nature, and have published to that effect. My climate bibliography includes many of those papers, though if you asked me to cite the specific ones I’d have to do some digging to find them again. I do know that, having read all the IPCC reports, prior to the one that included Mann’s graph all considered both events global.

2. Even you admit however in the quote above that there is global evidence both existed, even if they “were not as extreme events as they were at any one locality.” They might not have been as an extreme event in all localities, but the data you cite still apparently shows them.

3. Mann’s graph however wipes both entirely. This does not fit with even the evidence you cite above, which from what you write indicates that both show up globally, albeit in a more smoothed and less extreme manner. This illustrates again the problems that many scientists have with Mann’s graph.

Once again, my point here is not to say that human-caused global warming isn’t happening. My point is to note that the science simply isn’t settled, and remains uncertain. That we are even having this discussion illustrates my point I think.

The article seems to be claiming (as I said the translation wasn’t clear) that a layer of fresh water a meter deep exists around the Antarctic that is the source of the fresh water in the ice. Well if that’s the claim it’s wrong, the ice forms from the saline water with the salt being ejected during the freezing process.

Do the rivers around the Arctic ocean contribute to the amount of sea ice formed? Probably, but a lot of the new ice is formed many hundreds of miles from the nearest rivers, and you don’t get fresh water floating across the ocean surface for hundreds of miles – at least I’ve never heard of such a thing.

The process of salt ejection from forming sea ice is covered in the link below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_ice_growth_processes

When scientists are talking science to each other the language is often gobbledygook to everyone else, I’ve often opened up links to papers on subjects I’ve had a lay interest in and been flummoxed.

Several years ago the “skeptic” blog CO2 Science ran a project to collect paleoclimate studies from around the world, they collected together all these studies and put them up on their site, on the temperature graphs they stuck in little arrows pointing to “MWP” and “LIA” and yep, where the “MWP” was the temperature was markedly warmer, and where the “LIA” was the temperature was markedly cooler.

Can you work out why their “proof” of the existence and strength of the MWP and LIA was meaningly?

Their “proof” clearly showed that these events happened at different times around the globe, the timing of the peak of the two events differed by hundreds of years depending on location.

What do you suppose happens when all those data sets are combined? Yep, the extremes shown on the individual data sets are smoothed out and the global data set doesn’t have those extremes.

Truly Global data sets continue to show what the earlier studies showed, globally the MWP and LIA were not as extreme events as they were at any one locality.

If you’ve got papers using GLOBAL data sets showing extreme temperature variation over the last 2000 years, link please.

“Rather, these differences are dominated by the inclusion of appropriate homogeneity corrections for non-climatic discontinuities made in GHCN v3.2 which span a range of negative and positive values depending on the regional analysis.”

my head spins; this is the type of bureaucratic language often written by someone who either doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or wants to make sure nobody else knows what he’s talking about.

Good science papers give access to raw data, and very detailed explanations of how the data were corrected, processed, etc., so that peers can properly review what was done, to reinforce the conclusions or find holes in them. These links do not do that.

A quick look at your early link shows that the 2016 correction moved the past temperatures downward and the current temperatures upward, which raises lots of suspicions.

A year or so ago I saw (maybe here?) showing the temperature record over the past 1000+ years from an early IPCC report, alongside the temperature record of the same timeframe in a later IPCC report, after Mann had transformed it into the hockey stick. I’ll take a look for it in a few days (this is one of those times when I don’t know how I’ll get everything done I need to in the next few days, but I certainly will). In the meantime, if someone has ready access to it, I’d appreciate your posting it; the two graphics together speak volumes.

Andew_W: Heh. Lots of hyperbole from you here, most of which appears to designed to distract us from the discussion. Your comment here also once again demonstrates that you really have no understanding of the scientific process.

To quote my own previous long comment:

Is Mann wrong? Or are all those other studies? Who knows? I note the conflict and the uncertainty, and point out that this uncertainty means that Mann’s hockey stick cannot be accepted at face value. (This by the way, Mann’s removal of the Warm Period, has always been the problem skeptics have with Mann’s graph.) You however are certain, and dismiss all other research that contradicts Mann’s model as if it doesn’t exist.

Mann’s graph smoothed all the climate variations that numerous other in-the-field studies have found for the past thousand years, eliminating the Medieval Warm Period as well as the Little Ice Age. Mann’s paper in which the graph was published did not provide any good explanation for dismissing this previous data, however. Based on this conflict, there is a basic disagreement in the science. I merely recognize that disagreement and remain a skeptic, as is clearly stated in the quote above.

