JayB,
who are you to judge these theories? Are you a climatologist? Next time you get in a car, switch on your TV, take an X-ray scan you better think of the thousands and thousands of scientists who came before you and gave you all these great tools.
Steve, thank you very much. You have answered Freedemann, in my opinion, very well. You also, fortunately, relieved me from the task to answer him. ( I do not want to answer him after his last posts).
The remarks of JOHN R. CHRISTY, which refer to the uncertainty of atmospheric models, and the unability to make prediction from them certain, seem grounded to me. I intuitively think along all this along these lines.
The source of the uncertainty, which is most clear to my education, is the turbulance in the movement of air and water masses. The equations of their movement (dirived from the laws of mechanics physics) are non-linear. People still lack methods of solve or analysing such equations reliably, even with the modern computers. This one (among few) fundamental reasons why the long-term weather forcasts are still so unreliable.
@ JayB. Do not take it to you heart. There seems to be indeed a problem with Friedemann. If you had come to here earlier, in the the time of the thread “A Trully Terrifyying Thought”, you would have seen it clearly. Friedemann has now made literally the same mistake, and has revealed himself in the same light. May be Steve should now declare that calling a person a fool should not be longer considerd offence on this forum:-)
Ilya,
you just don’t get it! There is strong consensus in the scientific arena and I challenge you to prove otherwise. I don’t care what people write in a book or on their websites. Look at the peer reviewed scientific literature. If all is so obvious to you, why don’t you conduct your own experiments, have them reviewed publish them and thereby shift the scientific consensus.
JayB,
you seem to refer to the so-called “climategate”. Its impact on the scientific consensus: ZERO
Ilya,
you say so many incorrect things that I don’t know where to start. For one thing you don’t understand the difference between weather and climate:
While wheather forecasts, as you say are indeed imprecise beyond say 5 days, climate forecasts are in fact extremely precise! Climatologists can predict the climate in your city next year and the year after that with extreme prescision. Want to take a bet?
I have Friedemann, not a climatologist I believe, on the one hand and John Kristy climatologist and Nobel Prize winner on the other hand. I will believe John Kristy.
I also believe Richard S. Lindzen Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.
Or lets just say that I think they should be listened to as credible sources. I have to say, Friedemann, I do not consider you a credible source.
To me the issue is the depletion of non-renewable resources. Yes we should reduce the consumption of these.
Steve,
I agree with all you say there. I am not a climatologist and you shouldn’t trust me as a source of scientific knowledge in this field. Trust the scientific mainstream. The mainstream may be wrong but there is no doubt that there is strong consensus on man made GW.
What I find hard to understand is why the Steves and Ilyas of the world feel to be in a position to challenge the mainstream opinion when they are no experts either. We wouldn’t do that in any non politicised area. Would you challenge the mainstream opinion that the earth has an iron core or that the earth is 4 billion years old? I bet you wouldn’t and rightly so. All these findings may be wrong but right now they are the essence of decades of collective pondering, examining and testing, and I have no arguments to challenge them. All I have is my trust in science.
You are right about fossil fuels of course.
Finally let me say that even if we don’t agree in many of these discussions, I really value all your opinions and really enjoy these passionate discussion in this strange foreign language without Umlauten and Dativ! And now I go to bed. See you tomorrow on page 8!
“There is strong consensus in the scientific arena and I challenge you to prove otherwise”
I feel skeptisism that there is strong consensus in the scientific arena. Part of the reason for the skeptisism has been mentioned, especially, by Steve. Steve at least has come into trouble of looking up the Internet, to give Mark Bortrun (and automatically you) an example of the writting that shows that the skeptisism exists, the writting which explains why it exists.
You, in my opinion, through the thread have given no example to prove your claims of the existing consensus (except chanting the words like "consensus, ‘majority’, ‘science’. ). You are equally challenged to prove that the consensus exist, or better, if you can, that the currently rising temperature is the (sole) result of the human activity.
“Look at the peer reviewed scientific literature”. To be frank, I can’t, not intellectually, but in terms of time. I have not retired yet. Can you? Have you studied the peer rviewed scientific literature? I challenge you to prove that you have.
