your criteria for believability is unbelievable. Since research takes time and equipment which require money, lab space (or at least computers and desk space) demanding counter research that is published in journals is disingenuous at best. Further, the mechanism in science publishing is 'peer-review', and the political pressure to adhere to the consensus view means that there are no peers who will give non-consensus research a fair shake (either for fear of losing their jobs or funding, or because they are busy bullying their own 'peers' to adheer to the consensus). The model is pretty much identical to AIDS research, where you couldn't even get an application for funding or a job if you didn't start by saying (as the US made Law under one or another of the Bushes) that "HIV is the virus that Causes AIDS.
The IPCC's seminal document on climate change claims the agreement of 600 scientists as its authority. And yet, from the time that the last scientific paper was finished to the time that the document was ready to publish, lots of 'rewriting' was done by the political section bosses. Look up the timetable. Why would they need that long?
I'm finishing up my third associates degree at the local technical community college. The reason for three is immaterial, but it does mean that I've been there for a lot of years. And I've been constantly shocked at the activism on global warming which is attended with slogans like "The science is done, it's time for ACTION!!" and "Don't discuss, Act!!" Would that my little college were alone in this zealous and blind jihad. Science is never done, they teach us in our lab-science classes: theories can always be overturned by more or better information. Then the Jihad fires up and there's no allowance for non-consensus opinion, questions or consideration.
It's far easier to document the things that are wrong about the current politically-driven, consensus AGW jihad than to produce suppressed research. The requirement on the part of the True Believers that anyone who doesn't agree is a 'denier' to start with. Since when has science been operated on the basis of elementary-school-yard bully politics? (Since about 1970, apparently.) All it takes to see it is to read (actually read, not skim or read what someone else wrote about) various internet 'sources' of truth and justice: Realscience.com, Wikipedia, etc. In the RealScience.com discussion fora, you find people who claim to be knowledgeable treating people who ask questions as if the askers are criminals bent only on causing mischief. Wikipedia has closed a long list of subjects from further editing based on "community consensus." (I've edited on Wikipedia for about a decade. No one asked my opinion to form this 'consensus', which leaves the question of who, exactly, the community in question might be?)
I'm not young. I graduated in 1972 from highschool. I was a radical activist back then, and reading and paying attention. I saw the reports that were absolutely positive that we were on our way into an ice age, and the lists of actions we had to take to avoid it... which were just the actions we're told we must take to avoid global warming. Oddly, the absolute surety hasn't changed. Only the artificial crisis.
Here's a question: we have all been forced to cut down on use of chlorofluorocarbons. We're stuck with lead-free solders (which don't work as well as tin-lead did, require heavy metals to stabilize and give properties 'like' tin-lead, some of which are a lot nastier than lead was) organic flux removers that don't remove flux (but make your hands smell good!) and cleaning fluids that, at best, push things around without actually cleaning very well. And yet, I've never seen a mechanism that explained how those really heavy Chlorofluorocarbon molecules make their way into the upper atmosphere to kill Ozone. Have you? Has anyone? I doubt it. In the mean time, in the name of saving the world, we've taken a major step backwards in reliability, quality and usability.
My suspicion is that the hard sciences have been invaded by the practitioners of the soft sciences. Psychologists insist that it is not reality, but perception of reality whcih is important, while physicists used to say it was the other way around. Add to that a cadre of politicians who think they have the right to pontificate about science without actually ever having more than a glancing aquaintance with it, and you have a recipe for where we are: science by name calling. I can prove my science if I can convince enough other people that you are a 'denier' or 'alarmist', or conspiracy theorist. It makes no difference if the people in question have experience with science as long as they've watched something like it on TV.
Singer et all have estimated the total contribution to the greenhouse effect to be a mere 0.28% due to the totality of human activity. The human CO2 contribution is roughly half of this miniscule amount. Water vapor is by far the dominant effect at 95% of the total.
CO2 is not chemically reactive. The EPA declared it a "pollutant" only after several states and "green lobby" groups sued for it. In a narrow 5-4 2007 Suprement court ruling, the court gave no scientific opinion but ruled that the EPA was the official government entity which carried the authority to make such a determination. While "CO2" was a word appearing in the ruling, there is no reference anywhere to other greenhouse gases, including water. This was a temporary victory. There are two GOP inititaives in both Houses of congress to remove EPA's authority to declare CO2 a pollutant - but is opposed by Democrats.
THE SEMINAL SCIENTIFIC PAPER on this appears in the Library tab of the ICECAP website: "Falsification of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effects within the Frame of Physics" by Gerlich and Tscheuschner (Sep 2007) - 114 pages and 204 references. If you read this and can follow the math at just a top level, you'll be convinced that there's no such thing as a greenhouse effect - unless one believes in a perpetual motion machine (thus ignoring the second law of thermodynamics).
