As Vice President, Dick Cheney is a policy maker and a politician. Cheney was doing his job.

Scientists who want to do their research independent of politics shouldn't be government bureaucrats and should seek employment elsewhere.

BTW: I read the "uncensored" draft testimony at alt.coxnewsweb.com. This testimony was correctly edited because it is full of speculative science.

Now here's a quote that is definitely not speculative: "Scientific evidence supports the view that the earth's climate is changing."

Of course the climate is changing! The climate is supposed to change and will always change. This is the equivalent of saying scientific evidence supports the sun is going to rise tomorrow and is equally as meaningless.

Now why would someone trot this little diddy out?

Oh yeah... belief and evidence in support of AGW is down recently so someone (Boxer) needs to level some claim to blame the current administration. No, she's not a bit partisan and really, she clearly only CARES about Mother Earth.

And who better to believe other than the Associate Deputy Administrator of the EPA? I mean seriously, if they were merely just an Administrator of the EPA, who could believe them.

And, sure, the EPA is apolitical right?

I would love to know how many of the predictions have any, any, chance of coming to pass?

AS I recall about the "eviscerated" testimony, the good doctor informed us that the world would suffer and that "pigs would fly once the temperature warmed a mere 1.8 degrees C more than now".

Frankly, I don't know why anyone would want to edit such eloquently stated, and most certainly peer-reviewed statements.

I wonder if the Doctor was asked to fully substantiate the claims with proof rather than supposition?

It will be nice to have politicians in office whose constituency extends beyond their contributors and buddies. Maybe even one who'll put public safety, health and welfare ahead of those groups.
We now have two presidential candidates of that mindset. 90% of politicians (of both parties) are more qualified to make such choices than Cheney.

He certainly could not have detracted from anything of importance; he can dress himself and does not appear to need a dribble cup.

More than a cover up - Probably criminal, certainly undemocratic and probably unconstitutional.

VO Cheney doing his job, the liars at the EPA trying to circumvent those policies. No one wants to ask the question, will you stop breathing because you are polluting. Who will decide who breathes and who does not?

Pay higher taxes so government can PRETEND to control the weather -- you didn't fall for that hoax did you?

What is really frightening is that the next administration won't have anyone with the sanity or common sense to do the same.

Let's see how long it takes for our Bush Bashing friends to come out of the woodwork and have a field day with this story (which I might add, is old news)! As for this: "all administrations edit testimony before it is submitted to Congress," Yep. And they all have veto power too, like when Clinton vetoed legislation allowing drilling in ANWR 10 years ago. Let's see. How long did our progressive/tree hugging/cold weather loving friends say it would take before that oil up there would have an effect on the price of gas and the world markets???.....

DENY DENY DENY THE GLO-BULL WARMING LIE!!!!!!

P.S. Still waiting for summer to start. One or two 84 degree days ain't cutting it!...:-(....

If a bureaucratic scientific group generates a report about an issue it is concerned about, as a tax payer I want to see the report myself and make a decision on what it is saying. I paid for it.

I do not want anyone, especially a politician, suppressing that information. Knowledge and the individuals access to it is what democracy is all about. And that is what America is all about.

bill-tb:
Why do you think the EPA is lying? Seems Cheney could be the guilty one for obvious reasons.

John Galt:
You and I agree on your last post. Your right.
KIPP

We should turn the country over to unelected, superstitious, bureaucrats who aren't good enough to get a job in industry.

That is what the founding fathers fought and died for.

After reading the postings both here and the ones in the October 24, 2007 thread, it becomes rather obvious that opinions expressed by the same group of people are basically saying the same things that they did back then.

Brett, instead of concentrating on this old topic of the scientific data censorship of this administration that will obviously go nowhere in changing anyone's opinions, I think a more interesting discussion would be on what T. Boone Pickens is obviously setting up to do with the alternative energy solutions. At least we can talk about what the oil tycoon said about the fact that we can't drill ourselves out this mess that we created for ourselves and that the billions of dollars leaving this country is hurting our economy.

I would be most interested to see if the majority on this site would look at the likely energy alternative proposal of Mr. Pickens would be looked at any differently if it came from a governmental official instead of an entrepreneur. In other words, if the government actually came up with the exact same game plan that Mr. Pickens is likely to suggest, would they accept it or quickly consider it dead in the water?

Seems to me there are just as many, in fact MORE private and independent scientist and scientific bodies/groups out there (I can confidently say the majority) who recognize that the climate is being affected by our CO2 emissions and that this will have a negative impact on our health and society.

Cold at the pole. Note the fresh ice on the surface of the meltwater-
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/latest/noaa1.jpg

Apparently their thermometer is not extremely accurate.

