Is Scientific Consensus a Threat to Democracy? 836
chance_encounter writes "President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus has published an article in the Financial Times in which he seems to equate the current global warming debate with totalitarian thought control: 'The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced ... The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.' At the end of the article he proposes several suggestions to improve the global climate debate, including this point: 'Let us resist the politicization of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus," which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority.'"
Threat to democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Threat to scientifically illiterate politicians? Maybe.
Finally, someone said it (Score:3, Insightful)
Opinion vs. fact (Score:2, Insightful)
In the end, isn't democracy little more than a means to the end of finding out what the best path to take is?
Absolutely. (Score:2, Insightful)
The threat of science to freedom is a classic theme of Feyerabend's, for example. I don't have anything to say better than what he does, so go read up. (For those of you too lazy to read actualy books, try this [marxists.org] or this [calpoly.edu].)
Note that this does not mean "science is an evil that we must eradicate"; it means "science is not the panacea that its most ardent supporters would like us to believe."
Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation for those who don't speak Czech (Score:3, Insightful)
That is:
"You need to tell me if you have any political thoughts that I can turn into an ad hominem argument rather than discuss your data or your methods because I'm not a physicist and I can't follow the math."
No! (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, sorry, I was just channeling Chris Burke's bias-pandering populism for a second there.
sickening (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:5, Insightful)
I despise how global warming discussions focus so much on whether or not someone "believes", and heralding or ridiculing people for being in the right or wrong camp, rather than simply being discussions about straightforward facts.
Ah, Scientists (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:does that mean.... (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, we have to allow scientists to determine whether global warming is a problem, without political interference.
Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there strict control in science? Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
In a democratic society you are free to state that the world is flat. The people are free to elect someone who says the world is flat. In science you've actually got to prove that the world is flat. Does that mean you're "not free" in science to assert whatever you want as reality. Sure. Personally I like those restrictions. Without them we'd be back in the middle ages.
We don't elect reality. We discover it. Discovery requires that one thing is paramount: observation, and the unbiased interpretation of that observation. So, in essence you are restricted by reality because you want you perception (your model of reality) to conform with reality as much as possible. So you lose the freedom to say that reality is anything you damn well please.
I for one welcome our reality overlords.
Negative externalities (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry if all that hurts your feelings. Science doesn't care about your feelings. No matter how much you are personally inconvenienced by the truth, it is still true. The fact is, the rancor comes from the global warming deniers, in that type's typical projection of their own motivations onto others. The global warming believers are merely responding in kind.
No one gets anything out of believing in global warming. There are no huge grants. There would be scientific fame, and real world wealth beyond counting for anyone that could prove it wrong. Almost everyone would have to change their lifestyle, yet some of us still care more about justice and not making others pay for our actions.
People like you are a threat to science & demo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true. A quick look at climate history [scotese.com] will show that the climate has been changing since the Earth had a climate to begin with, well before the SUV was invented and Bush was elected. It will also show that we are actually in a cool period and global warming will get us back to where we need to be!
Only in countries where there is a strong vested interest in maintaining the status quo has the issue been politicized.
Right, and the countries that are interested in changing the status quo are NOT politicizing the issue? I get it, since they are on YOUR side, it's not political, but those with different views are politicizing the issue.
Re:does that mean.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Translation for those who don't speak Czech (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people - including the vast majority on slashdot, who tend to be much better educated and intelligent than "the great unwashed" (myself included), don't have the specific knowledge or background to be able to properly weigh the data presented in the debate.
Knowing people's biases will make it easier for them - US - to properly weigh what they've said.
When an Oil company exec says something about global warming, you're going to take that into account when you look at any data he presents. Likewise, when the president of "People for the Full Eradication of Technology and Man" gives HIS views on the subject, you should also take THAT into account when looking at data he presents.
It's got exactly ZERO to do with ad hominem arguments, and everything to do with wanting full disclosure so that biases can be weeded out - on BOTH sides.
Sounds perfectly sensible to me.
Bottom line: Global warming is *intensely* political. And before we can make any rational decisions about what to do about it, we need to separate the politics from the science. Disclosing biases - on BOTH sides - will at least give us a CHANCE to do so.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
I believed AGW until I heard totallitarian tone (Score:4, Insightful)
I was very worried about AGW, but statements like, "neuremberg style trials for denialists" made me think something's not right. Add in character assasination, the way any "contrarian evidence" is assumed to be funded by oil companies, and debating tactics that throw the principle of falsifiability out of the window, made me distrust the whole damnded thing.
The science needs to be free to operate carefully and efficiently, regardless of whether it's finding evidence for or against AGW. The business of science is to discover the truth of the matter, regardless of whether that truth happens to agree with our beliefs and values.
