It's interesting, just to name two examples, both Einstein and Darwin eventually (it took time) overturned the consensus of the time because their theories were testable and eventually generated predictions.

As esplained previously, and what has been admitted by scientists, climate models are notoriously poor and inadequate at making climate projections.

What specific theories by meteorologists are testable in nature?
And how strong were the predictions?

So, based on all the information you've provided in the thread so far, what do you think we should do in response to the consensus? Or is the consensus meaningless? Does the consensus warrant a response in the form of policy?

Interbane wrote:So, based on all the information you've provided in the thread so far, what do you think we should do in response to the consensus? Or is the consensus meaningless? Does the consensus warrant a response in the form of policy?

That is a very good question regarding policy.

It's not likely that an international policy on emissions control can be implemented when rising economic powers like India and China are in full swing industrially. Their argument would be very basic - It's our turn now (industrial revolution time)

If I had one of those Myther black belts in conspiracy theories I'd say a global warming alarmist campaign is motivated by a socialist goal of global taxation, global economy, and perhaps eventually a one world government.

How meaningful was the Euclidean space geometry consensus?
An entire re-conceptualization of space was needed. But we were able to empirically verify Einstein's theory by TESTING it. Its predictive power reconfirmed it.

What specific theories by meteorologists are testable in nature?
What is the predictive power of current models? Was the warming "pause" predicted?
What's the weather going to be like in a 100 years from now?

The Euclid consensus had meaning, of course. But if science was in the business of achieving a consensus Einstein would have stopped because the consensus agreed with Euclid.

How meaningful was the Aristotelean consensus?
The Ptolemaic consensus?

Our knowledge of nature vastly changed after the consensus was found to be wrong.
Bonus question: Is mankind any wiser because of it?


Let me be clear again:

I believe the climate is changing, like it has many, many times in the past.

I believe our predictive power is not very good at all when it comes to climate change.

I believe we (meaning the U.S.A.) should substantially decrease the crap we pump into the air by the ton. We should be caring for our planet. This is our only home (for now).
(it just makes sense).

I do not believe Man is the primary contributor to climate change. Consensus arguments are just a lot of political/scientific hand waving. Bandwagoners are just that - BANDWAGONERS - who ask little and are easily persuaded because they hear only what they want hear and READ only what they choose to read (confirmation bias at its best).


Thanks

ant wrote:I do not believe Man is the primary contributor to climate change.

Why not?

Interbane wrote:

ant wrote:I do not believe Man is the primary contributor to climate change.

Why not?

Common, Interbane.
We are going around in circles.

I've already peppered my reasons all over this forum many times whenever the topic has come up.

ant wrote:I've already peppered my reasons all over this forum many times whenever the topic has come up.

The dots aren't connecting for me, help me out. Examples of past consensus being wrong aren't evidence that current consensus is wrong. Weak predictive power isn't evidence that consensus is wrong.

But still you believe consensus is wrong. That position has a bandwagon all its own.

For the record, I'm not certain the change to our climate is entirely anthropogenic. But neither are the scientists who put their name on the consensus list. There is strong evidence that it is anthropogenic, so I wonder what strong contrary evidence you have.

The consensus relies on mathematical models that have been notoriously poor in their predictive power.
The models to date "run hot" and yet miserably failed to predict the 16 year warming "pause"
Actually the pause has been described as surprising and has caused a scramble to save past models.

Recently there is a new model that tracks temperature and temperature trends more closely than previous models which
"most significantly overstates the amount of warming the planet has experience during approximately the past 120 years"

Here is the full quote:

The new model tracks temperatures and temperature trends more closely than the complex climate models used by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Climate ‘Complexity’ Mistakes

The authors note each of the complex climate models used by the IPCC significantly overstates the amount of warming the planet has experience during approximately the past 120 years. In addition, based on the theory temperatures should rise right along with carbon-dioxide emissions, the complex models have missed a more than 18-year pause in temperature increase.

In the paper, authors Lord Christopher Monckton, Astrophysicist Willie Soon, Ph.D., climatologist and geologist David Legates, Ph.D., and statistician William Briggs, argue complex climate models get temperature projections wrong because they overestimate, or miscalculate entirely, the strength and direction of the feedback mechanisms built into the climate in response to increased carbon-dioxide concentrations.

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-art ... rks-debate


Here is the actual article (pdf). It was published in the journal Science in 2014

http://download.springer.com/static/pdf ... 20eb849c7d


Look at this from the Abstract:

Once those discrepancies
are taken into account, the impact of anthropogenic
global warming over the next century, and even as
far as equilibrium many millennia hence, may be no more
than one-third to one-half of IPCC’s current projections.

Part of the intro may catch your interest and motivate you to read and digest what you are able to, being the layman you (and I) are.

Are global-warming predictions reliable? In the 25 years of
IPCC’s First to Fifth Assessment Reports [1–5], the
atmosphere has warmed at half the rate predicted in FAR
(Fig. 1); yet, Professor Ross Garnaut [6] has written, ‘‘The
outsider to climate science has no rational choice but to
accept that, on a balance of probabilities, the mainstream
science is right in pointing to high risks from unmitigated
climate change.’’ However, as Sir Fred Hoyle put it,
‘‘Understanding the Earth’s greenhouse effect does not
require complex computer models in order to calculate
useful numbers for debating the issue. To raise a delicate
point, it really is not very sensible to make approximations
and then to perform a highly complicated computer
calculation, while claiming the arithmetical accuracy of the
computer as the standard for the whole investigation’’

Essentially what laymen bandwagoners can only do is point to a graph that indicates a rise in average global temperatures over a fixed period of time.

But a graph does not tell the entire story:

A graph can not predict the future of highly complex systems.

A graph does not demonstrate the high variability and impact of built in feedback mechanisms that compensate the system.

A graph is static. It is not dynamic.

A graph is not a 100 year weather forecast.


Is this recent mathematical model wrong because it doesn't fit with the current paradigmatic dogma that rejects and frowns on open scientific and public discourse because there's a "consensus"?


What i've said here is not intended to persuade you of anything.
I'm simply more open minded than you are.

ant wrote:The consensus relies on mathematical models that have been notoriously poor in their predictive power.

Models for climate change?

This is beside the point. You already said you believe the climate is changing.

This doesn't clear things up for me at all. I'm more confused. Do you have an issue with all of it, or just the claims that climate change is most likely caused by mankind?

I'm simply more open minded than you are.

Yeah! That's why your brain keeps falling out. You are far more close-minded that you realize.

Weak

Hey, you started that one.

What are you thoughts on the Pope's encyclical? Is he merely jumping on a bandwagon, or has he done his homework?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/world ... .html?_r=0