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Who here is a global warming skeptic?


Mr Rayon

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Complete Red Herring. I'd prefer to discuss why you contest the consensus. Do you work for an oil company, or some other industry that doesn't want to conform to tougher standards on carbon emissions?

 

No. Never been affiliated with the oil indistry.

 

I am just a concerned citizen that understands the sciences in play. I don't want to see my tax dollars wasted on anything.

 

I'm OK with mitigating carbon emissions, but only at modest cost increases. I see no sense in turning our world upside-down for what has become a politically driven agenda. It becomes laughable in my view to spend so much time and displace so many jobs, when Asia isn't doing anything to reduce their levels. All talk about the future, but they are still at full speed building more coal power generation. Not that it is any excuse, but we at least are, and have been far wiser at new power contraction already. Just how much farther can we go without hurting ourselves?

 

I say we should look for better options, but not disrupt our society in doing so. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but I do not believe it is a strong as claimed. I am far more concerned about soot on ice. Isn't it laughable to try to mitigate CO2, when other nations are spewing out so much soot? Ever see the GWP for soot? The 20 year timeline is something like 72 for CH4, but something like 2,000 for soot.

 

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1856/1925.abstract

 

I see obvious unanswered questions in the consensus material. Mainly, proper solar delta quantification of indirect changes. I find it laughable that a decade or longer back, I was speaking of thermal inertia lag of the solar energy caught by the oceans, to be laughed at by all. Now the same people who laughed at me are accepting the so-called experts claiming a thermal inertia in the ocean by CO2, when it is only captured at the top microns of the ocean rather than meters deep like the sun is, and still ignoring this thermal inertia of the changing solar values.

 

This whole "primarily due to man" warming idea to me is a fraud. I don't see it as a conspiracy, but more like a bureaucracy that knows where the money and power comes from. For politicians, more control over us. Simply a whole lot of people doing what is best for them. Researchers creating the papers they are paid to write. Do you think if a researcher gets grant money and comes up with a paper defying what they set out to write, that whoever gave them the money will do so again?

 

Wish to change my mind? Then of the several concepts I have presented, can you show me something that definitively disputed my points without referring to papers, that ignore my points?

OK,let's say that the papers typically give an error margin at the 95% confidence interval.

And lets say there are a hundred of them.

Then the odds of them all being wrong is of the order of 0.05 ^100

According to my calculator, that's zero.

it's obviously wrong, but for practical purposes it's near enough.

 

I would agree if they were all, completely unique in their research. The problem is, they all refer to past works accepted as fact. Isn't it possible they are all copying the same mistakes?

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I would agree if they were all, completely unique in their research. The problem is, they all refer to past works accepted as fact. Isn't it possible they are all copying the same mistakes?

No, Apparently not.

because if they were all copying from the same mistake, you or people like you would have pointed the mistake out by now.

Whereas what you actually do is just say "they are wrong"

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I am just a concerned citizen that understands the sciences in play. I don't want to see my tax dollars wasted on anything.

 

I'm OK with mitigating carbon emissions, but only at modest cost increases. I see no sense in turning our world upside-down for what has become a politically driven agenda. It becomes laughable in my view to spend so much time and displace so many jobs, when Asia isn't doing anything to reduce their levels. All talk about the future, but they are still at full speed building more coal power generation. Not that it is any excuse, but we at least are, and have been far wiser at new power contraction already. Just how much farther can we go without hurting ourselves?

The United States is working with China to curb global CO2 emissions. Seems to me that leading by example makes more sense that continuing the status qou because other are. If all parties take the "they do it so we may as well" appoarch than progress is impossible. Again, we are working with China on the issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/world/asia/china-us-xi-obama-apec.html?_r=0

 

 

I say we should look for better options, but not disrupt our society in doing so. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but I do not believe it is a strong as claimed.

At least this agrument has some honesty to it. Your acknowledging that CO2 is a problem but basically saying that he economics are more important. I believe this is at the heart of most climate change denial. Lots of wealthy people and industries simply won't be hurt in the short term so they don't think it is worth acting on. Not only that but the opening of the Northern passage and accessing Northern fossil fuels will be a windfall for a variety of industries.

