PHILIP WINESTONE wrote: >When the rational minds at Vortex start to buy into the mythology/religion of >man-made global warming, we're in deep trouble...
>There was an interesting article today in The National Post (Canada), written >by a physicist, in which, among other things, he asked the question, "How does >one measure global temperature?" Frankly, I find these kinds of comments infuriating. This is the sort of anti-science, anti-expert, anti-intellectual that are deployed against cold fusion. You can always find "a physicist" who knows nothing about a subject yet who will pontificate and make up bogus reasons to doubt research that was performed by experts. That is the story of cold fusion in a nutshell: experts worked for years, published peer-reviewed paper with high sigma, replicated data, but the research was drowned out by a chorus of nitwit scientists and self-appointed experts in the Washington Post and Time magazine. To take another example, a physicist with an website devoted to "debunking" wind energy took the average value of wind power worldwide and showed that turbines will, on average produce only a few percent of their rated output. Apparently this person is unaware of the fact that wind is not distributed evenly over the earth's surface, but rather, it is concentrated in some areas, and wind turbines are only set up in places where the wind blows far more often and more strongly than the worldwide average. As for the question: "How does one measure global temperature?" I do not know the detailed answer. Obviously people measure air temperature, and in Japan they measure ocean water temperature. I believe there are satellite detection techniques. Glaciers on all continents have been shrinking. No doubt many different techniques are used. I am sure you can buy any number of authoritative books about this subject. The point I would like to make is that the global temperature is a vitally important question, and thousands of world-class experts have been working on it for many years, and it is outrageous that some know-it-all Canadian twit is given newsprint to spout his opinion that all of these people are wrong and they do not know what they are doing. The only time large numbers of scientists are wrong about a technical issue is when they have not done any research on the subject and they have not done their homework -- the situation with cold fusion. Scientists, along with people in every walk of life, are often wrong about non-technical issues or questions far outside of their expertise. Many scientists are racists, sexists or bigots, and completely unqualified to judge people in other cultures. To take another example, a physicist is no more qualified to judge health care issue or tax policy than anyone else, because these are primarily moral issues. - Jed
