Inconvenient Number of Scientists Dissent!

[7960]

Originally Posted by motivez

And here I thought this was about the science behind global warming

I find it funny that most of the people who want to discuss the issue get stuck on talking about 1 person instead of whether or not the science is right.. which is really the only valid thing to talk about in a thread about scientists disagreeing with the consensus view.

It doesn't really matter what Gore does, or if he's a hypocrite, or whatever.. because it doesn't change whether or not he's right about anything. It only changes whether or not you can respect him as someone who says he cares about the issue, and that's completely irrelevant to the science involved.

The only people who replace the science involved with him at the center of the debate are those who don't know enough about the science behind the issue to have an intelligent discussion about it.

Al Gore is the lightening rod for the issue. He's the de facto spokesman. And for the spokesman to say one thing while doing another is crap. I'm sure some people would say the ends justify the means, but when the spokesman exaggerates, fabricates, and outright lies about the issue he loses credibility and the entire issue is drawn into question.

And to say people talk about him because they don't understand the science is only half right. There are on the order of thousands of people in the world who "know enough about the science." Everyone else relies on what those few say is going on. When a biologist in Canada says "all the pussyfooted arctic seafucks are gone...MAN IS CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING!! " am I supposed to put more faith in him than a major contributor to the IPCC global warming study who now says the model is wrong (link)?

So we get back to "Is the spokesman credible?" IMO when he says things like

"I believe it is appropriate to have an overrepresentation of factual
presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up
the audience to listen to what the solutions are," Al Gore, May 9, 2006

(translated)

"I believe it is appropriate to exaggerate, fabricate, and outright lie
about how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience
to listen to what the solutions are," Al Gore, May 9, 2006

he's not helping his cause.

[7960]

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere

Your personal hatred of Al Gore has made you deniers all blind to reason. Don't you remember when a UK judge ruled that "An Inconvenient Truth" was substantially founded upon scientific research and fact?

I couldn't let this one go.........

You mean this judge?

"Is is now common ground that this is not simply a science film -- although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion --

That's the same judge who said

.......that it is a political film. (there are) nine inaccuracies in former U.S. vice president Al Gore's award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, labelling it "a political film" and calling many of its claims about climate change "alarmist" and "exaggerated." (link)

Are you sure you want to use that judge as a reference?

Actually, are you sure you want to use a judge at all? Canada's Green Party rep Victoria Serda brings up an excellent point when she says (about that judge)

"How can a judge in England make a determination on whether something is scientific fact when he has no background in it?" Ms. Serda said. "This is a judge that doesn't even know what he's talking about, he doesn't work in the field, he's not a climate scientist, he's not a peer-reviewed scientific journalist. He has no basis in order to even go forward with this decision he's making. It's just kind of silly."

I laughed when I read *HER* credentials. She has a degree in education and "has been trained to deliver the slide show presentation on climate change that Mr. Gore gives in the documentary." That's it.



Anyway, back to the topic. Is a denier someone who thinks the earth isn't warming? Or someone who thinks it is warming but says man is not causing it? There's an important distinction in there. Please let me know.

[motivez]

The only thing you've said is you don't like someone who's talking about the issue, because you think he's asking people to do things he's not willing to do himself. Who cares? Your personal feelings about one individual are hardly germane to this discussion (about the science.)

He's made himself a spokesman, his critics have made him THE ONLY spokesman so they can avoid talking about all of the credible scientists who've actually done research themselves. It's a little pathetic.

If [general usage] you don't know enough about the science to talk about it, IMO [general usage] you should just say that instead of clinging onto criticisms of one person (valid or not) and thinking that's somehow a valid criticism of the whole issue by proxy.. because it's not.

I certainly don't know enough about the science to say one way or another that it's 100 or 50% correct, and I doubt very seriously [m]any on this forum do, but I think changing the subject to Al Gore is indicative of not spending enough time reading about the science to make an informed post about it.

