Both of them involve a disconnect from reality, so its really not much of a leap here, sir.

@Strat, we are not falling towards the sun at all. We are actually attempting to fly away from the sun but the gravitational attraction keeps us in its orbit.

'And how exactly does a volcano "earn money" for itself?'

- it's like the mafia, you pay it protection money or else, (often virgin females were used...)

Wait, what? People pay me money? This is news. I must be doing something wrong.

Also, I really think at this point there is no further point to debating with Darwyn. He's decided which conclusion he wants to reach: Global warming was invented by Al Gore, (presumably once he was done inventing the internet) so that he could take Darwyn's money. And no silly trifles like facts will change his mind. Facts are how they get you, man.

@Jack - no, see the disconnect is where you "figured" that I must believe in god because I'm a so-called "conspiracy theorist". That's where your feeble reasoning skills are exposed. If your brain shuts down when you hear "conspiracy" then you are not looking at the issue or using any semblance of reasoning. You are excusing yourself from having to digest a conflicting viewpoint. And that makes you lazy and closed-minded.

@Mafia - perhaps there is no point in debating me. My mind *is* mostly made up, yes. But don't sit there an pretend that yours isn't either, my friend. I've already pointed out the data loss, the admission of exaggeration, the questionable data collector locations, and the bad satellite data, etc. Here's more...

http://www.canada.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skeptics/2468634/story.html

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/storm-brews-over-glacier-blunder-20100124-mslv.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=climate-change-cover-up-you-better-2009-11-24

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017977/climategate-the-scandal-spreads-the-plot-thickens-the-shame-deepens/

The *facts* show deception. And the deception is being used to *sell* you the idea that a tax will save the planet.

Science need not be sold.

Darwyn,

As a man of science presumably you do not deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and presumably you also don't deny the directly proportional relationship between the burning of fossils fuels and atmospheric concentrations of CO2?

Your issue seems to resolve around the fact that the Earth's climate system is just too complex to be described in terms of these two 'facts' alone, have I got this correct?

I must say that I tend to agree with you, but whatever else we are doing we are putting more energy into the system, thus activation energies will be more often surpassed as reactions are kinetically enhanced. The outcome is unknown, and I write from a presently very cold England, but do we really want to chance it? It might be that the feedback loops all take care of everything and the climate will be in stasis, but given the Earth's history this is a long shot. We are therefore likely accelerating climate change from its natural background and maybe we should do something about it?

In any event, given that fossil fuels are finite, their limitation seems a sensible argument to make, even to the exclusion of climate change.

>@Strat, we are not falling towards the sun at all. We are actually attempting to fly away from the sun but the gravitational attraction keeps us in its orbit.

I know that; I'm just brain fried and inarticulate

fulhamish - I am for the wise use of resources, if that is what you are getting at. More energy efficiency is a good thing.

Climate is supposed to change. All planets and even the sun go through periods of warming and cooling. It is natural.

As for putting more energy into the system, experiments have shown that as CO2 levels rise, plants get larger and absorb more CO2 which drive the levels back down. Should we do something about our .28% CO2 contribution? Maybe...maybe not. Either way, a tax is hardly a solution. If anything, planting more trees makes much more sense.

Yes and no, isn't the best way to reduce fuel consumption to tax it. If a car gets you from a) to b) whether it has a 1L or 3L engine shouldn't we encourage the use of the 1L engine by taxation?

Completely agree about uping biomass, and maybe that could encompass more that trees (phytoplankton etc.). It is nice to know that you are 'a defender' of the tropical rainforest too. A closet environmentalist perhaps? :-)

"Climate is supposed to change. All planets and even the sun go through periods of warming and cooling. It is natural."

At a slow pace, so the planet can properly adapt. Not at a rapid pace, which is wreaking havoc on ecosystems everywhere, causing extinctions. All this whining over a mythical tax. This is the extent to which humanity has abdicated any sense of social responsibility. So you can spend your tax money on your cable bill, porn, and toys.

"wise use of resources"

Ah - "wise use", Reagan's environmental philosophy. That worked so well. The idea that eliminating the commons will somehow lead to better environmental stewardship. What a disaster.

" If anything, planting more trees makes much more sense."

Let me guess, and charity will eliminate poverty. Leaving massive problems to individual initiative and voluntarism always works, right? You've evidently never heard of such a thing as the collective action problem.

