Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 3
Discussion
durbster said:
I agree with the author's basic point - the new trend for denying free speech in Universities is a problem - but attempting to link that to climate change is misjudged.
Do you live in another universe, or are those specs a bit too tinted?http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/10...
http://gawker.com/arrest-climate-change-deniers-15...
http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/17/scientists-ask-o...
Note the behavour of these scientists
New particle hopes fade as LHC data 'bump' disappears
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3697...
They are being careful cautious, and yes, self doubters. Pity CC & AGW 'scientists don't behave the same way
"Hopes for the imminent discovery of a particle that might fundamentally change our understanding of the Universe have been put on hold.
Results from the Large Hadron Collider show that a "bump" in the machine's data, previously rumoured to represent a new particle, has gone away.
The discovery of new particles, which could trigger a paradigm shift in physics, may still be years away.
All the latest LHC results are being discussed at a conference in Chicago.
David Charlton of Birmingham University, leader of the Atlas experiment at the LHC, told BBC News that everyone working on the project was disappointed.
"There was a lot of excitement when we started to collect data. But in the [latest results] we see no sign of a bump, there's nothing.
"It is a pity because it would have been a really fantastic thing if there had been a new particle."
Speaking to journalists in Chicago at the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP), Prof Charlton said it was a remarkable coincidence - but purely a coincidence - that two separate LHC detectors, Atlas and CMS, picked up matching "bumps".
"It just seems to be a statistical fluke, that the two experiments saw something at the same mass.
"Coincidences are always strange when they happen - but we've been looking very hard at our data to make sure we fully understand them, and we don't see anything in the new sample."
New particle hopes fade as LHC data 'bump' disappears
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3697...
They are being careful cautious, and yes, self doubters. Pity CC & AGW 'scientists don't behave the same way
"Hopes for the imminent discovery of a particle that might fundamentally change our understanding of the Universe have been put on hold.
Results from the Large Hadron Collider show that a "bump" in the machine's data, previously rumoured to represent a new particle, has gone away.
The discovery of new particles, which could trigger a paradigm shift in physics, may still be years away.
All the latest LHC results are being discussed at a conference in Chicago.
David Charlton of Birmingham University, leader of the Atlas experiment at the LHC, told BBC News that everyone working on the project was disappointed.
"There was a lot of excitement when we started to collect data. But in the [latest results] we see no sign of a bump, there's nothing.
"It is a pity because it would have been a really fantastic thing if there had been a new particle."
Speaking to journalists in Chicago at the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP), Prof Charlton said it was a remarkable coincidence - but purely a coincidence - that two separate LHC detectors, Atlas and CMS, picked up matching "bumps".
"It just seems to be a statistical fluke, that the two experiments saw something at the same mass.
"Coincidences are always strange when they happen - but we've been looking very hard at our data to make sure we fully understand them, and we don't see anything in the new sample."
Jasandjules said:
Do you live in another universe, or are those specs a bit too tinted?
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/10...
http://gawker.com/arrest-climate-change-deniers-15...
http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/17/scientists-ask-o...
Oh please. Breitbart? Daily Caller?http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/10...
http://gawker.com/arrest-climate-change-deniers-15...
http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/17/scientists-ask-o...
Terrible sources aside, the Breitbart article is saying that if corporations are deliberately funding anti-AGW propaganda to protect their profits - as the tobacco companies did - they could be prosecuted. If Nestle were running marketing campaigns that said eating 5Kg of chocolate a day is great for your health - contrary to scientific opinion - I'd be expecting the Government would step in too. Why do you object to that?
I haven't read the Gawker one but the Daily Caller reads like it's completely made up.
Silver Smudger said:
durbster said:
By "sceptical scientists" I mean those claiming AGW does not exist (if there are any).
- Truly living in a world of your own, Durbster
durbster said:
Of course scientists should be and are sceptical, and the amount of research going on into AGW right now shows that's the case.
Might I suggest that research is only undertaken when money is provided for it to be undertaken. It's the way that University funding works in the USA and is a model that has been adopted in the UK and elsewhere in recent decades, especially for "science". The concept of "pure" research seems to have vanished outside "the arts".Not a surprise really when the with Science the university and, more significantly, their researchers, can see opportunities for spinning off lucrative businesses from whatever they undertake if, and only if, they make it important enough, expensive enough and with a long enough projected life to make it all worthwhile. There are a few other factors in there to but those will do for now.
So it all comes down to who is making the most cash available and doing it consistently. Directly is good. Through other subsidies is also useful.
Politicians can do that because they seem the same benefits of trough and longevity and how that might help them. Some doing for political reasons, some through ego vanity trips. Others simply to get at the trough in ways they would not be able to whilst "in power".
The politicians even pay the NGOs to lobby them to justify the perpetuation of the take from the tax collection process.
Once most of us get to a certain age the dreams of youth hit the sleepless nights of reality. For some years we felt like what we did actually mattered. But then we realise that mostly it doesn't and that we have a few decades of commitments ahead that mean we need to make a living and pay bills and to avoid becoming frustrated and depressed by the need to sell out souls to "the man". Once one realises that pretty much everyone else is doing the same thing (it has to happen that way or the system would fail) it can become easier to accept. Joining in with the common interests and views of colleagues will tend to make things easier - for there is little benefit to the majority in rocking the boat. In the mix will be a few leaders in group think whose views will be dominant whilst they lead the tribe. People who still have a yearning to "make a difference" will feel able to do so if they appear to be part of that leadership. It may be their only way to stick their head out of the mass mob. So they will attach themselves to whatever gives them that apparently visibility, no matter what they may have thought previously. (It is entirely possible that they had no determined thoughts before, other than to "succeed".)
