Bishop Hill Lilley in HuffPo
Jun 22, 2013 Climate: Sceptics Kudos to the Huffington Post for giving Peter Lilley space to put forward a dissenting view on climate change (see here). His thoughts will be unremarkable for BH regulars, but might come as a surprise to many HuffPo readers.
What most clearly distinguishes the Catastrophic Global Warming cult from science is that it is not refutable by facts. As Parliament enacted the Climate Change Bill, on the presumption that the world was getting warmer, it snowed in London in October - the first time in 74 years. Supporters explained "extreme cold is a symptom of global warming"!
The Met Office - whose climate model is the cult's crystal ball to forecast centuries ahead - has made a series of spectacularly unreliable short term forecasts: "Our children will not experience snow" (that was 2000, before the recent run of cold winters), a barbecue summer (before the dismal 2011 summer), the drought will continue (last spring before the wettest summer on record). Now they say that rain and floods are the new normal. But - hot or cold, wet or dry - global warming is always to blame.
I'm amused by some of the comments, with the outraged HuffPuffers apparently unsure how to deal with him. Lilley's observation that he accepts the existence of the greenhouse effect has been met with angry denunciations and claims that he is arguing with 97% of scientists. His noting that he studied Physics at Cambridge is met with accusations that he is unqualified to comment.
What fun!
[Please note that comments about radiative physics will be snipped]
Reader Comments (163)
Peter Lilley studied Physics and Economics in Cambridge, and that in his early career he was an energy analyst and he has held the position of Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
It is heartwarming to see that there is at least one politician willing to really say what he thinks and knows. Thankfully it was a politician who can think, he has some idea of science and the economy. Therefore if anyone can see through the CAGW scam he should be able to.
The fact that this appeared in HuffPo is a sign that things are hopefully changing.
I've been banned several times at the Puffington Joke message boards. The moderators there seem to have a ban people when confronted with facts they do not like.
Below is the last post I made that got me banned.
"According to a senior UN Official, there are less than 10 years left until human caused Climate Change becomes irreversible. The UN's report is at the link below.
"A senior environmental official at the United Nations...says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed...Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees", threatening political chaos...governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.."
Link
http://tinyurl.com/6x8r9yc"
I don't know if anyone else has pointed this out yet, but the Precautionary Principle is a dead ringer for Pascal's Wager...
We can laugh all we want about the lack of scientific competence or integrity, but the fact remains that the President of the US is to give a speech Tuesday at Georgetown University on how HE will deal with Climate Change and "carbon pollution" ("to save Gods Creation for our children" of course.)
The POTUS is supposedly a "constitutional scholar" but he somehow got the idea that if he can't convince the branch of government charged with making laws (Congress), he can go it alone in the executive branch, using the EPA and other agencies to shut down coal plants, stop oil exploration on federal lands etc. I would not be surprised if a "carbon tax" is in the mix. Separation of Powers be damned!
Anoneumouse: ‘Environmentalism, in the form of Climate Change Alarmism, is a religion.’
Fun game. You can do the same with other belief systems, eg The Free Market as a religion.
Monk = Theoretician
Priest = Manager
Monastery = Think tank
Sin = Sloth
Salvation = Growth
Indulgences = Thrift and sobriety
Church = Mont Pelerin Society
Bible = Economics in One Lesson
Evangelists = Novelists, pamphleteers
Patron saint = Ayn Rand
God = Invisible Hand
Holy Spirit = Gold Standard
Satan = Marx
Judas = Greenspan
Hell = Government intervention
Punishment for sin = Bankruptcy
Signs from God = Micro and macro-economic misadventure
Tithes = Consumption
Garden of Eden = Pre-Federal Reserve
The Apple = Free government stuff
Paradise = Unregulated market
Rituals = Conferences
Ten Commandments = Spontaneous order
Unbelievers = Keynesians
And so on. While there may well be an element of religious thinking in environmentalism, it’s hardly surprising that religious and secular institutions share a number of similarities since they are human institutions.
I am puzzled as to why so many in the sciences find the concept of at least speaking out or even resigning from a well-paid position is foreign to them when they discover their employer's position on a point of principle is diametrically opposed to their own? If they take a stand counter to that of their employer on an issue of morality, truth or 'properly-conducted science', surely they can at least sleep comfortably.
Or is the comfort of all that goes with a 'good and successful career' the equal of twenty pieces of silver?