 

 

This whole "primarily due to man" warming idea to me is a fraud.

You've already stated "I'm OK with mitigating carbon emissions" and "CO2 is a greenhouse gas" yet now you call "primarily due to man warming" a "fraud". Seem a bit contradictory. If the whole thing is a fraud why do anything at all? Why complain about what China is doing?

 

 

I don't see it as a conspiracy, but more like a bureaucracy that knows where the money and power comes from. For politicians, more control over us. Simply a whole lot of people doing what is best for them. Researchers creating the papers they are paid to write. Do you think if a researcher gets grant money and comes up with a paper defying what they set out to write, that whoever gave them the money will do so again?

This argument never makes sense to me regardless of the number of times I see it. There is not more money in green technology that the multi trillion dollar Oil and Coal industries. Why would researchers and Governement officials turn heir backs on the multi trillion dollar fossil fuel business in an attempt to get rich off of far less profitable green technologies? the whole idea of this angle is backwards.

 

 

I would agree if they were all, completely unique in their research. The problem is, they all refer to past works accepted as fact. Isn't it possible they are all copying the same mistakes?

What past works are you referring too? NASA currently has satellites takening up to dates messurements, NOAA currently has sea buoys and researchers actually out in the Ocean taking messurements, the National Snow and Ice Data Center is currently in the Artic doing research, and etc, etc. Tons of current and up to date work being done. Indisputable findings. It isn't as if everyone just accepts some theoretical model thought up by activist meteorologist in the 1960's.
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The United States is working with China to curb global CO2 emissions. Seems to me that leading by example makes more sense that continuing the status qou because other are. If all parties take the "they do it so we may as well" appoarch than progress is impossible. Again, we are working with China on the issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/world/asia/china-us-xi-obama-apec.html?_r=0

 

 

 

We have been leading by example since the 70's when we created the EPA.

 

 

At least this agrument has some honesty to it. Your acknowledging that CO2 is a problem but basically saying that he economics are more important. I believe this is at the heart of most climate change denial. Lots of wealthy people and industries simply won't be hurt in the short term so they don't think it is worth acting on. Not only that but the opening of the Northern passage and accessing Northern fossil fuels will be a windfall for a variety of industries.

 

 

I am not saying CO2 is a problem. I don't believe it is, but at the same time believe it could as it approached 0.1% (1,000 ppm.) We are a long way from that point, and I have faith that science will be far better long, before we get that high in levels.

 

 

You've already stated "I'm OK with mitigating carbon emissions" and "CO2 is a greenhouse gas" yet now you call "primarily due to man warming" a "fraud". Seem a bit contradictory. If the whole thing is a fraud why do anything at all? Why complain about what China is doing?

 

 

Why? The stated sensitivity of CO2 that is held by consensus is in the neighborhood of 3 degrees ± 1.5 degrees. I say it no more than 0.55 degrees. I accept AGW is real, but not to any danger of warming. My concern is the respiration of life that may have a difficult time living in such high CO2 conditions.

 

My primary complain with China and Asia as a whole is not the CO2, but the aerosols they emit from not using newer technology like we switched to long ago. Aerosols, especially soot, are a serious problem at the levels they emit.

 

 

This argument never makes sense to me regardless of the number of times I see it. There is not more money in green technology that the multi trillion dollar Oil and Coal industries. Why would researchers and Governement officials turn heir backs on the multi trillion dollar fossil fuel business in an attempt to get rich off of far less profitable green technologies? the whole idea of this angle is backwards.

 

 

 

I don't know the answer with any certainty. I just know this. Far more money is pumped into research to validate the alarmist view than the skeptical view. I wasn't speaking of green technologies, but the papers supporting warming and climate. Green technologies is a whole other debate, but I trust the energy companies will spend their own money to be first to develop cost effective zero or no emission power. They need their subsidies cut off. It's a waste of tax dollars.

