Good lord....how fucking many times do I have to say it: I AM NOT FOR CUTTING OFF FUNDING FOR SCIENCE. Simply acknowledging a fucking idea -- that science is biased, and the bias if often tied to the source of funding --- does not mean I believe some black and white Fund/Don't Fund system needs to be in place. Idiots...learn to fucking read.

reading is boring.

but, okay. science is not free of bias. good point. why do you choose to highlight a piece that specifically calls for defunding science?

Dirge...you moronic jackass....I don't HAVE cable TV....waste of money. And I probably listen to NPR and PBS more than I listen to any other news source, apart from acquiring information from a *wide variety* of sources on line.

What about you...you know you MS-LSD and CNN schedule by heart, I suppose?

Fucking moron...it's amazing that you idiots our there think anytime someone dares disagree with your religious-political science beliefs, they have to watch Fox NEws. Good lord...as if your given source of left-wing kool-aide is pure and unbiased. Stupid fucktard...

Government should provide funding for science through third-party, UNINTERESTED organizations with no political input. Yes, the governent serves a purpose in helping to advance science...but you really think there is more than a handful of jackasses in Congress that have a fucking clue about *anything* such that they should be determining where funding should go for science?

They did a realllllll good job funding battery and solar companies...how many bankruptcies? Ohhh...but a hell of a lot of campaign money found it's way to politicians pockets to advance that industry....

That's a reasonable definition. But even still, the claim that we are running out of oil has been debunked numerous times./ Hell, we were supposed to run out every decade for the last 5 decades. Estimates are pretty far in the future now. Of course, that doesn't mean we won't run out. But we aren't running out anytime soon.

"Government should provide funding for science through third-party, UNINTERESTED organizations with no political input. "

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that what universities are supposed to be?
Of course universities are run by human beings who are influenced by politics, so the system can't be perfect. But in so far as organization can be devoid of political input - universities are such institutions.

The real issue is the moment money comes into the picture, "uninterested" goe sout the window.

krellin

1) I repeat the question, why highlight a piece that calls for defunding science if that is not what you believe?

2) good for you for not buying into cable BS. It's a bad value. Personally I use netflix and hulu. Yes I do watch MS-LSD, but that only because my xbox has it and it has something to do with that MicroSoft self promotion thing.

3) Okay, so you're not a Fox fan. +1. But still there is the question of alternatives to "science". Defunding science is not the answer even if science is not everything its cracked up to be.

4) http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/08/19/is-psychology-science-is-the-wrong-question/

5) science, especially behavioral "sciences" are full of bias. Environmental science to a lesser degree. Climate change is pretty well established. Increase in greenhouse gas related to anthrogentic processes is a reality. But there are also a lot of unknown factors related to climate change. Causes of pleistocene and holocene glacations and interglacations are not clearly understood. For instance.

6) krellin the skeptic? If you are simply forwarding your skepticism, I can agree with you. I am always a fan of skepticism and critical thought.

Krellin and other deniers: I am interested to know exactly which parts of AGW you disagree with. Is the whole science or just parts of it. Please answer TRUE or FALSE to the following questions:

1. Greenhouse gases regulate the Earth's climate. With greenhouse gases the Earth would be considerably colder.

2. All other factors being equal more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must necessarily mean a warmer earth.

3. Greenhouse gas levels have risen considerably over the past 150 years.

4. The burning of fossil fuels is the major reason for this increase in Greenhouse gases. That is humans are the main reason that greenhouse gases are increasing.

5. Over the past 150 years the Earths temperature has increased and appears to be continuing to increase. There are periodic fluctuations in this pattern but over the long term the trend is upward.

6. Given what we what we know about Greenhouse gases, and given the rate increase. There appears to be casual link between our emissions and temperature increases.

7. There is very little evidence for an alternate hypothesis explaining this increase in temperature.

8. It is highly likely that over a long period of time this increase in temperature will have profound environmental implications.

*causal link

Yeah well. Has anyone really considered the fact that over the natural history of this plant the climate has been getting increasingly COLD because of decreasing carbon dioxide and increasing oxygen related to the the infestation of plantlife???

Has it occurred to anyone out there that in spite of the bad things like the flooding of Miami and Venice, global warming might actually be a GOOD thing in the great scheme of things??