My position is what it's always been, there are plenty of tangible benefits associated with "cleaning up" our act, energy independence, a healthier environment (hooray catalytic converter), and so forth.. so regardless of whether or not I like person A or person B, I think getting away from fossil fuels and moving to clean energy is a worthy cause that we should all support.

I also have an easier time believing scientists who aren't affiliated with and paid by an industry who believes it's their job to muddy the waters so their business isn't financially penalized by society rallying around one position.. and that seems to be the vast majority of scientists who feel that we are contributing to the change in our climate, so since I'm not a scientist who does research on the climate, I defer to them unless new evidence comes along that refutes it.. and since science always changes, there very well could be new evidence that comes along which does that.

It's unfortunate we'll probably never hear about it, what with people wanting to shift the discussion away from that evidence and on to their personal feelings about certain individuals, but what can ya do.

[7960]

Originally Posted by motivez

My position is what it's always been, there are plenty of tangible benefits associated with "cleaning up" our act, energy independence, a healthier environment (hooray catalytic converter), and so forth.. so regardless of whether or not I like person A or person B, I think getting away from fossil fuels and moving to clean energy is a worthy cause that we should all support.

I'm all for this. If there are two ways to do something and one is "clean" and the other is not, of course we should do it the clean way.

I also have an easier time believing scientists who aren't affiliated with and paid by an industry who believes it's their job to muddy the waters so their business isn't financially penalized by society rallying around one position.. and that seems to be the vast majority of scientists who feel that we are contributing to the change in our climate, so since I'm not a scientist who does research on the climate, I defer to them unless new evidence comes along that refutes it.. and since science always changes, there very well could be new evidence that comes along which does that.

I keep reading more and more about dissent in the scientific community. I'm not saying global warming isn't happening. What I'm mostly pissed about is how people in the scientific community are being shunned, shut off, cut off, shouted down, locked out, and ignored because they disagree with "the consensus." That's bullshit and flies in the face of what science is supposed to stand for.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by 7960

I'm all for this. If there are two ways to do something and one is "clean" and the other is not, of course we should do it the clean way.

Yeah. I think too many people get caught up in the politics involved here and overlook the benefits involved in us going green.

Originally Posted by 7960

I keep reading more and more about dissent in the scientific community. I'm not saying global warming isn't happening. What I'm mostly pissed about is how people in the scientific community are being shunned, shut off, cut off, shouted down, locked out, and ignored because they disagree with "the consensus." That's bullshit and flies in the face of what science is supposed to stand for.

I agree, and I think dissent is good.. but what bugs me is some people have this philosophy where the dissenters are automatically correct because they dislike someone (ie: Al Gore), or the politics involved (they're conservative), and ultimately someone saying the environment is fine and we shouldn't try to make changes lines up with what they want to believe..

I also think there's a tendency for those people to completely ignore the fact that the companies in the energy industry have a stated desire to put doubt into the debate for reasons other than disagreement with the science.. and they don't look at these scientists critically because of the reasons I stated above.

I think when someone's personal interest (like keeping their job) is contingent on coming to a specific conclusion (which the companies have already admitted to wanting to put out there), you have to look at them far more critically than other scientists without those same ties.

[hsmith]

Originally Posted by 7960

link?

I'll have to look for it. It is with that venture capital firm he joined up with.

Al Gore, Venture Capitalist - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

there it is. he doesn't say he will donate his stock they are giving him, does he

[JaJae]

The problem with the global warming debate is that people are unwilling to look past what the media and alarmists like Al Gore are preaching to them. The science simply is not there to believe all the doom and gloom they wish to sell us. More and more the media is starting to turn around and they're finally starting to become more objective over the global warming scare. Has the earth been in a warming trend? Absolutely. Is it mostly due to CO2? Possibly, but also possibly not. As soon as someone puts out their opinion that goes against the Al Gore alarmism suddenly people start crashing over them as if their religion had just been attacked. It's absurd. Should we protect our environment? Absolutely and I don't know a single person who doesn't want to reduce carbon emissions and protect the environment. The problem is over the science.

Even the NY Times of all newspapers is starting to say enough is enough with the alarmism already.