 

 

What past works are you referring too? NASA currently has satellites takening up to dates messurements, NOAA currently has sea buoys and researchers actually out in the Ocean taking messurements, the National Snow and Ice Data Center is currently in the Artic doing research, and etc, etc. Tons of current and up to date work being done. Indisputable findings. It isn't as if everyone just accepts some theoretical model thought up by activist meteorologist in the 1960's.

 

Primarily the forcing and sensitivity assigned to CO2 in a complex atmosphere. Take any study that states a sensitivity around the three degrees and read in it how they came to that number. You will find they refer to a previous paper. Find that paper and you will find it generally is not yet the source. Trace the papers back to the source and you will find papers around 40 years old, using correlation to assign sensitivity, in a decade before we could see so clearly with satellites, and before we understood solar variability as well as now. Satellites are great, but still have their limitations. They cannot accurately discern the cause of the IR they see, or changes since before they were launched.

 

Look at the sheer number of papers that refer to past works, of any kind. Now this is perfectly normal in science, but climatology is a relatively new field, and far more original work needs to be done than has been. Most of what we see is just rehashing any more other works.

His implicit suggestion that this all rests on a single flawed foundational piece of evidence that nobody has bothered to validate or confirm is also indicative of his deep ignorance and profound bias on the subject: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/timeline.htm

 

Strawman alert...

Edited by Wild Cobra
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I would agree if they were all, completely unique in their research. The problem is, they all refer to past works accepted as fact.

They aren't copying the data from the past research.

I just know this. Far more money is pumped into research to validate the alarmist view than the skeptical view.

That is false. What you are seeing is that most research is producing data that support the alarmist view. No one can buy valid data, recorded physical fact, that supports this or that claim - one can fund research, but barring fraud or blunder (both handled via peer review and replication) one cannot buy results.

 

Plenty of money - hundreds of millions of dollars - is being pumped into promotion of the skeptical view, but essentially none of this is going into research. That's because the people promoting skepticism have seen the research already done, and realized there was no benefit for them in doing any more.

 

 

 

 

I find it laughable that a decade or longer back, I was speaking of thermal inertia lag of the solar energy caught by the oceans, to be laughed at by all. Now the same people who laughed at me are accepting the so-called experts claiming a thermal inertia in the ocean

Your conception of the workings of thermal inertia in the ocean - it was supposed to store solar variations and release the heat at the right times to explain the lack of evidence for them driving the observed warming - was silly. Still is. The sound and data-supported concept you are referring to by the same name has been common knowledge and recognized by everyone in the field for many decades; only the degree is new.

 

 

 

 

I am just a concerned citizen that understands the sciences in play. I don't want to see my tax dollars wasted on anything.

If you plan on using tax dollars to handle the problems - such as floods and droughts and erosion and water supply and public health matters - this is going to cause, you are being penny paranoid and dollar idiotic to refuse to mitigate the CO2 boost. The costs are on completely different scales, and the odds are loaded in the wrong direction - they multiply your risk, rather than dividing it. A stitch in time saves nine.

 

If, as with most of you guys, you simply assume the disasters are going to afflict others and plan on abandoning them at no cost to yourself, then your idea of letting things ride for Exxon's benefit might make a glimmer of sense. You just don't want to be bothered - "disrupted", as you put it - and are figuring yourself immune.

Edited by overtone
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We have been leading by example since the 70's when we created the EPA.

 

Leading in the very real sense of following.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956

or signing up to the Kyoto protocol, but never actually ratifying it.

http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/status_of_ratification/items/2613.php

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Whenever any governing body wants to impose an unpopular tax or social engineering program they always create an emergency first. In this point I agree with Wild Cobra.

 

I also understand the science behind the greenhouse effect, and the preponderance of evidence for global warming. The risks associated with ignoring it are too serious. Something must be done. That being said I like spirited discussion, so...

 

This is where the self serving, governing bodies ( the UN, national governments, etc. ) come in. An emergency has been conveniently created for them, so they come up with various schemes to fleece taxpayers.