I suspect that the notion of what "good science" is has changed subtly. Good science is science that finds the truth. But scientists who want to be good people, may come to believe that being a good person means creating science that "does good things", such as save the planet. If you want to save the planet because saving the planet is a good thing to do, then there may be a bias towards only studying subjects that offer an opportunity to become an important scientist who makes discoveries about dangers and remedies for the planet.
Good science is purely about the truth. What you do with that knowledge is a different affair altogether. Good science is simply being dispassionately interested in facts. It's not the scientist's job to be a good person. Just give us the facts. We, the people, will worry about the rest.
Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now, in the United States, if you publish a paper that is referenced in support of an anti-global-warming political statement (doesn't matter if your data was neutral), you have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, and might want to consider a career change. That's unacceptable encroachment of politics on science. Worse, scientists who buck this system and lose their funding eventually turn to private funding, and are branded "sell outs," and ostracized by the scientific community.
The fate that befalls those who are genuine skeptics is even worse. They're literally treated as crackpots for expressing an agnostic view toward our current level of understanding of the climate and its forcers.
Why is it that we support people who try to disprove our most well established theories in physics? Aren't they bucking consensus? If an astronomer doesn't believe black holes exist, why is he able to keep working in the field when the consensus says they do? How do they get time on Hubble when they're obviously known to be crackpots? The reason is that attempting to assail established theory is what science is about. You only cross the line into crackpottery when you merely apply faulty logic or falsified data to your skepticism and proclaim it to be proof.
The critical difference (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm speaking here as a scientist of several years experience (most of which I should state has been in the 'oh fuck I am never going to prove my hypothesis' catagory).
Scientists and politicians caan never see eye to eye. The simple reason for this, which I will explain over a couple of sentances, is that science requires evidence with is proveable by the current state of the art, in the full and contented knowledge that the state of the art can be disproved/advanced at any point. Politians do not live in the same world. Their opinions can and must change to reflect the mean (or is it modal?) view of that sector of the population which is most likely to votw for them.
This may sound as if I think they are not as good as scientists, but this is an erronious view. The role of the politician has evolved for over 2000 yeras, starting when the citizens of Athens firs decided that a singler point of faliure what a bit shit, and moving forward to the most mobile of all democracies, that of the United States. In all that time (in my opinion) the scientist has been following a different path to that of the scientist.
A scientist, with what may perhaps be superior knowledge in his domain may cry foul regarding some aspect of current policy. In response, the politician, who lacks the domain knowledge, but has superior knowledge of the political climate, and, one assumes in the general case, is subject to an external optimisation system (voting) that removes the candidates which differ by too much from the required state, either agrees or seeks to discredit the findings of the scientist.
This does, on the face of it, seem to be an insane system, but it has advantages.
Could scientists run the world? Fuck no, I know many, am one myself, and frankly I would run screaming from any mob that claimed this.
Fancy a ruler that would happily spend years persuing a single aspect of a problem? Cos I don't
The principle point is that the world can only work if the extremists, be they political, religious or scientific are not allowed to be in charge. I'm biased, I think that scientific extremism (which is more or less the default state, since specialisation is required), is not that bad, but my own logic requirs that I exclude myself from the set of people allowed to rule.
Not exactly (Score:3, Insightful)
The point the writer of the article was trying to make is that environmentalists want us to spend billions of dollars doing things which may or may not have any impact on something which may or may not exist.
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:2, Insightful)
This passage from Why Do Some People Resist Science? [edge.org], By Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg, pretty much sums it up.
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice troll fucktard. Global warming is real, it is not only man made but is specifically created by the USians. Why don't you think Shrub refuses to sign the Kyoto treaty? The fucktarded USians don't give a fuck about the rest of the world. The only sane ones are similar to Al Gore.
Real? yes
Anthropomorphic? Lets wait until this sunspot cycle dies down to find out
Re:Threat to democracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Negative externalities (Score:2, Insightful)
You mingle the Theory of Gravity with Global Climate Change Theory as if they have been equally tested, examined, probed, challenged, and refined.
"Almost everyone would have to change their lifestyle, yet some of us still care more about justice and not making others pay for our actions."
Ahh, so this is about morality? I thought science was just the facts.
I hope you realize you just advocated the manipulation of scientific research to further a political agenda.
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:1, Insightful)
They don't have any obligations under the Constitution of the USA, either - shall we stop respecting freedom of speech, because China doesn't?
America used to be about doing the right thing regardless of whether the rest of the world followed suit or not. I don't know when it was our motto shifted from "be the best" to "be better than the worst", but I can't say I like it.
