Global cooling

[Ear]

I'm saying that "peer-reviewed journal" is a tired, meaningless phrase that offers no guarantee of accuracy. Any journal can claim to be "peer-reviewed". Reputable academics will reject some and gravitate towards others, but those journals of lower repute are still "peer-reviewed".

That seems to translate as: "Every time I get proven full of bullshit, it's by a reference to an article in a peer-reviewed journal, and therefore I feel a need to discredit the entire scientific community and its main apparatus for exchanging and independently testing data by claiming that peer review is a load of bunkum."

Let's see now... I posted a bibliography earlier, to show where all the debunking of Monckton, the "hockey stick" myth, etc. came from.  Here's a list of the peer-reviewed journals listed in that bibliography... why don't you tell me exactly which ones you think are disreputable?

Quaternary Science Reviews

Ambio

Science

Holocene

Reviews of Geophysics

Nature

Geophysical Research Letters

Eos

Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology

Climate Research

Energy and Environment

[FrankChodorov]

Senators are not scientists

surprise - they are politicians...

do not dispair - global warming will become the cigarette smoking "smokescreen" over the next decade.

Frank, the reason that this issue concerns me so much is that it is so heavily politicized.  I am vehemently and potentially violently opposed to the idea of a world government putting its heavy hand on my back and yours in the name of environmentalism... and I am also vehemently and potentially violently opposed to allowing big corporations to continue pumping carbon into the atmosphere with gay abandon if, in fact, it means the sea levels are going to rise significantly because of it.  The way I see it, it is imperative that we sort out the facts from the fiction, and prepare accordingly so that neither totalitarianism nor unfettered corporatism can use the issue as leverage with which to promote their own hidden (and unrelated to actual fact and possible environmental catastrophe) agenda... but so many people seem to latch onto whatever position benefits them the most, and they pick and choose the propaganda they want to believe accordingly, just like religious zealots choose the faith-based beliefs that please them the most.

All I am asking for is that people ignore the popular media, the government reports, the letters to the editor, etc. and rely on peer-reviewed scientific journals for information that might help them form an opinion of their own.

I couldn't agree more...

btw - did you know that the FSP founder used essentially the same argument that you have (peer review) to declare a few months back that global warming is happening and humans are a significant contributor?

I look at this issue very simply as a radical Lockean - negative externalities are nothing more than a tax imposed by those privately enclosing what should be owned in common as an individual equal access opportunity right, beyond Locke's proviso (sustainable yield).  This tax violates the absolute right of self-ownership of those being excluded by the privilege granted by omission to enclose the commons.

[Ear]

1. Why do you say carbon levels in the atmosphere instead of co2?

It's the same thing... the carbon is what's important, because nobody is concerned with humanity pumping O2 into the atmosphere.  There's lots of O2 already there, and carbon can enter and combine with it in many forms, as CO2 or as complex hydrocarbons.

2. I understand that Anartica is floating and when it melts it doesn't raise the level of water in the ocean just like the ice cube melting in a glass of water doesn't but Greenlands ice is on land so it would raise the levels.

Only about 50% of the projected rise in sea level is attributed to the melting of ice.  The other half will come from thermal expansion of water that is already in a liquid state.

3. Do the peer review scientist have an atmospheric co2 concentration chart and temperature of lower atmosphere chart for thousands of years that that they agree on?

This data is heavily contested in the popular media and in government reports; in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals it is not contested, at least to any degree significant enough to make the fact of global warming and rising sea levels contested.  The idea that human activity is the cause of all this is slightly contested in the scientific literature, but it isn't the knock-down drag-out fight that we're seeing in the popular media, and most scientists say that the current data set indicates very strongly that human activity is responsible for the rise in carbon levels.

4. who pays climatologist?