Religion characteristics in global warmism:
Tradition Yes An established tradition, passed from elders to initiates
Heresy Yes What will happen to you if you do not believe
Evangelism Yes A drive to spread the word
Making Sense Yes An explanation of observations, such as floods or drought (scientific validity unnecessary)
Repetition Yes A tendency to repeat mantras, endlessly
Security Yes The security of belonging and the fear of being shunned, known so well by teenage converts
Crisis Yes The promise of thermageddon
Food rules Yes 'Low carbon' produce rules
Rules concerning sex Yes Gotta get to the optimum population - ask Paul Nurse and the Latter Day Eugenicists
Problem Yes A need to pore over the written lore in order to interpret the true meaning
Dominance Yes A status ladder to be climbed to high priesthood
Belonging Yes A common sense of social engagement
Entropic Man (Jun 23, 2013 at 12:26 AM)... and just how does this differ from all of those articles the MSM feeds to the public in support of CAGW?
Your comment displays exactly the type of outrage that the Bishop was commenting on from the CAGW 'true believers' over at the Huff Post... hardly the well-crafted intellectual rebuttal I would have expected from you :-(
The HuffPo is now censoring comments that do not fit its Party Line.
The only way I can imagine tackling the 97% nonsense is for everyone to drag it in as often as possible (no matter how inappropriate) and make it a laughing stock and eventually just boring.
I made a personal start the other day with a comment on http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/6/7/pointman-on-the-infowars.html that:-
"97% (natch!) of politicians still spouting bullshit, still citing long debunked greenie nonsense (even the Hockey Stick, for Christ's sake!)as 'fact', still beating the precautionary principle drum at every turn."
and in http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/6/20/the-economist-continues-to-waver.html
"So 97% (TM) of politicians in the developed world can take a huge sigh of relief and carry on feathering their nests whilst bragging that they are saving the planet."
and
"Sure, ten years from now, there will be loads and loads of scientists and politicians telling everyone that, "Of Course! I realised straight away what a crock cAGW was & how absurd wind farms were and fearlessly tried to expose it ..."
Just as, by 1955, 97% (TM) of the French had been active in the Resistance."
I'm sure with a little thought, everyone on here can do miles better than these feeble samples. And there was a piece a little while ago (which I can't find now) where lots of other 97% comparators were used (97% of priests believing in transubstantiation and so on).
So, let's see if 97% of our comments (especially on warmist sites) can use this tactic.
@martin brumby
Perhaps it was my little offering?
97% of catholic priests believe in transubstantiation
97% of homeopaths believe in homeopathy
97% of drunk drivers believe that they are fit to drive
97% of all suicide jihadists believe in 72 virgins awaiting them in paradise
It does have religious overtones, that is true, and they are very much eschatalogical, the prophecies of the last days and the wrath of God or Nature occasioned by human sin or in this case emissions.
It also has the characteristic religious element of requiring people to do things that have no conceivable causal relation to what they are supposed to bring about. For instance, we should substitute a Prius for a Mondeo to save the children and prevent Global Warming.
But it also has elements of something else, the middle class moral panic, and in this respect it reminds one of such things as eugenics (the panic about inferiors breeding) and the masturbation hysteria of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In both cases awful consequences were alleged for absolutely no reason.
Finally in science it resembles Lysenkoism - the firm association of public policy with the weight of authority behind it in the service of an account of the realities of climate which is plainly and obviously falsified by experience.
You see all this coming together in the Environment pages of the Guardian, which seem now to have been outsourced to Skeptical Science. The most striking is the banning of dissent. Every now and then one sees sceptical voices appear, then they vanish into moderation, fail to get posts past Skeptical Science, and finally give up or reappear under new avatars.
But you also have the hysterical exaggeration of pending disaster, the constant pleas to do things about this pending disaster which can have no conceivable effect on it were it really true. The attribution of all kinds of bad natural phenomena to this supposed disaster though for the most part there could obviously not be any causal relation.
Perhaps the most striking is the way in which despite the lack of any recent warming, all kinds of things keep being attributed to it. Any posts pointing out that there is a logical defect here, non-existent phenomena being unable to cause anything, are simply deleted. From friends I know that not only are posts deleted after being put up, but many pointing out the lack of recent warming are censored in advance.
