This global warming thing should transend politics but instead we have a sorry display of ideological divide when instead it should be discussed as science, not whether believers one way or another are left or right wing nuts. But sadly that is what it has come to.
Absolutely, it must be discussed as science. And there cannot be any pressure from the pro-AGW, pro-IPCC, pro-Kyoto side to submit to its agenda and claims based on a theory only. Yet we know that death threats and vile namecalling are commonly hurled against those who will not submit, those who prefer to focus on the science, keep the science going in whatever direction it takes scientists... after all, aren't scientists supposed to have open minds, be skeptical and all that... rather than being arrogantly cocksure based on what is not proven, based on "data" that could even have itself been anthropogenic rather than derived via actual scientific observation and recording?
I'm shocked that so many (AGW-pushing) supposed "scientists" would behave in such a dogmatic, cockily arrogant, fascist, closed-minded manner. They are suspect. And I don't oppose them for ideological nor partisan reasons... I oppose them because I find no crediblity whatsoever in them and their claims. I don't find a UN-mandated panel to be credible, but rather, as a UN-mandated panel, it is rather to be suspect in the very least... which is a reason why non-UN-aligned scientists all over the place are demanding that we actually take an open-minded scientific approach to the theory of AGW. And it's also worthless to accuse them all automatically as being "on the take" from "big oil" when it's clear that those who kowtow to Kyoto and the UN-IPCC are themselves effectively on the take, in terms of being favored to receive big-money grants and so on.
It's not just about political warfare. Many, many credible, publicly open-to-dialogue scientists do reject the flawed "conclusions" and irrelevant "consensus" of the IPCC.
And it appears that scientists are actually awakening, smartening up... and defecting from the AGW movement to join the already-large-and-growing ranks of skeptics.
This link provides a lot of information worthy of consideration. Yes, it is a US Senate Committee page, but they appear to be acting credibly as well as bipartisanly, even linking to Canadian and other news websites, etc.
It's a long post with many good links, but it appears that the big news is that there is now a high-profile convert away from the AGW movement, so...
Renowned Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics
Washington DC - One of the most decorated French geophysicists has converted from a believer in manmade catastrophic global warming to a climate skeptic. This latest defector from the global warming camp caps a year in which numerous scientific studies have bolstered the claims of climate skeptics. Scientific studies that debunk the dire predictions of human-caused global warming have continued to accumulate and many believe the new science is shattering the media-promoted scientific “consensus” on climate alarmism.
Claude Allegre, a former government official and an active member of France’s Socialist Party, wrote an editorial on September 21, 2006 in the French newspaper L'Express titled “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (For English Translation, click here: http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264835 ) detailing his newfound skepticism about manmade global warming. See: http://www.lexpress.fr/idees/tribunes/dossier/allegre/dossier.asp?ida=451670 Allegre wrote that the “cause of climate change remains unknown” and pointed out that Kilimanjaro is not losing snow due to global warming, but to local land use and precipitation changes. Allegre also pointed out that studies show that Antarctic snowfall rate has been stable over the past 30 years and the continent is actually gaining ice.
“Following the month of August experienced by the northern half of France, the prophets of doom of global warming will have a lot on their plate in order to make our fellow countrymen swallow their certitudes,” Allegre wrote. He also accused proponents of manmade catastrophic global warming of being motivated by money, noting that “the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!”
Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about manmade global warming. "By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," Allegre wrote 20 years ago. In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists' Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.” See: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~sai/sciwarn.html
Allegre has authored more than 100 scientific articles, written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States.
Well, this scientist has defected, after having previously believed in the theory of AGW.
60 Scientists Debunk Global Warming Fears
Earlier this year, a group of prominent scientists came forward to question the so-called “consensus” that the Earth faces a “climate emergency.” On April 6, 2006, 60 scientists wrote a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister asserting that the science is deteriorating from underneath global warming alarmists.
“Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future…Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary,” the 60 scientists wrote. See: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605
“It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas,” the 60 scientists concluded.
There's a consensus for you. Scientists saying that other scientists are effectively no longer true scientists, in terms of having rusty steel traps for minds and for submitting to a powerful political-ideological agenda which is know for vicious defamation and even issuing death threats to any who dare to merely ask questions.
Having a BSc, MSc, PhD, etc. in some scientific discipline doesn't make one a scientist. One either is or isn't a scientist by definition, depending on whether one chooses to be one, or something else other than a scientist, notwithstanding the impressive, framed pieces of paper with the seals on them pretentiously hanging on one's walls. Wearing a white lab coat with one's after-the-name letters on it doesn't make one a scientist! Dammit, each and every profession is corrupted by "educated" people who really only care about "fitting in" and about money, money, money.
Myself, I will not accept to be told by some "panel" commissioned by the enemy-nations-controlled "United Nations" that my country must throw its economy into the garbage while enemy nations can do whatever they please! And the emissions credit trading thing is bullshit which won't do anything to reduce GHGs, but is rather a pass-the-buck, get-out-of-Kyoto cheat-pass industry as far as I can tell. I bet that once one does the math, one will agree. Really, doesn't it all sound like a snake oil scam? It sure does to me.