Climatologists get paid from a number of different sources, and those sources have different agenda that often conflict with each other... which all by itself is a good indication that, when they reach even a rough consensus, they're telling the truth.  When it comes to doing good science in a reputable fashion, however, it doesn't matter where the money comes from, it matters that the data is accurate and the conclusions drawn from the data are honest.  If inaccurate data and bogus conclusions are presented in a peer-reviewed journal, that data and those conclusions are available to ALL scientists for correlation and double-checking, and the inevitable result is an open conflict.  When there is no conflict, or only conflict on minor points that adjust the projections but do not change the basic facts, you can be reasonably sure that you're being told the truth.

[Ear]

I couldn't agree more...

btw - did you know that the FSP founder used essentially the same argument that you have (peer review) to declare a few months back that global warming is happening and humans are a significant contributor?

I wasn't aware of that, but I'm very glad to hear that the attitude I've been seeing in this thread isn't part and parcel with the FSP or with Libertarianism in general.  I was beginning to think that I would have to withdraw my support from this movement, since I cannot in good conscience support a movement that is bent on remaining willfully ignorant in the face of compelling data, even if that movement serves my own self-interest in many ways.

[FrankChodorov]

I couldn't agree more...

btw - did you know that the FSP founder used essentially the same argument that you have (peer review) to declare a few months back that global warming is happening and humans are a significant contributor?

I wasn't aware of that, but I'm very glad to hear that the attitude I've been seeing in this thread isn't part and parcel with the FSP or with Libertarianism in general.  I was beginning to think that I would have to withdraw my support from this movement, since I cannot in good conscience support a movement that is bent on remaining willfully ignorant in the face of compelling data, even if that movement serves my own self-interest in many ways.

do you not realize that you are posting in the anarchist wing of the FSP's web forum?

[DC]

3. Do the peer review scientist have an atmospheric co2 concentration chart and temperature of lower atmosphere chart for thousands of years that that they agree on?

This data is heavily contested in the popular media and in government reports; in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals it is not contested, at least to any degree significant enough to make the fact of global warming and rising sea levels contested.  The idea that human activity is the cause of all this is slightly contested in the scientific literature, but it isn't the knock-down drag-out fight that we're seeing in the popular media, and most scientists say that the current data set indicates very strongly that human activity is responsible for the rise in carbon levels.

I want a chart that is agreed upon so I don't check the accuracy or draw conclusions on a chart that you tell me is debunked and I have to do it all over again. I am not concerned with if humans caused it or not but I might be after I study the data.

[Ear]

I want a chart that is agreed upon so I don't check the accuracy or draw conclusions on a chart that you tell me is debunked and I have to do it all over again. I am not concerned with if humans caused it or not but I might be after I study the data.

I posted a list of reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals that carry articles relevant to the question.  Look there, and you'll find a wealth of data.  For more easily-digestible summaries, try realclimate.org instead.

[DC]

4. who pays climatologist?

Climatologists get paid from a number of different sources, and those sources have different agenda that often conflict with each other... which all by itself is a good indication that, when they reach even a rough consensus, they're telling the truth.  When it comes to doing good science in a reputable fashion, however, it doesn't matter where the money comes from, it matters that the data is accurate and the conclusions drawn from the data are honest.  If inaccurate data and bogus conclusions are presented in a peer-reviewed journal, that data and those conclusions are available to ALL scientists for correlation and double-checking, and the inevitable result is an open conflict.  When there is no conflict, or only conflict on minor points that adjust the projections but do not change the basic facts, you can be reasonably sure that you're being told the truth.

[/quote]

Of course it matters who pays them. It matters when the corperations paid them and they are said to not be reliable isn't it. I will draw my conclusions based on the facts not by letting the so called experts do my thinking for me. I have learned not to go on blind faith.

[Ear]

Of course it matters who pays them. I will draw my conclusions based on the facts not by letting the so called experts do my thinking for me. I have learned not to go on blind faith.

You misunderstand.  What I am saying is that it doesn't matter who pays them when you are reading their work published in a reputable scientific journal, because there are lots of other scientists keeping a check on any bogus bullshit.  When you read popular media articles in books, magazines, the newspapers, etc. it matters very much indeed, because there is no adequate peer review process to put a check on the bullshit.