You, however, do not want to deal with that disagreement. You dismiss it, citing studies that agree with Mann and assume that ends the debate. It does not, however. As Carl Sagan very correctly noted, ““Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Mann’s evidence does not meet that standard, especially since his evidence is not real from-the-field data, but from computer modeling. The previous numerous studies remain that repeatedly have documented a warming centered around 1000 and a cooling centered around 1600.

A good scientist always hones in on the problems, as I do. A bad scientist tries to rationalize them, as you do. Mann could be right. I never said otherwise. All I noted was the legitimate questions scientists have raised about his graph, and recognized the problem he has convincing others his conclusions are correct.

It’s pretty obvious. Water has the lowest density at +4°C and salt water freezes at about −2°C. If you hadn’t started out with the conclusion you wish for (that doomsday is coming because of the sinful human kind) and only looked for the rare data and failed models which confirm it, you could train your logic thinking.

So you don’t need to ask Michael Mann for anything, if you’re keen to go and do your own little investigation go ahead, though I know you won’t bother because you know you won’t find any of the great wrong doings you choose to dream about.

Perhaps you’re also unaware that there have been numerous subsequent studies that reach the same conclusions and with higher confidence than the earlier trail blazing papers (“skeptics” usually choose to ignore that the earlier Mann et al papers broke new ground, with no previous climate reconstruction papers covering the history of global climate to anything like the details of the Mann et al papers).

Anyway, you obviously aren’t interested in any facts that contradict the beliefs you religiously cling to, so no point in me wasting more of my time here.

DK Williams: Heh. I suspect there was a bit of sarcasm intended by your comment, considering that Michael Mann has been exceedingly uncooperative and in fact quite hostile to anyone who has requested his raw data.

Absolutely agree, it’s a minefield out there!

Personally, I totally have an Agenda. And it doe not include CAFE standards or declarations that Carbon is a pollutant.
I don’t feel the need to defend my positions in any great detail, the onerous is on those who propose to limit my freedom & take my resources, to persuade me to agree with their propositions.
…and I deeply resent having to fund these people in their political/religious endeavor’s.

Not sure who said this:
“Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.”

Urban sites aren’t included. There are corrections working in both directions, this is obvious from the giss link way above.

But what if the truth is that we don’t know enough (which I think it is)? Even if others have used that statement improperly, does that mean nobody can use it, even if it’s true? Sometimes one’s dog really does eat one’s homework

I’m not saying there’s a simple answer, but if I come across a “skeptic” claiming AGW is a fraud committed by lots of evil scientists, advancing theories that contradict well established science without an explanation for the contradiction, pronouncing certainty when they’re not qualified to judge the science and have demonstrated a political bias, color me skeptical about their claims of being “scientifically skeptical”.

and the same applies to “alarmists” warning of an imminent runaway greenhouse effect, attributing all the skepticism to big oil, advancing theories than aren’t supported by the science without having a competent explanation of why the established science is wrong.

It’s a minefield out there ;-)

I’m completely confident that others here are far more well-versed, & can place the proposition that Man Causes Irreparable Damage to the Earth, in it’s proper position, relative to fact vs speculation.
Personally, I don’t believe Man is capable of altering the atmosphere of our Planet on a medium to long term scale. (In the manner in which the proposition is presented today.) We are certainly capable of fouling parts of it horrendously in the short term.
“Weather” predictions are pretty much useless 72+ hours into the future, but we are going to have to alter our entire economic/political system, indeed, the whole world, on a dubious outcome, scores of years into the future, because “3 out of 4 dentists agree?” I’m just not down with that, or any of the other dozens of arguments.
As I mentioned– I’m not so arrogant as to disavow anything that doesn’t fit my opinion, but I have satisfied myself to the degree necessary, to form my opinion that it’s largely bunk, Political, and with an Agenda that does not include reality.
I remain persuadable, but the bar is pretty high, and “your side” doesn’t endear itself to people who think like me, with the devious and diabolical tactics often employed.

It’s Religion masquerading as science, with a preconceived outcome. The “solutions” for which are largely totalitarian/authoritarian in nature. (It’s no-growth, eco-Marxist, radical-egalitarianism, count me out. Not down with that Revolution, not down with that, at all.)

Norm–
Point(s) taken.
————————-

I would say one final thing before I bail on this thread– the simple fact the language that is used to discuss this Topic, alters on a regular basis, I would proffer, does not bode well for prudent planning.
>It’s Orwellian.

“Sorry, I don’t agree that you can rule someone out as having their skepticism based in politics rather than a sound scientific base because they argue ‘we don’t know enough’, if you look at the Guardian link I posted above you’ll find that the ‘we don’t know enough’ strategy has been a political policy promoted by Frank Luntz to stall implementing methods aimed at mitigation.”

