Re: Off topic - US climate loonies

[Nick Palmer]

Remi Cornwall's quotes are in << >>'s   <<Global Warming is a Hypothesis. Some very good people say it is conjecture (Fred Singer)>>  I clicked on the Fred Singer link. I see he is still as functionally idiotic and vain as ever - he is a prime example of functional insanity as defined by me.   <<Yes, despite all the ranting and consensus science it has to consider exhaustively other explanations and it has to make accurate predictions! >> NO, IT DOESN'T! - that would be nice to have but the only way to find out if they were accurate predictions is to see what happens in the end. If you really want climate science and predictions to be experimentally verified then you need multiple trips to the past in a time machine, changing one variable at a time, going forward in time, seeing the results, making a prediction based on ones' hypothesis, hopping in the time machine again back to the past, changing a variable, seeing if the results confirm your prediction, back in that tedious time machine, changing the variables again  etc etc. Only then will you be qualified to pontificate authoritatively on what the dangers, or otherwise, of altering climate gases are. As you and Fred Singer and all the others have not done this, your PERSONAL OPINION is no more valid than anybody else's. What actually needs to be taken into account is risk/benefit analysis and consequences rather than the personal musings of people such as Singer who adopt the mantle of serious scientist but plainly have forgotten the philosophy of  the scientific method and its limits.   <<Try to understand we don’t say something *is so* until we know *it is so*.>> I note the vain, subtextually self-fashioning "we". I don't need to "try" to understand - I studied the history and philosophy of science privately, and at school, before you were conceived. I know the strengths of the scientific method but, far more importantly, I know the limits of its usefulness.  Many people who think of themselves as scientists, afflicted by vanity, only seem to appreciate the strengths and seem to have forgotten, or never knew, the limits of its usefulness.This means that a true scientist, asked for his advice, should not say "potentially dangerous X" is unproven, therefore we should not take preventative action until after we have established that X will be dangerous.             In order to establish that X is dangerous, the only real way to do that is to run the experiment and see the results. If the results are that X wasn't a problem after all you can say "told you so"; if the results are that X was not only as dangerous as was forecast, according to the hypothesis, but, owing to unforeseen elements, was far worse than predictions, then it will not be much comfort to humanity if you admit you were wrong to think that everything would carry on as normal.      <<There is no substantial primal green power source>> I assume you meant "primary". A fundamental and telling error that many people make is to say that no individual green energy source is large enough to do the job and all of the other hundreds of energy sources and sustainable methodologies are not big enough to do the job. So what? This is related to another primary error of the anti-environmentalists - by looking only at the problems of energy generation and coming up only with arguments that relate to this, they "divide and conquer". An environmentally sustainable civilisation can only be worked out by far larger than scientific methods. Science is uniquely the wrong methodology to use. Like in maths, trying to solve a multi thousand variable simultaneous equation, it is tricky to say the least. When the experimental evidence for how climate reacts to changing variables isn't all in yet, it is beyond stupid to do nothing because the hypothesis hasn't been finally proved.   <<So don't call people in possession of the FACTS loonies>> You're assuming that you are in full possession of the facts and that others aren't or that their different facts are of less importance than yours. This whole thing is about basic survival strategy for our life support systems which supersedes and trumps the vanities of some of humanity and the limited partisan facts that give them succour.        <<What I object to is non-scientists carrying on like they know the scientific method>> You are saying that only a practicing, qualified, time-served scientist knows what the "scientific method" is? You cannot be serious! You need to tone down your misplaced arrogance. Remember the vanity I alluded too? -  you have it in five hundred mile high spades.   <<If you don't want to condemn the World to a recession by a hypothesis>>  Ridiculous, simple-minded "fool the gullible"propaganda from "big oil" and a percentage of big business designed to scare the weak minded -  motivated by appalling selfishness and criminal irresponsibility. Sustainable economics takes far more into account than the brutally stupid simplicity of GDP and GNP as the only bottom line. As others will no doubt point out, even classical economics would take all the economic activity of changing energy supply and infrastructure to be valuable...            Your post script mentioned global warming being "properly a proto science" - the  Wikipedia link says <<In philosophy of science, a protoscience is any new area of scientific endeavor in the process of becoming established>> If you had read and understood what I wrote, you would see why we cannot afford to wait until it is "established" - that would be functionally moronic or insane or both. I cannot see how a truly intelligent person can continue to hold their view after this has been explained. It is extremely simple and the fact that so many cannot understand it, despite their training, qualifications etc shows how very stupid much of humanity is.   << If you were trained you'd know Kyoto is impossible - right now>> Ridiculous handwaving. You don't seem to understand what a concerted effort from committed governments and people can do in a short period. Besides, the Kyoto protocol is only a start - a changeable route map to a goal..    <<There ain't enough generational capability without gas, coal and nuclear>> Nobody said that the solution will entail getting by without any of these energy sources, just that using them for the majority of our energy greeds (not needs) will not be necessary. Where I live (in the Bay of St Malo), the amount of totally reliable tidal energy is colossal and untapped and probably equals or exceeds the North sea wind resource. One of the main obstacles to alternative energy such as tidal race mills being commissioned is established bureaucrats/jobsworths who will only open the investment purses to established technology, largely because of their fear that they will be held to account if the promise doesn't live up to the hype.       Sweet dreams,   Nick Palmer