Green World Trust

[Eric]

[Lucy Skywalker]

Thank you Eric for saying a bit about yourself, that helps a lot. And I agree and sympathise with a lot you've said just here.

A big problem here is that this forum is quite small. You put up long posts that are often too much for the readers here to take on. I'd be much happier if you divided your time between more other blogs and forums. But the other problem is, you regard as authority a great deal that we have generally looked at far more closely than you realize, before dismissing, and vice versa, far more than I feel it's worth my while to explain to just one individual - you.

This is the case for me with Lawrence Solomon - to recap our pm dialogue. I looked into his website and beyond, as you had quoted lines from him that made his environmentalist claim look suspicious - but instead of confirming your suspicions, I found a far, far wider context in which his environmentalism seemed perfectly real to me. But it takes too long to spell out ALL the bits of evidence I saw, just to suit you. And even if his environmentalism was suspect, the value of his book The Deniers still stands, in showing a large number of top scientists as "deniers", and telling his own story of U-turn as he listened to them all. Then you quoted an anti review.

I said go to Amazon because here is as balanced a place as you will find, to discern the excellence of any book (from intelligent reviewers) and to reveal the strong opinions both for and against. You dismissed that - perhaps because 60 out of 62 reviewers strongly liked The Deniers. And 2 of the 3 reviews on the top page were intelligent and told one a lot about the book. You simply dismissed all the scientists he wrote about, except for a couple you maintained were not deniers.

At that point, I dismissed your capacity to consider impartially anything not in the official line. I have, after all, read the book and checked a lot of its material. And since then, my perception has only been confirmed further by your unremitting reliance on blogs I find nauseating and untrustworthy, like exxonsecrets and desmogblog. That's a pity because I've sometimes seen you making valid points. Each of us here has gone through a similar learning curve with you.

Would you please consider just voluntarily holding back to about the amount I've asked, rather than push me into enforcing it?

[PAWB]

Thank you Eric, It is good to know about you. I too have a PhD in physics, but am a mere youngster of 62 and have always worked in industry (the nuclear industry). But we have many things in common. From my work I learned of the need for absolute integrity of the work and for independent verification and the need for complete archiving of all work. I was also heavily involved in all aspects of the nuclear industry and so had to work with scientists and engineers from a wide range of disciplines. I was heavily involved with complex computer models and learned of the need for verification, validation, version control etc.

This background has given me a healthy scepticism for what I perceive to be poorly documented and verified climate science and in particular for the validity of climate models and their seemingly uncontrolled development and use. It seems to me that certain industries use very rigorous quality control and I do not see this in university research and government laboratory research of the climate.

I think the education system in England has also suffered in the same way as you describe in the US. Our education is based on passing exams, without the need for the learning of critical thinking. Education has become believing what the government wants children to learn. Even here in the land of Darwin, there are many who reject evolution.

I disagree with you about climate science. Yes there are ill-informed people, but they are on both sides of the argument and to me both sides are also tainted by politics. I think that climate science as a whole is full of holes, it is not restricted to one side of the argument.

England has a very long tradition of amateur scientists, and that is as true today as it has ever been. I don't discount someone's arguments just because he is not funded by a government body or a university or where-ever the funding is from or has not published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The bottom line to me is that there is so much that is not known about the climate that when I hear politicians (or government funded scientists even) telling me the science is settled, and that there is a consensus of scientists, then it automatically raises my sceptical hackles.

Unfortunately, I still do some consulting work and other voluntary work, so I don't have the time to devote to understanding climate science fully.

Regards,
_________________
Phillip in Devon, England

[PeterMG]

Eric pleased you gave us an insight into your life experience. I’m not a physics PhD, but another breed called an engineer. I worked for many years in the diesel engine world until recently when I decided IT was where I was likely to be able to preserve my job and have a continuing career. I now work in an investment bank as an infrastructure engineer. My entire working career I have had an uncanny ability to find the root cause of problems and resolve them. I can smell spin and rubbish almost before I hear or read it. I take all that research and information that the likes of you produce and turn it into something that make sense to the average person.

These are the qualities that lead me to question AGW about 3 years ago. Nothing I have read or seen since has changed that view. I often think that there are very few scientists that are any good at putting their research into proper context, and this has led to a whole range of ridiculous claims. You see from my knowledge of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, combined with my continuing interest in science for its own sake, I had a nagging doubt that CO2, one of the cornerstones of life, could so easily become this dangerous greenhouse gas, and capable of causing catastrophe over such a short span of time when the earth has survived 4.5 billion years. I know this is simplistic, but I gave it a bit more thought than I describe here and found that much of what we were being feed in the press and by our Politian’s could best be described as “not joined up thinking”

And by the way I’m just a youngster at 52 and is why I don’t have much time to waste arguing about that which make no sense. I have 4 children and absolutely endorse what Philips says about our education system. The terrible thing is we have children who work incredibly hard to pass exams where they have little true understanding of the subject, and no sooner do they get their results than there is a whole group of people telling them a monkey could have got the same result. It’s very disheartening for all concerned. My eldest daughter is about to graduate as a doctor, whilst my youngest just passed a test on “Global Warming” I had to be “chained down” for a day when I reviewed the questions such was my rage. However I believe in my children and none of them are taken in by the nonsense.

