Here is another response to the original claims of this thread and the details themselves are disturbing.
The Truth About Denial
http://www.msnbc.msn.../site/newsweek/
By Sharon Begley
Newsweek
A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up." (excerpt)
Maybe being a "contrarian" will finally become profitable if not fashionable.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what you're trying to point out here is that scientist deniers are being payed to write propaganda articles about GW, which may (probably) be true, but if you want to be fair you should mention most of the money spent on propaganda comes from the proponents side. Here are some figures for comparison. I don't think everything written by each side is propaganda, but I think you get the picture.
Reporter Eve Conant, who interviewed Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, was given all the latest data proving conclusively that it is the
proponents of man-made global warming fears that enjoy a monumental funding advantage over the skeptics. (A whopping $50 billion to a paltry $19 million for skeptics — yes, that is billion to million
http://www.newsmax.c...0434.shtml?s=lh I think it is highly disingenuous by anyone to claim that humans have no impact over climate, virtually all studies demonstrate the opposite
I doubt this is true but the last part is probably accurate. Why? This could explain it.
Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans,
who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. “I devoted six years to
carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry.
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since
then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical,” Evans wrote in an April
30, 2007 blog. “But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker -- better temperature data for the last
century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds,” Evans wrote. “As Lord
Keynes famously said, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’” he added.
Evans noted how he benefited
from climate fears as a scientist. “And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990's,
lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a
lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't
believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences
full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I
did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of
evidence outlined above fell away or reversed,” Evans wrote. “The pre-2000 ice core data was the central evidence for believing
that atmospheric carbon caused temperature increases. The new ice core data shows that past warmings were *not* initially caused
by rises in atmospheric carbon, and says nothing about the strength of any amplification. This piece of evidence casts reasonable
doubt that atmospheric carbon had any role in past warmings, while still allowing the possibility that it had a supporting role,” he
added. “Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. The science of global warming has become a
partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages.
At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes
rubbishing or silencing critics,” he concluded. This scientist is just one of hundreds saying the same thing. I think it's a good explanation why most of the so called science is pro GW.
Scientists, especially Young ones are afraid to not be pro GW. This is why just because the majority of studies back GW it doesn't mean it's true.
Here's a example. There are probably fifty studies claiming Greenland is proof of GW but this one Study counters all of them because it's better, and it comes for an established scientist so he's not in fear for his career. Quality beats quantity.
Abstract:
We provide an analysis of Greenland temperature records to compare the current (1995-2005) warming
period with the previous (1920-1930) Greenland warming.
We find that the current Greenland warming is
not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of
a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in
1995 - 2005.http://meteo.lcd.lu/...nd_warming.htmlI know this study doesn't disprove GW but it does point out the fallacy of believing that having more pro studies means anything.
NASA publishes incorrect data about temperatures and nobody is the least bit suspicious that it may not have been an accident?
I know this is from the GW thread, but I'd like to reply to it here.
First off as both the data Platypus cites and the graph I posted in the first place shows the basic assumption you are making is false, the global mean temperature in the 1930's was not nearly the same as today, it was almost .5 degree C cooler
You do realise this is less than 1 degree f ?