For the landmark book on the subject of climate history and its implications, read "Heaven and Earth, Global Warming - the Missing Science" by Ian Plimer (2009).
Why do I have to be a defined as a "denier" or as an "alarmist"?
A little tale:
Joe was a creative and successful Engineer. In his spare time he enjoyed his hobbies of studying global warming and betting on NFL football games. This year he was doing especially well on his football picks until he decided to go for broke and make a huge bet. He picked the Pats over the Ravens in the playoffs and now owed his mob connected bookie $500,000 . He was in a panic when he heard that knock on the door. The rest was just a blur.
Joe awakens with a splitting headache and finds himself lying in a pool of water in his basement. His arms are free, but his feet are encased in a block of cement. Looking around he discovers the source of the water. The pipes have been broken and the water level in his basement is quickly rising. He is doomed!
What should Joe do?
A) Only make bets he can cover.
B) Use the pen in his pocket protector to mark the rising water level on the wall and write a diary about what is sure to be his torturous end as result of his gambling.
C) Ignore the rising water and wait for help.
D) Use all of his strength to try and pry the grate off the basement floor drain to increase the flow of the drain even though it's obvious that volume of water rushing in is greater than what the drain can handle.
What happens to Joe?
Joe is an Engineer so it's in his nature to look for solutions beyond the obvious and those that are offered by the "establishment". As a result, Joe crawls to his tool box, removes his sledge hammer from the bottom drawer, smashes the cement, frees himself, and gets the heck out of the basement.
Here it is again. Every few weeks this post is re-sent in the Design News Daily Update emails, as it was today. UBM is just repeating this underlying lie that a handful of "distinguished scientists" whom we should trust (presumably because they're like we are--ignorant scientists?), tell us not to worry about global warming. Have you bothered to provide equal weight to the much larger group of real climate scientists that tell us we have literally everything in the world to be worried about?
Mr. Murray, you are defending these distinguished scientists because they are being "scorned." Really?? Is that all this is about? I thought it was about the future of our planet and whether or not we are destroying it. If we are, then no less than the survival of human civilization may hang in the balance. Are you really so sanguine about our future and care more about protecting the reputations of these 16 people? What if the 16 non-climate scientists are wrong and the 98% of the thousands of real climate scientists are right? Shouldn't we trust the overwhelming majority more than the 16 outliers who aren't climate scientists? Even Dick Cheney posed a very unlikely threat that would be very grave in its outcome to be one that should be treated as though it's a certainty.
How is this fair and balanced reporting, Mr. Murray? You merely place doubt, give us a feel good excuse to believe the doubt, and then repeat the publication of the post over and over again. Do you call yourself a person of science?
Whether we cause it or not the climate will change. Will we cause the change to come sooner or later? Where is it written that Nature is going to treat us any better on its own than it will with our impact? Whether we cause change or not there is nothing that says what change we do cause is better or worse than what would be happening otherwise. We are a long way from understanding our environment well enough to say that we can change it. We are likely to find out a 100 years from now that everything we are doing to prevent global warming is doing more harm than good. We can pretty much depend on politicians to turn any threat of a disaster into a real one. Ethanol comes to mind. Climate change is not likely to over take the damage we do to each other any time soon.
Climate change seems to have few of the halmarks of science and many of the halmarks of a new religion.
Science has always been a matter of presenting an idea, presenting how one went about making their conclusions and exposing it to others to examine and experiment with to see if the hypothesis holds up under the scrutiny of others. The so-called scientists on the global warming side seem to have used the approach that their ideas are so in-controvertable that there should be no examining of their methods and formulas by others and that others who would dare question them are not true scientists. True science requires that the hypothesis and methods be questioned. True science requires that evidence that does not support your hypothesis be examined fully, not dismissed because it doesn't fit your orthodoxy.
The problem is that science has allowed itself to be perverted for the benefit of politics. Instead of being independant it has become so dependent on the political process that it no longer funtions as science, but as another propaganda tool to fit the local political winds.
Dear William. Yes, I know I just said that the slowly rising sea level may not be a world ending catastrophy. However, note that we will be forced to move hundreds of millions of people, some entire nations, to new areas, over times like a few decades. While this is not so bad a problem handled in small numbers over a long time, it does demand we plan how to handle it when the millions in Jakarta need our help with a 100 mile long sea wall, and when florida is hit by a shocking series of hurricanes in a short time.
I suspect though, that all the ocean level, even the storms by themselves, is just the spark at the edge. The real problem is an unpredictable weather pattern, and drying (especially followed by drenching rains) that make even irrigation a hard task. It comes down to food and water. A lot of this world depends rather directly on the water available, and the expected rains. Perhaps we should all put our investments into massive third world (and perhaps some first world as well) irrigation and storm water impoundment projects?
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
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