[John Ross] Phil – I can’t prove that we are the primary cause of global warming. But you can’t prove we’re not. You’re certainly right that the hot yellow ball in the sky is heating things up and has been since the earth began. But it seems to me that most climate scientists, including many from NASA, have expressed legitimate concerns about the contribution to global warming by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. There appears to be growing consensus within the scientific community that humans CAN do something about it if we act now. Many of those who disagree work in the fossil fuel industry. Conflict of interest? I respect your opinion, but I think the wiser course is to err on the side of caution. You see, if YOU’RE right about global warming and we act anyway – all it will cost is a practical lesson in conservation, a cleaner environment and perhaps a refreshing return to simplicity. If the global warming “hysterics” are right, our failure to act will be catastrophic at a cost immeasureable.

[Phil Jackson] John: I appreciate the honest conversation on this issue. With all due respect, though, I’ve got to question your reasoning on a couple of grounds.

You base your call to action on the following logic. You say that since I can’t prove a negative (i.e. I can’t prove that man is “not not” the cause of GW), we must act as if he is, even though those who assert that man is the cause of GW can’t prove their case either. We need to do this, you contend, because if we’re wrong, the consequences would be catastrophic.

This completely ignores the issue that global climate trends are measured in millennia, not decades. Even if we had accurate data for the last 300 years (let alone the last 100), we still wouldn’t know anything of value [there was a mini-ice age from 1300-1600]. So once again I challenge your assertion that we must “do something now” or face potentially catastrophic consequences.

However, leaving this issue aside for the moment, I want to know if the need to act that you described is a general principle of yours.

Substitute “abortion” for Global Warming. The courts have defined human life, in essence, as beginning at week 20. This is not a scientific judgment about “humanity”, but about “viability”. [A brain dead adult is no more capable of independent survival than a 19 week old fetus, yet we still recognize it as “human”.] An equally strong, and even more scientific case can be made for identifying “humanity” at the point of conception, as I make in my latest post “What kind of car would Jesus drive …”.

So I ask you, are you in favor of putting an immediate end to abortion based solely on this reasoning? You must admit that it is an equally urgent issue. There have been almost 50 million elective abortions in the US, so a clear “danger” to human life is manifest.

I’m not asking for your personal opinion about abortion. [I am strongly against elective abortion, but I expressly rejected this course of action as a way to end abortion in America.]

What I want to understand is whether the foundation of your reasoning is that potentially “catastrophic consequences” demand action in every situation even if we don’t really know whether our actions will make a difference, or whether your reasoning is limited only to GW. If it is, I’ll point to the potential acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran as well in light of their president’s statements about ridding the Middle East of Jews. There are many other policy options I could also identify that have potentially catastrophic consequences.

My point is, that if you apply your standard to GW, then you need to apply it for other potentially catastrophic events (50 million aborted babies and counting, the possibility of nuclear war, etc.). If you wouldn’t apply it to abortion or nuclear weapons, then I must conclude that you use one standard to support decisions you want to take, and reject that same standard to oppose decisions you don’t want to take.

Again, the purpose of this isn’t to argue whether we should or shouldn’t have elective abortion, or should or shouldn’t fight Iran. I want to understand why action is demanded for GW, and to know why it wouldn’t be demanded for abortion and Iran as well.

It is a very slippery slope when we begin to make national policy on the basis of not proving a negative, and an even more slippery slope when we pick and choose our justifications for policy based on personal preference instead of a clearly-expressed, commonly executed standard.

If the standard for action is arbitrary, then there is no standard — and my wishes are as equally valid as yours. This does not mean that we need to see our house engulfed in flames before we call the fire department. But we can’t wake up and dial 911 because there’s a possibility the wiring may be faulty or the crock pot might overheat, and even though we can’t see any conclusive evidence of a fire, we need to take action now (given the dire consequences of a fire) before it’s too late.

This does not mean that you, as an individual, can’t practice eco-friendly behaviors. What I’m talking about is a collective national policy. This leads to the second issue I have with your reasoning.