This adminstration wants science an history to be written their way....no matter how it may conflict with realtity.

From a strictly logical viewpoint, anything coming from the government regardless of who has written it, it should be something the government can honestly stand behind at that time and to the best of their knowledge. So you wouldn't want to minimize a potential risk, but you would not want to put it out as fact to the public that would believe the literature as the gospel truth. I can see making changes to a report submitted if there was just opinion submitted without back-up or something the government felt would cause undo panic. I think it is a hard call, but most importantly it really depends on the intent of the person doing the deleting. The funny thing is if Barack did any editing it would be seen as perfectly o.k., much like his intentional positioning to the middle is perfectly understandable and supported by his party, but let a republican try to do the same and they are intentionally hiding something.

Some years ago, I dealt with the EPA directly concerning deliberate dumping by a large manufacturer into a local river source. As a taxpayer they treated me like some dumb hick that just needed to mind my own business. Of course I didn't and it took another governmental agency siding with me to get them to knock it off. The EPA from my perspective said all the right things to satisfy me and then left and did absolutely nothing to force these two companies to comply with any sort of standard. In the end, I learned a lot about the EPA and how helpful or not they really are. It was a real eye-opener for me. The dumping stopped but certainly NOT because the EPA even wanted it to and ever tried to help me.

Things are rarely as they appear.

OT Alert!!!!

Looks like I'm going to have to get the old diesel F-350 out of mothballs and get some soot into the air. According to this report, the clear skies over Europe since 1980 have strongly contributed to the increase in temps there do to increase solar irradiance. Wait a minute! How can this be? Our resident experts here say that the sun can't cause any warming. This paper is obviously wrong.

Here's a link to her 'edited' testimony:
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/file-uploads/Draft_CDC_testimony_23oct07.pdf

Hmmm, what I found very odd is she make zero, -0- mention of the 'benefits' of a warmer climate!!!

And yes there would be benefits: cold kills more people the heat does.

That is a BIG MISS!!! By not mentioning to obvious, it hints she intentionally 'stacked' her report without regard to the science.

...from Hoover Inst.>>>

Abstract
A somewhat warmer climate would probably reduce mortality in the United States and provide Americans with valuable benefits. Regressions of death rates in Washington, DC, and in some 89 urban counties scattered across the nation on climate and demographic variables demonstrate that warmer temperatures reduce deaths. The results imply that a 2.5deg. Celsius warming would lower deaths in the United States by about 40,000 per year.
http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/health.html

Climate change, especially Anthropogenic Global Warming has always been interesting, but relatively minor scientific debate. It's in the political arena where the debate gets contentious and all proposed solutions are primarily political in nature.

In a true scientific debate, we would first look for evidence that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of climate change and then we look for evidence that human emissions are responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We would have to consider all natural causes of climate change and systematically eliminate those factors as the cause of climate change.

And we haven't done that. The environmentalists, the activists, the politicians and bureaucrats just accept the premise without any evidence to support it and refuse to even consider any evidence that refutes the hypothesis. It's accepted prima facie that the hypothesis is true. In science, an hypothesis is always considered to be false or untrue until shown otherwise.

Fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine have always been villains to the greens. These people don't like industry, they don't like consumption, consumerism or capitalism and they don't like the American lifestyle. The radical environmentalists want everybody to live as they dictate and BAMM!! --here comes global warming and look what (allegedly) causes it -- fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine. None of those people care if carbon dioxide is really responsible for any changes to the climate. All they know is now they have a "scientific" reason to force their ideals upon the world.

There are quite a few people concerned about AGW and they're scared. They watch the news and they read the paper and wow, it appears that all "scientists" agree. What they don't realize is the "experts" being quoted aren't climatologists or climate scientists but are environmental activists who believe human civilization is destroying the planet and must be stopped by any and all means necessary.

Radicals have never permitted contrary and skeptical views to be expressed. This is now a tenant of today's political correctness movement--silence people whose ideas you disagree with and don't allow them to influence others. Science is supposed to work the exact opposite way -- dissent, debate and discussion are necessary to advance knowledge and understanding. Many of our younger scientists don't understand the difference between science and activism. Scientists are also human and are given to all the sins of ego that everyone else is. Scientists have to eat, too, and if AGW is where the funding is when that's what they're going to research.

Politicians and bureaucrats are more than happy to get involved. The average politician doesn't know any more about the climate (or basic science) than your local barber, but any issue which a politician can get behind that's going to win more votes, well, how can a politician turn away from that? Bureaucrats always want more money and more power and so if AGW is a problem, throwing more money the government's way must be the solution.