There is some evidence that an ice age can possibly pass in certain threshold that can cause a runaway climate cooling leading to the death of almost all life forms on the planet. And we may be all lucky that the last couple ice ages didn't quite pass that threshold. but the next one might. This phenomenon is referred to as "snowball earth" and has happened in the geologic past.

"1. Greenhouse gases regulate the Earth's climate. With(out) greenhouse gases the Earth would be considerably colder.

2. All other factors being equal more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must necessarily mean a warmer earth."

1. True

2. False

This analogy is like saying "Gravity causes falling bodies to accelerate, so without gravity we just float around but with more gravity we hit the earth faster when falling from the same height." It may seem logical but doesn't take into account temrinal velocity. There may be something equivalent in greenhouse gas/environmental science.

over the last 150 years the climate has warmed a little bit. Yes thats true,

but,

Over the last billion years, the climate has been on an overall cooling trend.

Draug you have misunderstood point number 2, could you read it again and re-answer it. If you take question 2 literally your answer is correct, but you are being too pedantic. It needs to be understood within the context of the discussion.

2. All other factors being equal more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must necessarily mean a warmer earth [than the Earth is now].

Or are you arguing that we have reached "terminal velocity" (to use your analogy)?

I am arguing that we can determine for a fact that "all other things being equal" is even true. We don't know enough to determine if the increase of greenhouse gases to temperature increases is a straightline scale, a curve that is leveling out, or if there is a maximum effect.

So statement 2 is false because "allthings being equal" we don't know what we don't know.

Sorry Draug that makes no sense. All factors being equal is a basic premise of the question. If you exclude that part from the equation then you are not answering the question.

... it is irrelevant whether or not all factors are in fact equal. The question is not about the impact of other factors, but the net effect of greenhouse gases.

Unfortunately the question is, what is the net effect of greenhouse gases, and is the magnitude large compared to the current 'natural variation' - and equally unfortunately, we don't have very good data on the natural variation **before** industrialisation. (Actually we've got really cool data going back millions of years, which is petty cool)

The question is, what does the trend we currently see have to do with human activity.

But the point is, the net effect is affected by other factors. Just because they are inconvenient to your "truth" doesn't mean you can dismiss them.

1. Humans start small as abaies and get bigger as they grow older.
2. All things being equal, a 100 year old will be singificantly bigger than he was when he was 20.

See how your #2 fails. You deny the fact that other factors come into play and the rest of your train of questions is based on the answer to a fallacy to begin with.

All right I'll accept your answer that greenhouse gases on their own do not have a net warming affect. That is what you presently believe fair enough.

I am going to say you are wrong. This is because the chemical properties of greenhouse gases, like h20, C02 and Methane is well understood, and has been well understood for over 100 years. Without greenhouse gases the Earth would be considerable cooler. This is because greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming sunlight and opaque to outgoing infra-red, which has the impact of altering the Earth's energy balance - that is the amount of heat retained by the Earth before it is radiated out into space.

The reason I say, "all factors being equal", is because it is conceivable that even though greenhouse gases have a net warming effect (fact of physics), that the Earth could potentially get cooler despite an increase in greenhouse gases (for example if the sun were to get cooler, or if the earth's orbit changed in some way, or if a super-volcano caused the suns rays to be blocked for a number of years).

That was question 2 on the list. Some deniers accept the truth of number 2, some don't. I just wanted to find out where this sites deniers/skeptics disagree with AGW.

... I should add. Unless we have reached the limit of greenhouse effect, given what we know about greenhouse gases, they must necessarily have a net warming effect, even though other factors may still cause the earth to cool (potentially).

Spyman - let's try this again. Greenhouse gases have a net effect on warming just as gravity has a net effect on speed of a falling object. But other factors may reduce that net effect such that eventually a "critical mass" of greenhouse warming occurs and it can't warm any further.

I think Draug you will not be able to find a physicist (AGW advocate or denier) who would argue that we have reached "the critical point" where greenhouse gases can no have no further effect.

We are not even close to reaching that critical point. Look at the difference between Venus and Mercury for an example of how profound the effect of greenhouse gases can be.

We don't have to hit the critical mass to see an effect.

Think of it like a car accelerating as fast as it can. As it approaches it's top speed, the rate of acceleration reduces compare to the additional gas consumed. We call it a power vurve. Perhaps greenhouse gas has it's own "power curve".