Debunking skeptics: pulling threads out of blanet statements.

[theclimateblog]

I got into an argument in the blogosphere yesterday about the climate change consensus, and the skeptic finally conceded that even if there was agreement, the scientists themselves are just doing bad science. One particular argument that really floored me was the assertion that climate scientists "ignore geology and orbital changes." Once I got

Comments

[tri_blog]

Good point, Jacquelyn! I also like Carl Sagan's The Fine Art of Baloney Detection, from his book The Demon Haunted World.

It amazes me that these critics will say the climate change people are not considering all possibilities, being objective---trying to appear "rational" and "scientific" themselves. They do this while, at the same time, they seem to know all about our political leanings, use meaningless emotional arguments, and commit the same fallacies of which they accuse us.

I think mixing political, inflammatory statements like "you're a socialist" is an advantage to these rude, boorish people. They realize they can't really battle fairly in a purely scientific discussion, so they drag in all this political/morality crap to distract the discussion from the main issue---the scientific data.

I was unpleasantly surprised yesterday by those two extremely rude trolls that came to my post on An Inconvenient Truth. I finally had to discipline them, because their so-called "dissent" brought up few meaningful points and was never

[theclimateblog]

I think that it's more important than ever that we encourage the development of interdisciplinary fields like Columbia's new masters program in climate change policy, or science journalism. I think that having some scientists who are really good at working in the public sphere is important, but there comes a point where doing that actually hampers science (though it's a good project for those in retirement or about to retire!).

I'll have to check out that Carl Sagan book. I wish he were around now to add his voice to the discussion.

[tri_blog]

Well my point about needing more scientist-celebrities is that people tend to follow news about celebrities, no matter what trivial things they do. They tend to follow personalities more than issues.

So we if established a bunch of recognizable, cool scientist faces in the national public's mind, we'd not only have some good role models, but people who actually start showing interest in their work.

I'm in health care, and we have some doctor-celebrities, which really helps educate the public on health. When people like Mehmet Oz go on Oprah, that only helps. Then they start actually caring about the medicine.

Do most people know the name of even one climate scientist? Nope. Because scientists are trained to stay out of the news, to let their work speak for itself. That's great and necessary to do good science, but it hurts in terms of marketing and stirring up public interest in scientists and their work.

[theclimateblog]

That's a good point; the problem is often that it takes such a unique mixture of skills to be really charismatic AND a good scientist. Carl Sagans, Stephen Hawkings, and Albert Einsteins are rare.

Then you have people like the Crocodile Hunter, with television shows that are so bent on being entertaining that they might not be conveying as much information to as many people as they could be.

[tri_blog]

What do you think about the claims of Prof. Robert Giegengack? One guy brought them up yesterday?

In Ancient Fossils, Seeds of a New Debate on Warming (NYT).

Al Gore is a greenhouse gasbag.

[theclimateblog]

He sounds like an old school contrarian- there are plenty of those around. I haven't found any of his arguments to be particularly compelling, and he seems like he's mostly blowing a lot of steam.

[tri_blog]

Would you be more specific about why some of his arguments don't hold water?

Also, please look at this. Steve Kirsch wrote a very thorough page, with lots of evidence, called:
Global warming: why we can't wait.

He also wrote a detailed analysis of Edwards, Clinton, and Obama, asking whom would be the best president.

http://www.skirsch.com/politics/president/comparisonChart.htm
http://www.skirsch.com/politics/president/comparisonFull.htm
http://tri-blog.livejournal.com/16784.html

What do you think about coal-to-liquids, which Obama seems to support?

[theclimateblog]

It's not that his arguments don't hold water, I just don't find that he's really said anything strong, or definitive, but rather that he's just generically contrary. What he's said about sea level, for example - that we should have seen more of it by now - doesn't hold true as per what I've seen of various calculations by oceanographers.

Thanks for the heads-up about the Kirsch sites - one my upcoming posts over the weekend is going to be a climate change breakdown of all the candidates. Like most people, I was really appalled by Obama's coal-fuel program. Sure, it reduces dependency on foreign oil and would lower fuel costs, but it's devastating in its environmental impact.

Of course, I also don't really support ethanol, either, which I'll go into at some point.