If Cheney got caught editing one scientific report how come the 1000's of scientists involved in the vast left-wing AGW conspiracy haven't been caught?

How come not one legitimate scientist has come forward and exposed the conspiracy?

What would the delayers / deniers say if a politician edited a report to Congress saying that the climate is cooling?

I thought Patrick, Oiznop, Darren, etc. have decried the injection of politics into the AGW debate. Is it OK when it is right wing politics?

The parts of the EPA report that were edited out where about about the effect on human health. The health of Americans! Is it OK to ignore issues about disease, heat waves, hunger? Is this what you are denying?

We could give your suggestion a try, Patrick. After all, our barely-elected superstitious career politicians have had their chance.

uh oh, here come the conspiracy theorist loonies. i think cheney was probably behind the jfk and archduke of ferdinand assassinations too.

in other news see the article below from new scientist, "Cleaner skies explain surprise rate of warming". i love this quote, "unfortunately cleaning up the skies has allowed more of the sun's rays to pierce the atmosphere, contributing to at least half the warming that has occurred".

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/mg19926634.800-cleaner-skies-explain-surprise-rate-of-warming.html?DCMP=ILC-arttsrhcol&nsref=specrt12_pic

priceless.

poor old richard, i bet he thinks alot about BABBLING "BOXERshorts"...heh, heh, i just wish all those politicians could just get along...however, here is a classic example of one beaucratic organization pointing fingers at the other beaucratic organization with purely political tripe...the ineptness of it all is saddening...here you have senator-D from CA screaming the EPA should get the CDC to handover the documents from the VP so they can assess the implications of CO2...with all the government beaucracies slobbering at the taxpayer trough, we may need a new Alphabet...and to think we have two choices for president who think we need to add yet another pilfering AGW department based on hocus-pocus global meltdown, it may be time to order a shipment of TEA and start all over....have a nice day, dudes!!!!

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the EPA fall under the Executive branch of government? So this story is all about a branch of government controlling what its departments may or may not present as scientific fact before Congress? Where's the beef?

John Galt:

Climate change, especially Anthropogenic Global Warming has always been interesting, but relatively minor scientific debate. ...... In a true scientific debate, we would first look for evidence that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of climate change and then we look for evidence that human emissions are responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. ....

And we haven't done that.

What planet are u from? Maybe in the US, but for the rest of us it is a UN level, G8 level. It involves thousands of scientists. You should research this topic if you are not farmilar with it. There is a lot of material out there.

Like the evidence that human CO2 emissions are driving temperature rise. This is derived from readily available data from a number of different sources. Take this analysis from one individual who just likes to play with numbers at the Natural Variation - Autism Blog...

Anthropogenic Global Warming is Absolutely Occurring

If you review his post I don't see how you can say that its conclusions are false. He has analyzed other data here...

gettingcold,

You might want to scroll up to the top of the page. This thread is about politics.

yeh it is a beauty - news that smog etc is clearing up is not new news.

Climate models have started taking into account the effect this will have on rising temperature. ie they are going to be going up faster!

Alec: no mention of benifits to GW...

Thats because they were probably EDITED OUT by VP office!

Don't you think...

To Dennis Hlinka:

There's more to the T. Boone Pickens story than meets the eye. His company (BP) has already invested heavily in wind power yet the wind power tax credits extended by the US government are about to expire at the end of this year. Could there be an ulterior motive here? BP's green initiatives are proving to be huge drains on the company's profitability and the stockholders are losing patience.

His idea to run the nation's autos on natural gas is neither new nor plausible. That's an old red herring. It would drive the cost of manufacturing up by 6-10K per car and there is no delivery system in place for the fuel, the same issue that hobbles the hydrogen car concept. But of course BP has a huge stake in natural gas so T. Boone is a big fan. The future lies in the electric car, which hopefully will take a quantum leap forward with the Volt and next generation of lithium ion batteries. I will be the first in line to buy one!

GettingWarm,

The parts of the EPA report that were edited out where about about the effect on human health. The health of Americans! Is it OK to ignore issues about disease, heat waves, hunger?

I'm sorry, but why should pure speculation be injected into a government sponsored report?

Alec: no mention of benifits to GW...

Thats because they were probably EDITED OUT by VP office!

Don't you think...

Time in front of Congress is limited. Editing by the administration (of either party) of congressional reports from various departments is required if you are to properly manage your priorities. It is ultimately the President's job to make the hard decisions about what the priorities are going to be - not the head of the CDC. Agree with the VP's decision or not, but this is simply the managing of prioities - not some covert suppression of previously unknown information.

Perhaps the WH felt there were already plenty of current public health issues (the list is long) that are higher priorities than speculating on future health-related scanarios that might occur with GCM predicted climate change.

