Great article re: "climate science"...so reflective of American Political Climate
 

"Today’s climate science, as Ian Plimer points out in his chapter in The Facts, is based on a “pre-ordained conclusion, huge bodies of evidence are ignored and analytical procedures are treated as evidence”. Funds are not available to investigate alternative theories. Those who express even the mildest doubts about dangerous climate change are ostracised, accused of being in the pay of fossil-fuel interests or starved of funds; those who take money from green pressure groups and make wildly exaggerated statements are showered with rewards and treated by the media as neutral."

"Politicians love this polarising because it means they can attack a straw man. It’s what they are good at. “Doubt has been eliminated,” said Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and UN Special Representative on Climate Change, in a speech in 2007: “It is irresponsible, reckless and deeply immoral to question the seriousness of the situation. The time for diagnosis is over. Now it is time to act.” John Kerry says we have no time for a meeting of the flat-earth society. Barack Obama says that 97 per cent of scientists agree that climate change is “real, man-made and dangerous”. That’s just a lie (or a very ignorant remark): as I point out above, there is no consensus that it’s dangerous."

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015...-done-science/

Interesting read on the climate debate, and even more so in light of the subtext in your thread title: "...so reflective of American Political Climate". Chicanery among "scientists" is not so different than among politicians--the rush to judgment, the use of straw men, ignoring contrary evidence, ridicule of opponents, outright lies . . . all age old tactics used to persuade ignorant masses. It's not unusual for such means to be used, but it is disturbing that our "Press," which is supposedly jealous of guarding its constitutional "right" of free speech, would support, or not more seriously call attention to, the intentional distortions and obfuscations--on all "sides," not just that which the particular media oppose. We are to believe that our Press and our society have "progressed," by dint of history, beyond primitivism. that we are the super-enlightened who no longer need quaint "Constitutions," nor political rules of engagement. That we are a nation of "experts" who know how best to do all things, including government, and need not be hampered by over-cautious restrictions against despotic regulation.

And yet, despite progress, despite history, we seem to be stuck in our old ways of "getting things done." Is that evidence that what we once referred to as human nature has not changed? That we still need the now despised, restrictive, "little books" which provide basic guides for behavior?

The article is loaded with things which apply to our politics as well as the climate change "debate"--oh, that's right, the debate is over, or, apparently not.

The author says that he once thought that "The great thing about science is that it's self correcting . . . The good drives out the bad, because experiments get replicated and hypotheses put to the test. So a really bad idea cannot survive long in science." But, thanks to climate science, he has changed his mind--"Bad ideas can persist in science for decades, and . . . they can turn into intolerant dogmas." Brings to mind so many of the progressive policies which have lasted for decades even though they don't "fix," or they even expand, the problems they were to address. All due, among other things, because of, as he says about climate science, "political support enabled bad ideas to monopolize debate."

He mentions "confirmation bias--seeking evidence that supports our hypothesis and dismissing that which contradicts it." A bias that is oh so prevalent in our politics and media.

He quotes T. T. Huxley's dictum "The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." A sin we daily give over to in our blind faith in the superiority of progressivism over constitutional checks against authoritative government. In conjunction with this he quotes Richard Feynman "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." Which is so applicable to our narrow-sighted experts regulation of a diverse population with often contradictory beliefs or opinions. Of course, the intention may be to eliminate the differences. Which may be the ultimate ignorance of experts.

The harm to science the author demonstrates in the article is similar to the damage done to our constitutional form of government. It destroys its foundation and the public confidence in government. It promotes and metastasizes despotic and destructive policies.

As in the harm to science, the similarity of tactics in politics transforms diversity of opinion into a false agenda for the benefit of adherents and the detriment and subjugation of everyone else.

Why not just change the term climate change to "pollution"?
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I am skeptical on several levels. As for pollution, we are better in drinking water and total emissions now than at any time in the recent past. China and other developing countries are making up for what we reduce. And I am for efficiency, solar, and wind.

But what if people are just getting it wrong? It seems like a lot of people are making sheit up (both sides)

Ohh - and then there is this:

Interesting that - during the alleged global warming increases.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/15...comms8535.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...urope-us-study

Climate change has always been around.....natural progression of the planet. Pretty sure it's warmer now than during the Ice Age.