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:3, Insightful)
Sunspot activity peaked several years ago.
Reference: here [space.com]
I gues by citing my source I am engaging in consensus science too.
Re:Translation for those who don't speak Czech (Score:4, Insightful)
If people are competent to understand the data, they can review the data and determine what is speaking. The objectivity of empirical facts and the repeatably of systematic testing of empirical hypotheses is rather the point of science.
Asking that scientists disclose their biases and a litany of how they affected their results isn't going to acheive that, for several reasons. First, people aren't going to claim they are biased, either because they don't believe they are biased, or if they are biased and working deliberately from that bias, because they won't want to reveal it. Second, any publication of scientific results is a claim that the scientific method was applied, i.e., that agenda did not influence the results. So that's exactly what anyone currently publishing would claim if they followed the prescription offered.
Of course, the politician making the recommendation knows this isn't going anywhere, he is just trying to sell the idea that the scientific consensus is both not real and entirely the product of bias by acting as if that is an established conclusion from the outset and railing for a correction.
I've never seen an Oil company exec present data about global warming. I've seen oil company execs make bald, conclusory statements without presenting the supporting data. There is an important difference between the two things.
Sure, if someone is presenting their views. Data != views.
Yes, arguing that someone's arguments should be evaluated based on personal affiliation is ad hominem argument, except where the argument is supported only by personal authority of the source and the challenge is to bias or credibility of that source. Where the argument is presented based on verifiable evidence, challenges of bias of the source remain ad hominem.
Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason anyone ever goes to the scientific consensus argument is because either (a) the person making the argument doesn't understand the science, or (b) the person being argued to doesn't understand the science. In the case of (a), that person typically is assuming that the scientific question is solved, and it's now time to address the complicated political questions. In the case of (b), how else do you try to convince someone incapable of (or unwilling to) understanding the science behind global warming? The strongest scientific critics you will find against global warming (Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen) argue that they're not sure if humans are the primary cause of global warming, but that they acknowledge that humans are a factor in global warming - and even these critics are a small minority of climate scientists.
There are lots of places that address the basic science behind global warming, but if you're unwilling to try to understand that basic science, then it makes more sense to accept the wisdom of the majority than the wisdom of the minority under the theory that sometimes the minority is right. (Sometimes they are, but that's the exception and not the rule.)
Heck, there's already been a shift in certain circles towards the next "stage" in avoiding responsibility for global warming. First, they denied the warming. Then, they denied that humans were responsible. Now, they've moved on to the coup de grâce: who's to say warmer won't be better?
(Oh, and this argument against scientific consensus could just as easily be made against evolution, general relativity, or even quantum mechanics. No, it's not a threat to democracy.)
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right. With gravity we've done the experiment so when you jump off that 100 story building and say "I'm ok" as you pass the tenth floor we know that you're really in trouble.
With global warming its more a case of the scientists saying "I know we've got away with it so far but we're pretty sure it's really going to hurt once we actually reach the ground and we're rapidly approaching the point where there may be absolutely nothing we can do to mitigate the effects of that crash"
Scientists are saying "you'd better open that parachute pretty darn quick" while the global warming deniers are still arguing about whether they fell or they were pushed.
Tim.
Science: Is it just another narrative? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the postmodernist claim anyway - science is just another narrative that is the result of it's context (male, western, capitalist, etc.) and it is no more valid than any other such narrative. Science is just an expression of the culture that spawned it.
Other belief systems (alternative medicine, for example) embrace this viewpoint. Science after all is based on inductive reasoning rather than rigorous proof of truth.
The concept of this article is that science must be relative to political necessity. This is in line with the view of science as just another narrative. The problem is that this has been a miserable failure whenever attempted - Lysenkoism, Creationism, etc. are sad examples of this, and it is fair to say that the correctness of a scientific theory can only be influenced by politics for a short period of time before the error is revealed.
Global warming seems to be a fact out to a ridiculous level of statistical certainty. Some effects are predictable to a high degree of certainty. The impact of human endeavors is less ceertain, BUT the potential consequences of ignoring that impact are astronomical. Any prudent person would act to avoid of those consequences.
When government leaders are resisting that action you know that these leaders are not serving their people, but rather other interests.
