The Great and Abominable Church: Environmentalism

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_Fortigurn
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Post by _Fortigurn »

Coggins7 wrote:I think its quite interesting that the best you can do is give us a link to the British government sponsored agency, the National Environment Research Council, a pro AGW, government fincaned and sponsored bully pulpit for the statist party line on AGW. The dead givaway is in a statement made on their homepage:

Impartial, Independent, Innovative.

Oh really? But NERC is funded by the Bristish government to the tune of over 300,000,000 a years. This evokes the same corrupton of science by interested government money that we've seen in this country.


Could you explain why it is that being funded by the government means in this case the 'corruption of science by interested government money'? You need to prove:

* That the government is funding NERC out of self interest

* What that self interest is

* That the NERC's scientific position is the product of government interest, not correct scientific research

Are there any funded scientific bodies which you would view as free from the influence of self interest?

The first statement, that scientific evidence clearly idicates human influence regarding the warming of the earth is flatly false, as one can see here: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Sc ... istory.jsp. Notice the mass of peer reviewed literatue sourced here.


This is a classic case of your methodology at its best. You claim that it's wrong, but:

* You do not explain why you believe it's wrong

* You do not explain how it has been falsified

* You say 'These people disagree', and commit the fallacy of the appeal to authority (do you even understand what has been written there?

Its interesting as well that NERC is connected quite closely with the IPCC, which it claims, straightfacedly, is the worlds leading authority on climate change.


So what? Fallacy of guilt by association.

...the IPCC is widely known as a severely politicized body...


Widely known by whom? Fallacy of ad populum.

...that has been caught red handed fudging their research and conclusions more than once (Richard Landsea resigned in protest over the preconceived notions guiding interpreation and use of data) and whose political members throw intellectually dubious claims (not even supported by the IPCC scientists themselves, in some of the early cases) at a media hungry for ideological meat.


Evidence please. Fallacy of appeal to rumour.

Shall I continue?
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_Fortigurn
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Post by _Fortigurn »

Coggins7 wrote:This will be my last post to you until and unless you choose to get serious, have an intellectually productive and stimulating debate (if that's really what you want to do...which I doubt), and cease playing lets pretend Fort is a sophisticated intellectual. Ok, now, for the last time Mr. Wizard:


Could you save the insults and character attacks please? You're a Christian, remember?

I disbelieve in AGW because there is no credible scientific evidence for it. Period, end of story.


That is mere rhetoric. You need to present a coherent argument with evidence for your case. You also need to demonstrate that you understand the issues involved.

The importance of AGW to the Left is another but connected issue. AGW is an ideology as much as a scientific theory, but the scientific aspect of it is refuted in a different manner from the ideological and philosophical.


Your claim that 'AGW is an ideology as much as a scientific theory' shows that either you do not understand what an ideology is, or you do not understand what a scientific theory is, or possibly both. If you wish to refute AGW, please return to the original thread and do so.

As to your claim of having been in some manner "outed", please. My absolute abhorrance of the Left and its beliefs is no secret, nor is it a secret that AGW is a hobby horse of the Left that will be dropped and forgotton as soon as the scientific mainstream turns against it (which is beginning to happen now) and puts it in its well desered scientific grave.


You've just done it again. You have previously claimed that your objection to AGW is based on objective scientific grounds, but in your original post in this thread (and again in this thread), you have labeled AGW an 'ideology', and expressed an ideological objection to it. You do not object to it on a rational scientific basis, but on ideological grounds. You then seek to justify your rejection by appeal to science.

As to failing to substantiate my claims in the other thread, you had your homework and reading cut out for you, which, apparantly, you have not done and have no intention of doing.


Instead of throwing more insults, how about you just answer the very simple question I kept asking you in the other thread?

What do you want to discuss Fort, AGW as a scientific theory, or AGW as an ideology. l'll discuss one, the other, or both, as soon as you make up your mind what it is you'd like to talk about.


I'm happy to discuss both. First you can prove that it's an ideology, in this thread. Secondly, you can answer my still unanswered question in the other thread.
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_Mr. Coffee
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Post by _Mr. Coffee »

Coggins7 wrote:I think its quite interesting that the best you can do is give us a link to the British government sponsored agency, the National Environment Research Council, a pro AGW, government fincaned and sponsored bully pulpit for the statist party line on AGW.


