Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of AGW?

[Gota]

Who should we believe?
The comments of that video about the NWO are hilarious.

[wilbefast]

Lol - all these "Cui bono?" Conspiracy theories are laughable: a conspiracy of *scientists*? They're ***king scientists guys! They get paid ***t all, so they're either complete idiots or not in it for the money.

But so long as we're talking about "Cui bono?", the coal industry has infinitely more to lose from global warming than any bunch of scientists have to gain, and has infinitely more resource (lobbyists, journalists, hackers) at their disposal. So if they did doctored their findings I really don't blame them: faced with that kind of opposition, what else can you do?

Still a stupid idea though - loses you a whole lot of credibility


edit:

So what are you guys' thoughts on the sauce code that was leaked regarding the "Global Warming" models?

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/ ... ate_r.html

fraud ... due opprobrium and comeuppance ... dead-silent mainstream media ... hubris and duplicity evident ... alarmism movement ... scam that's been perpetrated ... fraud ... alarmist bellwethers

Sounds a little too "fair and balanced" to me Forb...

[Forboding Angel]

Wilbefast... Don't you know what the American Thinker is? It isn't intended to be fair and balanced. It is a right wing organization, why would it try to be fair and balanced? That doesn't change the content of the emails.

[wilbefast]

I figured

But have you ever heard the expression: "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose"?

How the emails are interpreted and what light they are shown in makes a HUGE difference - I went back and only read the indented text and there's nothing particularly dramatic about it: there are things that look suss at first glance but they're well justified. As for the source code, again - looks suss, but until the other side has replied to these accusations I'm not interested.

The mainstream media should be all over this: a scandal just as Copenhagen is kicking off!? I mean, it's almost too good to be true! Only they "won't touch it", perhaps because the "evidence" falls to pieces when examined by anyone vaguely un-biased.
Gordon Brown has stood up and said as much - and this is Gordon-***king-Brown: he'd never take any kind stance on anything unless there was no hope in hell he'd be embarrassed about it later. This is a guy who, when in doubt, holds no opinion about anything, and yet he's standing up and effectively saying "this is a smear campaign". Either that or he's finally grown some cojones, but again, this is Gordon Brown we're talking about

[Forboding Angel]

Next you're going to tell me that the BBC is right wing biased? That's a laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOsLbsxO ... r_embedded

[Gota]

Kinda hard to know whats going on and how serious certain claims are unless your someone from the inside or a climate researcher yourself.
It's easy to believe there would be smear campaigns about climate change and humans being the main cause just like it was with cigarettes for example.
It's hard to know if this is some mysterious fight between 2 big financial groups over $ and public funds or the real deal but it quacks like the genuine thing,a serious problem that needs fixing so,personally,im gonna assume this is a duck out of lack of choice or any time or will to go dig into the research myself.

[wilbefast]

'Fraid I can't play youtube videos at the moment - flash isn't working on Ubuntu 64 bit

My dad is a climate scientist - I have known about global warming pretty much since I was born. People like my dad have been talking about this stuff for the last 30 years, but it's only now that some fat, failed presidential candidate has made a sensationalist film about it that people actually give a damn.
So let's imagine that my dad is part of some global conspiracy, which is laughable, and that he'd lie to his own family, which is laughable, and that these past 30 years of nobody giving a toss was all part of the plan, which is laughable.

I don't pretend to know the definitive answers to anything, but some things seem to me to be damn sight more likely than others: there people who have hundreds of billions of dollars to lose if we stop buying petrol, what do the people like my dad have to gain exactly? State funding? Of the 100 biggest economies in the world, 51 are corporations: we're talking individual companies with more economic clout than whole countries. And unlike states, and unlike laboratories, corporations are driven by the singular desire for profit. The meaning of their entire existence is to generate profit. And so, if you have any sense, you do not get between a multinational and its profit margin.
I find the fact that some professional hackers broke into a leading climate-science laboratory and stole a bunch of sensitive emails just days before the Copenhagen Summit was due to open to be somewhat suspicious.