Conflating existence with normative values, I see (Score:1, Insightful)
The existence of AGW says nothing to whether its good, bad, or indifferent. We attach certain values to facts (e.g. human interference with the climate is bad), but there is nothing scientific about these values questions. All science can tell us is what we're doing to the planet, and what the likely effects will be. It cannot tell us if this is "bad." It cannot tell us what we should do about it. At most, science can tell us whether certain interventions will do anything, and how much those interventions will cost. Deciding how much we're willing to pay, and what effects we're willing to accept is a matter of politics and ultimately a question of values. Unfortunately, because people insist on attaching the first kinds of questions (does AGW exist? what are the effects? what are the effects if we reduce CO2 by x%? etc) to the second set of questions (do we care? how much are we willing to spend to mitigate? how much change, such as displaced populations, degraded ecosystems, etc are we willing to accept? and so on), the debate is almost completely intractable. My biggest worry is that conservative and libertarian voices are ceding the battlefield by attacking the facts (and looking rather delusional in the process) instead of attacking the automatic attachment of certain values to those facts.
Here's a newsflash (Score:3, Insightful)
There are no climate scientists who take their cue from Al Gore. Just thought you should know. Al Gore is just reporting the science (and might occasionally get it wrong), he's not the one actually doing the science. It must be convenient to have an easy target now, though.
You know it's possible to accept the science behind global warming without having to like Al Gore. My father's done that, and I'm sure you can, too.
Politics in physics vs global warming (Score:3, Insightful)
Because whether or not a cherished theory in physics gets confirmed or flames out doesn't involve trillions of dollars, the rise and fall of political dynasties and the great political question of our times. Yes physics depts have politics too, but in the end they are all physics geeks. Global warming got caught up in so much larger political movements that it is no longer possible to say ANYTHING on the subject without it being perceived in mzany quarters as more of a political argument than a scientific one. Worse, politicians, journalists, authors and pundits now have careers riding on the question, not just scientists. Doubt many Senators have anything riding on the question of black holes being disproved or validated.
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody's claiming that the scientists are correct without a doubt. Only that most scientists believe that the data shows that humans are having a significant impact on the rate of global climate change, and that we should do something about it. Granted that that's a difficult thing to accept for some people. It's not as easy to demonstrate as an apple falling from a tree. However, it seems more sensible to accept that the overwhelming acceptance of scientists of this theory should carry more weight than the political expediencies and fear of the expense of change that we get from politicians and the business world in general. After all, they are making their claims purely based on their own self-interest, and this is readily apparent, rather than on even an attempt at objective analysis of the evidence.
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:3, Insightful)
The measurements taken at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory showed CO2 levels had jumped 2.5 ppm from 2002 to 2003 to a level of 376 ppm. This increase went well past the annual increase that might have been anticipated from human energy emissions, land use change and deforestation. Normally CO2 levels increase about 1.5 ppm annually. http://www.climate.org/topics/climate/co2jump.sht
Maybe if there were a treaty to reduce GHG emissions by 50% I could feel it was a serious attempt to address the issue. But no one is going to want to make the necessary level of changes until Folrida and Calcutta are under water.
Re:Negative externalities (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, I think a lot of lay opposition to the idea of global warming comes from conservatives who can't stand the idea of hippies being right.
Re:Finally, someone said it (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you also referring to the smog of NYC when it was all horse and buggy? Perhaps you're talking about people that can't go outside on certain days in LA because the smog will trigger an asthma attack instantly?
I'm sorry, perhaps you can explain to me why 30 years ago the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks didn't have an acid rain problem? You're theory doesn't hold water as that is not the only region experiencing the long term effects of smog. The acid of upstate New York is from the Ohio Valley, do you really think the smog of LA has had no contributing effects on say Arizona here which is experiencing one of the worst droughts on record? Perhaps the drought in Florida has nothing to do with anything either? This is all just the U.S. I'm talking about. 30 years ago people were flocking to Arizona because the air was cleaner than LA and older people could breathe easier. That is no longer the case. 30 years ago Houston had no smog problem either and now it is one of the worst cities in America.
No one said we could stop global warming, no one even proposed that we try. The only thing people are advocating is that we slow it down by not contributing so much. Something quite easily in our power if we can stop debating the need for it and start debating the best way to accomplish it.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely (Score:2, Insightful)
But climate alarmists have: it's called the Mann Hockey Stick and its a scientific fraud whose sole purpose is to minimize historic natural climate change while maximizing the changes of the 20th Century.
In other words, just like in totalitarian regimes, history is being rewritten and Vaclav Klaus is wanting to ask the question as to why.
You have made statements regarding the statements of a certain group of people but I'm willing to bet you won't ever bother to produce a single quote from those dread people where they have made such statements. You simply repeat what you are told by alarmists with an extreme political agenda.
Oh and by the way, the people who were saying that warming is good? Those were the climatologists of the 1970s some of whome were claiming that we were about to go into another Ice Age. I have the quotes because I have the books.