One that I don't like is 'cap and trade'. It has spectacularly failed in Europe, yet there is still a push to adopt it here in North America. It doesn't actually cut greenhouse gas emissions, it just allows wealthier users an opportunity to buy credits from poorer users. It is in effect, a wealth redistribution scheme pushed by the UN.

Another I don't like is "green energy' subsidies. Here in Ontario, Canada, our provincial government is paying private, 'green', electricity producers 8x the going rate for hydro, and paying them first, sometimes paying them NOT to produce power, while publically produced hydro is sold at a loss to the US. Meanwhile the price of hydro in Ontario to the public is skyrocketing.

 

These are just a couple of examples that contribute to the 'average Joe's' dislike of the Global Warming effect, and a possible reason for the denial. I'm sure others have their own list of schemes forced on us in the name of Global Warming.

 

Everyone wants to do what is right for our home ( planet ), but we don't want to be taken advantage of, or have our hard earned wealth redistributed by politicians who think they know what to do with our money better than we do.

 

If you want to save the world, you need to do less screaming and protesting. You need to invent a way to make economical, environmentally safe, power ( nuclear fusion is standing in the back of the room, behind the others, jumping up and down, screaming "Pick me. Pick me ! ).

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@ MigL, Governing bodies aren't the ones sounding the alarm. They are merely responding to what you admit is too serious of a problem to ignore any longer. As for the "fleecing the taxpayer" angle wouldn't having more energy/fuel efficient transportation, homes, and businesses save the average person money? Driving a compact that gets 40mpg rather than a SUV that gets 15mpg save lots of money. LED's rather than incandescent lights, better home isulation, and roof solar panels save money. A lot of what governments push is action to limit usage and educate people. I don't see examples of excessive taxation that in the long term cost average people more money.

As for Green subsides that is simply an investment in research. Governments in the past spent fortunes developing technologies that took time to pay off. Not every dollar spent building rockets was spent well. I personally rather see my government spend money on diversifying domestic energy than building more aircraft carriers. Of course it isn't either or; governments are able to balance doing both.

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Whenever any governing body wants to impose an unpopular tax or social engineering program they always create an emergency first. In this point I agree with Wild Cobra.

They "create" an emergency? So the US invented racism (or stories of it) in order to pass the civil rights and voting acts back in the 60s?

 

Seriously?

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Yes, seriously swansont, but maybe I should have said 'Often, when a governing body...'.

Have you forgotten the WMD emergency which necessitated the invasion of Iraq, the fear mongering which necessitates the forfeiture of our civil rights, etc. ( I think you'd understand it better using examples which I know bother you ).

 

The subsidies you mention are all well and good, Ten oz. Sure governments should invest to improve the quality of life of citizens. But the examples I gave, do not, nor will they in the future, improve quality of life. Cap and trade is simply a way to go on doing things as they've always been done. Release the same amount of CO2 and pass on the extra costs to consumers. While the Ontario government subsidy is ill thought out. It doesn't supply base-load power and only ensures the pensioned seniors of this province pay 'an arm and a leg' for hydo.

 

I still say all these investments are prolonging the agony. Start a crash research program into nuclear fusion, like Kennedy did in the 60s with the Moon landing program, and we could have unlimited energy by 2040. I have faith in America and what they can do when they set their mind to it. Heck, just by scrapping the future bomber program ( to replace the B-2 ) they could free up 10-15 bil dollars. Give this money to Lockheed Martin to develop their fusion design. Can you imagine what a game changer it would be if a garage sized fusion reactor provided energy in abundance for a whole city ? It would change our way of life.

 

Or do you guys think this is just 'pie in the sky' ?

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The idea that governments have engineered the creation of a problem as an excuse for some sort of response would be credible if it were not for the fact that the governments are cutting research funding in many or most fields.

 

No government created this problem deliberately. Sure they may exaggerate it or belittle it depending on which way they want to influence things, but you only need to look at weather records to see that something really is happening.

 

Half the politicians were trying to deny the problem existed until recently- essentially the ones funded by oil.

That's not social engineering, it's straightforward greed.

