In case the Eco-Flappers missed it.

[Jim Roper]

We are all inclined to believe what we want to believe, but are we only being told what someone is paid to tell us?

 

>> > Thanks Tom,

>> >

>> >

>> > Yeah, basically this is just a heads up to people that something

>> might be

>> > up here. What a shame that would be. It's one thing to lose "Climate

>> > Research". We can't afford to lose GRL. I think it would be

>> > useful if people begin to record their experiences w/ both Saiers and

>> > potentially Mackwell (I don't know him--he would seem to be

>> complicit w/

>> > what is going on here).

>> >

>> >

>> > If there is a clear body of evidence that something is amiss, it

>> could be

>> > taken through the proper channels. I don't that the entire AGU

>> hierarchy

>> > has yet been compromised!

[Steve Walker]

Just to clarify, "Climate Research" and "GRL" referred to above are learned journals - they are basically talking about trying to blackmail journals into not publishing research they don't agree with by getting the rest of their colleagues not to publish any of their research in them.

[Sportsman]

We are all inclined to believe what we want to believe, but are we only being told what someone is paid to tell us?

 

>> > Thanks Tom,

>> >

>> >

>> > Yeah, basically this is just a heads up to people that something

>> might be

>> > up here. What a shame that would be. It's one thing to lose "Climate

>> > Research". We can't afford to lose GRL. I think it would be

>> > useful if people begin to record their experiences w/ both Saiers and

>> > potentially Mackwell (I don't know him--he would seem to be

>> complicit w/

>> > what is going on here).

>> >

>> >

>> > If there is a clear body of evidence that something is amiss, it

>> could be

>> > taken through the proper channels. I don't that the entire AGU

>> hierarchy

>> > has yet been compromised!

 

From what I gather both "Climate Research" and "GRL" are journals where the scientists publish papers and it seems that there are differences of opinion between these scientists and editorial staff on the journals. They seem to think that the journals staff has been infiltrated by climate change deniers and that there is a danger that they will not get papers published or will not receive fair reviews.

Never having been an academic or published papers in scientific journals I don't really feel qualified to comment.

I do not, however, see these emails as proof of a worldwide sinister plot by thousands of respected academics and scientists to hide the truth and invent something like climate change for their own evil ends.

I also don't believe that all of these scientists are merely confused and don't really know anything about climate or how the world works.

As said previously, I don't have enough understanding to form an accurate opinion but when something looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck then it is probably a duck

 

Edit

Steve, we must have been typing at the same time.

Interesting how two people can use the same data to come to completely different conclusions.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Sportsman

[Steve Walker]

You wouldn't really get the sense of what's going on there just from that extract - I've read a lot more of the emails, and the apparent attempts to subvert the peer review process and block the publication of dissenting views is the thing that has most offended me about the whole debacle. Honestly, perverting the process of scientific inquiry, even for the noblest of motives (and I am willing to give at least some of them the benefit of the doubt on that) is something I find unspeakably disgusting. I think the risk this poses to public confidence in the credibility of the scientific establishment is almost as big a story as the concerns it creates about the standard of climate change research.

[ColinW]

I think what a lot of people don't understand is what drives research these days. It's not driven by scientific curiosity or a desire to find the truth. It is driven by money. As someone who has done research in the past I can tell you that you research what people are prepared to pay you to research. If you happen to do any proper science while doing your "research" then that's a bonus; the main thing you are concerned with is not upsetting the people who hold the purse strings.

If something is as obviously political as global warming, you'd have to be a fool (or someone supported by vested interests like the oil industry) to place yourself on the "wrong" side of the fence. That means that, inevitably, those researchers supporting their government paymasters' position will vastly outnumber the opposition.

The fact is that no-one is truly doing independent research. There is no such thing in 2009.

[Jim Roper]

I don't think anybody would deny that our climate is different to how we think it used to be, I think we had our first frost a few days ago.

The issue is whether or not these changes are anything out of the ordinary if we look back thousands of years.

http://www.fcpp.org/pdf/FB050ClimateChange...eRecentPast.pdf

http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/ice/lec19/lec19.htm

AND whether or not the people who have the politicians' ears have only been telling what their paymasters want to hear, ie that human activity is responsible for these differences.

 

I've only read a few of the emails, but the inferrence is that some of the people doing the research were not convinced of what the eco-flappers wanted to be told.

 

Apparently one researcher has threatened to destroy his data rather than have to make it public under the data discosure laws.

[Jim Roper]

Just like the opinion polls that find in favour of the people that paid for them.

[Steve Walker]

The fact is that no-one is truly doing independent research. There is no such thing in 2009.

 

I don't have a problem with that, though, so long as they don't fiddle the results or try to stop contrary work being published. Funding the research lets you choose what questions are asked, it's only when it appears to let you choose the answers that something is rotten!

[ColinW]

My own thoughts on "global warming" are that it isn't something to worry about. Over 70% of the earth is covered in water. When you warm water it evaporates, so if the planet warms it will get more cloudy. You don't need to be a climatologist to know that when it is cloudy the ground (or the sea) gets colder. That would seem to me to suggest that there is a negative feedback effect. Negative feedback is associated with stability. All we can possibly do by spending a fortune is tinker with the damping coefficient of this feedback system, for no good reason. Who is to say that having a stable global average temperature (in other words achieving critical damping of the system) is better than having a temperature that oscillates a few degrees every hundred years?

I chose to live on a hill, so why should I pay through the nose to support people who choose to live at (or even below) sea level, or in a river's flood plain?

Will all these Bangladeshis be helping me when it goes cold again and I can't get out of my house because of the snow? Somehow I doubt it!

This Copenhagen meeting is just yet another excuse for the other nations of the world to hold out their begging bowls and for our idiot politicians to hand over my money. I read, with incredulity, that even the Arabs are after money off us, to compensate them for people burning less oil. That is beyond belief!!

[billy50000]

does anyone know wether it was warm around the time of the london smog?

 

just curious really as enviromentals (heat/mist/condensation/coal smoke)could have played a bigger part in the smog than coal it self!

 

just really trying to figure out which element is heavier

 

mist/condensation=heat rising=trapping smoke thats also rising and then wether mist(water molecules)then fall slowly back down once trapping smoke etc etc

 

could mist trap smoke?and if it does and anyone wondering around london would smell smoke more than feel/see mist then just assume its just smoke..

 

dont know really but worth a wonder or just me being too technical:)

 

as for climate change!

i dont think its as bad as we are led to believe and its seen as a good pocket liner while the goverment know its not at a critical stage yet!

 

and may not be for afew thousand years and even then an ice age while realign the system again and if not then its sun cream all round!

 

i recycle and i do it because i dont like to waste crap!NOT because of climate change and NOT because of the goverment or some gray haired overpayed tree hugger says so!

 

shame most of the world doesnt bother to do the small things that make their country better and resources!

not to mention the enviroment(which recycling doesnt affect)due to us burning crap and ripping more trees up(natural filters)

reusing the odd toilet tube isnt going to reverse climate change but its a good start in learning to reuse what we should be...