@fulhamish - not if it can't be shown that the 1L engine actually does less harm than the 3L engine. And yes, I like nature. A closet environmentalist? I don't know...perhaps. I tend to shy away from labels because they easily devolve into whatever connotation any one person might view them in. Next thing you know, I'm a tree-hugger.

@Putin33 - Ok, if it's "warming" at such a rapid pace, why have there been record setting *cold* temps all over the globe?

"All this whining over a mythical tax." What have I been talking about? Nothing about a carbon credit is mythical. It is a form of tax.

Also, I used the phrase "a wise use of resources" in the most general sense. I'm not sure where you saw the need to infer something else.

"Let me guess, and charity will eliminate poverty."

You've got the fangs out today, eh Putin? I said that *if* anything is to be done about "warming", planting trees makes more sense than a tax because it directly addresses the problem. Where are the calls for a global initiative to plant trees? Taxes are the solutions of politicians, not scientists.

"Ok, if it's "warming" at such a rapid pace, why have there been record setting *cold* temps all over the globe?"

People should have a basic understanding of what 'climate change' is before they spout off about conspiracies to mislead the public into collecting taxes and other nonsense (like the difference between weather and climate). They should also have a basic understanding of how politicians operate. Politicians hate raising taxes, which is why we're in it so deep regarding debt and deficits. If politicians are so gung-ho on using climate change to tax people it's a wonder they've been so milquetoast on the issue, and why Democrats are even running hard against a moderate proposal like cap and trade.

Climate change is more than simply the overall temperature of the planet getting warmer. The planet does not warm uniformly. Climate change also involves extreme weather of all kinds cold/hot; wet/dry. The fact of the matter is the 2000s were the warmest decade of the instrumental record, and record highs have outpaced record lows in the US.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/11/studyas_average_temps_warm_rec.html

And NASA has explained how record cold in December can happen in the same year we've had record warmth in November. Navy oceanographers are telling Congress that the volume of ice has never been lower.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/12/nasa-explains-how-europe-can-be-so-cold-amidst-the-hottest-november-and

" I'm not sure where you saw the need to infer something else."

"Wise-use" was an environmental movement of rightwingers who believed that our environmental problems would go away if public lands were sold off because people supposedly are better stewards of their own property. It has a very particular meaning, sorry if that's not what you meant, but it was an easy inference."

"Nothing about a carbon credit is mythical. It is a form of tax."

"You've got the fangs out today, eh Putin?"

Well there's something about climate change denial that brings them out. Maybe it's the fact that deniers never hold themselves to the same standards of evidence, have demonstrated time and time again they're not only willing to lie and unfairly impugn the motives an entire professional community, but engage in criminal activity in feeble attempts to humiliate climate scientists. Add to that the fact that this isn't our first rodeo, we've seen this nonsense before when the same people were telling us that acid rain is a myth. Unfortunately people listen to people with bs easy answers to complicated problems, especially easy answers that involve people sitting on their ass and keeping more of their money rather than acting decisively and responsibly. It's beyond irritating.

And cap and trade is not a tax, since the revenues go back to companies. A carbon tax is a tax. Cap and trade won't really work because market mechanisms can not solve externality problems and problems which do not uniformly effect everyone, and this has a lot of opportunities for manipulation by untrustworthy market forces. But calling it a tax is just propaganda.

If the permits are allocated, the funds go back to the companies. If the permits are sold - which the latest draft had happening for a chunk of them - they go to the government. At that point it is indistinguishable from a tax - and it is intellectually dishonest to pretend it is anything but that.

But plans for cap and trade have said that the revenues from auctions would go to off-setting the price increases to energy consumers. So again, not a tax.

Who said that? And which trading system? The one the EU is significantly different than the one in the states that was shot down...

I think Putin demonstrated why your logical disconnect on this topic is very similar to some (not all) people's religious practices.

Basically, its an inability to deal with reality, so you ignore it in favor of some fairy tale. He's right. You hold the standard of evidence high, and if that doesn't work, you insinuate doubt about the sources (but never outright counter their claims.... because you can't). If that doesn't work, you change the subject and try to drown the discussion in tangential details.

Has that pretty much summed up your "rhetorical" stratagem?

"And cap and trade is not a tax"

It is a tax because the owner of a company has added costs and he'll transfer that cost to his customers. You think he'll absorb this cost out of the goodness of his heart? That's not very good business sense.