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Yes, seriously swansont, but maybe I should have said 'Often, when a governing body...'

 

Or, "sometimes." Or, "it has been known".

 

But even "often" totally undermines the argument as it provides no reason to assume that this case s one of those. Especially as there is overwhelming scientific evidence for the "weather of mass destruction" (see what I did there).

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Yes, seriously swansont, but maybe I should have said 'Often, when a governing body...'.

Have you forgotten the WMD emergency which necessitated the invasion of Iraq, the fear mongering which necessitates the forfeiture of our civil rights, etc. ( I think you'd understand it better using examples which I know bother you ).

 

 

But then this becomes a failure of logic, because one cannot assume that a crisis is manufactured simply because some part of the government want to do something about it. It's not a universal correlation.

Cap and trade is simply a way to go on doing things as they've always been done. Release the same amount of CO2 and pass on the extra costs to consumers.

 

I don't understand that oft-cited mantra. Costs eventually get passed along to the consumers. That's how economics works. It's simply a matter of whether this happens is a capitalistic way, or whether we continue to do it via socialism. You said earlier you didn't like subsidies for green power. Why is it OK to subsidize fossil fuel power by ignoring the effect it has on the environment? We don't generally like to do this with traditional pollution. Transactionally this is no different from somebody being able to dump pollution and letting the government (the taxpayers) deal with the consequences, but we place limits on them, and costs get passed along to the customers. But the customers gain better access to clean air, land and water, and it is generally cheaper to prevent pollution at the source than to clean it up afterwards. "Passed along to the customer" ends up being the cheaper option. CO2 is really no different.

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The subsidies you mention are all well and good, Ten oz. Sure governments should invest to improve the quality of life of citizens. But the examples I gave, do not, nor will they in the future, improve quality of life. Cap and trade is simply a way to go on doing things as they've always been done. Release the same amount of CO2 and pass on the extra costs to consumers. While the Ontario government subsidy is ill thought out. It doesn't supply base-load power and only ensures the pensioned seniors of this province pay 'an arm and a leg' for hydo.

 

I still say all these investments are prolonging the agony. Start a crash research program into nuclear fusion, like Kennedy did in the 60s with the Moon landing program, and we could have unlimited energy by 2040. I have faith in America and what they can do when they set their mind to it. Heck, just by scrapping the future bomber program ( to replace the B-2 ) they could free up 10-15 bil dollars. Give this money to Lockheed Martin to develop their fusion design. Can you imagine what a game changer it would be if a garage sized fusion reactor provided energy in abundance for a whole city ? It would change our way of life.

 

Or do you guys think this is just 'pie in the sky' ?

I think you are conflating issues here. Disliking Cap and Trade as policy and thinking climate science is government propaganda are seperate things. We shouldn't argue the merits of climate research as a means of debating Cap and Trade. Climate change is real, it is man made, and something needs to be done. Those are facts. Whether or not Cap and Trade is the best way to act is open for policy debate.

 

I don't like Cap and Trade either. However, first step toward fixing a problem is admitting we have one. I think it would be better to start with Cap and Trade (accept that there is a problem) and then work towards a better solution than the alternative which has been to deny that there's a problem because we aren't happy with any of the proposed solutions. Nothing will be pain free.

 

As for which industries should be subsidized here in the United States 70% of our energy subsidizes go to fossil fuels. Another 9% go to nuclear power. Green technologies like Solar, Wind, and Hydro are not getting a lions share of the subsidizes. Are you suggesting Solar, Wind, and Hydro should get nothing?

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There seems to be some confusion as to my stand on GW. I thought I had explained myself better in my original post #533.

Governing bodies did not engineer ( or make up ) the GW emergency. But when the ready made opportunity came along, they seized on it.

The UN likes cap and trade because it has the effect of taking wealth from industrialized nations and redistributing it to poor non-industrialized nations, for not emitting GH gases ( i.e. doing nothing ). These poor nations have no incentive to industrialize as that would be the end of 'free money', so they stay poor. The industrialized nations just increase prices to pay for the carbon credits and continue releasing the same amount of GH gases. Nothing changes. Now you may say this is just aid or charity, but charity is voluntary, a forced charity is just a tax.