But forgetting all these conspiracy theories, what's the worst that could happen if the scientists are wrong and we do what they say? We tighten our belts a bit and build some windmills when we could've kept on happily burning coal. And if they're right and we do nothing? Let's see... oh yeah, that's right: we all die.

Ready to bet your lives on it?

[Forboding Angel]

Long story short, your dad may very well be mistake. That's assuming that anything you just said was true, in which case, what is his name? Their are registries available, it should be fairly easy to substantiate your claims.

[wilbefast]

Bollocks
You can't just Google somebody and except to find stuff about them: what do you think this is, some kind of human Pokedex? Hang on - I'll check...

<one Google search later>

I stand corrected

I've got a CV + photo of my Dad as 3rd option in Google (first was somebody else's Facebook) - there's some stuff here I didn't actually know, like he completed his Master's the year I was born. And I had no idea he was so good with weasel words.

Obviously not going to share it with the internet at large though - truly a genius idea right there! Also it's a really bad photo: he looks like an ageing, balding, cross-eyed Tom Cruise - I'd hate for you to start thinking of me as a cross-eyed Tom Cruise.

Let me guess "well, if you refuse to provide proof..." - but what does giving you my father's CV prove exactly? If he's a liar or mistaken in your book then, in your book, I have no idea what I'm talking about anyway, so why bother proving it? All I'd be doing is giving a name and a face to somebody you already think is a conspirator or a fool.
I tell you he's a Climate Scientist - you're more than welcome not to believe me: it's not going to stop me from sleeping at night by any means.

[Saktoth]

Here, you dont even need to stress your little brain out by having to read anything.

[momfreeek]

Next you're going to tell me that the BBC is right wing biased? That's a laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOsLbsxO ... r_embedded

Indeed that does seem very unbiased. Then again all it shows is that there was some poor quality code on their system and some unidentified guy readily admits that he's crap at coding. So someone at a university (a student?) wrote some bad code.. whereas code released by NASA is of a high standard. This is not newsworthy.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/ ... ate_r.html << MUCH more detailed and technical analysis of the Sauce (You coders will probably prefer to read this one, even if you don't agree with the stance), and some fairly damning statements.

This is just going over that one point that they are using two sets of data to plot a graph. At first glance this does seem kind of dubious, but it doesn't go into any depth about the accuracy of the data sources or the final result. Damning statements with little to back them up.

Here, you dont even need to stress your little brain out by having to read anything.

This explains why 2 data sources are used and supports it with claims that other data sources published by some of the most trusted scientific centres around the world match. Are these blatant lies?

I wouldn't mind reading something that offered the alternative arguments but all I've seen so far is strong words. Using cheap tricks to discredit the evidence presented by scientists is no subsitute for scientific evidence to the contrary.

I'm curious tho, Hypothetically, if global warming were proved without a doubt to be a giant hoax and a load of asscrap, would you still insist that humans are destroying the earth?

This seems a rather awkward point to bring up when its you who is disagreeing with what the vast majority of scientists are agreed on.

How much proof is needed for it to be 'without a doubt'?

[wilbefast]

It's categorically impossible to be sure - you can't prove this isn't all a dream, you can't prove I'm not a figment of your imagination: you can't prove squat.

There are these people though, who've dedicated their lives to studying these trends, and the overwhelming consensus among them is that Global Warming is happening, and that Global Warming is man-made. Of course they could be wrong! Of course they could be lying! They could also be space aliens or made of celery! I could be a trained Dolphin in a coma! You could be a brain in a jar! What seems more likely?

So say I want to believe that I'm a trained Dolphin in a coma: I want to believe it so much that I screw up my eyes and I try my very very hardest for days and days until I manage to convince myself that anyone who says otherwise is lying, that this is all a fevered dream, that one day I'm going to wake up and go back to eating fish and performing tricks for the children, living a simple, care-free life.
And it makes me angry, so angry, when people tell me that I'm talking nonsense, because somewhere, deep down, I know that they're right: they're spoiling a good dream. Like little children: when do you start telling them that Santa isn't real, no matter how much they want to him to be?
Do you think I want to believe that our generation is going to have to clean up for everyone else? That we're the ones who have to make the sacrifices when 50 years ago they were burning coal without a care in the world? Of course I don't - but just because I want to believe that we can keep on as we are it doesn't mean I do.