Warming reduces the size of deserts and reduces storminess and extreme weather events. Cooling does the opposite. But you don't have to believe me - you can check those alarmist climatology books of the 1970s warning of impending mass starvation as the Earth continues to cool.
Vaclav Klaus is correct. The repeated claims of "scientific consensus" are matched only the by extreme denunciation of any scientist who dares question man-made global warming or the climate models on which it is based. Its the same totalitarianism because fundamentally it comes from the same source.
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
That is NOT to say that the underlying stuff about climate change is not there, it's just that the "hype" has gotten SO big that it's actually hurting the movement.
Climate change, Environmentalism, Animal Rights and other movements which at one point in the past had broader participation across a wider political spectrum have become essentially vehicles for people with far left leanings.
I agree with supporting those ideas above including the issue of addressing IF POSSIBLE climate change. I often DO NOT agree with the politics of those groups above.
It's not surprising that there are those in the former communist countries who now lean in a much more libertarian "let me make my own individual choice" as the author of the article seems to be. They saw what a far left dictatorial regime was like (and often if they were old enough saw the far right when the NAZI's were in control).
Science and hype (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sickening (Score:3, Insightful)
Again with Gore? (Score:1, Insightful)
Ah, but (Score:2, Insightful)
So I can make some bias statement, but when someone else looks at the data, i will be called on my bias.
The scientific community has know for 100s of years a person will have a bias, and that can intentionally or unintentionally influence there conclusions.
Hence peer review.
After peer review, the paper is published and anybody can point out flaws in the data or conclusions.
For your scenario to be true, every scientist within' a given specialty would have to be in some grand conspiracy.
The scientific method works very well.
Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:3, Insightful)
Two hands (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand, you have scientists paid to do research by the government and other public organizations, with no instructions on what they can and cannot publish. These scientists are not paid more if they find that global warming is anthropogenic than if they find that it's not. If you think otherwise, you're drinking the Crichton kool-aid, and are subscribing to the biggest conspiracy theory of them all.
On the other hand, you have scientists paid to do research (sometimes out of their field) by fossil-fuel companies who are not allowed to publish their data without first passing it through those doing the funding. Interestingly enough, these scientists don't find evidence that global warming is non-anthropogenic. No, they only seem to be able to show that it's not necessarily primarily anthropogenic. Two key terms there: "not necessarily" and "primarily". That is, they know that humans contribute to global warming, there's no way to interpret the science otherwise, even when being funded by fossil fuel companies. They also know that it's possible that humans are the primary contributors to global warming. However, if they do their research just right they find that there's not enough evidence to say that humans are definitely primary responsible. Of course, it's not to hard to find a lack of evidence.
Re:Watermelons (Score:4, Insightful)
Appeals to "human nature" fail when closely analyzed. We are all capable of acts of remarkable sacrifice and remarkable selfishness, and through various semantic games, we can interpret each through the lens of the other.
Also, describing a call for a worldwide regulatory system in response to climate change as "communism" is incorrect. "Capitalism" in modernity has, and has always had, an extensive governmental system to support it: to control borders (which keeps markets, especially labor markets, in place), to protect property, to print currency and enforce monetary and trade policy, and so forth. It is not as if there is currently a "Wild West"-like free market that policies against climate change is going to shut down: intelligent and responsive regulation is firmly established as a requirement for successful capitalism. (Just think what would happen if we didn't regulate, for example, the printing of currency.)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hrm, similarity? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a religious crusader to me. It's the exact same thing: "the majority must be right, nevermind that the experts who have spent years studying the subject specifically say the majority is wrong!"
Stop Reading (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Rent solar power and fix your electric rate for up to 25 years: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Threat to democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Threat to democracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, dimwit, the object of money isn't that I can wear it or take shelter under it. Money is a voucher I can exchange for things I can wear or take shelter under. It beats having lug around things I've produced to trade directly for things other people have produced.
Burn your money, invest your money, makes no fucking difference. Money doesn't do anything except keep count of these predatory arrangements that give men power over each other.
What it keeps track of is how many things I've produced that other people find valuable. That's why other people give me money. Because I've given them something they value.
You cordoned off resources that were floating around out there and put them in your pocket. My house. My factory. My land. My good idea.
Sure thing - there have been iPods and HD-TV's and factories and houses floating around since the Pleistocene Era. And I've done gone and cordoned them off! Good deal, that!
They're only yours to administer because of the cops and guns.
In other words, they're mine because a civilized society will recognize and defend property rights.
Re:Thank you for the source (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the best strategy is not trying to stabilize the unstabilizable, but on adaptation and lifting people out of poverty that makes them less susceptible to climate change one way or the other. But climate change will happen because we live on a dynamic world.