The group that dominates this blog yells hard and often whenever the facts in the case are outed. Don't let them blind you with their self-referential materials using all the well financed organizations that support repressing and editing science. Don't let them use name calling and sarcasm as a substitute for observation and debate.

If I remember correctly Senator Inhofe's election campaign received about $2 million from Exxon (campaign funding is *not* equivalent to funding for research and development), so his website is much more elegant than that of the majority. For a more honest presentation, which doesn't favor Sen. Inhofe and Mr. Morano try this:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/the-vice-president-and-the-greenhouse/

Brett: Senator Inhofe is the "ranking minority member" of the Senate Environment committe but you failed to mention that Senator Boxer is the ranking *majority* member, and you reference Mr. Morani but noone on the other side (though that is covered in the article). Reply: Thank you Susan.

The science is clear. Dr. Hansen is a top scientist who has emerged from being gagged and is a much needed whistleblower to palliate all the bias that this administration has inserted into the "debate". Mr. Gore is a fine advocate whose facts are largely proven. The IPCC is a report that was worked on by world-wide scientists of great repute and if anything it understates the case.

Do not believe flat statements that correct these without doing some fact checking, avoiding specialist websites and organizations supported by industry to obscure the truth and delay work on solutions.

If you find the science too difficult and are prepared to take their word for it, take a look at the weather, not the specific weather in a particular place, but the trends. Any objective observer can see that things are changing and that millions of people are homeless this year alone because of it. Even where I am, which has been pretty pleasant recently, tides are higher and storms are more extreme.

paulm:

Sorry, no cigar. There is not a strong correlation between CO2 and temperature and no massaging of the data can change that. There is a much stronger correlation between the sun and climate. Taken together with ocean currents, the correlation is very strong.

And correlation does not amount to causation, either. Even if the analysis you point out is correct it does not show cause and effect.

What's the correlation between global warming and the population of Mexico City? Does that prove that too many Mexicans causes global warming? No. We could find any number of correlations which are coincidental and none of it proves any cause and effect.

And we're talking global climate change. The northern and southern hemisphere do exchange gases. If you believe the IPCC reports that CO2 stays airborne for a century, then you must also accept that CO2 must cause warming equally in both the northern and southern hemispheres -- which has not been observed.

No computer model or statistical analysis can prove a cause and effect between CO2 and climate change. Ice core data shows warming occurs first and contemporary data also shows seasonal warming proceeds increases in CO2.

Please see William M. Briggs, Statistician blog for a better understanding (http://wmbriggs.com/blog/category/climatology/).

Thank you

GW:

Tough to get caught in a conspiracy if the people involved in it have a vested interest in maintaining the party line.

And when you throw in the fact that those who control the information us unwashed masses our able to readily receive are interested solely in drama, crises, and chaos (All things a main tenet of AGW theory and effect), it is doubtful that factual information will be presented to expose your suggested conspiracy.

Simply put though, those of us who are skeptics are unlikely to believe that there is a conspiracy as such. Conspiracies are the calling card of liberal and communal ideologies and thinking. WE prefer to be judged upon results at the end of an action not at the start or middle, but at the end.

Not sure about the others, but I firmly believe there is no AGW conspiracy, it's really just an ideology of a vocal group who are concerned about the industrialization of the planet. As I have said repeatedly, the groups talking up AGW today are same complaining about every other hot button topic of whatever decade. Just ask them.

Actually, the AGW scientists have been repeatedly caught in their misunderstanding of the climate. Why do you think that we ALL make fun at every thing being the fault of AGW?

Let me spell it out for you, Hansen, realizing that AGW is becoming a source of humor, not fear, since the temps are going down, has recently said that, "yes, that too is a sign of AGW, there will be a 15 year lapse in temps before it goes up again". And then, he follows up with his punchline "WE MUST TAKE ACTION NOW!!!!".

You see, EVERY thing is the fault of AGW and the bar shifts as they see fit. How can you be wrong if the verification changes as your data changes?

I know Brett, for one, would appreciate being able to make his forecast for today, tomorrow. He'd have a 100% accuracy rating. Kinda like the AGWers in a way. I know that he'd rule the weather world with an accuracy like that.

And nope, ignoring health issues is not the point here. But let's emphatically state, those issues have been present in humanity since we have been on this planet. And most, if not every single one occurred prior to the theory of AGW. In fact, I cannot think of an AMERICAN health issue related to the supposed onset of AGW. The good doctor's assessment was "what ifs and could bes". That's not science, that's not information, that's storytelling. There is a whole realm of literature defining those statements, it's called science fiction.

So, let me ask you something.

