Fred Singer--not a climate scientist
Then perhaps you could explain how he came by his positions as Professor at professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia, founding Dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences, University of Miami (1964-67); first Director of the National Weather Satellite Service (1962-64); and Director of the Center for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Maryland (1953-62), and vice chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmospheres?
Oh, and he holds a Ph.D in physics from Princeton.
Sherwood Idos is a geographer? His bio states "Bachelor of Physics, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees are all from the University of Minnesota". Reading comprehension problems Tarski?
Robert C. Balling does have his Ph.D in geography. He also has some other degrees. How do you explain his being director of the Laboratory of climate sciences at Arizona State University or publishing articles in professional journals such as this http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?req ... 27&issue=5?
Indeed, for being unqualified, a rather large quantity of his professional publishing history is in atmospheric science. Why do you think that is Tarski?
http://www.siue.edu/~mhildeb/research.html
http://geography.asu.edu/balling/
Roger Peilke?
B.A., Mathematics, Towson State College, 1968 M.S., Ph.D., Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, 1969, 1973. Tarski couldn't impugn his credentials so he impugns his institution at which he works, which is at the pathetic and dubious University of Colorado and CIRES. Here is CERES own description of itself
http://cires.colorado.edu/about/ and I'll let both the institutions he works for speak for themselves.
Peike does, indeed, believe there is a human footprint. Thousands of other climate and earth scientists would disagree with him however, on various points (and, really, there is no direct empirical evidence to support that kind of claim. Outside of the GCMs, the evidence for human caused climate change is very circumstantial, even though nobody claims that humans have had no influence whatever). But Peilke believes in realistic mitigation and long term adaptation, not the hubris driven socialist cultural transformatin supported by the Left, who are AGW.s primary purveyors.
For a good intro into Peike's view of some of the issues discussed here, see
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin ... 007.20.pdf
Here's what Peilke, in his usual middle of the road manner, thinks of the AGW advocacy group, Realclimate:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prome ... ealcl.html
Gavin Scmidt, the head of the pro-AGW advocacy blog Realclimate, is not himself an empirical climate scientist, but a climate modeler who, like many other such applied scientists, creates computer simulations that produce just the results he wants them to produce, including catastrophic scenarios that have no basis in present empirical evidence. Here's his bio:
He received a BA (Hons) in Mathematics from Oxford University, a PhD in Applied Mathematics from University College London and was a NOAA Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate and Global Change Research.
You, see, Mr. Schmidt works strictly in the abstract, for the very government dependent and funded agency that started this hysteria in the first place, as a climate modeler-the only real source for evidence of AGW that has ever existed. He also contributes to the Realclimate blog, a blog originally started to defend Michael Mann and his discredited "hockey stick" graph that had conveniently erased both the empirically well documented Little Ice Age and MVP from geologic history.
Mann's fudging of the evidence, as well as his refusal to share his methodology with critical colleagues casts as much doubt on his intellectual credibility as Tarski has brought upon himself here.
As to Schmidt's general credibility within climatology regarding the human "footprint" see
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 ... eesaw.html
Peilke is wrong about the degree and possible effects of GW, but he's a reasonable observer who dislikes the massive politicization that has taken place (indeed, general global warming ceased almost ten years ago, and has been essentially flat ever since. Other evidence suggests cooling could be right around the corner. Primarily, however, the overwhelming burden of the evidence is clear that we don't know what the Hell is going to happen next year or in a thousand years. We simply don't have that kind of knowledge and climatology is too young a science and lacks too much basic knowledge about the global climate system to make those kinds of predictions).
Now, as I've told some of the other Mormocoms in this debate, if you want to take the low road and ground virtually your entire argument, as Tarski has chosen to do, in ad hominem circumstantial well poisoning (the funding source of a group or individual has no necessary connection to quality of his opinions or arguments), then you live or die in that context.
Let's take the AGW advocacy group Tarski has used here, Realclimate, as an example. These folks are past masters at "He's funded by Exxon" technique of debate circumvention, yet Realclimate.org was set up by Environmental Media Services, a leftist media clearinghouse that provides the supplies the mainstream media with environmental scare stories and junk science on every topic from AGW to genetically engineered crops to the dangers of the Big Mac. EMS is the media arm of Fenton Communications, the peeminant leftist communications firm in America. Fenton Communications was started in 1982 by David Fenton, a deeply ideological leftist who began the firm for the explicit purpose of political advocacy. Fenton Communications itself was originally started as a "project" of the extreme leftist Tides Foundation, based in San Francisco, a foundation that acts as a distributor of the money of other foundations and doners to third parties. This puts a buffer of anonymity between the original doners and their political ideology and the end recipients and any public activism or educational activities those third parties may engage in.
Tarski would probably be in good company with Fenton here, as he has used his firm to support a number of Marxist governments and groups, including the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, the Brutal FMLN, Grenada's dictator Maurise Bishop, and the Soviet sponsored MPLA regime in Angola.
Interestingly, the scientists at Realclimate aren't the only environmental extremists with which Fenton has been associated. His work with the NRDC during one of the most shameless junk science scares in history (Alar) is noteworthy, as is his work with clients such as the Environmental Working Group, Amnesty International, Air America Radio, the NAACP, the Rainforest Action Network, the Sierra Club, Global Exchange, the Open Society Institute, and Pew Charitable Trusts, the Institute for Policy Studies, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, TransAfrica, the magazine In These Times, the National Urban League, the American Friends Service Committee, Rock the Vote, School of the Americas Watch, the Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, the Heinz Family Foundation , the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Tides Foundation.
Oh, and another Fenton employee, Arlie Schardt, Chairman of Environmental Media Services, the group that set up Realclimate.org, was premier ecofascist Al Gore's national press secratary during his first run for the Presidency.
No matter how Tarski may slice it, incest is still best.
As to the nature of the "consensus" one of many good introductions would be http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,04362.cfm
Chris Landsea is just some hurricane guy whose only beef seems to be whether there had been an increase in hurricanes or not. He is not at a top university (or any university).
Landsea is a climate scientist, and was with the IPCC until he quite in disgust at its politicization.
Richard Lindzen is the one guy who has some real credentials to speak on the topic. He only claims that the IPCC report to policy makers had exaggerated language. In fact, that may be true but the exaggeration was something like 90% certain where it should have been more like 80% certain. It is my understanding that he backs up most of the science in the scientific portion IPCC of the report. He is however, in the extreme minority regarding his minor skepticism. He also claims that second hand tobacco smoke is not harmful (minority there to I suppose).
Nice try at greasing your own skids, but it won't wash. You clearly don't know a thing about Lindzen or his positions on AGW (or you do, but don't care to admit it publically). Get your nose out of Mother Jones and start doing some substantial reading of his material.
Poor, poor showing Tarski.