Re:Threat to democracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
A consensus of smart people who actually have a clue is still not a democracy. A consensus of all people is a democracy.
Historically, the people at the "low" end of the spectrum have never been fairly represented. Slaves have always been denied the right to vote. And slave-owners have kept the slaves deliberately ignorant to prevent them from both voting and learning that a democracy should include everyone. Jim Crow laws were another recent attempt to deny democracy to the illiterate. It's much easier to repress the ignorant.
But the ignorant have their rights, too. It's up to the scientific community to convince them of the truth, and to disabuse them of the bullshit that "there are two sides to every story." Scientifically sound theories are not "stories."
It's completely immoral and irresponsible for a politician to take the side opposing science (and the truth) simply for the political gain of the "ignorant vote." Unfortunately, it's not illegal.
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
Most here are missing the point (Score:2, Insightful)
The majority of posters here have missed the point made by President Klaus of the Czech Republic. Even the title of the initial post is misleading, basically pitting the term "Scientific Consensus" against democracy. But this was only one point brought up by Klaus and was really just rephrasing the old line "the squeaky wheel gets the grease".
What is startling is how defensive anthropogenic global warming believers (many of whom apparently frequent slashdot) get when anything is said or written which might provide logical evidence contrary to their belief system. It truly does have the look and feel of religion when you begin to rely more on faith than facts, and actually attempt to stifle free speech and debate on the subject. How many times have you heard something like "the debate is over, let's do something about it"? Who has the right to say that the debate is over? Does the UN IPCC have this right? And if so, who gave the UN the right?
This talk and behavior leads to a totalitarian mindset which does threaten freedom and democracy. And that was the main point of Klaus' article.
Re:I believed AGW until I heard totallitarian tone (Score:3, Insightful)
And I assume you've been able to experimentally reproduce the affects of greenhouse gases on climate change? When and on what planet did these experiments occur? Admit it, you cannot perform these kinds of experiments and have to rely on hypothesis, intuition and faith in potentially flawed computer model projections.
You failed to bring up the other side (Score:3, Insightful)
Weeding out bias (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:does that mean.... (Score:3, Insightful)
All evidence?? No other theories?? Really...
I have recently read a report that the energy output of the sun has risen recently and is the highest it has ever been. The source of that report is at least as credible to me as any that have put forth arguments for global warming. I have also ferreted out as many facts, numbers and theories denying global warming as I have seen thrust upon me by the media as are in favor of. Should I now just ignore the possibility that any delta in Earth's temperature is quite possibly the Sun's faults and not mankind's (If such a delta exists)? Yes, I guess that would be convenient for you. Maybe all the evidence *that you are aware of* points to a single conclusion. I on the other hand, like the original poster implies, would like to keep an open-mind about it and resist exactly the sort of political dominance of a unproven theory that you have succumb to.
This is certainly not a scientifically proven theory yet. The results are varied, the cause is not yet known, it cannot be repeated in the lab and predictive models do not appear accurate enough to base decisions about action on. But it sounds great: "Feed the babies", "Save the whales", "Protect the planet" that it has become the mantra of many politicians and political organizations because it is so easy to apply it like a club. What you don't want to feed babies? you MUST be evil and therefore I'm good and right. And their followers grow because nobody wants to be singled out.
What I hate the most about it is the extremism that cultures are taking on this. They are acting and spending vast resources without any proof that it will achieve the desired results. We've got a whole bag of known problems that could achieve a greater benefit at a far cheaper cost. But they're actual science or work so they're boring. Cure diabetes... (we're actually quite close, but because we have an effective treatment nobody listens or cares and so my friend gets to wear a mechanical insuline pump for the rest of his life). Why not address the civil rights atrocities occurring in many places? How about just literacy... 14% of US Americans aren't literate. Think about that, that's 1 out of every 7 people. Alzheimer's disease? Corporate corruption? How about fixing the medicare or social security system?
See all of that is hard, and boring. Impossible to rally people together to support you. But politicians can use "Global Warming" like an idiot beacon so that you'll ignore the other failures and actually believe that good things are being accomplished; when in fact we're just wasting resources.
Re:Science and hype (Score:3, Insightful)
Yours are the ravings of a fanatic. The idea is to let the world determine your beliefs, not the other way around.
Re:There is more than one way to destroy Tuvalu (Score:4, Insightful)
b) Tuvalu's problems are entirely caused not by rising sea-levels (because there isn't any) but by overpopulation and overextraction of water making the wells become brackish.
"The historical record from 1978 through 1999 indicated a sea level rise of 0.07 mm per year." and
"The historical record (from Tuvalu) shows no visual evidence of any acceleration in sea level trends."
