Arguing with Idiots - Climate Edition

Timothy Birdnow

I recently had another argument with a True Believer in the Church of Climate Change, and thought Aviary readers would be interested. I apologize for not inserting my hyperlinks, but they are many and time is limited today.

[link-https://www.sbs.com.au/news/extreme-weather-caused-by-climate-change-has-damaged-45-per-cent-of-australia-s-coastal-habitat?fbclid=IwAR1h5eDxoRQ57HfbbFI2DTm8frAD1A1GHQ-GtdVNjlJXSTQnHw0y9ODVvzs]Here is the article that started the debate.  And below is the argument, started by one Klaus
Klaus Cepan said:

Crazy Klaus added:

Science progresses through constant analysis, criticism, and accumulation of data. Therefore a consensus is the highest we can get in science.

https:// iopscience.iop.o rg/article/ 10.1088/ 1748-9326/11/4/ 048002

https:// docs.house.gov/ meetings/II/ II13/20190522/ 109519/ HHRG-116-II13-20 190522-SD001.pd f

https:// leisureguy.wordp ress.com/2007/ 09/04/ the-scientific-c onsensus-on-glo bal-warming/

https:// iopscience.iop.o rg/article/ 10.1088/ 1748-9326/8/2/ 024024

https:// skepticalscience .com/ S17blogpost.html

That does not mean I think there's a magic piece of data that will show that we were all wrong about evolution or vaccines or climate change.

Again, if real scientists publish data that shows we were wrong, and it's confirmed by more research, then a similar mountain of evidence that overturns evolution or vaccines or climate change (or almost anything else in science) is provided, it's time for a change.

But using rhetoric, logical fallacies, conspiracy theories, lies, misinformation,
I left the following reply:

Seems I touched a nerve, Klaus Czapan.

You try to claim the mantle of science, and impugn me with ignorance. That is because YOU have not bothered to educate yourself on the research which disagrees with your preconceived views. I hate to burst your bubble, but there is all sorts of science being done that says, well, yes the climate is changing but natural variability is more at work than carbon dioxide. Essentially you people believe in one thing and one thing only, because it fits with your political views. Try doing some research, and I don't mean looking at the first pages of a Google search or reading Skeptical Science.

Consensus is meaningless without empirical evidence to back it up. And there IS NO FREAIING CONSENSUS ANYWAY. That claim is based on the work of a historian, Nancy Oreskes, who said she couldn't find a negative - she ran a bunch of papers and couldn't find any definitive statements saying there was no global warming. Her methodology was terrible. See here https://www.cornwallalliance.org/docs/a-call-to-truth-prudence-and-protection-of-the-poor.pdf Well duh! Everyone knows there was a slight warming of the planet in the twentieth century. It was the result of the Earth moving out of the Little Ice Age. And the other research was done by John Cook, a communications professor and radical alarmist, you know the guy who runs the apologist site and poorly named Skeptical Science. He sent out questionaires and said the ones that were returned showed a ninety seven percent agreement rate. I hate to burst your bubble, but most people did not respond because it was a waste of their time. The ones who did would naturally be the True Believers. And, in fact, the broad wording was guaranteed to find agreement. See David Legates critique. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11191-013-9647-9So, two political hacks produce these results and the media claims a consensus. You of course ignore the Oregon Petition with 31000 signiators who disagree with the alarmist global warming position. http://www.petitionproject.org/gw_article/Review_Article_HTML.php That was a far more comprehensive thing that the thousand some odd questionaire of Cooks. Am I boring you with these inconvenient truths?

