Fox boss ordered staff to cast doubt on climate science

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Oh but we can do that Orwell! Just look at Venus. It is a perfect example of what happens if CO2 levels are increased. The planet is about the same size as Earth. 96% of the atmosphere is composed of CO2 and its atmosphere is 90 times denser than Earth's. Its temperature is 470°C (about 800°F) the hottest planet in the solar system. And the planet only absorbs 2% of the sunlight that reaches it because of the tick clouds the rest is reflected to space. This cause Venus to receive only one-sixth of the sunlight Earth receives. Even being closer to the Sun than Earth Venus receives less sunlight than Earth and still has higher temperatures! Early astronomers thought that because of the tick cloud layer temperatures in Venus would be lower than Earth's. And still look at the temperature! So the greenhouse gas theory was proposed by Carl Sagan in the 60s to explain Venus unexpectedly high temperatures.

On Venus CO2 concentration is just as likely to be the effect, as the cause. The water vapor and oxygen were evaporated by the heat of the sun leaving the heavier gases. Hence the very high atmospheric pressures on Venus.

The cause effect sequence for Venus has not been resolved since we have no data on earlier periods in the history of Venus. All we have is the latest end state.

ruveyn

Ruveyn: check your quote tags.

water vapor hasn't increased like CO2 has. The fact that other things can cause warming, and have in the past, does not preclude the idea that anthropogenic CO2 is causing the current warming.

Face it, ruveyn: you just don't want the cause to be anthropogenic CO2, so you're grasping at gaps and straws like a creationist trying to prop up their god.

What I want is the truth, not the conclusions flowing from politically motivated quasi science. One of these days we may have real climate science, in the sense that the Standard Model of Particles and Fields is real physical science backed up by controlled experiments, not statistical models which are underdetermined by the data.

We have Hockey Sticks, not Climate Science.

I have yet to see convincing evidence that natural drivers are not the main causes of the current warming trend. Statistical models for which there is not controlled experimental corroberation leave me quite underwhelmed.

And kindly DO NOT tell me what I want. Only I know what I want and YOU do not possess mental telepathy.

ruveyn

@ Orwell, marshall, LKL, etc.

You have yet to prove that Fox News took anything out of context. A statement by the people whose reputations stand to be tarnished putting it mildly if the data was in fact doctored have a substancial motive to lie.

Let me break this down so you can understand, all the charts, graphs, etc. that you have posted have had their credibility thrown into doubt. You can post them a thousand times and they may be telling the truth or they may not. Point is you can't say for certainty without being a telepath, being all-knowing, being the people the doctored the data, etc. You quite honestly don't know, because the scientists handled the data and the data was doctored, parts deleted, etc., everything about the global warming hysteria is thrown into question. All because, some scientists sacrificed integrity for expediency. If you want to blame anyone for the fiasco, place blame on the scientists who pulled the stunt of tampering with the data, not the people that reported on it.

Inuyasha, show me a single scrap of evidence that the data has actually been doctored.

The data was not altered. The istrumental temperature record of the Climate Research Unit (CRUTEM) from 4,138 stations is similar to those produced by independent groups as NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Also anyone can download the data dirrectly from the stations without going through CRU.

Here is a graph comparing the instrumental temperature records from Climate Research Unit (CRU) where the supposed "climategate" occured, and independent sources, NASA (GISS) and (NDC) from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.


Taken from Skeptical Science ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface ... vanced.htm )


Ops, they look quite the same don't they? Where exactly was the data altered?

Text based on Skeptical Science ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/CRU-tam ... e-data.htm )


The data comes from:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.html#mean

He can't and won't. At this point all he's doing is repeating what he already said on earlier pages. Unless he brings something new to this debate I'm going to just ignore him.

It makes sense that more CO2 could effectively make our planet a more efficient absorber of solar radiation, but don't higher temperatures also cause higher energy usage and CO2 output? I don't think anyone could deny the fact that there is a correlation between the two, but what evidence is there to show that higher CO2 levels cause higher temperatures?

Not trying to debate anything here, just genuinely curious.

Actually, I can give a perfectly logical explanation for the carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere that has nothing to do with humans. A lot of carbon dioxide is actually trapped in the polar ice caps just like it can dissolve in water. You see one of the unique traits of gasses when disolved in a liquid is the colder the liquid, the more gas can be dissolved into it. If you don't believe my, how about you take a look at the fizz when you open a soda can sometime, that is carbon dioxide.

Additionally, I don't have to ferret out things from every single e-mail, some news sites including Drudge Report (which is considered a credible news source despite liberals claims)and Fox News as well as others have made the claim that the data was tampered with. You have to prove they don't know what they are talking about. The burden of proof is on you, not me.