 

I am definitely not saying nothing should be done. But whenever governments are involved it becomes a total screw-up. I just think some of the ideas and schemes that are being implemented are counter-productive, do little or nothing, and are just to 'show that something is being done'.

The fact that people are being taken advantage of without any real benefits could be one of the reasons why people consider GW a hoax.

I have suggested an alternate course to 'save the world', see post #533 and #536.

 

Technically all this is off topic, as I'm not a GW denier, I just don't agree with the way a 'solution' is being implemented.

( and no, I don't agree with subsidizing big oil/gas/coal industry either )

Edited by MigL
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At the risk of dragging up an old aspect of this thread, there was some discussion earlier about vanity publishing and the quality of their peer review process.

I have found a paper that explains it.

it's not suitable for work; here's an indirect reference.

http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/11/20/bogus-journal-accepts-profanity-laced-anti-spam-paper/

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There seems to be some confusion as to my stand on GW. I thought I had explained myself better in my original post #533.

Governing bodies did not engineer ( or make up ) the GW emergency. But when the ready made opportunity came along, they seized on it.

The UN likes cap and trade because it has the effect of taking wealth from industrialized nations and redistributing it to poor non-industrialized nations, for not emitting GH gases ( i.e. doing nothing ). These poor nations have no incentive to industrialize as that would be the end of 'free money', so they stay poor. The industrialized nations just increase prices to pay for the carbon credits and continue releasing the same amount of GH gases. Nothing changes. Now you may say this is just aid or charity, but charity is voluntary, a forced charity is just a tax.

 

 

But that's not an an incentive to do nothing, it's an incentive to use green energy as you expand your energy production. In industrialized nations, higher costs for fossil fuels — effectively reducing or removing the CO2 subsidy — makes green alternatives more competitive, such that expansion and replacement of current fossil fuel sources can be done most effectively with green energy generation, which does in fact reduce emissions.

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@ MigL, I don't believe Cap and Trade encourages the status qou across the board. I think it encourages industrialized nations and their corperations to find ways to emitt less green house gases so that they don't have to pay. While at the same time encouraging those under the cap to develop in a direction that keeps them under the cap. I don't think the policy is perfect but it is far from being so terrible that I'd prefer the Government just give private for profit companies like Lockheed Martin hundreds of billions along with a green light wildly expand nuclear power.

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As I said in an earlier post, either Lockheed Martin or Boeing ( I don't think Northrop-Grumman is doing airframes anymore ) is going to get a contract for an Advanced Tech. Bomber to replace the B-2. I would imagine the program cost, including development, to be well over 20 bil ( each of the 20 B-2 costs a whopping 1 bil ). If this money was used to develop an affordable, small fusion reactor, and the technology given to anyone who wants it, I don't think there would be a need for bombers anymore ( or fighters, ships, tanks and missiles for that matter ).

 

Well maybe most of the middle east, Venezuela and western Canada would be upset that they lost their oil leverage.

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There seems to be others who are also skeptical about this danger from CO2 thing;

 

http://www.petitionproject.org/

 

9,000 of them have Ph.D's.

 

Maybe the consensus is the other way around.

 

9,000. That sounds like a lot, huh?

 

These days, institutions in the US alone grant ~30,000 science and engineering PhDs every year. The list doesn't even represent a majority for a single year. If one assumes a 35-40 year career, it represents around 1% of the tech PhD population.

 

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf10308/

 

Of course, one could have easily checked this ahead of time…

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The list of those 9k PhDs tself is also crap: http://www.skepticalscience.com/OISM-Petition-Project-intermediate.htm

 

Project Steve likely works here, too, and it is telling to see more creationist tactics brought into the climate change discussion instead of valid argument or evidence.

 

One of the many parallels between this and creationism. Even if the technical arguments are beyond one's grasp, the use of these tactics should give pause to anyone considering the denialist position.

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