global warming

I get skeptical when something begins to look more like a religion than a scientific discussion.

I get skeptical when it becomes socially unacceptable to question.

There are three questions to ask:

Is the climate changing?
One useful answer is that the climate is always changing.

If the earth’s climate is changing, is it warming?
There appears a consensus that the earth has been warming for some ten thousand years, since the last ice age, with smaller cycles within that period. Whether we are going through a rapid warming phase is in dispute.

If the global climate is changing, are the changes caused by CO2 or other human intervention?
This question has become highly politicized. There is good reason to think not. Sun activity is credibly posited as a cause of current short-term changes in climate.

Al Gore’s 9 errors:

Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education & Skills [2007] EWHC 2288 (Admin) (10 October 2007)

Noam Chomsky Manufacturing Consent

Global Warming Swindle at Google: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=288952680655100870

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1766064.stm

http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020820southseaice.html

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/12/05/sea-level-rise-not-from-antarctic-melting/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008.htm

http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

Ongoing debate at Lichanos:

http://iamyouasheisme.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/average-global-temperature/

 http://iamyouasheisme.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/those-climate-models/

http://iamyouasheisme.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/climate-gate/

http://iamyouasheisme.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/smoking-gun/

http://iamyouasheisme.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/saint-augustine-dunning-kruger-and-rules-of-debate/

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http://www.friendsofscience.org/

http://www.institutionaladvisors.com/pdf/080107-INTELLECTUAL_HYSTERIA-b.pdf

http://www.safehaven.com/article-13044.htm

http://www.safehaven.com/article-14110.htm

http://www.safehaven.com/article-14903.htm

and to show that all this cold is good for us (in moderation):

http://sexculptures.blogspot.com/2008/12/con-hielo-por-favor.html

or ‘ouch’:

http://sexculptures.blogspot.com/2009/02/frio-frio.html

Ice:

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

The climate change debate is one of the most interesting and complex that humanity has ever had with itself, outside, perhaps, then incredible maelstrom of political agitation during the 20th century as humanity settled into democracy, and made the shift from the long standing virtue-based culture to a happiness, or utilitarian, based culture.

The climate change debate might be seen even as an echo of the more vigorous and wild political debates of the 20th C, as people with a tendency towards collective approaches to society wield a big stick against more individualistic approaches. It also invokes ideas of the virtuous citizen, who sacrifices his pleasures for the common good, compared with the selfish, pleasure driven citizen.

This seems an echo of old themes, and the great battle between, possibly, the Epicurean and the Stoic. Strangely, when lived in their highest form Epicureanism and Stoicism look much the same. In a way, we are arguing over how to live imperfectly, which is fair enough, because we do, in fact, live imperfectly.

So we move on…

For a bit of rough and tumble between the philosophers, see here.

This site is running an interesting thread re the climate change debate.

Here is an important contribution to solving the climate change problem.

Here is a weather professional, John Coleman (meteorologist), discussing global warming, which he sees as a myth. Here is his article.

Here is a blog of a global warming skeptic.

Responses to The Great Global Warming Swindle

Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, on climate change. He’s a skeptic too.

London Book Review interview with Calder.

Calder, in his interview with London Book Review, makes the point that ‘To be inaccurate in a politically correct cause seems to be OK in their ethos.’ As a higher degree student, I have actually been told that lying is ok in scholarship so long as it supports the prevailing politically correct point of view. This by a senior academic, and on a separate occasion by a fellow student. Another senior academic once despairingly observed that the truth was of no importance in her field.

But this need not be news. One needs only read a bunch of academic papers to find so many inaccuracies and distortions that any faith in the academic world is completely shaken. My classic reference point for this is an article on property as text by Carol Rose. A shiftier piece of work you are unlikely to find. It is probably titled ‘Property as Storytelling’. But I will have to confirm this.

On a slightly different note, thinking about the philosophical construction of society is fun, but, in my view, the conclusions are best taken at arms length. The ideas of philosophers are just someone’s opinion on things. Like most people’s ideas, they have some good bits, and some bad bits. It might be as Musil observes, that in literature talents a little above average are the ones labelled geniuses, and in philosophy the shallow thinkers are the greatest (Man Without Qualities, Vol 3, p137).

It would be a shame if we found it necessary to think the same of science.