Problem is you got one side claiming it doesn't exist.....at all.....ever. And another side saying it's our fault and you need to give us money to fix it......or you hate your kids and the planet.
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pretty sure no one in their right mind has ever said the climate doesn't change or that climate change doesn't exist(cept' maybe Jon Stewart)...that would be dumb.....which is why they chose "climate change" as the new label for their scheme when global warming failed to go the predicted path to doom and provide traction for the agenda

straw man
"The debate is over about whether or not climate change is real."

the argument is whether or to what degree human activity affects the change(s) in climate and whether granting power and gadzillions of dollars to the climate soothsayers will result in a "saved" planet another layer of bloated bureaucracy that we must fund forever more...what is clear is that one side has consistently fanned fears, fudged data, falsified claims, made outrageous claims that have not materialized and then systematically attacked those that expressed skepticism

being skeptical of the sophist class(those that continually lie to us in such a way that it may be believable and caution us not to question) makes you a heretic, gets you ridiculed....or better stated in America 2015 lingo...designates you a "hater"...and we don't tolerate that

Reality Control
Reality Control 1: "Doublethink" is the major way the Party controls its members. Through "doublethink," people consciously accept anything the Party tells them, even if it contradicts something they already know. Furthermore, they consciously suppress any thought or information that goes against anything the Party says. To complete the cycle, they must forget that they have even used doublethink. Failure to control their thoughts using doublethink, would result in thoughtcrime.

Reality Control 2: A lot of Winston's job in the Records Department deals with reality control. He changes reports of the past so that every record of a past event the Party wants to suppress completely disappears. In many cases, the records he changes were fictitious in the first place. He can also, as in the case of Comrade Ogilvy, create an entirely new past and imagine events which then become historical "fact." Essentially, the Party creates a fake past according to what it wants to be true; the real past is completely forgotten and unrecorded.

Reality Control 3: While Winston is in the cafeteria, the telescreen makes an announcement stating that production output is higher than ever, and that people have been engaging in spontaneous demonstrations all over the state to show their gratitude to Big Brother. Many demonstrations were staged to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. Winston remembers that only the day before, the telescreen announced that the ration was being reduced to twenty grams from thirty. Everyone else in the cafeteria swallows this information, like Parsons, with blank stupidity, or like Symes, in a complex way involving doublethink. Winston wonders if he is the only person in the world that actually has a memory.

Reality Control 4: Winston is frustrated by the impossibility of knowing what is and what is not a lie. For all he knows, it might be true that the average human being is better off under the Party than before the Revolution. His only evidence is that he instinctively feels that his standard of living is unbearable and that at some other time in history, things must have been better.

The reality of life under the Party (poor, dirty, and hungry) is completely different to the image of life according to their propaganda (efficient, futuristic, and mechanical). Even so, everyone appears to swallow the propaganda and believe they are living the great life they see in posters and on films.

Reality Control 5: Winston is shaken by indisputable evidence that The Party has lied. He has always suspected that the confessions of the "traitors" that are purged are not true, but now he has proof. Unfortunately, he does not know what to do with it. There is no way to publish it or show it to the world. His discovery does him no good. Winston is upset because he does not understand why the past is faked in this way. It is obvious that the Party wants to appear consistent, but in the long run, what is their motive?

Reality Control 6: Winston is disturbed by the fact that Julia does not seem to care about the Party's reality control. To her, it doesn't really matter that they've lied or that Winston could have proved it. None of this makes any difference in her day-to-day life. Winston tries to explain that the past is being destroyed, but she does not see value in the past. He responds:

"History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

One side has people that range from that it exists, exists as a natural occurence, is implanted by the communists, is a government power grab, to doesn't exist. Other side has everything from established science to we all are going to die tomorrow and everything in between.

Whether through climate change or idiot politicians - we are all doomed.

I'd rather take my chances with Climate Change.......maybe even an asteroid impact would be a better option.
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that was great:scream:

"you got one side claiming it doesn't exist.....at all.....ever"

I don't think too many conservatives say that or believe it. The clinmate clearly changes, it's not staying exactly the same. The questions are, (1) are we the cause, and (2) what's the effect, and (3) if the effect is bad, what can we reasonably do about it?

If the left was correct on this issue, Fargo North Dakota would be exporting sugar cane and pineapples by now.

are you a "normal human being"?

"On Tuesday, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy delivered a scathing message to those who deny anthropogenic global warming:

“When I put a report out on acting on climate like we did yesterday that shows how dramatically our world will change if we don’t act, and just the benefits we can deliver if we do. I am doing that not to push back on climate deniers.

You can have fun doing that if you want, but I’ve batted my head against the wall too many times and if the science already hasn’t changed their mind it never will.

But in any democracy, it’s not them that carries the day. It is normal human beings that haven’t put their stake into politics above science. It’s normal human beings that want us to do the right thing, and we will if you help us.”

In 2014, NASA admitted that it was unable to explain “the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years.”

Despite rising CO2 levels, there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1997. There has been a rise in global temperatures of 0.27 degrees Celsius in the lower troposphere according to satellite data since 1979, the year when such data began compilation.

Regardless, it appears as though Gina McCarthy believes that 53% of Americans are not “normal human beings.”




world upside down......