But what if the truth is that we don’t know enough (which I think it is)? Even if others have used that statement improperly, does that mean nobody can use it, even if it’s true? Sometimes one’s dog really does eat one’s homework

“Slight correction, I wrote ‘hundreds OR thousands’, ‘not hundreds OF thousands’ but either way, the methodology used for making the corrections is public, if skeptics want to make the corrections to the raw data that they think should be made they should just do it, rather than relying on non-specific claims and innuendo”

Sorry for my misreading, but my point stands; hundreds would have no more success pulling off a grand conspiracy than hundreds of thousands would.

If this methodology is available, why don’t you post a link to it? Is the explanation rigorous enough to pass peer review? Most of us here like reading the raw data, explanations, etc., and while I can’t speak for anyone else, I’d like to see what you’ve found in the way of explanations.

“Why do you think it is that they don’t just go ahead and do the corrections* The Right Way themselves? I know why I think they don’t – their claims have no empirical substance, it would end up with the same mess for them that Anthony Watts attempts to find fault with the quality of US weather stations data did.”

Maybe they don’t have confidence that we can figure out a way to make valid corrections, as the assumptions involved might involve taking potentially large leaps? Correction is not always wrong, but in some cases it’s impossible to know what corrections to make.

Why aren’t corrections made that make present data cooler, such as accounting for the heat island effect, or for sensors being placed near air conditioner compressors, etc.? Why, in many instances, are data from some stations used as proxies for other stations, often hundreds of miles away?

As Mr. Z has written often, what’s suspicious is that the corrections always cool the past and heat the present.

So show us the explanations.

By the way, one of the worst possible outcomes is that AGW turns out to be real, but nobody believes it because of the Chicken Little Syndrome. It’s very important that we get this right, or explain that we don’t know enough at this point to make accurate predictions.

I agree skeptical scientists need to keep those scientists honest by actually studying the data and the methodology – rather than just throwing innuendo around, and that’s exactly what most of them do.

The fact that AGW theory requires positive-feedbacks in the climate system seems bizarre. If such feedbacks really existed how in the hell did the Earth survive 4.5B years? Surely sometime in our history we would have triggered this and we would not be here to discuss it.

A positive feedback is not necessarily a runaway feedback, in climate other factors come into play for example limited inputs.

The Japanese are very enthusiastic about saving the environment, although I consider some of their efforts misguided, and some companies have had some outrageous violations. Someone once told me “there’s very little crime in Japan, but when it happens it’s very extreme and disturbing.” You can say the same thing about pollution and other anti-social behaviors.

When I lived there ~20 years ago, we separated our trash into burnables and unburnables. Some cities have taken this to an extreme, separating their trash into 30 or more categories(!) Minamata, famous for Minamata disease (which turned out to come from some really outrageous mercury pollution), prides itself on having the largest number of categories for sorting, making it the “greenest” city in the world. Japanese culture is closely tied to nature and the 4 seasons, as evidenced by Buddhist practices, national holidays, etc. (the fall and spring equinoxes are national holidays, as is sea day, and starting this year, mountain day).

I remember in the 70s and 80s reading about how polluted Japan was, because back then they were obsessed with economic growth. At some point, they got very gung ho about protecting the environment, and quickly passed what are perhaps the world’s strictest anti-pollution regulations, following our lead. They are enthusiastic to the point where much of their overseas aid (they are the #1 donor nation) goes towards projects to improve the environment, using their technology to cut pollution drastically, in the form of new power plants, industrial plants, mass transportation infrastructure, etc.

Being short of space, Japan burns as much of its trash as it can, and is very careful about not producing dioxins and other pollutants during combustion.

The people follow the rules, no matter how detailed, very closely, as they do in almost any other aspect of rules and regulations. If you don’t sort your trash properly, it doesn’t get picked up at the neighborhood pickup point, bringing great shame on you and your family in the eyes of your neighbors. And believe me, sorting can be quite confusing at times.

There is a requirement to turn in your refrigerators, washers, etc. back to retailer, who transports them to the manufacturer, who salvages what they can, recycles what they can, etc. The consumer has to pay a fee for this, or a much larger fine if caught dumping appliances somewhere.

I had a beater of a car when in the service in Japan, and had an accident. It would have cost 90,000 yen to fix the car, or 80,000 yen to dispose of it; such were the regulations on how cars must be disposed of (I fixed it, and sold it when I rotated stateside).

I’ve never heard of charging more if your trash is sorted; that’s outrageous!

I’m a big fan of conserving resources and recycling when it makes sense, and it’s a shame how much we waste in this country. I’m not a big fan of the principle of making lots of rules and regulations, but when I see what Japan accomplishes, I see the potential benefits. Of course, people here would not follow the rules as closely as the Japanese do, so we would have to employ different mechanisms to accomplish a lot.