I am a structural engineer. And qualified to present the following information in testimony.

Every single building you occupy (including your dwelling), road you travel, vehicle you are in or operate, and device you come across in the next day could fail resulting in serious injury and/or death to you or your family if a certain series of events occur that impinge their respective structural load carrying capacities.

I will follow that with the statement that the odds of this occurring are more than 1% but less than 50%.

Remember, this information is based upon the best judgement and knowledge that I have. And I can think up a realistic and plausible fail scenario for ANYTHING your thinking of right now.

Do you think that is valid or not? And what do you do about it?

Oh, and the scenario above applies to anyone reading this not just AGWers.

paul:

how do you know its speculation?? Have you got proof that it isn't. Or are you just speculating that its speculation?

I guess we ought to look at the facts to decide...

Hi Charles,

It's obvious T. Boone Pickens motive is to make money. That's what entrepreneurs are in the game for. My main interest in this posting is to see how many of the majority (skeptics) on this site would actually back his initiatives. I am not sure what side you are on the general AGW debate, but it seems pretty obvious you are negative about Mr. Pickens' ideas.

I agree with you on the electric car idea as long as we can build the needed infrastructure for everyone to have their own power source outside of the main power grid. Solar power and/or some new technology that could essentially utilize a new system of generators that could take advantage of the actual movement of the vehicles to create and store energy in addition to solar power generation. The vehicle would essentially create it's own power when it is either sitting idle or when it is moving. I am sure added friction issues would have to be overcome in regards to the generators, but I think the idea has potential.

If something like that could happen, then we could get out of the stranglehold the utility power generators and gasoline producers have over us. It will be a tough battle I am sure due to the control these powerful entities have in our current political system. But if everyone here believes that we as individuals should have more control over our own energy supplies, then I would hope that the conservatives on this site would back that idea even more. Imagine what that would do to our individual bank accounts if we don't have to pay those corporations any more of our hard earned money.

Finally, I too have some doubts about the hydrogen car technology solving our fuel problems due to the resulting water vapor emissions, which is also a very effective GHG. We would free ourselves from the OPEC Nations, but we would still have to address the potential climate change issue.

Paulm:
Of course it was censored! What they don't censor they deny. Did you see Bush at the G-8 summit. They have a picture of him twirling round and round in his chair. What a leader!
I think the photo should have been taken outdoors.
with an evergreen backround, knocked out of focus. Also you see how they tried to retouch his the glare from his right eye with a little gray. Should have used acrylics. Glad they didn't use a hairlight.
KIPP

Paul.
This is your "pure speculation"
It is based on CDC epidemiological data:

"Some populations of Americans are more vulnerable to the health effects of climate change than others.

Children are at greater risk of worsening asthma,allergies, and certain infectious diseases, and the elderly are at higher risk for health effects due to heat waves, extreme weather events, and exacerbations of chronic disease.

In addition, people of lower socioeconomic status are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events. Members of racial and ethnic minority groups suffer particularly from air pollution as well as inadequate health care access, while athletes and those who work outdoors are more at risk from air pollution, heat, and certain infectious diseases."

Children. Elderly. Poor people. Racial and ethnic groups. People who work outdoors. Why should we care about them?

Dennis,
I am an AGW skeptic but I too would like to see an electric car technology like you talk about. However, if this technology was available tomorrow I could not afford a new car until sometime in the future. The vehicle would have to get around 600 miles to a charge and be able to charge in about 8 hours.

On a side note the new hybrid Tahoe is more fuel efficient than the old ones but the base price is around $42,000. The cost does not outweigh the benifit, meaning the fuel savings does not make up for the added initial cost.

To Dennis:

I guess I'm not as antagonistic to the existing power grid as you are. I don't have a problem with creating more nuclear and coal fired power plants to supply more electricity to the grid. Electrical energy is the most portable form of energy and can be produced from many sources.

It's not that I'm "negative about Mr. Pickens' ideas", I was always taught to consider the source when listening to people. He's made a huge investment in alternative fuels and is doing everything in his power to insure a high return on those investments. It's that simple. For the record, I'm on the side of demonstrable and repeatable science and rigorous scientific method in the AGW debate. If that plays out in favor of CO2 driving the climate, then that's what I'll subscribe to. To this point, however, I'm not convinced. Have you read the IPCC TAR and AR4 documents? I have and I'm not impressed. Man may well be contributing to some warming across the planet but until serious questions are answered regarding the surface temperature record, proxy sampling and splicing, lack of governance around temperature measurements, data set "adjustments" that are mysterious at best and unsound at worst, I will remain unconvinced. I had to pass a more stringent review process when I wrote software for the US DoD than what Mann or Hansen has been through. That's what bothers me.

