Jophiel wrote:
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The important bit is that the greenhouse effect on temperature from CO2 is vastly less significant than the effect of temperature on CO2.
Vastly? According to who? Were you going to provide numbers or cites? Is this like you saying "absolutely" and I should take it to mean "Not at all because I have no idea what I'm talking about"?
Um... Because if it was anywhere near the same degree of effect as temperature has on CO2, we'd see a much larger increase in temperature from the CO2 level increases we've had over the last 30 years or so. And that hasn't happened. And frankly, not even the most far fetched global warming panicmonger has suggested that the effect is this large.
It only takes some basic math to figure this out Joph. The correlation between historical temperature and CO2 levels shows a range of about 200ppm CO2 reflected as a temperature change of about 10C. If the greenhouse effect of CO2 on temperature was of similar significance, we'd expect to see the ~120ppm increase from human activities cause temperatures to rise somewhere on the order of 5-6C.
This is not rocket science. You learned greater than and less than in grade school, right? Even the farthest fetched global warming predictors are saying things like 1-2C change over the next century as a result of CO2 increases. Assuming that's including increased CO2 output projections, we're looking at a significance that is at least an order of magnitude less than that which temperature has on CO2 (or whatever the other effect is if it's not temperature causing the historical correlation).
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When pressed on this, the scientists will fall back on technically true statements like you just made above.
Right. "Fall back on". Gotcha.
Yes. Fall back on.
Do you honestly not think that these guys are under pressure to support the policies of the politicians who fund them? Research science is exceptionally prone to coercive effects even when the research doesn't impact really major political issues like this one does.
Do I need to re-inform you of the backwards nature of the "peer review" methodology used by the IPCC? Or should I wait until you use that magic phrase to defend the science which comes out of that body, while dismissing all the other scientists who disagree? It's about getting the answers you want, not the truth Joph.
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But they leave out the fact that this will have nowhere near the amount of effect on temperature that the politicians are telling us.
According to who? You?
Have you ever read a report from the IPCC, or any scientists associated with it who have mentioned that the correlation shown in the historical ice core records don't reflect the same degree of correlation they believe will be caused by human caused increases in CO2 levels? Ever?
It's clearly "true", yet no one says it. If you read nothing but their data, you'd never know. And if you then watched Al Gores film, you'd think that the effect on temperature was the same as that shown on the graph.
You do understand how you lie by omission, right? That's what's happening. They include a patchwork of true facts and data, and leave out a whole lot of pretty important bits. The scientists generate the data. The policy wonks collect that and package it in a way which makes it appear to say something it doesn't. And the politicians jump on that as a cause that the people will rally behind and support.
In the 50s we were warned about the military-industrial complex. Today, it appears to be the government-science complex which is doing the same thing. Create the perception of a problem so that you can implement a solution you want. It's an age-old technique. This time, they're perverting science to do it. But science is the new religion, so I guess that's appropriate...
Edited, Dec 4th 2009 6:53pm by gbaji