If you take personal actions that prove, ultimately, to be inconsequential, you’ve only restricted yourself. But the major changes needed to “check” man-made CO2 emissions, for example, have tremendous consequences for the economy as a whole. Again, I’ve asked you and others a number of times to explain to me why Chinese and third world CO2 emissions don’t harm the environment, but US CO2 emissions do. This is at the heart of the Kyoto Treaty, which is the world-wide blueprint for your recommended course of action. You need to re-read the analysis I did of the NRDC and tell me why that’s wrong before you reply, because the two are linked inexorably together.

I also strongly disagree with your comment about a “growing consensus” that man is the primary cause of GW. My essay (footnotes and all) and the follow up posts show that, if anything, the consensus is moving in the other direction. For example:

“The world’s oceans cooled suddenly between 2003 and 2005, losing more than 20 percent of the global-warming heat they’d absorbed over the previous 50 years. That’s a vast amount of heat, since the oceans hold 1,000 times as heat as the atmosphere. The ocean-cooling researchers say the heat was likely vented into space, since it hasn’t been found stored anywhere on Earth.

”John Lyman, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, says the startling news of ocean cooling comes courtesy of the new ARGO ocean temperature floats being distributed worldwide. ARGOs are filling in former blank spots on the world’s ocean monitoring system – and vastly narrowing our past uncertainty about sparsely measured ocean temperatures.

”Lyman says the discovery of the sudden ocean coolings undercuts faith in global-warming forecasts because coolings randomly interrupt the trends laid out by the global circulation models. As Lyman puts it, “’The cooling reflects interannual variability that is not well represented by a linear trend’.”

http://cheatseekingmissiles.blogspot.com/2006/08/ocean-cooling-foils-warmies-theories.html

I’m assuming in all of this that you’re looking for answers to the question of “what to do” about Global Warming, which first requires one to understand what exactly is causing it, which first requires one to understand whether it is indeed happening. If at the end of the day the question of “what to do” is the only one that interests you, then there’s not a lot more to say. I don’t start with a conclusion and work backwards when advocating policy. If I did, my latest post would have been one line: “Abortion is wrong; end it now.”

If I’m willing to accept the fact that we have to go through a logical proof of concept before we can implement my new policy options in an area that has already killed 50 million human beings, why is it so hard for GW advocates to at least examine the basis for their claim before insisting on a specific course of action?

Regards,

Phil

Thank you for the thoughtful analysis. Let me respond to some of your major points, although Bob Stapler did a really fine job addressing these details too.

While I don’t doubt your sincerity in wanting to “do something” to address a perceived problem, I ask you to step back for a moment and consider the following:

1. The data that shows that the earth “warming” is based on incomplete, and at times deliberately manipulated information. There is a political agenda at work here that plays on the good intentions and fears of ordinary people. Mr. Stapler outlined this above, and I go into it in detail in my essay. Step back and ask a question about the experts you cited who believe that man is causing global warming. Where do they get their funding for their work? Then ask how likey they are to receive funding to help “solve” a problem if man is not the cause of it?

As I point out above, there is a built-in vested interest to start with the conclusion that man is the cause of climate change today, because if he is not, there’s no need to fund research to solve the problem. They simply took the “pollution paradigm”, where man can cause an environmental problem, and tagged it onto climate study. At best, they have fallen into the same data analysis trap I indicated in post 51 above. They don’t question the underlying accuracy of their data. They simply crunch the numbers. Which leads to point #2:

2. Even if the last 300 years of climate change data was 100% accurate, it still doesn’t establish a “trend”. There was a mini-ice age from around 1300-1600. Yet, 400 years later we’re talking about “global warming”. Assuming we had the technology then that we have today, if man tried to “fix” the global cooling problem 400 years ago, he would have added to the planet’s temperature — thus exacerbating a perceived problem in the 21st century. His “cure” would have made things worse.

