The other day at a dinner party I sat across from a climate scientist (seriously, a professor at a major university in the earth sciences department), who commented that his trips to the Artic this summer were somewhat daunting. When I asked him who were all these folks Governor Perry said were funding work like his in support of the science of climate change, he said he’d like to know that too since he wasn’t getting any of that funding and in fact could probably get rich and have the ire of his colleagues heaped upon him if he took the opposite stance.
Now, according to MSNBC, internal documents have been leaked from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago nonprofit think tank, showing its plans to fund leading skeptics of global warming and develop a curriculum to teach climate change skepticism in schools (K-12). An anonymous person leaked the documents to several publications and activists supporting the science of climate change which is funded by huge corporate and foundation funding from U.S. businesses, including Microsoft, Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) RJR Tobacco and more. Click here to read the MSNBC article.
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You DO know that proof of climate change is NOT the same thing as proof that human activity is the cause of climate change.
Just sayin’…
According to NOAA – “Human activities contribute to climate change by causing changes in Earth’s atmosphere in the amounts of greenhouse gases, aerosols (small particles), and cloudiness. The largest known contribution comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide gas to the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases and aerosols affect climate by altering incoming solar radiation and out-going infrared (thermal) radiation that are part of Earth’s energy balance. Changing the atmospheric abundance or properties of these gases and particles can lead to a warming or cooling of the climate system. Since the start of the industrial era (about 1750), the overall effect of human activities on climate has been a warming influence. The human impact on climate during this era greatly exceeds that due to known changes in natural processes, such as solar changes and volcanic eruptions.”
Climate change science not only says that there is proof of climate change, but that human activity contributes to the climate change that is happening now.
Climate change science not only says that there is proof of climate change, but that human activity contributes to the climate change that is happening now.
You will find that the alleged ‘denier’ group is in fact neither a group nor denier. Such an allegation is in fact a positioning or framing argument which is of the same nature as Strawman Argumentation or Poisoning the Well propositions – which claim to fairly represent ‘both sides of an argument.’ Such tricks are historically political in nature and violate the ethos of Scientific Method, which depends on rebuttal….not denigrates it.
And the scientists agree line is simple Appeal to Authority – which is promoted by a political organization plugging an international tax payable to its coffers.
Such is the state of claiming to foretell the future from modeling exercises.
Hear Hear John. I could not have said this better myself.