“Climategate” — the CRU Hack or Leak — whatever it is, sucked me back into the whole climate debates. I left it after a few months and moved on to other matters, but still occasionally read at various blogs although I rarely posted. After the release of the emails and documents, I couldn’t help but peek at the response on both sides and wasn’t at all surprised at what I saw. Pretty much entrenched positions on both sides, if not a hardening of them. Continue reading …
Piece By Piece – The AGW Side
January 4, 2010 
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The questions in the public sphere — which is my natural subject matter — are whether we’re facing a meltdown or whether it’s all a big hoax. I’m not claiming these are the right questions — I’m claiming these are the questions being debated. You may rightfully think they are false alternatives but the public sphere never was one for avoiding logical fallacies. Recently, I read about James Hansen’s trip to Copenhagen and how he had to have a police escort because of death threats. Recently as well, Steven Mosher has informed us that Steven McIntyre’s safety has been in question.
I’m interested in how we got to this state of things. How is it that the questions are either “Are Deniers Misrepresenting The Science to Delay Action?” or “Are Scientific Fraudsters Perpetrating a Hoax?”
A good place to start is with what each side is saying: What is the position and arguments and evidence produced in the AGW dominant scientific paradigm? What is the position and arguments and evidence of the critics, whether they be skeptics, contrarians or denialists? Continue reading …
On bullies
January 4, 2010 4 Comments
A note on posts that contain direct personal slurs: if you can’t make your argument without a personal slur, your post will be ignored. If you want me to respond, put on your big boy pants and do not use personal slurs. If all you want to do is vent, I’ll leave your posts up but won’t respond.
I was looking for old tags so familiar to the olden days
<marquee><blink>Marquee</blink></marquee>
but I don’t think those tags are enabled on WordPress. Probably for good reason, as web pages with them were so annoying, but if I could use it, I would edit such posts and include the nasty words in blinking marquee lights just for a good laugh.
New Deletions — Funding and Bias
January 2, 2010 62 Comments
A number of posts were deleted over at CA, specifically regarding how funding does or does not bias research.
I did graduate work on the pharmaceutical industry and problems with bias, so I am familiar with the literature on how funding from industry sources results in more favorable results than studies that have no industry funding. So I am suspicious once a scientist receives any kind of industry funding. This does not mean that all scientists who receive industry funding are producing biased research and untrustworthy results, but that one has to look at those studies that do have industry funding with that in mind.
Hence when someone refers me to Lindzen, I have to state outright that I am less able to trust their opinions as compared with someone who has no industry ties. Continue reading …
Clarification
January 2, 2010 117 Comments
My purpose in reading at various blogs and posting at a few is as follows:
Until about 2005, I pretty much accepted the AGW dominant scientific paradigm. It wasn’t that I invested a lot of time on it, but I did read the occasional article in New Scientist or other online science zines and accepted pretty much that the earth was likely warming, that it appeared that most of this warming was due to increases in GHGs, and that the significant portion of that GHG increase was due to fossil fuel use. If nothing was done to mitigate emissions, potentially harmful effects could occur.
I ran into a couple of contrarians who pretty much dismissed the dominant paradigm out of hand, claiming instead that the whole global warming science was really a front for a wholesale redistribution of wealth from the developed to the developing world. It was, they said, a quest for one world government via the UN. It was an attempt to institute some socialist agenda. It was a hoax. It was a fraud. The hucksters were Mann, Bradley and Hughes, Jones, Briffa and others. They referred me on to Steve McIntyre’s blog and Watts Up With That. From there I read Real Climate and a few others, once I was introduced to the hockey stick controversy. Continue reading …
Brass Tacts
January 2, 2010 8 Comments
Over at Climate Audit, there are a few comments in the “Lots of Station Data” post that get to the heart of the matter when it comes to the CRU Event:
For some CAers, it is proof of fraud:
For ex:
You’ve got to be kidding me. And we’re still trying to be nice and avoid using the “fraud” word? There is no other word for this kind of behavior that fits better.
and
Steve has done an extraordinary job of “auditing” this fraudulant activity. It seems that Steve is doing the job that should be done by the universities, granting agencies,government agencies providing and using data, IPCC, and so forth on an ongoing basis. It will be of great interest to observe the extent to which the “independent investigations” at East Anglia CRU and Penn. State are as thorough. The huge question that follows, of course, is how these data have been used in unquestioning fashion to produce their “independent” investigations of global warming?
The clear implication is that the emails are evidence of fraud that reaches right to the heart of the AGW paradigm. Continue reading …
The Policy Lass
The Policy Lass 
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