Moreover, the Earth is not static, so an “average” temperature measured in years or decades is meaningless. Last year we had a record number of violent hurricanes due to “global warming”. This year we are way below last year’s statistics in both frequency and the strength of the storms. So I ask you, which year (2005 or 2006) is “normal”? And if Global Warming caused the hurricanes last year as many media and Hollywood figures insisted, why isn’t it as bad (or worse) this year? Again, we tend to look at trends in nature over the span of a single human’s lifetime. This is like checking the weather on Monday from 10:02 am to 10:03 am, and projecting the weekend forecast. It’s just not scientifically valid, no matter how well intended. Which leads to point #3:

3. The impulse to “fix” a problem that is neither understood, nor even established to be a “problem”, isn’t helpful. It may make a person feel good because they are “doing something”, but what they are doing can be harmful to the environment they are trying to save, or to the economy of the country they live in.

The individual action you have taken is laudatory and I applaud you for it, since I am not arguing against pursuing other forms of energy or practicing conservation. But this should be an individual’s choice, not a mandate. You don’t want to risk making things worse by doing nothing, and I don’t want to risk making things worse by doing “something” just to feel good doing it. Again, I direct you to the section on the NRDC. Why is Chinese industry exempted from the Kyoto Treaty? Are their greenhous gas emmissions magically benign? No, there is pure politics at work here, and the concern for the environment has been used to justify a political agenda.

The “natural cycle” of the Earth I spoke about is just that — the Earth warming and cooling without any contribution from man. Different things in nature trigger these periods, and they last for differing amounts of time. This is pretty standard stuff that any climatologist would agree with, since the earth has had frequent periods of global climate change throughout its 4 billion year history.

My point is that since climate change is “natural” (i.e. the earth’s climate is not static), before man begins to try to cool down the earth (or, as we were supposed to do in the 70′s when we faced a new ice age, heat it up), I think it’s wise to stop and ask two questions.

(1) What is actually causing the current “trend”? [This presumes we can actually identify the trend, and not just focus on a normal fluctuation like the mini-ice age that began 700 years ago]. And

(2) What can man really do about it, assuming that a trend is identified? A lot of statistics get thrown around by all sides, but if you look at the assumptions and starting points of the data used to justify global warming, you’ll see that they tend to overemphasize what man does, and downplay what nature contributes.

Your impulse is to do something now, even if it is ultimately inconsequential, because you don’t want to risk standing by while the climate is changed by man. I have no complaint about this, and personally congratulate you for doing what you feel best as an individual. But we need more than personal feelings to force a public policy change, and this is where I object to GW advocates who use the concern people like you have for the environment to push through their private, political agenda. Again, you need to read the section on the Natural Resources Defense Council to understand what I am saying here.

Their political manipulations also carry unintended consequences. Because of the deliberate manipulation of “man-made” Global Warming data to serve a political agenda, many people now intuitively distrust warnings about the impact of man-made pollution on the environment. This, unlike GW, has a direct relationship to man’s activities. Yet, by politicizing GW, and deceiving honest people into supporting their hidden agendas, these same advocates are causing harm to other environmental initiatives.

Continue to do the things that you feel make life better for yourself and others, and no one will criticize you — and in fact may even emulate you. But when Al Gore says I have to support Kyoto and re-arrange my lifestyle to serve his political interests, then I do object. And, unfortunately, it makes any legitimate points they raise immediately suspect.

I realize that you’d rather not dig through a long article on the subject, but I think a lot of your questions will be answered if you spend an hour or so going over what I’ve said about these issues in greater detail.

Great talking with you.

Regards,

Phil

First I would like to thank you for reading and responding to my
previous comment. You are right, I did not read your article in full,
I’m sorry I couldn’t make it through, and undoubtedly there are many
important ideas addressed by the article that I missed. Your article
had an extremely wide scope and I prefer reading more focused
articles. If I were to comment extensively on your article I could go
on for quite some time, for example you refer to a mini-warming period
as a “natural cycle”. What is a “natural cycle”? If you are talking
about periodic behaviour, there are reasons for periodic behaviour which
should be elucidated. If you are talking about a random change of state,
there can be reasons for that as well, for example some equations have
multiple solutions and the state can jump between either 2 stable
solutions or a stable and unstable solution. Explaining a warming
period as a “natural cycle” simply doesn’t hold much water for me.