Mmmm... Delicious red herring, fresh from the BS sea. So you're once again resorting to the typical neoconservative line that ideological or political views invalidate evidence. Typical...


Coggins7 wrote:The first statement, that scientific evidence clearly idicates human influence regarding the warming of the earth is flatly false, as one can see here: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Sc ... istory.jsp. Notice the mass of peer reviewed literatue sourced here.


Did you even bother to read any of the information on that link, Coggins? If you did, you might notice that the site actually supports the notions that 1. there is a dirrect causal relationship between CO2 and other greenhouse gases and climate change, and 2. that the pre-industrialization era evidence shows a marked downward trend in CO2 levels/global mean temps and post-industrialization era evidence shows the exact opposite.

Way to go, Coggins. You managed to prove my point. I wonder if Fortigurn will let me get in on his sig line gig with calling people on sloppy research habits...

The rest of your post is more slight-of-hand strawman distractions and red herring arguments. Come back when you can support your claims with something substantive (It'd help if you tried to find sites that actually SUPPORT your position).
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_Fortigurn
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Post by _Fortigurn »

Mr. Coffee wrote:Way to go, Coggins. You managed to prove my point. I wonder if Fortigurn will let me get in on his sig line gig with calling people on sloppy research habits...


I'll give you a special mention. Thanks for a great post.
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_Mr. Coffee
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Post by _Mr. Coffee »

Fortigurn wrote:I'll give you a special mention. Thanks for a great post.


No charge. I just calls 'em as I sees 'em.
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_asbestosman
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Post by _asbestosman »

Coggins7,

I'll grant that I don't know whether or not AGW is true. I don't have the expertise to wade through the material and draw a conclusion either way. However, this thread is apparently about politics and neo-pagan religion so I will direct my remarks to that theory.

Fist off, I agree that people in general should be left to govern themselves. However, does that mean we should leave it up to them to decide whether to get an abortion or not? Just sayin'. And how does the abortion-loving left become associated with Mediterranean fertility cults? Isn't abortion kinda the opposite of fertility cults? Maybe if you tied it to human sacrifice cults you'd be a bit more believeable, but then again it still sounds a little ridiculous doesn't it?

Next, while I do believe we should work harder in protecting the environment, my concern is more that we are not being wise stewards of what we do have. For example, I support nuclear energy. I think we may need to make more improvements for waste disposal, but I think we can make some improvements there. Perhsps due to the Not In My Backyard syndrome, we could look into disposal on the sun (some have suggested the moon, but that is obviously more problematic).

I believe that people are not very wise with their driving habbits. I think people should look more towards public transportation, bicycles, and so on. Some of the more populated cities tend to do this more. In fact, if we clean up electricty generation with nuclear power (and improve nuclear waste disposal), then we really have a win-win situation. We can cut down on traffic congestion, and very possibly cut down on energy costs, at least after an initial investment in improving waste disposal.

I also support the idea of creating cleaner-burning fuels, especially if those are generated from cleaner sources of electricity. Currently hydrogen cars are not going to help things because the fuel will likely be generated by oil which is the cheapest thing we have right now.
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_truth dancer
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Post by _truth dancer »

Excuse me for interupting the debate here but.... :-)

What in the world is wrong with taking care of our planet?

I don't care what one's political views or religious tradition, the idea of taking care of our earth just seems to make sense.

I find it so odd that anyone could think that SATAN is behind the idea to care for our earth and its inhabitants.

If anything it seems to me that God would want humans to respect and honor the earth He created for humans... (based on the particular religious belief).

I just don't get it.

;-)

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_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

Quote:
I disbelieve in AGW because there is no credible scientific evidence for it. Period, end of story.



That is mere rhetoric. You need to present a coherent argument with evidence for your case. You also need to demonstrate that you understand the issues involved.


