A new low in science: Criminalizing climate change skeptics

originally posted by: mbkennel
You think the scientists haven't been looking at this for decades?

You think that a few decades' worth of research has made these scientists masters at understanding the relationship between the supremely complex workings of the sun and our climate on earth?

The most damaging aspects of the Obama administration has been the loss of our media and science to political propaganda. It's become apparent to many Americans that we can no longer trust the media or scientific community to simply tell the truth. NASA, EPA, FDA and others have purely political agendas that have nothing to do with fact-based science.

Sorry to the OP but this issue is not about the science. Of that there is no question 97% agreement in the science community. However we do know from past experience that industries who profits would be hurt by the acceptance of the science by governments use bribery and other techniques to promote flawed research, suppress legitimate research and to muddy the waters to heir corporate benefit. The tobacco industry for example did it with research on smoking and cancer. The drug industry does it all the time. And now the oil and other industries are doing the same with climate change. The issue, as near as I can tell here, is whether gaming the system with fake science and shills in a matter this important should be criminalized.

originally posted by: Zoyd23
The most damaging aspects of the Obama administration has been the loss of our media and science to political propaganda. It's become apparent to many Americans that we can no longer trust the media or scientific community to simply tell the truth. NASA, EPA, FDA and others have purely political agendas that have nothing to do with fact-based science.

If it has been walking, clucking, swimming and making baby ducklings, it IS a duck.

I would add as an Environmental Scientist in an Air pollution setting, that I agree with you. We have nation weakening agenda's within the US EPA that threatens commerce. I get to listen to them in seminars and have some standing to speak in publicly held meetings. They don't, but I do see it as using suspect data to declare consensus when models continue failing miserably. They cannot defend their positions in open forums with my fellow scientist without us discussing the LACK of logic for some of those positions. They just can't win the logic game with that approach and we have been able to forestall a lot more stringent levels of pollution controls that we have now. We do this by simply having the data in our own hands that we gave them in the 1st place. We have been at basically a natural afternoon background of Ozone across most of the US for several years now and they have repeatedly attempted to lower the standard for "safe" levels to ranges that are unsustainable and dangerous to the economy.

For me, it is obvious TPTB are all in for China and 3rd World Countries making goods while destroying the Earth. Seems to me in the developed nations who are not polluting like we did and have reduced CO to CO2 are in trouble instead. The so called powers that be are going to make us become penny-less. These same loons seem to think the will get to balance the money of the rich middle class of the Western society while holding on to their wealth and making their piles of gold bigger.

"All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than other animals" is in play for those killing the goose that laid the golden egg (of freedom), I do believe.

originally posted by: metamagic
Sorry to the OP but this issue is not about the science. Of that there is no question 97% agreement in the science community. However we do know from past experience that industries who profits would be hurt by the acceptance of the science by governments use bribery and other techniques to promote flawed research, suppress legitimate research and to muddy the waters to heir corporate benefit. The tobacco industry for example did it with research on smoking and cancer. The drug industry does it all the time. And now the oil and other industries are doing the same with climate change. The issue, as near as I can tell here, is whether gaming the system with fake science and shills in a matter this important should be criminalized.

No question of the 97 % falsehood, yes.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey

originally posted by: mbkennel
You think the scientists haven't been looking at this for decades?

You think that a few decades' worth of research has made these scientists masters at understanding the relationship between the supremely complex workings of the sun and our climate on earth?

Enough to distinguish causes during the current instrumental record (not paleoclimate of tens of millions of years ago)? Yes.