I do not pretend to be a climate expert, nor do I intend to get into a
discussion with you on the scientific evidence for or against global
warming. I will say the following however: usually the best ideas are
simple. I am not a fanatical believer that human activities are
warming the planet. I DO think there is a high probability that they
are, and so I am making a contingency plan. My belief is based on the
following:

1) The fact that the atmosphere effects the temperature on earth
is evident, one needs merely check moon temperatures (-150 degrees C
at night, 107 degrees C during the day).

2) The nature of atmospheres effects average temperatures of planets.
This is easily checked by comparing the average measured
temperatures of planets, their distance from the sun, and the
composition of their atmospheres.

3) I talk to mathematicians who talk to experts in climatology and the
consensus which has been building since the early 90′s is that
human activities are warming the planet. The experts do not have
all the answers, there are phenomena which are not understood, but
among people who study the climate for a living, the consensus is
that the simple idea is the right one: if you add green house gases
to the atmosphere, the planet will become warmer.

It is quite possible that human activities are not warming the planet.
So what should I do? What are the risks if human activity IS changing
the planet? Well the risks are quite serious. I do not like to play
Russian roulette so I have a contingency plan. Personally I put 4
square meters of solar captors on my roof to heat water, I continue to
insulate our house to reduce heating costs, I buy energy efficient
appliances, and I continue to ride my bicycle everywhere. I am not a
crowd follower. I grew up in the smog of Los Angeles riding my bike.
I’ve never liked cars, I find them ugly, polluting, space consuming,
and expensive. Besides which I enjoy being in good physical
condition, and hell, I love riding my bike. All of my investments in
energy efficiency have a return of over 5% per year at current energy
prices (I get my money back in less than 15 years).

You may be right, energy prices may remain at 20′th century levels and
global temperatures may remain stable despite the change in
composition of the atmosphere. In that case I will have made
investments with a return of 5% when I could have done better on the
stock market, not a major risk. But, if you are wrong, the return on
my investments will be much higher, and my kids won’t be able to come
to me in 20 years and ask “What the hell were you thinking?”

Cheers,

Ian

Please read the following links; then, continue below.

> http://www.cei.org/pdf/5331.pdf
> http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ (greenhouse gases logarithmic – misconception regarding amount of warming)
> http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba378/ba378.pdf (badly flawed IPCC assessment)
> http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s157/s157.html (GW may actually improve the climate)
> http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba494/ (Kyoto will do nothing to avert climate change)

No one disputes the earth is currently warming up, that climate change is taking place, or that man-made gases have played any role in it. What is disputed is:

a) that mankind’s role is significant
b) that changing our energy habits will influence climate
c) that there is any real consensus among “scientist”
d) that any substantial evidence exists supporting anthropomorphic GW
e) that the consequences of doing nothing make action vital or prudent
f) that GW is other than a political ploy for advancing objectives having no bearing on climate and having everything to do with power (who has it)

Why might GW “experts”, government scientists & policymakers, politicians, industry, the media, advocacy groups, and others (who ought to know) insist GW is real, is substantially proven, or too important to ignore if it weren’t really so?

Experts: Ask yourself what would be the up-side to an environmental-expert declaring GW is a fraud. An environmental expert is someone who has labored in the field of environmental protection for a decade or more on the presumption the environment is in deep trouble. He has spent half his life defending anthropomorphic atmospheric warming, even before there was any evidence to support it. Twenty-years ago, we all signed onto this idea on the basis we couldn’t afford to be wrong. We agreed to let them start the ball rolling on the understanding, if the proof failed to materialize, we’d drop it. Things never work out that way though because, regardless of intention, something new is created that makes policy reversal impossible. Specifically, careers are begun in anticipation of a need. Initiatives have been undertaken in every country, with many ‘experts’ finding the best place for them to stake a claim was in government. Others found lucrative and prestigious positions in lobbying, universities, industry and venues tailor made to promote the GW agenda. There are few (if any) ‘experts’ in any of these venues who were recruited or encouraged to take the opposite stance; and most of those who were have been edged out or sidelined. Therefore, the only people with the competence and motivation to refute GW’s claims either have expertise considered “irrelevant” or are merely amateurs with sufficient intellect and fortitude to sift the literature and make up our own minds. That there are a lot of these who have found better reason to dispute than support GW speaks volumes more than the defense made by experts who have a vested interest in it. That people acquiesce to ‘expertise’ over proof speaks even louder. We have been conditioned to accept that expertise trumps our own good sense and any evidence we are able to gather.