Today’s interpreters of the weather are what social scientists call availability entrepreneurs: the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels.

...
The most charitable excuse for this bias in weather divination is that the entrepreneurs are trying to offset another bias. The planet has indeed gotten warmer, and it is projected to keep warming because of greenhouse emissions, but this process is too slow to make much impact on the public.

When judging risks, we often go wrong by using what’s called the availability heuristic: we gauge a danger according to how many examples of it are readily available in our minds. Thus we overestimate the odds of dying in a terrorist attack or a plane crash because we’ve seen such dramatic deaths so often on television; we underestimate the risks of dying from a stroke because we don’t have so many vivid images readily available.

...

Guess which paper jibed with the theory — and image of Katrina — presented by Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”?

It was, of course, the paper in the more obscure journal, which suggested that global warming is creating more hurricanes. The paper in Nature concluded that global warming has a minimal effect on hurricanes. It was published in December — by coincidence, the same week that Mr. Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Gore didn’t dwell on the complexities of the hurricane debate. Nor, in his roundup of the 2007 weather, did he mention how calm the hurricane season had been. Instead, he alluded somewhat mysteriously to “stronger storms in the Atlantic and Pacific,” and focused on other kinds of disasters, like “massive droughts” and “massive flooding.”

“In the last few months,” Mr. Gore said, “it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter.” But he was being too modest. Thanks to availability entrepreneurs like him, misinterpreting the weather is getting easier and easier.

[7960]

Originally Posted by hsmith

he doesn't say he will donate his stock they are giving him, does he

or bonuses.

and I love how he's donating it to a nonprofit he founded....I wonder if he's pulling a salary from that.

[Donkey®]

Al Gore, Al Gore, Al Gore...that's what it always gets turned into...a discussion of how he is a supposed "hypocrite."

"OMG, his carbon footprint is bigger than mine!!!"

Yet it is greatly reduced from what it would normally be if he didn't do anything about it.

"OMG he is a hypocrite!!!"

So if Magic Johnson endorses condom use because condoms are touted by scientists as a great way of preventing AIDS, the message Magic Johnson is putting out there is automatically invalidated because he didn't use condoms and got AIDS or how about if he is out there still having unprotected sex? Still invalidate the message that "condoms help prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS"? You people are pathetic.


The earth is warming up. Period. Would it be smart of humans to try and do something about it or just keep ignoring it? Does it not bother you to live in your own filth? We can't swim in water because it's polluted. We have wiped out entire species by hunting, deforestation and general dumbshit activities. That's ok?

There are no legitimate arguments to not do anything about our environment. There is only one that it comes down to every single time...greed. It's all about money. That's why we can't do anything. Every single reasoning and excuse ends up right back there. It's pathetic.

[7960]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

There is only one that it comes down to every single time...greed. It's all about money.

You are 100% correct. It's all about money. And *someone* is doing his best to make a huge profit off the hype he's creating by distorting, exaggerating, and lying about "carbon credits" and such all while ignoring that planting a few trees and paying extra to get some of his electricity from hydro doesn't offset the fact that he's doing the harm of an entire neighborhood of "regular" people.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by 7960

You are 100% correct. It's all about money. And *someone* is doing his best to make a huge profit off the hype he's creating by distorting, exaggerating, and lying about "carbon credits" and such all while ignoring that planting a few trees and paying extra to get some of his electricity from hydro doesn't offset the fact that he's doing the harm of an entire neighborhood of "regular" people.

And if Oscar the Grouch was the spokesman for recycling? You'd dismiss recycling because he lives in trash and doesn't do it? The point you're missing is that NONE of that matters. What Gore does and doesn't do has NO effect on the message. Take Gore out of the picture and you have the majority of the relevant scientific community agreeing that the earth is getting warmer and doing something about it is better than doing nothing. But no. People hate Gore because he is Al Gore so we must divert attention from the real problem and focus on him. Great work people.

[7960]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

And if Oscar the Grouch was the spokesman for recycling?

There's a reason Michael Vick isn't a spokesman for the ASPCA.
There's a reason Ted Kennedy isn't asked to be the face of MADD.