Eventually we all have to wake up. Eventually, we all have to grow up.

[Regret]

"A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them."

[momfreeek]

edit - best not go there

[Panda]

It's categorically impossible to be sure - you can't prove this isn't all a dream, you can't prove I'm not a figment of your imagination: you can't prove squat.

There are these people though, who've dedicated their lives to studying these trends, and the overwhelming consensus among them is that Global Warming is happening, and that Global Warming is man-made. Of course they could be wrong! Of course they could be lying! They could also be space aliens or made of celery! I could be a trained Dolphin in a coma! You could be a brain in a jar! What seems more likely?

So say I want to believe that I'm a trained Dolphin in a coma: I want to believe it so much that I screw up my eyes and I try my very very hardest for days and days until I manage to convince myself that anyone who says otherwise is lying, that this is all a fevered dream, that one day I'm going to wake up and go back to eating fish and performing tricks for the children, living a simple, care-free life.
And it makes me angry, so angry, when people tell me that I'm talking nonsense, because somewhere, deep down, I know that they're right: they're spoiling a good dream. Like little children: when do you start telling them that Santa isn't real, no matter how much they want to him to be?
Do you think I want to believe that our generation is going to have to clean up for everyone else? That we're the ones who have to make the sacrifices when 50 years ago they were burning coal without a care in the world? Of course I don't - but just because I want to believe that we can keep on as we are it doesn't mean I do.

Eventually we all have to wake up. Eventually, we all have to grow up.

[tombom]

It's categorically impossible to be sure - you can't prove this isn't all a dream, you can't prove I'm not a figment of your imagination: you can't prove squat.

There are these people though, who've dedicated their lives to studying these trends, and the overwhelming consensus among them is that Global Warming is happening, and that Global Warming is man-made. Of course they could be wrong! Of course they could be lying! They could also be space aliens or made of celery! I could be a trained Dolphin in a coma! You could be a brain in a jar! What seems more likely?

So say I want to believe that I'm a trained Dolphin in a coma: I want to believe it so much that I screw up my eyes and I try my very very hardest for days and days until I manage to convince myself that anyone who says otherwise is lying, that this is all a fevered dream, that one day I'm going to wake up and go back to eating fish and performing tricks for the children, living a simple, care-free life.
And it makes me angry, so angry, when people tell me that I'm talking nonsense, because somewhere, deep down, I know that they're right: they're spoiling a good dream. Like little children: when do you start telling them that Santa isn't real, no matter how much they want to him to be?
Do you think I want to believe that our generation is going to have to clean up for everyone else? That we're the ones who have to make the sacrifices when 50 years ago they were burning coal without a care in the world? Of course I don't - but just because I want to believe that we can keep on as we are it doesn't mean I do.

Eventually we all have to wake up. Eventually, we all have to grow up.

This is a pretty good post.

BTW The American Thinker tends to be on the level of "kill the poor"/"i'm a horrible racist" except with fancy words. It's probably one of the worst right wing sites.

[Saktoth]

This is a pretty good post.

Solipsism 101.

[tombom]

This is a pretty good post.

Solipsism 101.

I think I get what you mean but longer posts are helpful in communicating your ideas fully

[Saktoth]

This is a pretty good post.

Solipsism 101.

I think I get what you mean but longer posts are helpful in communicating your ideas fully

Okay, to be fair, it also covered the appeal to consequences.

[Forboding Angel]

BTW The American Thinker tends to be on the level of "kill the poor"/"i'm a horrible racist" except with fancy words. It's probably one of the worst right wing sites.

Once again you know nothing of which you speak. Kill the poor? Racist? And where do you draw those conclusions?