So the sea-level rise is just barely measureable and shows no acceleration due to global warming, man-made or otherwise.
More importantly those historical stats sidestep the fact that the sea level rise that people worry about comes from land based ice caps (like the one on Greenland) sliding into the ocean. Something that hasn't really happened yet so there wouldn't be any reason for the sea levels to have already risen.
Your argument there is a bit like standing on the deck of the Titanic just before it hit the iceburg and arguing that everyone is safe as the hull is still completely intact.
Re:Ah, but (Score:2, Insightful)
Getting rid of bias is not that simple.
Re:Threat to democracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps he is scientifically illiterate. But he's not illiterate in the language used by totalitarians. It seems that no one here is actually commenting on who Vaclav Klaus [wikipedia.org] is.
Klaus was chairman of Civic Forum, the Czech anti-totalitarian movement that was one of two leading groups during the 1989 Velvet Revolution against the Soviet Union's dominance over Czechoslovakia. He's a free market politician (predictably after decades of ruinous Soviet economic predominance) and quite naturally suspicious of totalitarian influence.
If Klaus sees a parallel between the way global warming alarmists and the Soviet totalitarians use language to browbeat their opponents, he at least merits a hearing-out rather than an out-of-hand dismissal.
Re:He's wrong from the second he says... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Most here are missing the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't sound like Vaclav Klaus is a scientist. (Score:3, Insightful)
I was tempted to copy/paste the whole of Fenyman's Cargo Cult Science essay, but I'll stick to the most relevant pieces:
-Bill
My mind is a PC-free zone. (Score:2, Insightful)
Political correctness is evil. It is the enemy of good, the enemy of truth, the enemy of intellecutal freedom and therefore the enemy of political freedom. That which is politically free can not be politically correct. Those who espose and promote it are the servants of evil and should be treated accordingly.
My mind is a PC-free zone.
I refuse to accept lies.
My conscience is a PC-free zone.
I refuse to live with lies.
My sphere of influence is a PC-free zone.
I refuse to permit lies in my presence.
My life is a PC-free zone.
I keep the light of intellectual honesty burning.
I hold off the darkness of ignorance and deceit.
Our world is a better place because I do this.
Can you say the same?
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
erm.... Climate Change isn't supposed to simply cause much higher temperatures. It's supposed to upset the climate balance and result in an overall higher temperature. But that doesn't mean you can no longer have below average winters/years.
Western Europe, for example, could very well be on course for a long term significant drop in temperatures, if the climate change upsets the North Atlantic Drift.
Further: Climate change didn't begin with Kyoto. Kyoto was a response (by politicians, so you know it was quite a while after the problem manifested itself). It hasn't been 2,4 or 5 years. It has been decades.
Finally: what always confuses me about these discussions is that the CO2 level is hardly mentioned. The CO2 part of our atmosphere is undeniably far higher than it has been in millions of years. Given its properties, that must have an impact on our climate. Even if you really believe that impact hasn't shown up, it seems to me that this would be a good enough reason to cut down on CO2.
Is Global Warming a Sin? (Score:1, Insightful)
Is Global Warming a Sin?
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
In a couple of hundred years, historians will be comparing the frenzies over our supposed human contribution to global warming to the tumults at the latter end of the tenth century as the Christian millennium approached. Then, as now, the doomsters identified human sinfulness as the propulsive factor in the planet's rapid downward slide.
Then as now, a buoyant market throve on fear. The Roman Catholic Church was a bank whose capital was secured by the infinite mercy of Christ, Mary and the Saints, and so the Pope could sell indulgences, like checks. The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and could go on sinning. Today a world market in "carbon credits" is in formation. Those whose "carbon footprint" is small can sell their surplus carbon credits to others, less virtuous than themselves.
The modern trade is as fantastical as the medieval one. There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend. The greenhouse fearmongers rely entirely on unverified, crudely oversimplified computer models to finger mankind's sinful contribution. Devoid of any sustaining scientific basis, carbon trafficking is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism and greed, just like the old indulgences, though at least the latter produced beautiful monuments. By the sixteenth century, long after the world had sailed safely through the end of the first millennium, Pope Leo X financed the reconstruction of St. Peter's Basilica by offering a "plenary" indulgence, guaranteed to release a soul from purgatory.