“If all is so obvious to you, why don’t you conduct your own experiments…”
First, I do not claim that the climat modells are obvious to me. And that the consequences of climat changes would not be serious for people. (They were always serious, especially in the Ice Age).
Second, one of the reasons of the uncertaitinent in this field of study is that no feasible experiments could even partly reflect these complex systems and phenomenas. Observations are possible. Simple models are possible. Attemts to derive conclusions from the models are possible. I thought you had realised that.
“There is strong consensus in the scientific arena and I challenge you to prove otherwise”
You are challenged to prove what you are saying, why just me? Prove the cosensus. Prove that the current warming (40 years ago the journalist believed in was cooling) is caused by the human activity. It is your theme. I was only barking at what you and sometimes Bortun wrote.
“The impression of disagreement about GW in the scientific community is manufactured by well funded interest groups and individualss”
Steve has taken a trouble to look up the Internet. I have taken a trouble to answer you as hastily as I can do it now. When JayB askes you to ground thes your words, you meet the challenge as follows:
"JayB,
who are you to judge these theories? Are you a climatologist? Next time you get in a car, switch on your TV, take an X-ray scan you better think of the thousands and thousands of scientists who came before you and gave you all these great tools."
I like some of you posts, on language learning, health care, and many others. But ( “I Hate It”) three times 
I meant, I hate your answer to JayB, not you nor our discussion. I also appreciate all your opinions and the resulted warming 
Good night :-).
@Stevem
You quoted John Christy (who, by the way, is a nobel prize winner only because he was on the international climate change panel) as your expert. But he clearly says, in your excerpt, that the majority of his colleagues will disagree with him.
Yes, if you search on the internet, you will find people, even credible people, who do not agree that climate change is human-caused. This is true. However, they are a minority.
And, your other source, Dr. Fred Singer, is funded by oil companies. Anybody can go and read his wikipedia page. He’s hardly a credible figure.
If you say that you believe John Christy because he has a Nobel Prize, that’s just a bit odd. He has a nobel prize because he served on an international panel that came to conclusions he disagrees with. It was the panel that got the nobel prize.
Anyway, I’m not a climatogist, so there’s not much farther that I can take the issue. But are there any Academies of Science that dispute this? There are a few individuals on the internet, yes, but who else?
It may be that Dr. Christy is correct and the majority of his colleagues are wrong. However, I’m not a climatologist, so I’m going to play the numbers and go with the strong majority.
Bortrun, and Richard S. Lindzen Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.
@ Fridemann’s : “Climatologists can predict the climate in your city next year and the year after that with extreme prescision. Want to take a bet?”
It is interesting. The saying says things are difficult to predict, especially into the future. So have they now predicted the last year cool winter in Germany?. And, please, predict less snow on my driveway (Toronto, Nrth York) next winter.
Seriously, I would not bet with you. My first guess is that the climate varies more slowly than the weather, because things get more averaged. But of course, I don’t now that much about it, and would be glad to hear from you. Do not forget to review the peer scientific literature first
Bortrun : “But are there any Academies of Science that dispute this?”
I do not know what you mean. If science is disputed by National Academies of Science, it will be ideology or politics, not science.
The Sovied Academy of science had disputed if the Academician Sacharov must be excpelled forom the Academy.
I know it is not relevant, but there were sad moments in the history of the Soviet Academy of Science, when the Academy disputed genetics, and the verdict was, that genetics is not science but, approximately “Deceitful Whore of Imperialism”.
I don’t know those 2. I will google them in morning. It’s 2:30am here. We all can’t sleep, but it’s too tiring watching the news. Arguing about climate change is a nice distraction I suppose.
Nevertheless, they are not the majority.
I recalled that in his book “The Rational Oprimist” Rideley mentions the modern mild equvalents, the condemnation by boards or academies of some scientists who questioned the climate change issues. Somewhere in Norvegia or Sweeden.
Yes, the Soviet Union had a funny relationship with science (and with facts). But it’s my understanding that all the major scientific organizations in the United States accept that climate change is both happening and human-caused. I know that there are dissenters.
You are also far more scientifically literate than I am, so you may approach this from a different perspective. However, it seems clear to me that climate scientists around the world have come to a consensus. I will respect that consensus. I understand that there are dissenters, and I understand that our models of how climate change will affect the planet may turn out to be incorrect one way or the other.
