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Author Topic:   Global warming - fact or conspiracy?
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 12 of 111 (323981)
06-20-2006 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by subbie
06-20-2006 3:54 PM


Doubters
Following the various links there, you can find a list of scientists who sit on both sides of the question. Perhaps you can link all of the scientists who doubt the human connection to the Bush administration in some way, but I kind of doubt it.
I, too, doubt there is any "human connection to the Bush administration."
That said, I suspect one could more likely connect doubting scientists to industry-funded research and think tanks: think cigarettes. In addition, there are a few scientists who, like opponents of evolutionary theory, have erected new goalposts each time new data confirmatory of global warming is presented. In any case, the media inclination to list equal numbers of "experts" on every side of an issue fails to reflect the overwhelming consensus on this issue.
By the way, IIRC, the Bush White House has conceded that human activity is having an effect on "global climate change" (lilke "Osama" or "Mission Accomplished," global warming is verboten terminology there).
Their fall-back position, as I understand it, is that current science cannot distinguish between human-driven change and natural cyclic change, and, in any case, there are no profits or votes to be gained by sacrificing current political capital to long-term problems.
I disagree, of course, but my expectation of proof provides me no comfort, cold or hot.

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 Message 11 by subbie, posted 06-20-2006 3:54 PM subbie has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by subbie, posted 06-20-2006 5:13 PM Omnivorous has replied
 Message 21 by ThingsChange, posted 06-21-2006 10:12 PM Omnivorous has not replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 14 of 111 (324117)
06-20-2006 9:03 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by subbie
06-20-2006 5:13 PM


Re: Doubters
I don't doubt for a second that there is a human connection to the Bush administration. Only humans could screw things up as badly as dumbya and his band of boobs has done.
I would point out that simply "connecting doubting scientists to industry-funded research," if in fact that can be done, is nothing more than the ad hominem fallacy.
Simply connecting anything to any other thing would likely be fallacious, but in major areas of science and policy contention, it pays to follow the money.
The corporate and governmental corruption of science is deep and pervasive; pharmaceutical companies fund studies that are suppressed or selectively released and send prescribing MDs on junkets; tobacco companies bought scientists by the bale; scientists submit papers without divulging financial stakes in the research. Science is a major nexus of power and wealth, so of course corruption and self-interested bias occur within it, just like politics and relgion.
Moreover, it's also possible that they receive industry funding because they have come to conclusions that the industries like, but they come to the conclusions before they received any funding.
Yes, the money can find the researcher before the researcher finds the money.
On the government side, the Bush administration attempts to suppress gov't. funded science which undermines their policies while protesting that not enough "good science" has been done, attempting to gag NASA scientists and substituting political calculation for objective evaluation of everything from medications to anti-AIDS strategies.
They have squandered billions on their market-ideology obsessions, privatizing security and disaster relief with little to show for it; their market method of trading mercury polluting credits--mercury polluting credits!--would allow increased mercury emissions in some of the already most contaminated areas.
They're not just dumb. They're wrong.
When one sees a dwindling number of scientists supporting a position against which evidence is mounting high, it is not a fallacy to wonder who is paying for these persistently skeptical voices. I would lend more weight to research into, say, the biological effects of fumes from refining Product X if the grant didn't come from Product X, Inc. or its manufacturers organization--or from Senator Zippy who earmarked the funds because Product X, Inc., donated to his PAC.
It would be a fallacy to assume that any of the skeptics are stooges and hacks, but to suspect it is not.
However, it is apparent that many scientists on both sides of the issue act a great deal like people more motivated by ideology than by science.
I don't see it that way, of course
True, there is passion on all sides.
But I think many people believe our governments are failing to act on a real global threat due to head-in-the-sand ignorance, good old-fashioned greed, and an ideology of exploitation.
That belief, and a passionate involvement in trying to face that threat, might seem ideological to some, but it smells rational to me.
Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.
Edited by Omnivorous, : changed for which to against which: confused the antecedent!

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 16 of 111 (324125)
06-20-2006 9:27 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by MangyTiger
06-20-2006 9:18 PM


Re: Doubters
Just when you think the ideas couldn't get any dumber
The feds are being sued by about a quarter of the states over the policy. It's recent news.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by MangyTiger, posted 06-20-2006 9:18 PM MangyTiger has not replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 26 of 111 (324946)
06-22-2006 3:25 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by EZscience
06-22-2006 2:02 PM


Re: Grants are plentiful for global warming research
Excellent reply, EZ.

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 80 of 111 (326236)
06-25-2006 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by rgb
06-23-2006 1:29 PM


Greenland
rgb writes:
The ice on greenland is more of a local ecological concern because it's not much to be concerned about globally.
It seems a bit more dire than that--from today's L.A. Times...
Greenland's Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away
The massive glaciers are deteriorating twice as fast as they were five years ago. If the ice thaws entirely, sea level would rise 21 feet.

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