I'm not trying to be derogatory when I write this. It is the way it is. It happens throughout life - but CC seems to attract more funding and its associated hangers on through politically supported encouragement than anything else. Most likely because it is such a flexible concept that some people have recognised that they make it run and run and keep the flood gates of funding open for their entire careers.
Anything that can make that persistence more sustainable will be welcome - and they work very hard at that.
I rather suspect that if there were no sceptics at all they would want to create some as a means to keeping the PR going.
LongQ said:
durbster said:
Of course scientists should be and are sceptical, and the amount of research going on into AGW right now shows that's the case.
Might I suggest that research is only undertaken when money is provided for it to be undertaken.Hansard said:
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker): I am glad to be able to respond to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) has performed a useful parliamentary service in allowing the issue to be aired. Although profound climate scepticism may be only a minority interest, such sceptics voice a view shared by a number of my constituents and people in the newspapers. It is a view heard on the Clapham omnibus and it is right that we hear such views and debate them in the open. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) that a cloying consensus in Parliament does no service to legislation or national debate. However much I profoundly disagree with some of the arguments, it is right that we have the chance to air them in Parliament.
Steve Baker: We have agreed here that science proceeds by conjecture and refutation, so in an attempt not to have a cloying consensus, will the Minister fund some climate scientists who wish to refute the current thesis?
Gregory Barker: I am afraid that I do not have a budget for that sort of research.
Money from the public purse has only been available to true believers. Steve Baker: We have agreed here that science proceeds by conjecture and refutation, so in an attempt not to have a cloying consensus, will the Minister fund some climate scientists who wish to refute the current thesis?
Gregory Barker: I am afraid that I do not have a budget for that sort of research.
turbobloke said:
Money from the public purse has only been available to true believers.
It is remarkable how you guys leap about from position to position, contradicting yourselves with every step. One minute you're saying there are hundreds of scientific papers that disprove AGW, and then you're saying no scientists that dispute AGW can get funding.Which is it?
Either the research exists, in which case funding is evidently not being withheld, or the science does not exist in which case your argument has no scientific validity. You can't have both.
Speaking of hypocrisy, I see the weather is suddenly an acceptable argument again. It's funny how readily the weather was dismissed as irrelevant when we were wearing t-shirts at Christmas.
turbobloke said:
We've been taken back to the non-consensus consensus that would be irrelevant even if the non-consensus was a consensus.
1. In the context of being told my position are not widely held, the consensus is absolutely relevant.2. There are multiple peer-reviewed studies that show a consensus, so unless you have some evidence of this vast-yet-completely-silent objection, I'll go with it. I'm afraid you simply saying there is no consensus over and over doesn't make it true to anyone but your fan-club
3. Again, it's not an attrition loop. It's a loop.
durbster said:
LongQ said:
So it all comes down to who is making the most cash available and doing it consistently. Directly is good. Through other subsidies is also useful.
Indeed. You're talking about companies like Exxon, or the various tentacles of the billionaire Koch brothers, right?
Politicians Durbs. Governments with access to budgets funded by what they see as bottomless pits of tax funded cash that they can toss, willy nilly, in the direction of anyone who can seem to make a good case for a project that may support their needs as politicians to be perceived as important influencers whilst attaining and perpetuating a need for their serfs to be looked after for their own goo and the good of their children and grandchildren of course. Make the problem run long to make it sustainable.
I think you are more perverse than I thought durbs.
Why not back up your implied criticism of the (very tired) Exxon claims and the Koch brothers spending with some figures and compare them with the money ploughed into AGW related research by Governments and other "Official" bodies - even some oil companies.
Put something substantial out there and let's all look into the claims to see how well they stand up.
Oh, and please don't make it some previously cobbled together guesswork from any of the usual sources that tout such stuff. Make it something of your own.
Edited by LongQ on Tuesday 9th August 17:56
durbster said:
turbobloke said:
Money from the public purse has only been available to true believers.
It is remarkable how you guys leap about from position to position, contradicting yourselves with every step. One minute you're saying there are hundreds of scientific papers that disprove AGW, and then you're saying no scientists that dispute AGW can get funding.Which is it?
Either the research exists, in which case funding is evidently not being withheld, or the science does not exist in which case your argument has no scientific validity. You can't have both.
Speaking of hypocrisy, I see the weather is suddenly an acceptable argument again. It's funny how readily the weather was dismissed as irrelevant when we were wearing t-shirts at Christmas.
Just a guess.
bodhi said:
I suspect, and this really is only a suspicion, that the research which suggests AGW is far from a foregone conclusion weren't funded from the public purse?
Just a guess.
Just a guess.
Including several from other countries where their tax income and population control are undertaken by other means than AGW. Which is a coincidence of course...
durbster said:
It's funny how readily the weather was dismissed as irrelevant when we were wearing t-shirts at Christmas.
Definitely amnesia, he's forgot the fur coats at Christmas in 2010.
And how readily that was dismissed as weather, before a volte-face and the inevitable CAGW 'attributionalisation' increased cold fits with warming!
Rasmussen poll of US voters:
Is the scientific debate about global warming over?
Yes 25%
No 61%
Should the government investigate and prosecute scientists and others including major corporations who question global warming?
Yes 15%
No 69%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/pol...
Is the scientific debate about global warming over?
Yes 25%
No 61%
Should the government investigate and prosecute scientists and others including major corporations who question global warming?
Yes 15%
No 69%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/pol...
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