It is quite extraordinary and perhaps Lilley is right, perhaps this is the new form which religion takes in a morally rootless and largely uneducated people. The recent revelations about the way in which some hospitals are being run, and the coverup by the regulator are striking examples. But almost no regulators in the UK do anything to justify their name - the Charity Commission is as at least as bad as the health regulator in its determination to see no evil nor allow anyone else to see any.
Latimer Alder!
That's the one! Well done, sir.
(Incidentally, it would be good if there was a search facility on here. 97% of the time, you have to twist Google and Bing's little arms to get them to confess that there even is such a thing as a Bishop Hill blog.)
Brendan H (Jun 23, 2013 at 2:23 AM)
Well said! And while we’re on the subject:Bishop Hill = a coven of heretics more interested in polishing their theology in private than getting out there and changing things. On the Mayflower with the lot of you!
So what has happened at Huffpo?
Remember this? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html
Followed by this : http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/01/08/huffington-i-would-not-have-posted-article-asking-gore-apologize
Martin Brumby, there is a search up at the top right under navigation tools.
Martin Brumby, there is a search up at the top right under navigation tools.
Jun 23, 2013 at 9:15 AM | michel
I think the word 'religion' covers all your points pretty well.
Jun 23, 2013 at 9:15 AM | michel
I think the word 'religion' covers all your points pretty well.
Martin Brumby, did you know that you can use Google to search any site using the 'site:' keyword, for example to search this blog for mentions of "Peter Lilley" put the followijng search terms into Google: [site:bishop-hill.net "Peter Lilley"] (without the square brackets).
@geoffchambers - and everyone else.
A reminder that the next meeting of BHers (and everybody else) is scheduled for the Kings Arms, Oxford, on Monday 8 July @ 18:30.
All are welcome - from fervent warmists to deep sceptics. There is no agenda - just discussion and bonhomie.
See here:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2140622
http://kingsarmsoxford.co.uk/
Not a bad sneer. Pity about the spelling though. You did do O-level English, I assume?
As someone who clearly has both the education and wit to see through such manipulative bullshit, would you care to enumerate the untruths in Lilley's piece for the benefit of lesser intellects?
Slight variations in the energy input due to radiative physics (at the risk of getting snipped) seem to have very little to do with the actual temperature of the Earth.
It is becoming blindingly obvious that the Earth is heated by the Sun, and that the atmosphere has a very effective thermostatic system which maintains the temperature at an even level. This is probably mainly operated by thunderstorm heat transfer and cloud formation altering the albedo.
What a waste of time, money and effort this appalling episode has been....!
@geoffchambers
What can we change? Sadly, our democracy has been neutered since all the parties with a realistic chance of attaining power are fully fledged AGW believers, or at least are so committed to feathering their own nests they make a convincing show of believing in the power of renewables to save the world.
And all the websites like the Graun are now enclaves of warmism, so we no longer even have the satisfaction of sniping from the sidelines.
I'm resigned to just being able to say "I told you so" at some point in the future, from somewhere among the ruins of our economy.
Dodgy Geezer
'What a waste of time, money and effort this appalling episode has been....!'
Not for everyone, some have built careers or even empires on the back of it . Much money has flowed into some pockets, such has St Gore , while others have attend positions of influence they could only have dreamed about before 'the cause '
While climate 'science' itself has gone from being a poor cousin of physical sciences , virtual unheard off and even less cared about , to the big time . The reality is once all the dust settles some of 'the causes ' leaders come out of this smiling. Its not fair not it is reality .
While, has with most UN organisations , the IPCC will never really die , just fad away until in some quite office in some building their sits the one person who is now 'the IPCC'
TT, Geoff's view is that we should argue patiently elsewhere, as he does, for example very recently at the New Left Project blog with AdamCorner and Alice Bell. Having to defend their arguments against someone who disagrees with them seems to be a novel experience for these two academics.
"the IPCC will never really die , just fad away"
One can only hope.
May be there's more to this appalling episode than money grabbing entrepreneurs, egostistical scientists and crazy environmentalists. I wonder if the politicians are keeping something from us, surely they can't all be as gulible as they seem. Perhaps someone should rummage a few relative files at GCHQ before there all deleted, possibly within hours of this post.
Sorry about the spelling Martin A
@Paul Matthews
I'm not convinced the "patient arguing" achieves anything - and if it's looking like doing so, one finds oneself persona non grata anyway: whoever runs the blog controls the Ban button too.