An expert is no more than someone who has spent most of his life working in a narrow field. In some fields, there is sufficient information and understanding of how things work that we can call their knowledge truly expert. An electrician is far more ‘expert’ in what he does than a climatologist in his profession, despite it taking far more specialized knowledge to do the latter than the former. The knowledge an expert climatologist has is insufficient to make predictions that are only ‘better informed’ than the rest of us can make in his specialty. The interpretation of expertise is about the same from electrician to electrician, but differs widely from climatologist to climatologist because of the relative immaturity of this field.

EPA and the Department of Energy are two examples of government agencies tailored crafted to support catastrophe-theory as a given. The EPA, in particular, has recruited almost exclusively from among ‘scientists’ committed to the GW proposition. Concomitantly, it is GW advocating scientists who are most attracted to seek employment with EPA as a laboratory and pulpit supporting their conviction. These are people who’d be out of a job if man-made climate change were irrefutably and effectively discredited. But, it can only be discredited when those in ‘authority’ choose to grant it is. Instead, when the evidence failed to materialize or was inconclusive, the experts and scientists broadened their search for proof to include anecdotal evidence. They can be counted on to hold out until every argument is exhausted and are forced to concede. When doubters cry foul, these experts fall back on the tired and trite “dire consequences of inaction”, which the public will always concede.

Scientists: ditto, with the proviso they are charged with finding the proof. Failing to find it, they obscure the debate in terms that leave us with the impression the evidence does indeed exist, but is elusive and impossible for mere laymen to follow. A scientist, having made a career of seeking proof only to declare the evidence isn’t there, puts himself at risk of loosing his job or rendering himself irrelevant. From a brilliant (and lucrative) career of lecturing to heads of state, media, policy think-tanks, and the like, he can look forward to life in the slow lane and at low wages.

Policymakers (i.e., bureaucrats): these are the original “go along to get along” folks. Can you really see them bucking the trend of mainstream mythology?

Industry: Twenty-five years ago, DuPont discovered it could make a whole lot more money supporting the ozone depletion theory than fighting it. By promoting replacement products, it has reaped far more than it ever made defending CFC’s. The lesson hasn’t been lost on other businesses, who find all kinds of profit in exploiting public anxieties. Radon, species extinction, organic foods, China syndrome, ALAR, toxic wastes, product safety, cell-phone emissions, fuel emissions, &c; some are legitimate though all are hyped. Regardless of legitimacy, we rarely hear from industry anymore in defense of products. If one product gets a bad name, companies abandon it and find something else to peddle at a higher cost justified by the need to satisfy the anxiety. The profits from selling “safeguarded” products are invariably greater than those from the original “unguarded” products.

The Media: The media needs anxiety like no other business to sell its product. Good news does not sell. Disaster, calamity, death, injustice, crime, complaint, and slander sell. The public wants to be stimulated, even frightened; and tunes out when the news becomes too bland.

Advocacy groups: Supposedly ‘non-profit’ advocacies are, in reality, big business. Many start out as grass-roots organizations, but quickly become vested in perpetuating the causes on which they are founded. The worst thing that can happen to them (or at least to their paid workers and executives) is that the originating problem goes away. Even if it is solved or becomes irrelevant, means must be found to keep it alive for as long as possible. Thus, we have seen an ever growing list of advocacies, few of whom fade away or fall silent. If anything, the more irrelevant the issue becomes, the shriller they become insisting it’s a matter of life and death.