[Mike Davis]

Well as we are putting our backgroud out. I will admit that I am 62. I spent my professional career as an analyst of mechanical and digital equiptment/ systems. The use of those systems and the people that used them. I do not have a PHD although I was consulted regarding the engineering aspects and was required to design test equiptment.
I look at things as related to the real world and try to understand the history of what I am investigating.
I am a sceptic as life and work taught me to be one. I do not agree with a lot of views regarding the so called science of climate as they are not logical and do not fit the historic pattern of the world that I have come to know. Some of the sites that Eric has refered to have provided evidence in the past thier lack of understanding of natural history.
I was the guy out in the real world that told the engineers when they got it wrong and found a way to make it work. I was still going to technical schools in 2005 before I retired and argueing with the instructors about what they were teaching.

[Richard111]

Well, that was a breath of fresh air. Now I understand how you get the time for your posts Eric.

I am battling with the science because of no scientific background. I was a regular soldier for many years and received my primary training in electronics in the army. From communications I moved to global navigation systems, (land based, long before satellites) then into computers and eventually to a Novell network manager in a large company. When Novell folded I was considered to old for retraining, (not enough years of working time left) and spent my last few years on the helpdesk. That was grim.

Now I am retired and living on a reduced pension thanks to Gordon Brown, and expecting my energy bills to rise by at least another 50% AGAIN THIS YEAR to save the planet. My current annual fuel bill takes 30% of my annual pension. Because of this global warming crap, energy costs and food prices will force me into civil disobedience.

In the mean time I am trying to aquire some hard scientific knowledge of exactly how greenhouse gases perform. There is effectively nothing published about this. What actual facts and figures are fed into these global climate model computers that so consistently predict catastrophic future global warming, and how were they derived? This information should be easily available on the public domain. To insist the public cannot understand the data is an insult to humanity and makes me deeply suspicious of the motives of the AGW agents.

So, Eric, lets hear some real science from you and spare the put downs on people and blogs, they are totally irrelevant to the science. Science is either right, or it is wrong.

[Mike Davis]

Richard111:
Here is a site where you might find some answers:
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/phpbb3/index.php
Derek is there also as are a couple of others who can provide information and sources.

[Richard111]

Thanks Mike. Have bookmarked it. Will look tomorrow. Bit late now.

BTW, don't worry about the 111 on my username. Richard is my given name. I added the 111 when I first posted on WUWT as I noticed I was the third Richard on that thread. Reminded me of my old army name. Richard the t(h)urd. From when I was a young lance corporal back in the days of national service.

[ian]

By god, I trump you all...I just turned 40 I have no background in the sciences - although I did quite well at biology in my final year of high school. I just finished a BA - after attempting university 3 times previously I was determined to prove to myself that I had the gumption to go all the way
While my capacity as a physicist is extremely limited I am really quite good at research, even if I do say so myself (I think it would be somewhat beneficial if we all included this type of information in the introduction before we started posting).

Lucy, my preference is not to ban anyone, perhaps a time-out as long as it is universally applied. I find it best simply to ignore posts that have little relevance or are somewhat inflammatory. As far as I know there is no universal law dictating that we must reply and I think there are times when not replying is the best course of action - it cools things down and hopefully the issue will simply dry up. Of course, the protagonist may assume a victory but who cares. JP often got my blood boiling but generally I managed to let it die. God, am I sounding holier than thou or what Simply a suggestion and I'll keep coming here cause It is a wonderful site.

Best wishes to you all
ian

[Eric]

[PAWB]

Eric:

What you say sums it up (forgetting your desire to blame everything on right-wing politics).

[Lucy Skywalker]

[Eric]

[Eric]

[Mike Davis]

Eric: I agree with Lucy's original opinion of Solomon. See I found different sources for my information tham you did and Solomon is and was an enviormentalist. What I have been able to see that some use selective reality to promote fear.

Man does supply CO2 to the natural cycle of about 6% of the normal average cycle. Global warming allows additional CO2 into the atmosphere naturally. Co2 is not driven by temperature but onlly a portion if the normal anual biosphere cycle. A warmer world allows more life which allows/uses more chemicial compounds of which water and CO2 are two of many in the mix. If there is a Green House Effect then H2O being the primary source of the phenomena at lower altitudes and Ozone being the primary driver at higher altitudes that leaves CO2 and other minor players mostly on the side lines.

Due to problems seperating natural from human as natural is so much greater in extent. Due to the problem of not knowing what is the driver of weather. ( There are a whole bunch of theories on this) It is now known that CO2 follows Temperature and has throughout history so it is not a driver of temperature.

As far as the oil sand issue goes. That is a lot cleaner and less harmful to the enviorment than either solar or wind at this time. Nuclear would be the best answer. Although hydrocarbons will still be needed for smaller transportation needs until a small energy source is found to replace the ICE.

Eric: You still need to find a better information source!