In any case, I'm not convinced the people who hold the strings of power really do believe in AGW: they just find it a terribly useful concept at times, e.g. for revenue-raising (who can argue against green taxation if it's being paid to secure the future of "the grandchildren") or for keeping the populace suitably alarmed, or as a stick for beating the opposition. (I don't think the top dogs in the church believe in God either, for similar reasons.)
Turning Tide
Fortunately for us, the politicians need private investment to keep their hair brained schemes going. The seeds of the downfall of the renewables industry were sown long ago and are now starting to bear fruit.
The German solar industry has gone with truly massive losses. Spain is making further cuts in the subsidies it gives to renewables. I think there has even been some cutting back on the gravy dished out by HM Treasury. What this creates is political risk. And investors shun political risk like vampires shun the sun. (Try saying that without your teeth in). So we are in the later stages of the madness. It cannot be sustained no matter what our political masters may think.
Those same investors also have the ability to look out the window and they are savvy enough to know that nature is not toeing the line. The game is up but will take some time to unwind.
In the later stages I would hope that we can expect a public enquiry here in the UK. That's normally what happens when the establishment f*cks up on this scale.
Turning Tide
I share your pessimism, but don’t let’s make the mistake that the warmists make of seeing the future in predictable one dimensional terms. (“Temperatures go up, and that inevitably means this this and this in fifty years’ time”). Remember those Sci Fi films of a few decades ago where in the future people communicate across the galaxies with telephones the size of - well - telephones. If you stand at the seaside worrying about the sea level rise, your toes will rot off long before you drown. (They didn’t think of that one, did they? - “Global warming causes foot rot”).
What I mean is, we engage in small ways, like commenting at Huffington Post like the excellent Mike Haseler (who seems to be mostly alone) and the immediate result is infinitely depressing. As the debate spreads slowly to new ground, new people repeat the same old things. (I was a bit depressed to see Lilley quoting tired old Chesterton, but it’s just because I’ve seen it too often. Maybe lots of Huffington readers haven’t. One thing we’re going to have to get used to is practising saying the same thing a million times without boring ourselves to death).
But while we’re feeling frustrated at the pointlessness of it all, small things happen we don’t even know about, and one day it all turns out right and we’ll be able to say to our grandchildren: “I was there, me and Montford and a couple of others, and we won”.
End of sermon.
Reading the comments at the Huffington Post is pretty depressing. The number of AGW believers who post with complete ignorance of some of the facts eg the commenter Ian Rennie saying in response to:
"Alarmists are reluctant to admit that the global surface temperature has not increased for 16 years"
Ian Rennie replies "Yes, people are often reluctant to admit things that absolutely aren't true. All but two of the ten warmest years ever recorded have been within the last ten years. The decade 2000-2009 is the hottest decade on record. Every year from 2000-2009 was hotter than the average temperature from 1990-1999. The global average temperature has risen decade upon decade since the 1950s."
When pressed again Ian Rennie says: "if there hasn't been a statistically significant warming trend for more than 15 years, why was the hottest year on record 2010?"
How can you talk rationally to someone showing that much ignorance? Ian seems to lack curiosity to check for himself eg WoodForTrees, the blind acceptance of absurd propaganda ("science is ALL about consensus").
Then we have commenter PeterSi74955776, one of his gems is:
"Science is ALL about concensus, you clearly know nothing about science. Stop trying to sound smart, you're not. " On the same theme he goes on with "Science is totally reliant on consensus, peer review and publication make sure the evidence satisfies all critics". Sadly Peter that is unfortunately true about AGW, even as it is a false basis for science.
Peter also believes some utter nonsense about sea level rise, stating: "Oh, you haven't heard that sea level has been measured for years now by satellites, very very accurately. It is rising by 1cm a year. I see you're part of the dumb lot who can't differentiate between weather and climate, despite dictionaries being common and usable by even stupid people". Peter, I have news for you, not even the IPCC claims sea level is rising at 1 cm per year. Instead try quoting a value of 2 - 3 mm per year (slightly reduced in recent years). And then try and show that that rate has actually varied in any significant way for decades, if not hundreds of years.
But the most startling thing about the commenters are then number of posts that contain logical fallacies. Its like the newspaper headlines of the type - "the warmest since...caused by global warming". Its as though none of the writers or readers can see the logical fallacy of what they or others are saying.
It is depressing that so many people can belive such guff and nonsense, can be so uncritical in their thinking about what they are being told and so vitriolic in their condemnation of others whilst parading their own ignorance and lack of understanding of science or physics.