"They should also have a basic understanding of how politicians operate. Politicians hate raising taxes"

They must hate their job cuz that's all politicians seem to do nowadays is to raise taxes. It is their solution to everything. But taxes are never a solution.

As I said, if you were so worried about a solution, why not address the problem directly and plant trees, stop deforestation, etc?

"Maybe it's the fact that deniers never hold themselves to the same standards of evidence, have demonstrated time and time again they're not only willing to lie and unfairly impugn the motives an entire professional community, but engage in criminal activity in feeble attempts to humiliate climate scientists."

Speaking of holding themselves to the same standards...1) in order for something to be considered "scientific" it must follow the scientific method. That is, we should both be able to take the same data and come to the same result. Unfortunately, as I've pointed out again and again, some of the data has been lost, some of it exaggerated, some of it manipulated and some if it just plan wrong. AGW follows not the scientific method. Therefore, it is not science. and 2) science is indisputable. Yet there is no consensus among the scientific community regarding AGW. see #1

"The fact of the matter is the 2000s were the warmest decade of the instrumental record, and record highs have outpaced record lows in the US. "

That's strange because Professor Phil Jones, head of the CRU is on record as saying that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming. Again, no consensus. Just a bunch of obfuscation and deception.

@Darwyn--quick question. How old is the earth?

lol...oh jeezuz...I think Jack already tried this. But ok, I'll bite. 5000 years old. lol...Am I right? :)

"That's strange because Professor Phil Jones, head of the CRU is on record as saying that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming. Again, no consensus. Just a bunch of obfuscation and deception."

This is what happens when all you do is read denier blogs and don't bother reading the actual quote in context.

"Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods."

In other words, the period is too short to get anything statistically significant, warming or any trend, because climate is noisy. That's why climatologists look at 30 year periods because it reduces cyclical noise and is long enough to reveal trends. Despite the fact that the gotcha question asked about warming in such a short period, astonishingly the stats reveal a substantial warming trend, only .04 degrees less than the overall decade warming trend of .16 degrees C.

This is the type of quote mining and dishonest hypocrisy that infuriates people when it comes to climate denialists.

And I'll note the ridiculous irony of claiming scientists are engaging in "obfuscation and deception" and yet you parrot the line of the Daily Mail on the out of context Phil Jones quote.

"1) in order for something to be considered "scientific" it must follow the scientific method. That is, we should both be able to take the same data and come to the same result. Unfortunately, as I've pointed out again and again, some of the data has been lost, some of it exaggerated, some of it manipulated and some if it just plan wrong. AGW follows not the scientific method. Therefore, it is not science. and 2) science is indisputable. Yet there is no consensus among the scientific community regarding AGW. see #1"

Which climatologists reject the thesis of AGW? You have a distorted view of what the scientific method requires. The only 'scientists' I see denying AGW are not climatologists at all, but scientists who specialize in completely different fields, like physics, and are known for wacky ideas. At any rate, science does not require iron-clad "consensus". Where did you get this from? Challenging orthodoxies is part of the scientific process. If Einstein didn't challenge Newtonian orthodoxies, we would not know anything about quantum mechanics. A basic kernel of science is there is always an error term, there is always some unexplained noise. We do not even fully understand gravity yet, yet everyone cites gravity as an iron-clad law that we understand at all levels.

And I will note that you have yet to address the faulty data being used as well as the unscientific scientific method.

But here's the crux of the stupidity that is the climate debate. Climate denialists, who reject science, cling to demands for scientific precision (and even demand 100%% consensus) when it comes to AGW and exploit the fact that scientists do not speak in absolutes or make sweeping conclusions to deceive the public about climate change. They exploit an attempt by Phil Jones to speak as precisely as possible as being "proof" that AGW is some kind of manipulated hoax.

Denialists have zero standards of evidence, let alone ones demanded by the scientific method, continually make sweeping and unsubstantiated statements, routinely manipulate data to support their "points", and then have the audacity to claim that climatologists aren't meeting their 'standards'. It'd be comical if it wasn't so dangerous.

You don't have the foggiest idea of what the scientific method is, and I explained as much.
What "faulty data"? If you're willing to pull out Phil Jones quotes out of context, I can only imagine what else you're willing to fabricate to make your point here.

According to your version of scientific method, evolutionary biology is not a science. After all, you can't replicate evolution in a lab. So to, is physics when it comes to gravity and the effects of the moon. I mean, can we really replicate what would happen if the moon didn't circle the earth? No.