Anonymous,

I'm a UK citizen so am politically neutral in relation to the topic of this thread, but it is a well documented fact that the number of people who do not die because of warmer winters far outweighs the number who might die because of increasing temperatures - and that applies across all age ranges,but especially the elderly, and ethnicities etc.

Winter cold kills thousands in every country every year and this is rarely remarked upon. However, the warming temperatures are significantly reducing those winter deaths year on year.

Google the topic or see Lomborg's 'Cool It' for numerous examples.

Funny, a certain crowd screams "censorship" and gloats about "outing of facts" when they probably have trouble balancing their checkbooks. Let's make it real simple: AGW doesn't add up.

Multiple cases of "adjustments" to data to make the delta look bigger, inflate the temps, conceal the obvious UHI effect on sensors, hiding means and methods of calculating warming (AGW's hero Hansen) by a public official, disregard of all the benefits of returning to a warmer climate, ignoring the current cooling trend that is now a significant fraction (1/3d) of the time frame used by AGWers, ignoring historical data except to alter it to fit the models, etc., etc., etc.

Go back to threatening pre-"crime" trials with the death penalty for "deniers" and trying to get professional weather specialists certifications pulled for not believing in AGW.

John Galt:
There is not a strong correlation between CO2 and temperature and no massaging of the data can change that. There is a much stronger correlation between the sun and climate. Taken together with ocean currents, the correlation is very strong.

There is also a correlation between the sun and climate but thats NOT the point. There always has been. The point and issue is the effect of CO2 emissions on the temperature.

And correlation does not amount to causation, either. Even if the analysis you point out is correct it does not show cause and effect.

In this case it does! Because the correlation is such a good fit, the only other probable reason is if some single thing were responsible for both CO2 rise and temperature rise. And then clearly it wouldn't matter. The author, Joesph, addresses this much better than I in the blog comment section, so it is worth reading it.

Paulm and anonymous (I'm not quite sure which anonymous this one is),

"Some populations of Americans are more vulnerable to the health effects of climate change than others."

That must be why death rates due to extreme events have been steadily going down since 1900, eh? Check out the paper yourself.

Ok, maybe speculation is the wrong word. Instead, maybe I should have used WAG as it definitely wasn't an EWAG.

Hi Charles,

I just see the argument that many on the conservative side say that they want the government's hands off our money so we can do want we want with it, but then seem to be more then willing and able to allow the power and energy corporations to basically take it from them. The fact that the government and those powerful corporate industries are basically tied together at the hip in their control over us, seems to me that those "keep your hands off our money" arguments should apply to both.

You also mention that you consider the source of the information in your determination if the information is reasonable or not. Again, I see a purposely contradictory mis-information campaign presented on the skeptic side that appears to have a lot of background economic support from the energy and power industries because of their own personal interests in the issue. Shouldn't you then consider that in your determination of whether or not the information being presented on that side is based on fact or fiction? What is the real motive behind such information? You question Mr. Picken's motives, why not the energy companies? They appear to me to be one and the same.

All scientific data has a lot of problems in how it is collected, how it is analyzed, how it is interpreted, and how it is used (that is where political policy comes into play). The stringent review process that you feel is lacking on the Mann and Hansen information, is also lacking on the skeptic/denier side as well. It goes both ways, and again you have to consider the sources of the information.

I do my own independent scientific research, albeit on a very small scale, and without any funds to support my time. I continually look at the long-term trends and try to ignore the short-term "noise" in the data. I have yet to find any discrepancies in the long-term temperature and GHG record and the physical record (e.g. global glacial retreat, melting arctic sea ice, increasing global sea level, etc.) that disputes that.

Yes there are and always will be issues about data quality in any scientific database. That is what quality control of any database is all about. But to then state because of these problems, which will never be resolved to 100% accuracy by the way, we will defer our decisions until we have better information. What is that defining point of data resolution that you feel we will finally be able to agree that a decision can be made?

anonymous,

spare me your noncaring platitudes...if you really cared about those individuals, perhaps you would do something like vote to oust the liars and supporters of AGW and vote for developing home grown cheap energy so that 1) the elderly can afford an air conditioner and heater when needed 2) poor people can spend more discretionary income on food and housing instead of energy 3) more poor children will be able to afford treatment for illnesses 4) lower socioeconomic racial and ethnic groups likewise will benefit from cheap energy...5) the fact that athletes and the people who work outside in the U.S. breathe some of the cleanest air, have access to the best medical, training facilities and infectious disease facilities is because all those things come from mostly fossil fuel created energy or derive their products thereof...dude, you seem to miss the fact that cheap fuel equates to a higher standard of living for everyone...in contrast, your drive-by attempt at sounding sympathetic underscores an environmental fear tactic whose cost implementation actually results in the detriment of those you pretend to care about...