Terribly ironic how you have characterized the basic mechanism that keeps science honest as "blind faith".  Maybe I should ask who pays your salary.

[KBCraig]

I'm saying that "peer-reviewed journal" is a tired, meaningless phrase that offers no guarantee of accuracy. Any journal can claim to be "peer-reviewed". Reputable academics will reject some and gravitate towards others, but those journals of lower repute are still "peer-reviewed".

That seems to translate as: "Every time I get proven full of bullshit, it's by a reference to an article in a peer-reviewed journal, and therefore I feel a need to discredit the entire scientific community and its main apparatus for exchanging and independently testing data by claiming that peer review is a load of bunkum."

And your response seems to translate as, "Every time I get questioned, I appeal to authority!" 

[DC]

I pay my salary. I work for myself. Have been for past 18 years. Are you the one that just hit my karma? Not that I care, if I did care about popularity I wouldn't be a libertarian.

[FrankChodorov]

Of course it matters who pays them. I will draw my conclusions based on the facts not by letting the so called experts do my thinking for me. I have learned not to go on blind faith.

You misunderstand.  What I am saying is that it doesn't matter who pays them when you are reading their work published in a reputable scientific journal, because there are lots of other scientists keeping a check on any bogus bullshit.  When you read popular media articles in books, magazines, the newspapers, etc. it matters very much indeed, because there is no adequate peer review process to put a check on the bullshit.

Terribly ironic how you have characterized the basic mechanism that keeps science honest as "blind faith".  Maybe I should ask who pays your salary.

this is the difference between trusting deliberative democracy (like juries) rather than mass direct democracy (referenda) because it is far harder to manipulate those who have to actually deliberate with their fellow neighbors...

[DC]

Of course it matters who pays them. I will draw my conclusions based on the facts not by letting the so called experts do my thinking for me. I have learned not to go on blind faith.

You misunderstand.  What I am saying is that it doesn't matter who pays them when you are reading their work published in a reputable scientific journal, because there are lots of other scientists keeping a check on any bogus bullshit.  When you read popular media articles in books, magazines, the newspapers, etc. it matters very much indeed, because there is no adequate peer review process to put a check on the bullshit.

Terribly ironic how you have characterized the basic mechanism that keeps science honest as "blind faith".  Maybe I should ask who pays your salary.

this is the difference between trusting deliberative democracy (like juries) rather than mass direct democracy (referenda) because it is far harder to manipulate those who have to actually deliberate with their fellow neighbors...

Of course it matters who pays them. I will draw my conclusions based on the facts not by letting the so called experts do my thinking for me. I have learned not to go on blind faith.

You misunderstand.  What I am saying is that it doesn't matter who pays them when you are reading their work published in a reputable scientific journal, because there are lots of other scientists keeping a check on any bogus bullshit.  When you read popular media articles in books, magazines, the newspapers, etc. it matters very much indeed, because there is no adequate peer review process to put a check on the bullshit.

Terribly ironic how you have characterized the basic mechanism that keeps science honest as "blind faith".  Maybe I should ask who pays your salary.

this is the difference between trusting deliberative democracy (like juries) rather than mass direct democracy (referenda) because it is far harder to manipulate those who have to actually deliberate with their fellow neighbors...

I think they call that group think in psycology. It isn't that much better.

[Ear]

And your response seems to translate as, "Every time I get questioned, I appeal to authority!"

Well, that's terrifically glib, but it isn't terrifically meaningful unless you're trying to say that you don't trust the scientific community at all, and require your own independent research in order to believe anything... in which case I would have to ask, Mr. Luddite, why you have electricity in your house, and why you believe idiots like Senator Inhofe?

I'm still waiting for you to tell us exactly which of the scientific journals in that bibliography you consider untrustworthy, by the way.

[Ear]

Are you the one that just hit my karma? Not that I care, if I did care about popularity I wouldn't be a libertarian.

No, it must have been someone else... I don't see any need to try to punish you for being skeptical and asking questions.