re: #23 saik0max0r

Look, at this rate, it’s going to be 5 years before the research is cleared up enough to make heads or tails of this. Often what happens is that people will start arguing cross ways… If the Post hoc ergo propter hoc argument about the Carbon Dioxide/Temperature correlation starts to look bad, proponents will start focusing on the fact that their research shows (“Correctly”, if the measurements themselves are to be trusted) that the Temperature is in fact increasing. so it’s true that “warming” is occurring, but the impact of carbon dioxide (as opposed to C-14 or other carbon isoptopes.) is *not* “settled science”.

When people start incorrectly arguing that humans don’t influence the climate, and that it’s not warming because the other “team” says different, they shouldn’t complain when they are called “deniers”.

All the effort and energy should be put into better science with the same standards regarding publishing of data *AND* methods as other scientific disciplines using a truly multi disciplinary approach instead of this crappy clique of “climate scientists”*

* What exactly are the credentials required to be a climate scientist, btw?

One credential is basic science literacy. This would include such things as knowing that carbon 14 is present in only trace amounts, that it is chemically the same as carbon 12, that the absorption spectrum of “heavy” CO2 would therefore be the same as that of ordinary CO2, and that therefore C14 cannot possibly be relevant to the question of climate change.

Another credential is basic statistics literacy. One decade of temperatures that all come in at least marginally lower than the 1998 all-time high is no signal that the earth has turned a corner and further warming is called off. Instead, what it signifies is the same as what a run of a half-dozen tails in a long run of coin tosses signals: it signals a chance fluctuation. Merely that.

Another credential is arguing honestly. This includes such things as fairly representing the other side’s main points. Here, the argument for AGW is not post hoc ergo propter hoc, it’s spectrum hoc ergo propter hoc…that is, the CO2 warms the earth because that’s what CO2 does in the lab. It’s a gas with an IR absorption spectrum. Why are we debating this? It’s like debating whether a sleeper who puts on an extra blanket and sleeps warmer did so because of the blanket.