WeatherWatcher wrote:
"If you find the science too difficult and are prepared to take their word for it, take a look at the weather, not the specific weather in a particular place, but the trends. Any objective observer can see that things are changing and that millions of people are homeless this year alone because of it."

Sources, please. Made up statistics like the above are not pursuasive.

D Caldwell,

Thats easy, AGW caused the China eartquake, it cause the typhoon the hit the Philipines and it caused Enron to be corrupt.

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for your response. It's nice to have a civil disucussion for a change!

We seem to both have a healthy distrust for "Big Government" and "Big Corporations", or at least "Big Energy" on your side of the argument. Energy policy is a matter of national security so the two entities will always be joined at the hip. I'm not saying I like it but that's just the way it is. I don't quite understand your comment, "You question Mr. Picken's motives, why not the energy companies?" Mr. Pickens IS the energy company, at least he is when he speaks for BP. To question Mr. Pickens is to question all oil companies about their sudden interest in green technologies. Don't you find it odd that one of the world's pre-eminant oil men is launching a multi-million dollar campaign against our oil addiction? It doesn't pass the smell test. You're damn right I'm suspicious of his motives, and the expiring tax credits are too much of a coincidence.

Regarding research into AGW and GHG, that's why we're all blathering on in forums like this, right? I would submit if you've done your own research and haven't found any discrepencies with the temperature record or physical record then you're not researching hard enough. The question isn't whether or not the Earth is going through a warming period, it's whether or not this current warming period is unprecedented, unusually rapid, driven by human activity and potentially catastrophic. This is what makes the descrepencies so important. The known discrepencies to date with proxy reconstruction, temperature record gathering and "adjustments", relatively short phyiscal records on ice extent, sea levels, etc. make it impossible in my mind to prove causation.

Also, I'm not saying we need to discount imperfect data. No one ever has perfect data. Instead we need to be completely open and transparent about the best ways to fill the gaps, identify what is noise and what isn't and just simply be adults about the whole thing. Again, this is what bothers me. When I tested my combat systems software in the lab, that was one thing. But there was nothing like going out on a ship with real sailors and have a commanding officer look you in the eye and ask you how confident your were with your results. There is no such governance or real world accountability in climate science and quite frankly there needs to be before we make any broad based changes to our society and economy.

Hi Charles,

My distrust of the energy companies and their motives really goes to why they are fighting this AGW issue so hard. Yes Pickens is associated with the energy industry, but I see the larger fight coming from Exxon Mobil who has the bigger political and economic hammer compared to the other energy groups.

Did you say you have done your own extensive research into the issue of AGW? Most of the commenters here seem to rely on getting all of their information off particular web sites. I know some of those particular sites have been either funded or have been funded in the past by the energy industry and the supposed independent climate researchers that never were involved with climate research before this AGW issue became popular. So their scientific credentials are so highly questionable a judge would never let them testify as an expert witness. Yet they are out there presenting their obviously biased research reports claiming to be climate experts when they really are not.

That is where most of my mistrust comes from and why I fight so hard to at least counter some of the more blatant misuse of the scientific data I see coming from those sites. My particular beef has been with the ICECAP site because their claim is that they are all about science and not politics, but they certainly go into a lot of conservatively slanted topics on that site that have nothing to do with pure science. That is where I doubt their sincerity and how I think they are more influenced by behind the scene groups such as the energy industries. Those types of sites are just too one sided in their opinions and seem to purposely misguide the general public into believing they have the only true answers regarding the issue. I also wonder why they don't open up there site to blogs such as this one in order to provide a means to question their postings directly.

I can only assume that you are not just basing your AGW conclusions from them since you seem rather level headed here compared to others I have encountered here on this blog.

I enjoyed talking to you and being able to express my opinions without being chastised.

Charles,

Oil companies are very smart, Mr. Pickens is a pretty smart feller too. He made his wealth from oil, which was the new hot energy source back in the day. He foresaw the fortune to be made. He also knows that oil is not infinite, as do the oil companies know that. They have a vested interest in finding new energy technologies as well. Sure they company execs could retire now and have plenty of money for generations to come, but they want more money. Thus they want to keep their company going once oil has either run dry, or been replaced. They want to be a player in the next main energy source.

They have one hand on oil, and hand on the next big thing.

It serves more than 1 purpose, it looks good to advertise their commitment to green technologies, and also if one of them creates the technology, they will strike it rich.