You'd dismiss recycling because he lives in trash and doesn't do it?

No. I actually don't think I've commented on global warming in this thread. What I've said is Gore is a piece of shit. He's a horrible spokesman for an issue he so clearly doesn't believe...actually, maybe he does believe it and just doesn't care, I don't know. His words may say this is the biggest issue to face man, but his actions every day show he doesn't think it applies to him.

So you can keep posting crap like you did above, but if you read this thread I've said over and over I don't believe gore when he says it. To me, THIS is the issue in this thread:

Originally Posted by me

So we get back to "Is the spokesman credible?" IMO when he says things like

"I believe it is appropriate to have an overrepresentation of factual
presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up
the audience to listen to what the solutions are," Al Gore, May 9, 2006

(translated)

"I believe it is appropriate to exaggerate, fabricate, and outright lie
about how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience
to listen to what the solutions are," Al Gore, May 9, 2006

he's not helping his cause.

When the de facto spokesman lies and admits he's doing it because "this is important!" it hurts his cause. And when he gives presentations filled with "misstatements, half-truths and verbal sleights of hand" he's not helping. And when he says them over and over and doesn't correct them, well, expect him to catch some criticism for it.

Cliffs: In this thread I didn't say I don't believe global warming is happening, and I didn't say I don't believe man has no effect on it....what I said was I don't believe gore when he says it. Yes, there's a distinction.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

And if Oscar the Grouch was the spokesman for recycling? You'd dismiss recycling because he lives in trash and doesn't do it?

If he made numerous false and misleading statments about "garbage" and "recycling" and scared people with little or no scientific training or understanding of scientific methods into political action, then yes I would have issues with Oscar the Grouch!

Where he lives is not an issue for me.

[RMNIXON]

Here is an example of the Political Hype I am talking about. A recent column on our "War" against Planet Earth by the Boston Globes Ellen Goodman:

In 2007, consciousness rose with the thermostat. Scientists layered one set of facts on another. Gore wrapped these facts into an attention-grabbing movie.

War and peace with the environment - The Boston Globe

This is not the work of some Right-Winger trying to frame the Issue on Al Gore and his movie.

The simple fact that Gore's film misrepresents a good number of "facts" slipped her mind I guess?

[7960]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

If he made numerous false and misleading statments .......

The Truth About Al Gore's Film: An Inconvenient Truth | Commentaries | E-Team

Gore says he's seen the effects of global warming on his family farm. Too bad for him TN has cooled since he was born.

Gore says the snows of Kilimanjaro are retreating due to global warming. Too bad for him they began retreating in the late 19th century (I'll let donkadonk figure out why that's relevant).

Gore shows slides of what would happen if Greenland's ice sheet melted. Too bad for him the edges are melting but snow/ice is accumulating in the center so the *actual* net loss of ice will result in a 0.05mm/year rise in ocean levels.

In other words, yes, I have a problem when someone lies.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by 7960

The Truth About Al Gore's Film: An Inconvenient Truth | Commentaries | E-Team

Gore says he's seen the effects of global warming on his family farm. Too bad for him TN has cooled since he was born.

Gore says the snows of Kilimanjaro are retreating due to global warming. Too bad for him they began retreating in the late 19th century (I'll let donkadonk figure out why that's relevant).

Gore shows slides of what would happen if Greenland's ice sheet melted. Too bad for him the edges are melting but snow/ice is accumulating in the center so the *actual* net loss of ice will result in a 0.05mm/year rise in ocean levels.

In other words, yes, I have a problem when someone lies.

But "Scientists layered one set of facts on another. Gore wrapped these facts into an attention-grabbing movie."


A prominent Liberal Feminist wrote that in the Boston Globe so it must be true!

[7960]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

But "Scientists layered one set of facts on another. Gore wrapped these facts into an attention-grabbing movie."


A prominent Liberal Feminist wrote that in the Boston Globe so it must be true!

everything I pasted that contradicts gore is verifiable through the scientists gore quotes in his propa.......movie.