No, its a proposition about a state of affairs that you have yet to so much as attempt to refute. You still seem to think that I'm going to spend hours upon hours, or even days, gathering information to demonstrate to your satisfaction the crux of my argument. This is a message board, not a professional journal, nor is it a university classroom, nor am I going to work that hard and spend that kind of time for this kind of forum. Have to done your homework yet? Its past due. I've provided a number of links and names through which you could spend literally weeks of solid reading and study coming up to speed on the salient criticisms of AGW and its actual status in the professional literature. As I recall, one essay I posted listed 25 well known problems with the theory. You want me to elucidate, in detail, all of this while you sit back and play 20 questions with the evidence (this is how Johnny Cochran got O.J. off. Stall, ask endless, repetitive questions, dig your heels in and keep banging the same drum "you haven't answered my questions yet" and,"You need to present a coherent argument with evidence for your case."

Well, the many essays, reports, and links to websites containing masses of peer reviewed material are there and I don't feel the need to make the case in detail here for the sake of both brevity and the fact that I have not the time to do so.

I've already said I will tackle this issue point by point, counterpoint by counterpoint, but nobody seems willing to do it that way. I have already laid out both the basic scientific basis for my rejection of AGW (lack of substantive evidence for it and the large uncertainties and ambiguities within the data admitted by the majority of climate scientists, including most of those who suspect human influence). I have also laid out a larger set of claims about the philosophical and political background of the AGW movement. You have failed to address any of these claims.


Your claim that 'AGW is an ideology as much as a scientific theory' shows that either you do not understand what an ideology is, or you do not understand what a scientific theory is, or possibly both. If you wish to refute AGW, please return to the original thread and do so.


This has no become unserious to the extent of self parody on your part. What we really have here Fortigurn, is a leftist on the run who has nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. It might at this point be appropriate to just lay your philosophical or political cards on the table and cease the pseudo sophisticated head gaming.


You've just done it again. You have previously claimed that your objection to AGW is based on objective scientific grounds, but in your original post in this thread (and again in this thread), you have labeled AGW an 'ideology', and expressed an ideological objection to it. You do not object to it on a rational scientific basis, but on ideological grounds. You then seek to justify your rejection by appeal to science.


I have been crystal clear over and over again that AGW is both a scientific theory (or better, a hypothesis, as none of its major claims have as yet been empirically verified) and an ideology to the Left. I don't think the typical ideologically committed Leftist cares one whit about the truth of the scientific claims or not except to the extent that he hopes its true so that the political and social transformations he believes will be required to mitigate climatic catastrophe can be implemented with little popular resistance. Obviously, AGW can be both a scientific theory (to the scientists) and an ideology (to the ideologues and politicized scientists--like James Hansen or Michael Mann, as just two examples, or much of the IPCC membership).

Your attempts to blow ink into the pool are clever and consistent, but ultimately, just lawyer-like double talk. You make a nice pretense of close questioning for the sake of clarification, even though its long been obvious what your doing is using the technique to divert the debate from the subject at hand to finely honed quibbling over grammar and the fragmentary nature of the debate. Unless you really think I'm fool enough to spend the rest of the week posting thousands of words of text from peer reviewed studies and the commentary of earth scientists so you can dismiss it with a wave of your hand, your quite clearly loony.

I'll tackle the subject in one of two ways, like most subjects are tacked in forums such as this. One will be in broad generalities about the science and the movement behind it. The other will be one scientific point at a time, in order and in small bite sized chunks.


I'm happy to discuss both. First you can prove that it's an ideology, in this thread. Secondly, you can answer my still unanswered question in the other thread.


