From: ausdotnet-boun...@lists.codify.com [mailto:ausdotnet-boun...@lists.codify.com] On Behalf Of David Connors Sent: Tuesday, 23 February 2010 7:01 PM To: ausDotNet Subject: Re: [OT] Bill gates on our energy futures - some tech miracles needed
On 23 February 2010 19:47, Ken Schaefer <k...@adopenstatic.com<mailto:k...@adopenstatic.com>> wrote: The IPCC AR4 isn’t a debacle. That’s hyperbole pure and simple. Fair enough. We'll have to disagree on that one and I should probably bail before I'm labeled a denier and given the 'big cutoff' :) I never label people as “deniers”, nor do I cut people off. If you have an alternate viewpoint, I’d like to see what evidence you have to support that viewpoint. Since you’ve put the claim out there… I’m not aware of any issues that have been highlighted with the WG (Working Group) 1 report, which examines the scientific basis for our believe in AGW. You won't be seeing much of a scientific basis or otherwise for discussing any other point of view in anything out of the IPCC by design. Jones, Mann, Pachauri, et al seem to have that pretty stitched up. Science doesn’t start from preconceived notions and eventually whatever if the theory that best describes what we are able to observe will win out. That have been shown time and time again, whether it be Relativity or Evolution or our model of the Universe. And again, what is produced need to be signed off by 150 odd governments (some of which have a vested interest in pumping more oil, or exporting more coal), and a large number of scientific bodies. It is not possible for a handful of people to continually suppress scientific evidence to the contrary. It summarises thousands of studies, across all major scientific fields, and the correlation of thousands of studies seems to present fairly compelling evidence. I think the average punter, and especially policy makers, are more interested in the output of WG2 (the part of IPCC AR4 that deals with *impacts* and what we are to expect). Since we seem to be debating the actual existence of AGW, that’s not in WG2 – it’s in WG1 Are you aware of any issues from WG2? :) Do those issues actual detract from the central messages in WG2? I agree that we can still expand our knowledge of impacts – we need better models and we need more data. But if we look at the vast body of evidence that has been accumulated between AR1 and AR4, we are at least heading in the right direction in accumulating data. I mean, it is all good peer-reviewed science right? Anyone with a viewpoint opposing AGW/IPCC has been told that you are into 'voodoo science' (to quote Pachauri) and we should only listen to the peer reviewed science. Peer reviewed science should have a higher weighting, otherwise we’d just have a bunch of opinions. About 6 billion of them. But *science* should be evaluated, and that means people publishing verifiable papers. Those tend to be found in peer reviewed journals because that’s what scientists do. I used to work in a Science Faculty (at UNSW) for several years, and publishing in papers was what researchers did. Like posting on email lists for developers. If you don’t want to publish in a peer reviewed journal, there’s no need to do so, but you still need to have other people be able to repeat your experiments, or test your hypothesis. Most stuff published on various anti-AGW places doesn’t meet that standard. But, I openly invite you to please put forward the things you believe should be read. From my personal preference, I prefer scientific papers. Others may prefer something lighter. I’m also interested in what you believe are the flaws in our scientific understanding or evidence for increased carbon emissions (CO2-eq from other gases) and why you might think that wouldn’t cause warming or why that change isn’t bad (other than you are skeptic, I’m not actually sure what you are skeptic of…) Cheers Ken