Jun 23, 2013 at 2:07 PM | ThinkingScientist
It is why you don't bother to discuss religion ever. The initial belief is based on faith, so evidence doesn't ever enter into the argument. As you point out any rational arguments don't ever get anywhere.
'I presume it was aimed at the lowest common denomenator, people without the education or the wit to see through such manipulative bullshit."
Jun 23, 2013 at 12:26 AM | Entropic Man
--------------------------------------------------------------
EM, I think you may be mis-characterizing at least some the readers of the Huffington Post. When I visited the site to read Peter Lilley's article, the second most popular article was listed as being "Man Has 10st Testicles Removed Leaving Him With a 1-Inch Penis (VIDEO)." Yet Lilley wrote an article referencing Hegel and using words like "ersatz" and "eschatological." Errrr....
You also make it sound like a crime to use language to put across political views (except for the people who take your side of the argument). Lilley IS a politician. He told no lies. I also happen to agree with him. I have no objection to him using the language he chose to put across his views which seem to be based on sound scientific principles as I was taught them.
ThinkingScientist on Jun 23, 2013 at 2:07 PM '... such guff and nonsense ...'
You know what your problem is?
Your (sic) a thinking scientist !!!
Martin A
I struggled with dyslexia as a child and still won my school's O-Level English Language prize.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER = TROLL
enough said
Thinking scientist
Actually Peter's right about recent sea level rises. The long term trend is 3.2mm/yr, but in the last two years the sea level has risen 20mm.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Initially this was from a low base, as the water dumped onto Australia and elsewhere by the 2011 La Nina found its way back to the ocean, but it would be nice to know why the steep slope has continued into 2013.
Sorry about the spelling Martin A
Jun 23, 2013 at 11:59 AM Martyn
We all make spelling errors.
I imagine you would agree that if, our next sentence involves deriding others for their lack of education, then using a spelling checker makes sense.
I struggled with dyslexia as a child and still won my school's O-Level English Language prize.
Jun 23, 2013 at 2:27 PM Entropic Man
Well done. It would have been astonishing if a man of your calibre had not passed O-Level English with flying colours.
Previously, you had said "I presume it was aimed at the lowest common denomenator, people without the education or the wit to see through such manipulative bullshit".
Now that you have confirmed your education, how about answering my question?
"As someone who clearly has both the education and wit to see through such manipulative bullshit, would you care to enumerate the untruths in Lilley's piece for the benefit of lesser intellects?"
@geoffchambers
I hope you're right.
One thing that's very depressing is that I rarely hear anybody in real life so much as mentioning AGW (other than in the ironic "what happened to global warming, eh?" way, when we have a lot of snow or an unseasonably chilly summer). It clearly isn't on the radar of ordinary folk at all, yet our politicians (of practically all parties) act like it's something people care about. So basically it doesn't matter what the majority think, we're lumbered with an increasingly ludicrous energy "policy", renewable infrastructure that nobody wants other than urban "greens" who don't have to live near it, and an ever-increasing burden of so-called "green" regulation and taxation (which doesn't actually benefit the environment anyway).
Entropic Man, Peter states "Oh, you haven't heard that sea level has been measured for years now by satellites, very very accurately. It is rising by 1cm a year."
Peter's statement impliesthat the rate of sea level, as measured by satellites for years now, it is 1 cm per year. It is not, and Peter's two statements are a non-sequitor. Unless of course you think that 2 years of data of an event correlated to ENSO is a trend.
Martin A.
Peter Lilley has form regarding inaccuracies in his criticism of others;for example consider the errors in his critique of the Stren report, described by the man who produced Stern's figures.
http://www.chrishopepolicy.com/2012/09/errors-in-peter-lilleys-critique-of-stern/
"global surface temperature has not increased for 16 years"
The highest global land/ocean average temperature on record was in 2010, followed by 2005. 1998 came in third.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/monitoring/climate/surface-temperature
"This implies that doubling the concentration of CO2 will raise the temperature by a fairly harmless 1.2ºC. But the models amplify this several fold using assumptions about complex phenomena which cannot yet be reduced to simple physical laws."
This is doubletalk. The secondary forcings are physical phenomena like any others, and obey physical laws. By implying that they are not reducable he falsly ampifies the uncertainties.