Now imagine two lines on a piece of graph paper. The first rises to a crest, then slopes sharply down, then levels off and rises slowly once more. The other has no undulations. It rises in a smooth, slowly increasing arc. The first, wavy line is the worldwide CO2 tonnage produced by humans burning coal, oil and natural gas. On this graph it starts in 1928, at 1.1 gigatons (i.e. 1.1 billion metric tons). It peaks in 1929 at 1.17 gigatons. The world, led by its mightiest power, the USA, plummets into the Great Depression, and by 1932 human CO2 production has fallen to 0.88 gigatons a year, a 30 per cent drop. Hard times drove a tougher bargain than all the counsels of Al Gore or the jeremiads of the IPCC (Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change). Then, in 1933 it began to climb slowly again, up to 0.9 gigatons.
And the other line, the one ascending so evenly? That's the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, parts per million (ppm) by volume, moving in 1928 from just under 306, hitting 306 in 1929, to 307 in 1932 and on up. Boom and bust, the line heads up steadily. These days it's at 380.There are, to be sure, seasonal variations in CO2, as measured since 1958 by the instruments on Mauna Loa, Hawai'i. (Pre-1958 measurements are of air bubbles trapped in glacial ice.) Summer and winter vary steadily by about 5 ppm, reflecting photosynthesis cycles. The two lines on that graph proclaim that a whopping 30 per cent cut in man-made CO2 emissions didn't even cause a 1 ppm drop in the atmosphere's CO2. Thus it is impossible to assert that the increase in atmospheric CO2 stems from human burning of fossil fuels.
I met Dr. Martin Hertzberg, the man who drew that graph and those conclusions, on a Nation cruise back in 2001. He remarked that while he shared many of the Nation's editorial positions, he approved of my reservations on the issue of supposed human contributions to global warming, as outlined in columns I wrote at that time. Hertzberg was a meteorologist for three years in the U.S. Navy, an occupation which gave him a lifelong mistrust of climate modeling. Trained in chemistry and physics, a combustion research scientist for most of his career, he's retired now in Copper Mountain, Colorado, still consulting from time to time.
Not so long ago, Hertzberg sent me some of his recent papers on
It's Not Science, It's Politics (Score:2, Insightful)
When active ridicule and suppression are used as the tools of 'concensus' you don't have real science. that is a good summary of global warming today. And that is the Authors problem with the Global Warming movement. It isn't science, it is a political power grab. A propoganda machine that has produced lots of really scary predictions, none of which have proven true. Like any propoganda machine, the failure of these predictions means only that more and scarier predictions are made. Never any admission of error.
The Author is not a scientist, he is a politician with a lot of experience dealing with totalitarian dictatorships and wanna be's. This is an area on which he is a real expert. He is talking here about the politics, not the Science. The things he says make sense. That means that he will be reviled by the liberal college kids who usually post on Slashdot.
Does anyone here remember the Dutch statistician who analysed the data selection for global warming 5 or 6 years ago, intending to prove that it was rigorous and accurate, and ended up proving it was mostly hoax. He published a book around 700 pages detailing what he found, and how he got the results he did. The climate groups loved to hate him for about 2 years, then ignored it. He was actually a global warming believer. All he really wanted to do was get them to fix the data problem. They never did. Their problem was he documented everything and used the same algorithms used to identify hoaxes in other areas of Science.
The poster above who said that in 25 years this whole Global Warming thing will be pointed to as THE classic example of 'junk science' may be right. It beats out pyrimid power, crystal power, magnetic medicine, maybe even UFO's ESP and Creation Science.
Lots of emotion, evidence that requires a lot of adjustment to get favorable results, pushed by
'scientists' whose jobs and incomes depend on reaching the predetermined conclusion, sharply devisive, never a real prediction that can be tested, no wonder Al Gore loves it.
Scientific totalitarians ... (Score:3, Insightful)
When an business dumps toxic chemicals into a river, where people get their water supply, but also work at this same business, and are making lots of money, no one cares until someone gets awfully sick or dies. They just don't see the problem until it personally effects them. By that point it's too late, the damage has been done, the community is poisoned, cancer rates increase, etc etc
Do we really want to let the same thing happen to the whole planet? People need to take a fucking chance that the people who specialize in this field are correct, and let them do their job, instead of wanting to nail them to a fucking cross. These scientists have been sticking their necks out for a long time trying to get their point across. Maybe these scientists should be looking into the weapons industry for future employment, people with guns and bombs are not ignored. Then the totalitarian labels would be fair at least.
I love how Michael Crichton holds all sorts of credibility, just cause he wrote a FICTIONAL novel that challenges global warming. If he wanted to be held as a bastion of truth and justice, he would have wrote a book about global warming. Too bad most people don't have the patience to learn years of climatology and physics, just so they can understand a book. They might as well just flip to the last chapter, and read the conclusion - because they'll be all proud anyway they read a book that told them what to think. The same goes for Al Gore's movie.