Global warming challenge, petition for vote on suspending CA's global warming solutions act Options

[Gertie Keddle]

Editorial: Global warming challenge
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER EDITORIAL FOR MARCH 9, 2010
Excerpt:

The possibility of suspending California's Global Warming Solutions Act, a law unlikely to change temperatures but certain to wreak economic havoc, appears to have increased dramatically.

Two large Texas-based refineries have pledged as much as $2 million to pay for signature-gathering to place an initiative on the November ballot that would suspend the global warming law if passed by voters, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing Sacramento sources.

California refineries of the two companies, Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., would be forced to slash greenhouse gas emissions. But the initiative would delay implementation until unemployment level drops to 5.5 percent for at least a year. Unemployment is now at 12.4 percent.

The last thing California needs is an unnecessary law that drives up costs for businesses, prices for consumers and could send many of both fleeing the state.

The Times reported Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had asked businesses not to support the ballot measure. The initiative is sponsored by Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay, and the People's Advocate, a Sacramento-based anti-tax group. They have until April 24 to gather 433,971 valid signatures.

It's time the public vote on the increasingly questionable theory underlying California's law. Leaked documents have shown climate scientists paid by government grants may have rigged data, suppressed conflicting information and blocked skeptical scientists from inspecting their studies and submitting alternate theories.

<snip>

Claims of catastrophic global warming are based on computer models derived from increasingly questionable data by a relatively small cadre of scientists, who have profited for years from government and private grants to study the alleged threat. We say, let's have a vote.

Article

[vectorsrule]

Claims of catastrophic global warming are based on computer models derived from increasingly questionable data

It is not just questionable data, it is the fact that no one has seen the data, or the basis on which the models were built on. When you hide your work and say "trust me," often people don't. Kind of like when you are billed the smartest man in America but you hide your High School grades, SAT scores, college grades, grad school grades, LSAT scores, Law School grades.

[Noclevermoniker]

I'd sure like to se a RICO investigation...

[Martin]

The Real Clear Politics website includes an article by George Monbiot in the UK Guardian, headlined "The Trouble With Trusting Complex Science." It opens:

There is one question that no one who wants to deny man made climate change wants to answer: What would it take to convince you? In most cases the answer appears to be nothing. No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us...The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science.

It's intellectually contemptible to psychologize a political or scientific opponent instead of addressing his argument. That's ad hominem argument. Yet, that is exactly what Monbiot does:

Look at the hatred and derision the passionate and persuasive Al Gore attracts. The problem is not only that most climate scientists can speak no recognisable human language but also the expectation that people are amenable to persuasion. Got that? People disagree with me because they're unreasonable. If Al Gore attracts hatred and derision it's not because he wants everyone else to curtail their use of fuel while he himself lives in a mansion and rides jet airplanes all over the world, it's not because Gore's hypocrisy is as plain as a billboard. It's because you're dumb.

There is a possible explanation in an article published by "Nature" (British science journal) in January...Those who see themselves as individualists and who respect authority, for instance, tend to dismiss evidence of environmental risks because the widespread acceptance of such evidence would lead to restrictions on commerce and industry, activities they admire. Those with more egalitarian values are more inclined to believe that such activities pose unacceptable risks and should be restricted. Got that? If you question the validity of computer projections whose authors have been caught discarding evidence contrary to their theory, it's not because you think a departure from the scientific method is a weak basis for public policy. It's because you're an ignorant elitist.

Monbiot closes with a passage of particular condescension. Perhaps we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief in science. The battle over climate change suggests that the more clearly you spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If they don't want to know, no one and nothing will reach them. Got that? If you don't believe in man made global warming, you don't believe in science because you're a wilfull ignoramus.

Poor Monbiot! When your scientific or political argument boils down to calling your opponents idiots, it means you know you have already lost the argument.

[zaphodx]

[i]There is one question that no one who wants to deny man made climate change wants to answer: What would it take to convince you? In most cases the answer appears to be nothing. No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us...The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science.

There's one question that no one who wants to accept man made climate change wants to answer: What would it take to convince you that there is no man made climate change? The answer appears to be nothing.

This, more than anything else, shows that the "boffins" aren't doing science. Science works by proposing models that can be tested and that if the test goes the wrong way the model is wrong.

What would it take to convince me, a professional scientist, that man made climate change is real? Make all the data publicly available, including the computer programs used to "enhance" the data. Stop acting like "skeptics" are a problem and using "skeptic" like it's a bad word. Science is supposed to be skeptical and require firm evidence about everything. Stop talking about "consensus" and start talking about evidence. Consensus is a politics word, not a science word. Show that starting at a time in the past that the models reliably predict the climate of the past. If they can do that, then show that without including human influences like CO2 that the models cannot match the past climate (allowing the same kind of tweaking of parameters that they required to match climate with models including human influences like CO2). I would find that pretty convincing.

Showing me that CO2 is increasing and that temperatures are increasing does not convince me that CO2 is causing the temperature increase. (And the fact that CO2 is still increasing but temperature hasn't been over the past 15 years is even alot less convincing than that.)

[laziter]

yes Zaphod, true believer's take this on faith but laugh at anyone that believes in an "outdated" bunch of superstitions. Ironic isn't it? On a positive note now I have something to vote for in the upcoming elections! Yay Me!

[Martin]

The OC Register article reports that "Dr Phil Jones, head of Britain's Climate Research Unit, was forced to step down after thousands of leaked e-mails revealed he may have suppressed and altered data. He testified last week in the House of Commons that he withheld data including those of Sweden because those nations prohibited release. But, he was almost immediately rebutted by the nonprofit Stockholm Initiative 'for a rational climate policy' saying 'All Swedish climate data are available in the public domain' and 'that fact has been clearly explained to Dr. Jones.'" Apparently the dog ate Dr. Jones's homework.

More on George Moonbat. Monbiot has said that a trans-Atlantic flight is as damaging to human welfare as child abuse. Then, his critics asked, why do you yourself take trans-Atlantic airplane flights? Isn't that hypocritical? Monbiot said that he did this "hypocritically or paradoxically, according to your point of view." Got that? He's entitled to make moral judgements like comparing airline travel to child abuse, but when he rides on an airplane the morality of it depends on your point of view.

This is a man who raised money to pay a bounty for a "citizen's arrest" of Tony Blair and did actually attempt a "citizen's arrest" of John Bolton although neither man was doing anything illegal. Then, why would the Guardian print the opinions of a man who can neither think straight or obey the laws against kidnapping? Because that's how low the Guardian has fallen.