"As Parliament enacted the Climate Change Bill, on the presumption that the world was getting warmer, it snowed in London in October"
Another old canard. Climate change is a long-term change in conditions. One weather event on its own is not an indicator of climate change, though as part of a sufficiently large statistical sample it may indicate a change.
"it anathematises as 'deniers' anyone who casts doubt on its certainties"
The researchers in climate science are quite open about the uncertainties. The IPCC talks in terms of probabilities.
It is the sceptics who project certainty that nothing is happening, in the face of considerable evience to the contrary.
----------------------------------------------------
I'll leave the list there for now. I dont want to inflict a Gish Gallop on you.
The mere fact that HuffPo, usually a thought-free zone for people who think that using "green" dishwashing detergent is going to save the planet, published this piece is significant.
The MSM are beginning to cover their bases. When the whole catastrophic thing falls in a heap, they will point to articles like this to prove that they were on the case. Fearless journalism at its best (excuse me while I change hands).
The hundreds - or even thousands - of lying articles they uncritically published previously will be airbrushed. Just like the recent effort by the hippies at The Economist to dip their collective toe into the water, we can expect more of this.
The good news is that the tide is turning. The bad news is that a lot of the liars, cheats and frauds will get away unscathed, having taken advantage of the tides that Shakespeare so admirably described.
Turning Tide,
"It clearly isn't on the radar of ordinary folk at all, yet our politicians (of practically all parties) act like it's something people care about."
I think the politicians genuinely believe that CAGW is a huge problem. And why wouldn't they? The IPCC is saying so. The Met Office is saying so. The scientific advisers are saying so. They'd be crazy to ignore all that advice. And so the politicians have a wonderful crusade - they get to feel really good, because they're fighting for our future, even if we don't seem to care about it.
I also don't blame huffpo readers for their views. Not only are all the scientists telling them that there's a real problem, but the politicians and the media are too. If you're a caring-sharing type without much of a science background, then why wouldn't you fall for it hook, line and sinker?
The good news is that this can't go on for much longer. As von Storch says: "If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations."
The question is, how much will we have wrecked our economy before scientists like von Storch start saying "OK, there's a real problem here"?
thinking scientist
It has been rising at an average of 3.2mm/yr. It is, at present, rising at 10mm/yr.
I am much less interested in verbal pedantry than in what's happening out there in the oceans. The recovery from the 2011 La Nina should have slackened a year ago. Now, in ENSO neutral conditions, the last year has seen the increased rate continue. This does not happen randomly.
There are four main possibilities, not necessarily exclusive; increased glacier melt, increased ice sheet melt, increased thermal expansion or net geological uplift. Three of the four imply continued net energy flow into the system,
Two years does not yet a climate trend make, but it raises questions which merit further investigation.
Turning tide, James Evans
Isn't this why we elect politicians? They are then left to make decisions while we get on with the business of living. If we disagree with their decisions, we elect someone else.
If the sceptics want to change current policies, convince the voters. You can do it two ways. One is the political approach, using rhetoric, ridicule, ad homs, etc to win your case regardless of the evidence; the other is to show by producing better evidence that the current paradigm is wrong.
I find the sceptics preference for the political approach revealing. It implies a cynical willingness to run your own civilization into the ground for short term gains.
"producing better evidence that the current paradigm is wrong"
Anonymous bloggers pumping the internet for climate science "evidence" is a sure indicator that the current paradigm is wrong.
Andrew
Entropic,
You are silly. I'll offer you the same invitation I offered to she who must not be named. I work as a gardener at Hidcote Manor Gardens. It's lovely. If you ever want to come over for a tour of the garden I would be very happy to show you around. We could discuss climate, and all sorts of things. You would be able to meet a group of people who work tirelessly to make the environment rich and beautiful, on a day-to-day basis.
Or you could go on believing that I come from an evil subspecies that has "a cynical willingness to run your own civilization into the ground for short term gains". I'd love a short term gain. Unfortunately you don't get too many of those when you work with the soil.
James
James Evans
Thank you for the invitation. It would be a pleasure, but, alas, I'm 400miles and a ferry trip away. From a quick browse of your website the Arts and Crafts garden would be most enjoable to visit.
I hadn't intended my last post as a personal insult. I was not thinking of those with an honest doubt.
It was aimed at politicians, lobbyists and others who let political or financial interest override evidence. This would include the Lilley's and the Inhofe's of this world, with oil company directorships or "campaign donations" from lobby organisations