Thing is, I have reason to believe none of you, including the "meterologist," have anything to support your case other than the propaganda circles and a bunch of charts and graphs whose credibility (because the inputs for the graphs could be including the corrupted data) are in question to confuse the issue. In short, I think you have no case and are trying to get me to waste time sorting through thousands of e-mails.

You haven't shown Fox News doing anything but making a judgement call, which in my view was the ethical call and the responsible decision. I don't particularly care that it drives you nuts that they don't worship at the Global Warming hysteria altar.

Now you're just grasping at straws. If your car stopped running and I pointed out that your gas gauge was on empty, you'd say that running out of gas had nothing to do with it. Then you'll demand that I provide proof that nobody tampered with the gas gauge when you weren't looking. You live in a delusional la la land where you think all the people who have devoted their lives to studying a subject, every last one of them, are part of a vast left-wing conspiracy.

Do you completely dismiss the notion that climate scientists might actually be, uh... curious and might actually want to know what the f**k is happening with this planet? You think we're all mindless drones pushing a political agenda and taking orders from Al Gore and George Soros? You know what I think? I think you denialists are projecting. Right wing denialists assume that anyone that holds beliefs contrary to their own must be as intellectually incurious and as much of a partison hack as they are. We're all drinking the Al Gore koolaid because you're all drinking the Glenn Beck and Fox News koolaid. It's all just a matter of who's koolaid you choose, right? Everyone has a political agenda and nobody is interested in knowing what's actually going on, right?

If two hypotheses explain the same set of facts and they are logically and factually at odds, then at least one of the hypotheses has to be falsified by empirical means -- the so called critical experiment or observation. That is not grasping at straws, that is logic and science at work. Hypothesis elimination is at the core of science. That is how the ether hypothesis was eliminated. That is how the hypothesis that heat is a substance (caloric) was eliminated by Count Rumford Etc. Etc.. Etc.

There are natural drivers that account for the current warming era. To make the effects of human activity the main driver, the natural drivers must be eliminated on the basis of facts or the natural. drivers must be shown to be of lesser effect than human activity. If it turns out that human activity is not the main factor in warming and that immediate lowering of the CO2 ambient will not have the desired effects of cooling of the planet (without starting another ice age of course) then the policies advocated by anthropogenic global warning claque could have disastrous economic consequences.
We are being asked to freeze in the dark and become poor (except for the ruling elite who will always be warm). Before we do this thing we had better make sure it is worth the doing.

In the mean time we would be doing ourselves a service here North America by reducing the combustion of hydro-carbons to heat our homes and factories and to run our machines. My proposal is to build 2000 fast breeder reactors from coast to coast in the next ten years and generate all of our electricity by nuclear fission. The French do it. If the Poodles and Frogs can do it, so can we.

ruveyn

The French are having major problems with their reactors and the problems are far understated. See http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/ ... power-push

No private insurance company will ensure a US reactor and most of those running have severe dangers and breakdowns. All recent constructions have mammoth cost over runs among other very dangerous problems.

So the government will indemnify the industry. Private insurance did not insure the lives of soldiers who fought in legal wars. so the government did.

ruveyn

The problem is Inuyasa's hypothesis that polar ice and/or oceans are a larger source of atmospheric CO2 increase than combustion of fossil fuels is just another one of his famous red herrings. This was true in the past but it isn't true today. Scientific studies show that the oceans are actually acting as a carbon sink at present, partially mitigating the global influx if anthropogenic CO2 into the atmosphere by as much as 20%.

But good luck to me trying to convincing Inuyasha of this. If I post sources his answer to my refutation will be yet another baseless accusation that the scientific data I cite are forgeries. Why should I even bother? Inuyasha isn't interested in knowing whether his hypothesis is correct or not. If he was interested in understanding anything he wouldn't just yell "You Lie!! !!" and change the subject with a red herring every time I present real data.



I'm more than willing to talk about policy, but I think that is a separate issue from the scientific question of "are humans responsible for the current warming trend?".

As for my position on policy and environmentalism I'm more of a pragmatist than an idealist. I think it is true that the direction of anthropogenic climate change is fortunate in that we will be better able to cope with a warmer planet than a colder one. I'm not as much of a doomsayer as some politicians and environmentalists. I really think it's a forgone conclusion that the human race has and will continue to alter the natural order of the planet. I think the more radical environmentalist ideal that we can somehow continue as a civilization and simultaneously return our planet to its previous natural state of balance is a romantic pipe dream. We're going to have to live with changes and take practical steps to avoid unacceptable damage. I think burning fossil fuels is unsustainable, whether the ultimate trigger that will force change is an unacceptable and damaging climate alteration or merely the impending scarcity of these energy resources.

The two are connected thus: From the conclusion that global warming is the result of human activity (primarily) flows the policy that we must freeze in the dark and lead squalid impoverished lives. Except for the ruling elite who will always have material goodies and a warm place to sleep.

ruveyn