Scientists also know generally what they do and don't know and where the knowledge is secure and not.

a reply to: mbkennel

lol, the sun is heating up, despite how slow it may be, its a giant nuclear fusion bomb that is self-containing, hydrogen converting to helium to produce heat and energy....its not going to take 1 billion years for my argument to be logical, but man-made global warming mixed with the solar heating is augmenting the speed of climate change. Why do we live in this world where slow automatically means not true, that is complete BS. The tectonic plates move slowly, so i guess they dont move. The moon moves away from us a little bit every year, but i guess it doesnt move.

ill actually give you my opinion of the ratio....we cant deny that is technically both man-made and solar, so ill say its 85% man-made, 15% solar.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

No, it is probably not. I learned from a historian who lengthily investigated the famous drawings on walls by a 15,000 year-old culture, a man who traveled extensively in the area and spoke Arabic too, that most likely the cause of the Sahara desert drying up was - at least partly - due to two main factors:
1. goats
2. caravans

They do the same every day in some Third World countries.
Goats will tear out any grassy plant with its roots - sheep and cattle do not. I have lived in a village and seen them at work.

a reply to: Justoneman

So what do you think of the Volkswagen scandal? Isn't that going to change the numbers you work with?

Diesel engines polluting 40 times than what they are supposed by the book - by cheating software?

And Audi and BMW are already suspect of cheating, and a lot of big trucks also work with Diesel...

I'd say this changes the statistics - at the least. As an air scientist, do you work with official emission data?

I agree to China being a number one problem with a lot of the plastics of the world manufactured there. Plus the Chinese are not really reliable with statistics. So most likely there is a lot of pollution unreported and unmeasured.

Presently I live in a country where huge bribes are routinely given for aged trucks and vans to pass environmental emissions tests while they actually churn out black and blue smoke. So again the official numbers will lie to a scientist by the factor of ... hundreds? All the buses are like that in public transport in big cities all across Eastern Europe.

There are pictures from large Chinese cities with people trying to survive the thick smog somehow...

And while I lived in the US, a fine was given to a car that emitted visible smoke. We're not talking about that in the former Second World or in places like India. We're talking about hundreds of millions of drivers emitting hundreds of times the emissions that are written in the official books of their respective countries... It would take field trips and studying bribery as well as local standards to measure how much air pollution is really issued into the atmosphere.

I can see from a Hungarian scientific study - the stat legend is in Hungarian so I'll just quote - that a healthy Diesel engine is supposed to emit 10-11,000 mg/m3 of soot while a healthy Otto engine emits 0-2 mg/m3 of soot, though it is true that CO2 emissions of Otto engines are usually double that of Diesel engines.

Source in Hungarian

This is not a partisan site or an anti-industry radical whatever.

So how will the recent Diesel scandal affect climate calculations - if this scandal broke in a country where (unlike in Eastern Europe or the Third World), visible smoke of vehicles is already subject to a fine?

a reply to: Kokatsi

The VW Scandal , their pollution issue is NO2, it is being measured and was being put out there. IT Is the cause of Ozone in the presence of natural sources like from trees, and man made hydorcarbons and that is low as i said so no real harm. But those LIES they told and the issue of resale of vehicles with that situation is very BAD!


Most pollution is localized and manages to be consumed by the bacteria and UV rays breaking it up. I am more concerned with metals like Lead and Mercury, the real killers out there than things like CO2. Acid rain is bad in China but good here, NOW. The black and blue smoke is full of Carbon Monoxide and unburned fuel. It will basically absorb back into the environment if allowed some time for the Earth to recover, but breathing big gulps is NOT good.

a reply to: Justoneman

Thank you for your informative reply!

a reply to: Kokatsi

I do think that areas around a congested roadway are harmful for wildlife and humanity but not deadly like being hit by a car. Standing near heavy smoke for extended periods is going to hurt peoples quality of life and longevity. People die often by breathing CO without any ventilation. Soot control is normally solved with combustion temperatures and heavy soot probably indicates a problem with the motor.

Where I live we have cleaned up from the days of coal in every building and ran the coal through bag houses and stacks at a power plant and that is going away soon do to the EPA which IS a good plan. Natural gas and Hydrogen burn clean. CO2 is not in Hydrogen.

a reply to: mbkennel

Generally they know, yes, but not always. So many things in science are discovered by accident, it's really interesting if you look that up.

