Interbane wrote:

ant wrote:Do you intelligent folks even bother to attempt some reasonable sceptical questions?

Here's a skeptical question for you. If past consensus has turned out to be false in many cases, what is your conclusion regarding current issues where there is consensus?

Has there ever been a consensus or unanimity with any climate change models?
Which ones?

I assume you are ill informed here.

But look:

Now, as the global-warming hiatus enters its sixteenth year, scientists are at last making headway in the case of the missing heat. Some have pointed to the Sun, volcanoes and even pollution from China as potential culprits, but recent studies suggest that the oceans are key to explaining the anomaly. The latest suspect is the El Niño of 1997–98, which pumped prodigious quantities of heat out of the oceans and into the atmosphere — perhaps enough to tip the equatorial Pacific into a prolonged cold state that has suppressed global temperatures ever since.

http://www.nature.com/news/climate-chan ... at-1.14525

Why the 16 year pause when C02 levels are off the charts? Is heat generated from oceans a greater impact than CO2 emissions?
The El Nino effect from 1998 is apparently still with us.
If we were still pumping climate altering amounts of C02 into the atmosphere from 1998 to the present, why wasnt it enough to keep our warming models accurate?

I suspect you cant match my questioning prowess, Intebane. That or youre just too lazy because the consensus says humans are responsible for global warming.

ant wrote:I suspect you cant match my questioning prowess, Intebane.

I sure can't. I bet you can't match my answering prowess. Give it a shot:

If past consensus has turned out to be false in many cases, what is your conclusion regarding current issues where there is consensus?

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted - Bertrand R.

I think anyone who simply bandwagons a consensus cant actually think for HIMSELF or is too caught up in a web of confirmation bias.

Here is another great article in Nature mag:

The sad truth of climate science is that the most crucial information is the least reliable. To plan for the future, people need to know how their local conditions will change, not how the average global temperature will climb. Yet researchers are still struggling to develop tools to accurately forecast climate changes for the twenty-first century at the local and regional level

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100120/ ... 3284a.html

I think this ties in to what Freeman Dyson said about the need for a necessary distinction between global averages and regional differences. A global trend does not mean the entire planet will warm or even continue to warm.

Percipitation:

Unfortunately, when it comes to precipitation, that is about all the models agree on. The different simulations used by the IPCC in its 2007 assessment offer wildly diverging pictures of snow and rainfall in the future (see graphic, right). The situation is particularly bad for winter precipitation, generally the most important in replenishing water supplies. The IPCC simulations failed to provide any robust projection of how winter precipitation will change at the end of the current century for large parts of all continents2.

Even worse, climate models seemingly underestimate how much precipitation has changed already — further reducing confidence in their ability to project 

Have you ever researched this?
Heck, before this, I didnt know that space "weather" and oxygen levels can impact the climate to a degree that is to date uncertain.
Why has the consensus convinced you its not? What model convinced you this is small potatoes compared to what science and technology has done to pollute our atmosphere?

I suspect you are in a political trance about this.
However I do avree that we need to clean up our act.

"The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man, because it is different from his own" - L Stein.

I read an op-ed a while back by George Schultz, who was Ronald Reagan's Sec. of State. No liberal, obviously. But what he said about GW in terms of true conservative thinking made sense. If the possible stakes of GW are so tremendously high (this seems to be true), the conservative response would be to err on the side of caution and not wait until we have a ( perhaps mythical) scientific consensus. That is what prevention is all about. We'll never know exactly how effective our preventive actions are, but it's just wise to take them. Schultz talked about Reagan's strong advocacy of the treaty banning CFCs, which were damaging the ozone layer. He implied that were he around today, RR might also be inclined to act to put the brakes on CO2 emissions. But we'll never know that for sure, of course.

All of our squabbling about AGW could be like Nero's fiddling while Rome burned.

Of course. Thats why Ive always supported reduction of emmisions.
It's the politics and consensus that is likely duping people into the anthropogenic cult.

ant wrote:I suspect you are in a political trance about this.
However I do avree that we need to clean up our act.

You're still missing the forest for the trees. Why won't you answer my question? Quotes of L Stein and Russel are meaningless unless... you seek to answer the questions. It's actually the more important part. They're speaking to you, not me.

Interbane wrote:

ant wrote:I suspect you are in a political trance about this.
However I do avree that we need to clean up our act.

You're still missing the forest for the trees. Why won't you answer my question? Quotes of L Stein and Russel are meaningless unless... you seek to answer the questions. It's actually the more important part. They're speaking to you, not me.

Yeah, that goes without saying - first questions, then a pursuit of their answers.


Anyway, the history of consensus science is not really that impressive. In fact, it's quite telling. Politics are usually the culprit when a consensus has been declared. It goes back as far as Copernicus.

What's important is that people aren't fooled by people like you into thinking that science is in the business of setting consensus goals and proclaiming them as truth to the word. I agree with Chrichton (who was a scientist, if that makes you feel better) science has zero to do with consensus and the greatest scientists in history were great because they broke with the consensus.

A lot of reactions from laymen are what they are because personal beliefs are being questioned and examined.
People don't question their beliefs very often. Even honest skeptics like you.

"The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man, because it is different from his own"

- L Stein

“...consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E = mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way”

- Chrichton, M

Ps

I actually met Mr. Chrichton once, very briefly. He was a big, friendly guy.

ant wrote:Yeah, that goes without saying - first questions, then a pursuit of their answers.

I'm just feeding the troll now. You obviously have no idea what the consensus actually is, or how it should affect policy, or how it should influence individual conclusions. Without giving answers yourself, I find it hard to believe you even understand your own questions.

Let us know when you feel like answering.

Interbane wrote:

ant wrote:Yeah, that goes without saying - first questions, then a pursuit of their answers.

I'm just feeding the troll now. You obviously have no idea what the consensus actually is, or how it should affect policy, or how it should influence individual conclusions. Without giving answers yourself, I find it hard to believe you even understand your own questions.

Let us know when you feel like answering.

Yes of course.
When all you're doing is hiding your own ignorance, resort to ad hominem.


This must be way too complicated for me to understand the science of it all!



Okay - you win.
Let's just call each other names now.