Politicians: Politicians and advocacy groups have much in common. Politicians need crises, turmoil, and rancor to get elected. Both Republicans and Democrats support environmentalism, and neither is about to upset this particular cornucopia. As money (in the form of both contributions and pork) is the lifeblood of politics, both parties can be counted on to defend GW. They may posture over the ‘right’ way of dealing with it, but neither is about to admit GW is hype.

Time and again, we see a tendency to believe PC nonsense, to embrace it as self-evident. I have no doubt a great many people take GW as gospel. Having taken a stance, we are loath to admit having jumped the gun. The expert and intellectual are no more immune than the amateur and befuddled; and the expert is both more nimble and dedicated in its defense. Pride and greed are, therefore, conjoined the more powerfully. This is less than a conspiracy, yet more than innocent. Anyone who looks deep enough into GW understands it is among the most specious of theories, and one easily confuted as shown by the links above. Its advocates’ protestations of certainty are genuine enough, yet that same certainty would translate into skepticism were the incentives of earnings, power, and prestige reversed. If there was no easy living to be had, no enlargement of regulatory power, no voter incentive, no electrified response to opinion shaped news, no windfall profits; none of these ‘experts’ would give a fig about GW because they know in their hearts it’s a sham. A lie told long enough, loud enough, and by well positioned people becomes truth … at least until the next big lie.

Consider, were some doctoral candidate of today, desperately seeking a dissertation topic upon which to expound, to mention atmospheric water as the largest component of green-house gases is a greater threat than fossil emissions, we can count on hundreds of ‘experts’ readily agreeing. The media will next interview the candidate, who will explain to a camera that water vapor is 50 to 200 times more abundant than CO2. The media will trigger a new hysteria citing this ‘expert’, who will gain instant stature and feel compelled to defend the media’s interpretation of his statements. Lunatics will come out of the woodwork demanding government do something to reduce atmospheric moisture. Government will create a task force to look into it and declare a consensus of scientist exists supporting the proposition (which they will). Legislation will be drafted to install gigantic floating pool-covers with which to cap the oceans to stop all evaporation. It will all make perfect sense, and be perfect nonsense.

The only thing we do know is, if the protocols are carried out, we will spend trillions combating a trend over which we have little influence. We will squander energy, third-world countries will be delayed in development, poverty and mortality will remain higher than without, the cost of fossil fuels will be driven artificially high, and the economic impacts will fall disproportionately on those who can least afford them. Experts and policy wonks appear more concerned with padding their résumés, posturing to the hype-driven public, and scoring PC points than in taking a responsible stance on global warming.

Wagon wheels…1791-1805… That’s awesome. Bloggin’ with a sense of humor, nice. Love that.

yes SUVs are to blame for Mars’ melting ice caps but ONLY those driven by Americans.

Studying the wear patterns of wooden wagon wheels from 1791 to 1807 confirms this.

I appreciate your comments. I'm in my 50's myself too. I can see that this is an issue of importance to you, but as I read your comments, it wasn't at all apparent to me that you actually even read my article, other than a paragraph here and there. Otherwise I don't think you would have raised certain issues I fully addressed, or would have made some of the statements you did.

I'm a political scientist, not a natural scientist. Unlike your colleagues who think that people like me are just apologists for big oil, I've actually been involved in policy making at the national and international level. And before you jump to conclusions, Clinton was in office and my firm was Democratic. Some of the other posts I've made explain about that.

Please have a look at my section on the National Resource Defense Council. This is how Global Warming activists use the data you referred to to make the policy that, if I question, I am automatically assumed to be ignorant about science, or on the take, or want to see the world destroyed.

I do know the difference between predicting the weather and global climate change. The illustration I quoted was from NASA to make a point about predictions. You'll see that I spent 90% of the article talking about the dishonest way extrapolated or interpreted data is being treated as precise, and questioning how long a time we need to establish a "trend" before making drastic policy changes to "correct" this trend. (again, read the entire section on Money, Power and Prestige) These are legitimate questions, and should be easy for you to knock down in another reply.

1A. If the climate change data gathered before the 1970s is as useful and solid as the data collected after advent of the space age, then why are we spending so much money on a worldwide network of ground and space-based collection systems to gather current data? Why not just go back to the collection system in say, 1905?