You say: "I can say that because I have the scientific evidence on my side. I win on these points before a debate can even start. And that's not my opinion-based on arrogance or conceit. It's not my belief that is dependent upon ignorance and fallacies. " Oh, yes it is your opinion and arrogance. You pick data and research that buttresses your opinion. You ignore the many instances where your computer models fail. You say it' s non-science when you disagree, no matter who is doing it. Those computer models used for this can't even predict current conditions from past conditions, for instance.. Your theory is based almost entirely on surface stations (the satellite data doesn't show the warming) and those stations are often in mushrooming cities or on blacktops or near air conditioner compressors. See www.surfacestations.org. East Antarctica has seen a growing ice cap, in the last few decades, and ice levels are up in many other places. You can't explain the "pause" can you? You claim the missing heat is in the oceans, but it seems to be, uh, missing. We can't find the tropical tropospheric hot spot. Details! unimportant to you guys. And there is solid evidence of data tampering at NOAA, https://realclimatescience.com/2016/12/100-of-us-warming-is-due-to-noaa-data-tampering/ at NASA's Goddard https://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=NASA+data+tampering, at East Anglia's CRU. In fact, we KNOW CRU was pulling some fast ones; they talk about it in their e-mails. They talk about bullying editors, isolating "deniers", reviewing their friends papers. And Michael Mann at Penn State used his "Nature Trick" to "hide the decline". He used just three trees at Yamal, because other tree rings showed a slight cooling. And he spliced different data sets together.

There are other instances. Climate skeptic and blogger Tallbloke had his home raided by police and his computers seized for posting a link to the then-breaking Climategate e-mails, for instance. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/dec/15/hacked-climate-emails-police-west-yorkshire Yeah; that's real open minded.

So you want to fundamentally alter the way all humanity lives, to make the world much poorer, based on computer models and marginal at best on the ground science. Your idea of science is very different than mine, or then the science of the past. You say: "If you think they were all bribed to come to that consensus, please show it with court documents or other evidence that your conspiracy theory is right. Referring to Natural News as your source is bogus." Here you show yourself to be naive in the extreme. Most science is funded by government, and governments want this because it increases their power and allows them to find new sources of revenue. The U.N. wants it because it promotes world government. They've even admitted as much. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/ OF COURSE "denier" scientists (a blood libel in and of itself, as it equates disagreement with Holocaust denial) aren't going to be very vocal; they'll lose funding and maybe their jobs. They'll be blacklisted. And we further know there has been an administrative attempt to silence critics. The Climategate e-mails show that the "hockey team" was working systematically to subvert peer review and bully editors, and to boycott people doing science that disagreed with the alarmist position. NASA's Joanna Simpson said there was such pressure when she retired; she had to keep quiet until then for fear of losing her career. https://jennifermarohasy.com/2008/02/first-woman-to-earn-phd-in-meteorology-speaks-out/If it is about science you wouldn't have to suppress inquiry, would you? Perhaps you have forgotten Editor-in-Chief, Wolfgang Wagner being forced to resign from Remote Sensing for publishing a paper by Spencer and Braswell. He was forced out because this was a "denier" paper, written by two top guys in the field. Spencer talks about it here. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/09/editor-in-chief-of-remote-sensing-resigns-from-fallout-over-our-paper/ Oh, but there isn't suppression of alternative views, is there Klaus?

You people pick and choose. You ignore ten years of Icesat data which showed ice growth in the polar regions. You even ignore your own theory; the logic behind Climate Change is that carbon dioxide would lead to some minor warming but would evaporate water vapor, leading to a "warmer, wetter world". In other words, precipitation is supposed to increase. Didn't happen, so you switched to desertification and drought. That is illogical, as water vapor is key to the whole positive feedback theory you are pushing. But you are more interested in winning the argument than in the facts on the ground - or even being consistent. And, I reiterate, there has been no statistically significant warming since the late nineties. Explain the pause. You can't. You ignore realities, such as the fact that carbon dioxide is a trace gas, with only four molecules per every ten thousand in the air. And of that we have put less than one of those molecules up there. You ignore planetary science, too. Mars is bitterly cold, colder than it should be. Why? The Martial atmosphere is 95% CO2. You ignore solar activity. You ignore axial wobble. You ignore land use changes. You ignore so many factors to confidently predict thermogeddon, based on a theory that even it's creator admitted could only lead to a warming of a degree or two thanks to the logarithmic nature of the absorption spectrum.

You say: "Accusing a scientist of being a paid shill of whatever Big ### or some mysterious worldwide conspiracy is a logical fallacy" Well, if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black! How many times have you people accused scientists who disagree with your pet theory of being shills for Big Oil? S. Fred Singer is regularly accused of that, for instance, because he has unassailable credentials.

Nice try Klaus. Every argument you made is easily answered. All you have are media memes about "consensus" and how "science is on your side" when it clearly isn't. Do some research with an open mind. But this has never been about the science.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 02:34 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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