12,000 Climate Activists Can't Be Wrong

Barry, you do a very good job of pointing out one of the saddest truths about the "350 Or Bust" campaign, the fact that America's scientific-academic community has no credibility because our universities have failed to do their job for far too long. Recent events such as a war due to lies of mass destruction, economic meltdowns because of destructive avarice, continuous republican and democratic congressional failures to serve We The People who elected them, threats to the U.S. Constitution by the White House, overthrowing of Rule of Law by our courts, never-ending religious battles between different religions because of hate, betrayals of our military heroes by Washington politicians and bureaucrats all prove that America’s education system has been destroyed by the very institutions that were supposed protect it. So the consequences and threats to safety, health and wealth of citizens like those of us in California who are at continuously increasing risk from firestorm deaths and property destruction because our politicians serve special interests instead of protecting their own constituents, reductions in clean water due to political corruption and environmental pollution, domination of our University scholars by Federal employment and the power of money, failures to support our police, fire and health systems, and crop failures are out of control. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise exponentially while we argue with each other ad nauseam. No wonder Washington is the greatest threat to American Democracy today.

Barry wrote: "I challenge you to point out one lie, i.e., one untruth I personally made. I did list data from others and made the statement that basically both sides of the global warming issue can match PhDs tit for tat." Your statement that "both sides of the global warming issue can match PhDs tit for tat" is a blatant falsehood, which simply restates your original falsehood. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not a deliberate liar, but merely misinformed and mislead by the lies of others. What you call "data from others" is deliberate disinformation promulgated by deceitful propagandists funded by the fossil fuel corporations. You would certainly not be the first person they have deceived. The consensus of the overwhelming majority of the world's scientists -- including the hundreds of climate scientists who participate in the Nobel Prize winning IPCC, including every relevant scientific organization in the world, including the national scientific academies of every nation in the world, including the National Academy of Science of the USA -- is that anthropogenic global warming and consequent climate change is real, and that it is a grave danger. On the other "side" is a tiny group of ill-informed cranks and fossil fuel industry-funded liars. The so-called "report describing over 650 scientists" who reject the overwhelming scientific consensus is a fraud, compiled by the office of Senator James Inhofe, who is himself a bought-and-paid-for tool of the fossil fuel corporations and a blatant liar. There are few if any actual climate scientists on that list. Indeed, some actual climate scientists who were listed were horrified to find their names on the list, since they DO in fact support the consensus; they complained to Inhofe, and demanded to be removed from the list, but Inhofe refused to remove their names. What is clear from your comments is that you don't know the first thing about climate science, that you base your ill-informed opinions on whether or not people are "passionate sounding", and that you are completely unable to distinguish actual science from bogus propaganda like Inhofe's dishonest, phony "list". That's all on the assumption, of course, that you are ignorant because you have been mislead and misinformed, rather than being a deliberate liar yourself. For a more reality-based discussion of the actual scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming, since you seem to like Wikipedia, I will refer you to the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change If you want to get a basic grounding in the actual science of anthropogenic global warming, I will refer you to Spencer Weart's excellent online book, "Discovery of Global Warming", on the American Institute of Physics website: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html And Wikipedia has a good introductory article as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming If you want to continue to remain ignorant, then you are certainly free to ignore reality and get your disinformation from the fake, phony, fraudulent, propagandistic sources that you have cited.

Inhofe's list is -- let's say, not serious: http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/12/how_many_inhofes_list_compared.php http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/inhofe-global-war... http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2008/12/15/i... From the last one: "In January, Inhofe posted his initial list of more than 400 "prominent scientists" who, he claimed, disputed that man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for rising global temperatures. Trouble is, when people started sifting through the names, they found that many experts on the list were actually weathermen, economists, and people with no real background in climate science. Worse still, when Andrew Dessler started contacting some of the actual climate scientists listed, many of them expressed first shock, then horror, and then e-mailed Inhofe's staff and demanded to be taken off, since they didn't disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change at all." George Monbiot makes excellent points here as well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/27/climate-... "I use the term deniers not because I am seeking to make a link with the Holocaust, but because I can't think what else to call them. They describe themselves as sceptics, but this is plainly wrong, as they will believe any old rubbish that suits their cause. They will argue, for example, that a single weather event in one part of the world is evidence of global cooling; that the earth is warming up because of cosmic rays and that the Antarctic is melting as a result of volcanoes under the ice. No explanation is too bonkers for them, as long as it delivers the goods." "There is another class of people, whose materials these independent deniers often use: those who are paid by corporations to defend definite conclusions. I have documented this trade extensively (see also my book Heat). But many of these people still masquerade as free thinkers. Earlier this month, for example, the Guardian's Comment is Free site published an article by Patrick Michaels. The Guardian described him as "a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Climate of Extremes". What it didn't say is that he has been paid extremely well in the recent past to promote the views he expressed here by interests which, as far as I can discover, he has never voluntarily disclosed." There's more there. Personally, I think any intelligent, even-minded person who looks at the data and the participants in the debate ends up believing the vast bulk of the evidence we have at hand supports AGW.