1B. Could it be that the data isn't as ACCURATE as it is today? And as a mathematician, if I give you about 40 years of precise data, and a couple of hundred years of anicdotal data, can you tell me why I should assume that the global warming baseline figures you use today are accurate enough to KNOW with any degree of CERTAINTY just how much warming actually occurred, or will occur over the next 100 years?

You can't say the data is just fine in 1B, and then argue that we need better equipent and coverage than we had prior to the 70s. They are not logically consistent. Holding the two positions simultaneously ARE understandable, however, if you start with the assumption that the data is good (see my post #51), and that conclusions are honestly drawn from it.

You talk about probabilities and contingency plans and riding bycycles and alternative energy sources. Before I dramatically (or even slightly) change the US economic system to cure man-made global warming, do you think it's a rude question to ask someone to tell me how man (vs. other natural forces) caused it? I don't want the theory that our factories and cars, etc. do it. I want to know precisely (or even within 1 standard deviation) what nature contributed collectively for all years 1850-200, and what man contributed each year, and then factor in such things as the natural changes that occur in the sun. Then I'll know two things. Exactly (or within, say, the same level of predictability as a statistically significant poll) (1) how warm the earth really got. And (2) What part man played.

You can't answer these questions because we don't know. But you want me to accept the fact that man is responsible anyway. You have started with a conclusion rather than a hypothesis.

I started with a question: Just how do we know that? I showed that there is no way the data can be accurate enough to make any solid claim. And I showed you in the essay you haven't read why these claims are being portrayed anyway as facts upon which to make policy.

If you really believe that man has caused global warming, then why aren't you outraged that China and the rest of the third world are exempt from stopping their greenhouse gas emissions? Before you answer, look at China's economic development from 1995-2005, not 1950-1994. It's not the same picture — and one of the reasons gas is over $3.00/gallon. It's in my discussion about the NRDC.

Which brings up another small point about your predictive ability. What were climactic conditions from, say, 1300-1600? If you had 300 years of rock solid data during this period, what you have predicted the global temperature to be in 1700? Do you even have a clue why I'm asking you this question?

Why is it that a political scientists has to keep pointing out the fact to natural scientists that the Earth is 4 billion years old, and even if I have exact data on climate changes for 200 years, it's a fart in a windstorm.

And why do non-scientists like me have to keep asking scientists to at least give me a small hint how you know with any degree of certainty that MAN is absolutely, positively unmistakably causing whatever climate changes you detect from a century or so of estimated data that uses a deliberately colder than normal starting point as it's baseline?

I'm assuming you can knock down these issues 1-2-3, so I am prepared to concede the point if you can. But don't tell me something is X because that's the last number that came out of the computer, and your methodology was flawless, but you had to use incomplete data taken over a geologically minescule period of time to arrive at it. And If I don't accept your colleague's consensus as as fact about how policy is actually made because someone saw it done that way once on The West Wing, then we've got to do something NOW before it's all too late. I've still got my parka from the 1970s to guard against the coming ice age.

Inject a little honesty into your own thought process first by actually reading the article you dispute instead of the last line. Start talking to a few other "qualified scientists" who actually look for an answer to a question first, before assuming the conclusion is real that man has created current global warming, which can be measured accurrately enough over a long enough time period to state with the certainty you have. And by the way, we can make up for some of waste in Iraq you point outby scrapping the current data gathering system we have in place and go back to vacuum tubes filled with mercury in my neighbor's back yard, because that's the data base you think gives you a solid enough number to state your claims without reservation.

I'm happy to reply to any of the substance of my paper, but unless you're prepared to read it first, and the posts that follow, and respond to the real issues I've raised, I'm going to have another typical exchange with an outraged True Believer who knows man is the cause of global warming because man was the cause of it.

I apologize if any of this was more direct than it should have been, but almost nothing in your post had anything to do at all with my essay.

1. Article discussing the science and the politics

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=\Commentary\archive\200412\COM20041202d.html

2. Charts on CO2 and water vapor

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html