Re: Op-ed writers should just shut up about scientific matters

On Mar 2, 9:24 am, Jeffrey Davis <jd_h...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jon Enslin wrote:
On Mar 1, 10:58 pm, James Schrumpf
<jaspammenotschru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/03/01/AR2007030101293.html

http://tinyurl.com/yv3qbx

The Climate-Change Precipice

By David Ignatius
Friday, March 2, 2007; Page A13

The scientific debate about whether there is a global warming problem is
pretty much over. A leading international group of climate scientists
reported last month that the evidence for global warming is "unequivocal"
and that the likelihood it is caused by humans is more than 90 percent.
Skeptical researchers will continue to question the data, but this isn't a
"call both sides for comment" issue anymore. For mainstream science, it's
settled.

* * *

This is so wrong from a scientific viewpoint it's unfunny. However, it's
very opinionated, for which he should be commended. I suppose.

http://www.slate.com/id/2159164/

"But 10 years' worth of new data have emboldened the researchers, and
now they've replaced their hazy equivocations with percentage values.
This shift in rhetoric-at base, from words to numbers-has made their
conclusions more comprehensible and compelling. It's also made them
less honest."

The thing that really bothers me about this entire debate is that
while we can show that the earth is getting warmer, and we can predict
that certain consequences could occur, we certainly cannot state that
human action has primarily caused it. I mean, we can say it *may*
have.

The writer you quote above is humbugging. He goes round the barn a lot
but "made them less honest" is junk. Just as your "we certainly cannot
state that human action has primarily caused it" is also junk. We know
the source of the CO2 in the atmosphere. We know who put it there.
Unless you've got another culprit (one that whooshes away the known
effects of CO2) you're bucking logic and sense. Occams Razor: human
activity is behind global warming.


We know the source of CO2 in the atmosphere. We theorize that it can
cause a greenhouse effect. We theorize that this greenhouse effect
has been the culprit of making the earth warmer beyond the
fluctuations that have regularly occured throughout history.

Jon

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