I believe that your premisis Mark, that there exists a consensus among the climate scientists, is wrong.
I believe there is a strong intuition of the politicians, that the issues has became so sensetive, that it’d be better not to challenge it.
Please do not classify me as racist altogether :-). I fully agree with Steve’s remarks on the idiologization of the issue.
My sympathies to Japan
@ Bortrun,
To use my points, the last year I once sent to lingQ’s writting correction my response to one therad, I do not remeber which. It was dull, but it is in a bit relevant, and it takes me little effort to paste it here. At least it will be better English, as it was corrected by Dooo.
Ilya once wrote:
"Maybe this partisan response to climate change issues just correlates with what we, the electorate, want and expect from our representatives.
In the public opinion, “support” for global warming would often mean that the politician not just supports the programs aimed at reducing the greenhouse effect, but also all that would lead to increased industry regulations, raised taxes and swollen government. It is the popular negative image ascribed to the aims of the “left”. The popular negative image ascribed to the aims of the “right” is , to the contrary, that of strong uncontrollable corporations, weak governments and, as a result, social inequality and climate catastrophe.
I am not sure about it, but it seems all the votes of the American and Canadian representatives have become known and analyzed by the public more than ever before. Absolutely everyone requires political transparency; it seems to be ideal. However, at the same time, our representatives vote and behave too close to the popularly expected image. The brave and independent steps that could have troubled their electorate have vanished. Why? - It would be political death.
The additional deterrent to brave steps and independent thought seems to be this. The bigger the politician, the more she or he needs to take into account the image valued by the opposition. I think that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had initially been freely skeptical about climate control programs. But the attacks of the liberal opposition and a critique from abroad seem to have forced him to backtrack
I am afraid that no future presidential candidate in the USA will ever dare to state her or his own thoughts on the climate change issue. The parts of this issue that have not been answered by science (at least the effect of the human activity) have become a major source of political speculation."
@ Bortrun - It’s funny, you claim Dr. Fred Singer is “funded by oil companies” and the implication is therefore that everything he says can simply be ignored. I don’t know if it’s true that Dr. Singer is funded by oil companies or whether it is just more unfounded global warming advocate propaganda. However, what about the “99% of climatologists who are unanimously in agreement on global warming” who you are so fond of? If the furore over global warming were to die down, would those people’s livelihoods be affected? Undoubtedly yes, they and the whole industry including environmentalists, politicians, climatologists, researchers and many others would find themselves out of a job, or at a minimum receiving a lot less funding and attention. Does this mean their testimony could be skewed? Absolutely. Does it mean it should be ignored? No more so than that of someone employed by an oil company.
@Friedemann: “you seem to refer to the so-called “climategate”. Its impact on the scientific consensus: ZERO”
You may well be right - but that’s just precisely the problem!
FACT: These so called “scientists” were caught admitting to each other in private emails that their data didn’t give them the result they wanted. Furthermore they were caught conspiring to manipulate their evidence - or if necessary to destroy it altogether rather than let it ever become public!
What kind of “scientist” does that, Friedemann? Is this how YOU were trained to work too?
You keep banging on about scientific journals - please don’t make me laugh! 
Have another look at the leaked emails: the two crooks in question were caught explicitely discussing how to rig the peer-review panels to ensure that sceptical studies would be kept out.
Again, just what the hell kind of “scientists” do this? Ones with a strong vested interest perhaps?
There may indeed be a consensus among climate-doomsday-cranks. But consensus amoung a group of people (however large) doesn’t automatically mean that what they are claiming is true, does it?
BTW
Don’t even bother with all that the stuff about: “you’re not a scientist so you have no opinion…blah…blah…”
I’ll be honest: I have a VERY limited respect for scientists.
They pose as being searchers after truth who fearlessly go wherever the facts take them. The climategate emails show they can just as easily be shabby little hypocrites who twist the facts to fit whatever they want to believe. I have no doubt that many of them are also gutless cowards who don’t dare to step out of line, or challenge the established wisdom for fear of losing their teaching posts, research grants, etc.
Scientists are human being just like everyone else. They have no special claim to the truth - sorry.