First, I answered your question Mr. Cochran, and secondly, if your are not, at this point in the social history of the western world, aware that AGW is a fundamental principle within the ideology of the environmental movement, and that the theory itself, is itself, an ideology, representing the long claimed destructiveness and cruelty of :capitalism" and its failure as an economic model, as well as the overall negative and malignant influence of modern, industrial mankind per se upon the earth, then it would indeed, take near a book length essay to lay out a logical, coherent argument elucidating the matter (I have no idea what you mean, in the sense of my claim, that you wish it "proved". Philosophy and ideology, and the complex psychological, sociological, and cultural aspects of each are little given to "proof" in the sense of showing you one's satisfaction that such and such is the case in the sense that it would satisfy clear cut empirical or factual sense. We can look at the nature of the claims made for AGW by environmentalists and by politicized scientists who have ,allowed ideology to corrupt their scientific judgment, and weigh the evidence, but I doubt if "proof" is what you'll find there. given the way in which AGW has been handled in the media, in Hollywood, within the environmental movement and the Democrat Party, I think the overwhelming evidence indicates distinctly that AGW has a strong ideological component. It needs to be true regardless of whether or not it is true. Overwhelming evidence one way or the other I should think, but not "proof" in an absolute way such that a clever arguer could not deny the matter. If you don't want to believe that AGW is as much an ideology as a scientific theory (because accepting that proposition lays the ax to the root of the tree, so to speak, in that if the theory of AGW is more important as tool of cultural warfare than as an accurate appraisal of a state of affairs in the natural world; if there is a powerful political movement deeply invested in AGW being true and committed, as it has been, to making it appear true in the popular media even though the no evidence exists that it is, then even the scientific enterprise itself becomes suspect, as has been the case with the large quantities of government grant money flowing into AGW research as well as government funding of environmental groups supportive a AGW), then you need to explain the almost 25 year media and political hysteria on the subject promulgated by virtually the entire American and international Left and the deep investment the Left, and the environmental movement per se, has in it, and this, given the overwhelming lack of evidence for it.


Now, on to another Comsimp...


Mmmm... Delicious red herring, fresh from the BS sea. So you're once again resorting to the typical neoconservative line that ideological or political views invalidate evidence. Typical...

I'm neither Jewish nor am I new to the conservative intellectual tradition (boy, did you let your prejudices out of the bag with this one). I have no, no idea where you think I claimed that political views invalidate evidence. That is precisely the problem with AGW, an incipient Lysenkoism that has crept into climate science and corrupted the ability of serious scientists to do straight, non-politicized scientific work in that area.


Did you even bother to read any of the information on that link, Coggins? If you did, you might notice that the site actually supports the notions that 1. there is a dirrect causal relationship between CO2 and other greenhouse gases and climate change, and 2. that the pre-industrialization era evidence shows a marked downward trend in CO2 levels/global mean temps and post-industrialization era evidence shows the exact opposite.


There is no known direct causal link between CO2 and the present trivial warming that has occurred over the last century. You cleverly used the term "climate change" here, whether as a proxy for "Global Warming" or "Anthropogenic Global Warming" I don't know. The Greenhouse Effect, which is slightly dependent upon CO2, which is less than one percent of terrestrial greenhouse gases, is not the same thing as "climate Change", nor is there any known direct link between CO2 and any warming known in geological time. In virtually all major warming trends seen over millions of years in the past, CO2 rise lags temperature rise. The present warming is minor, and well within historical parameters. The 1930s were warmer, on average, that today, the Medieval Warm Period was warmer (Vikings spread to Iceland and Vinland (Wineland) and grew grapes there), and the Roman Warm Period (5th century BC to 1st century AD) was substantially warmer, warm enough that grapes were being grown in South Central England from the 1st to 4th centuries. Britons also grew wine grapes in England during part of the MWP.
Last edited by Dr. Sunstoned on Tue Mar 20, 2007 2:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
_Coggins7
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Post by _Coggins7 »

Excuse me for interupting the debate here but.... :-)

What in the world is wrong with taking care of our planet?


Nothing whatsoever. That's not the issue.


I don't care what one's political views or religious tradition, the idea of taking care of our earth just seems to make sense.



I agree.


I find it so odd that anyone could think that SATAN is behind the idea to care for our earth and its inhabitants.


Satan isn't behind the idea of caring for the earth. But "taking care of the earth", whatever that might mean, has little to do with much of the environmental movements ideology and political agenda, though that sentiment may be what moves many of its followers in the culture at large.


If anything it seems to me that God would want humans to respect and honor the earth He created for humans... (based on the particular religious belief).

I agree, but I just don't think the best way to go about that is to destroy modern industrial society, economic liberty, individual rights, and private property.
Last edited by Dr. Sunstoned on Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
_Mr. Coffee
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Post by _Mr. Coffee »

Coggins7 wrote:I find it so odd that anyone could think that SATAN is behind the idea to care for our earth and its inhabitants.


Since you've failed to refute any evidence myself or others have given and then BLATENTLY said this is a "spiritual" matter...

I accept your concession.

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