Dennis:

Yes, I've done my own research and probably read many of the same sites and blogs that you do, including Real Climate, Tamino and others with clearly left leaning political ideologies. I don't think you can keep politics out of this debate any longer, particularly since the IPCC (a purely political body) is now regarded as the defacto governing agency for international climate policy, if there is such a thing. I respectfully disagree with your assessment of Icecap. They don't claim to be politically agnostic. In fact, one of their main columns is entitled "The Political Climate".

Your other point regarding funding of blogs, etc. by ExxonMobil is the greatest non-starter of this whole debate. I could care less who funds whom. If the facts support a thesis, that's more important to me. That's how a patent clerk turned the world of physics on its ear. He was right and the rest of the "credentialed" world was wrong. Einstein is known to have said (paraphrasing), "I don't need a consensus of scientists to prove me wrong, just one will do." To assume the skeptic crowd is doing the bidding of Exxon Mobil is just as naive as assuming the AGW/Real Climate crowd has purely altruistic motives.

Furthermore, having worked for the US Government (DoD) for many years I've seen first hand how the funding system works and what career beaurocrats will do to protect their turf, build their fiefdoms and build their base all in the name of increasing funding and power. There is no greater funding source than the US Government in this great debate. From grant programs in academia to entire federal departments like NASA, NOAA the EPA there are literally thousands of people who now drink from the federal Global Warming spigot. In my unbiased opinion the "Exxon Mobil is spreading lies" line is a weak one. Quite frankly I wouldn't expect the oil industry to just sit back and get steamrolled. Of course they're going to support some talking heads out there. But I emplore you to stick to the science, brush up on statistics and thermodynamics ( I have a degree in mechanical engineering ) and try to make it all add up. To my humble mind, the known increase CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 100 years or so simply cannot drive the climate in ways the IPCC claims.

HI Charles,

This quote comes directly from the ICECAP site in regards to who they are: "This is not about politics but about science."

If so, then why do they even address political issues on their web site?

You state that you question the motives of Mr. Pickens, but then don't care if other energy groups like Exxon Mobil are funding biased "climate" research reports? How can you have such confidence that their facts support a thesis if it never goes through a full peer review process before being distributed into the public domain as facts? That goes against anything I believe in regards to true science and it becomes much more political because they use public opinion over scientific review in order to make their points be known, all in their favor. And it is Exxon Mobil who funds those non-peer reviewed climate research papers who is the ultimate benefactor. That doesn't seem like the science I know and love but more of a manipulated public opinion machine.

In fact Mr. D'Aleo of ICECAP told me that most of his reports and others in his group never go through any peer review process. The conferences they set up are nothing more then brotherly love "skeptic" conventions where they can slap each other on the back for getting their supposed research papers labeled with some sort of conference designation just so their research can gain some "scientific" credibility in the public's eyes.

Charles finds change frightening, Dennis.

Oh Mr. Bloom, are you saying change is a good thing? Good, then quit with the alarmism and be neutral.

Bloom "finds" facts "frightening" Dennis and Charles. Hence the increasing frequency of his desperate rearguard action postings, their decreasing factual content, and the increasing vitriol and ad hominem attacks.

OK, we're starting to repeat ourselves here so this will be my last post on the topic.

Dennis, please focus on my point of "a fact is a fact" regardless of where you read it. I never said I didn't care if Exxon Mobil is funding research, all I said was the source of the funding is immaterial to whatever facts are discovered. To discount all research findings based on funding source you must discount everything, because the amount of money the US Government (me and you) spend on climate research dwarfs all other sources combined. By your reasoning, those receiving said funding have a vested interest to continue being funded and therefore will slant their results a certain way.

There is no such thing as an unbiased source in my opinion. I don't believe everything I read in Icecap or Junk Science, or Real Climate, or the IPCC without cross checking facts and references and filtering out the snide commentary. (An aside, thanks Steve Bloom for your invaluable contribution to the debate here. That last comment was a gem.) Are you willing to blindly accept someone's story because it's "peer-reviewed"? I thought you had more intellectual curiosity than that. See the Wegman report if you want an insider's view of the so called climate science peer review process. Or Christy. Or McIntyre. They actually participated in the process. Let me ask you this, who or what is the neutral governing body of the climate science community? Is it Nature magazine? The IPCC? Who is considered a peer and who isn't? Every time I hear the "peer-review" it sounds like a crutch to me (please see Einstein quote above).

We have a long way to go to find the truth about AGW in my opinion. What I find troublesome is whenever I submit a post on Real Climate that challenges the consensus view it is never posted. Not once. Try it yourself. Everything I've ever posted here or on Climate Audit or Tamino does get through. Until I see some transparency from the Real Climate folks I will remain skeptical of their findings and their motives.

The truth is out there.