Climate scientists who have no obvious agenda readily admit that we are in the infancy of understanding the mechanisms that drive climate change, and that it's only a small chance that what humans have put into the air and taken from the ground is a major driver of the change.

It's only when you get into the heavily polarized, funded-by-this-or-that-group-with-an-agenda scientists who adamantly hold a hard-nosed stance on one extreme or the other.

a reply to: Kokatsi

I learned from an engineer who lengthily investigated the Great Pyramid that there are still-hidden chambers in the pyramid--does that mean his theory is correct simply because he has the credentials and has done the research to back up the claim?

I have a very hard time believing that goats and caravans are the main combined cause of an area over 3.6 million miles being turned (back) into a desert. But at least your assertion will make me look into the possibility.

I'd like to give a gesture to all those bigots on the topic (and other topics they may be bigoted on)

*waives both middle fingers*

Jail for disagreeing and providing their own set of findings is a crime now...welcome to Russia my comrades.

Not unlike witch burning, acid attacks, beheadings, child brides etc, so too should 'flat earther' idiocy being outlawed in a forward-thinking, First World society.

After all, it's a more pernicious practice than any of the individually harmful acts cited -- it affects all of us and our generations to come.

How in the hell are we still arguing about climate change?? Listen, the same scientific-method that brought us electricity, airplanes, landed humans on the moon, and that magical internet-boxy-thingy you call your computer is the same scientific method that tells us, with overwhelming certainty, that humans are contributing to CO2 increases, and global temperature increases. Notice how I said contributing...

Why choose to believe that the scientific method that, with certainty, allowed us to develop all the cool technology we use today, just so happens to be wrong in the case of climate change?

My two cents: all you deniers would rather feel better about yourselves by thinking that humans aren't contributing to the demise of thousands of species, and whatever future impact it has on us. You'd rather believe that all the incredibly accurate and detailed science is wrong in the case of climate change. Keep driving your cars and using your technologically advanced cell phones hypocrites. I guess science was only correct enough to make that cool stuff, but can't be correct in the area that makes you feel bad about yourselves, because well, scientists can't know everything! Of course they can't/don't! Scientists aren't claiming to know everything, they're just trying to present the EVIDENCE that exists all around us.

Deniers, please supply scientific evidence that humans ARE NOT contributing to climate change. The burden of proof is on you guys. Your opinion doesn't matter when it comes to science. Let's start solving the problem and not create new ones.

I can't believe I am spending my time writing such an unnecessary reply... what year is it again?

a reply to: abracadabra203

Please prove that other greenhouse gases like water and methane are not more important than a gas that comprises less than 0.04 % of the atmosphere, of which humans only contribute a percentage.

Is it possible, just possible mind, that the earth has shifted slightly on its axis so that the northern hemisphere is now tilted slightly closer to the sun. The Eskimos sure think so. And it is a fact that global warming is really only affecting the northern hemisphere.

Isn't GLOBAL warming supposed to effect the entire globe.

Has it occurred to you that people who don't believe in global warming, are not motivated by a desire to continue to pollute the earth but by a desire not to get scammed and cheated of dollars that can actually be used to reduce pollution?

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Please prove that other greenhouse gases like water and methane are not more important than a gas that comprises less than 0.04 % of the atmosphere, of which humans only contribute a percentage.

Who said they aren't important? The thing is, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is determined by temperature, the warmer it gets the more water vapor. Temperatures are not driven by water vapor but if temperatures increase, so do water vapor levels. It's a feedback effect.

Methane indeed contributes to warming but it is broken down by sunlight, CO2 is not. The thing is, the contribution of CO2 from people just keeps adding up, it doesn't go away. The thing is, atmospheric methane has a concentration of about 0.00017%. It's been increasing though, probably because of rising temperatures in the arctic. Another feedback thing.

Is it possible, just possible mind, that the earth has shifted slightly on its axis

No. Polaris and the other stars are right where they are supposed to be.

And it is a fact that global warming is really only affecting the northern hemisphere.

No, that is not a fact.
www.ncdc.noaa.gov...