5 ms·

James Randi on "Global Warming"

6 points by nice1 17y ago

tdoggette 17y ago
There's certainly legitimate causes to doubt AGW, but the Petition Project is not among them. Frankly, I'm shocked to see Randi engage in such a blatant appeal to authority, and an irrelevant authority (that is, scientists primarily not in the climate field) at that.
diego_moita 17y ago
So first we had a bunch of pundits "discovering" that the peer review process is flawed. Then, next step, we have a bunch of scientifically-untrained pundits and non-specialists jumping into the debate and giving loud opinions without understanding all the research already done. This is debate is just becoming more ideological and less scientific. P.S.: No, I don't know who this Randi is. But I am sure he's not a climatologist.
- tdoggette 17y ago
  James Randi is a professional skeptic: he's the one behind the million dollar prize for anyone that can demonstrate the paranormal under reasonable conditions.
  - idleworx 17y ago
    "professional skeptic" ... lol. as opposed to "professional gullibles"?
Zarkonnen 17y ago
The two things I don't understand about the "climate change is not man-made" point of view are: 1. What is the actual, plausible motivation for the entirety of the IPCC to mislead people about climate change? 2. Why are measures to reduce carbon output so maligned? At worst, they will be a wasted effort. At best - if climate change is indeed man-made - they will prevent huge environmental disasters. (Bangladesh mostly vanishing under the sea, global food production collapsing, the oceans' food chain collapsing due to acidification, etc.)
- Daniel_Newby 17y ago
  1. Political power and money. They want a permitting system for most equipment powered by carbon-containing fuels, and those permits will be approved and audited by political appointees. Your pizzeria competes with a Senator's nephew? The application for its oven gets "lost". You organize a political rally against the incumbents? Your home furnace gets audited that winter, and its thermostat locked to 50 deg. F until the "discrepancies" can be explained. 2. Because the necessary remedies would result in severe productivity destruction, probably exceeding WWII (including fatalities). Energy is the life blood of economic activity. The present depression is mostly a result of an approximately 2% decrease in energy consumption for part of 2008. The AGW reduction targets are 5% a year in perpetuity, which by linear extrapolation leads to economic apocalypse.
  - Zarkonnen 17y ago
    1. Sounds frankly paranoid. There are lots of ways of "screwing with the little people" already. Carbon output reductions can be done by tax incentives instead of a permitting system. And why would a scientific panel be interested in giving power to a bunch of political appointees? While we're speaking of money, how about the motivations of the people with the large stock portfolios they don't want to see devalued? The people with the kind of money to hire PR companies to, say, astroturf a conveniently timed "AWG is a lie" campaign? 2. You do realise that we are going to run out of resources on this planet eventually, right? Saying that we must keep on increasing economic activity at all costs lest disaster strike is a surefire way to guarantee disaster, not just via climate change but via overfishing, deforestation and the resulting land loss, pollution, etc. Also, the decrease in energy consumption is clearly not the cause of the depression, but rather one of its effects. Things can be done in a much more energy-efficient manner.

6 points by nice1 17y ago

There's certainly legitimate causes to doubt AGW, but the Petition Project is not among them. Frankly, I'm shocked to see Randi engage in such a blatant appeal to authority, and an irrelevant authority (that is, scientists primarily not in the climate field) at that.

diego_moita 17y ago

So first we had a bunch of pundits "discovering" that the peer review process is flawed. Then, next step, we have a bunch of scientifically-untrained pundits and non-specialists jumping into the debate and giving loud opinions without understanding all the research already done. This is debate is just becoming more ideological and less scientific. P.S.: No, I don't know who this Randi is. But I am sure he's not a climatologist.

tdoggette 17y ago
James Randi is a professional skeptic: he's the one behind the million dollar prize for anyone that can demonstrate the paranormal under reasonable conditions.
- idleworx 17y ago
  "professional skeptic" ... lol. as opposed to "professional gullibles"?

Zarkonnen 17y ago

The two things I don't understand about the "climate change is not man-made" point of view are: 1. What is the actual, plausible motivation for the entirety of the IPCC to mislead people about climate change? 2. Why are measures to reduce carbon output so maligned? At worst, they will be a wasted effort. At best - if climate change is indeed man-made - they will prevent huge environmental disasters. (Bangladesh mostly vanishing under the sea, global food production collapsing, the oceans' food chain collapsing due to acidification, etc.)

Daniel_Newby 17y ago
1. Political power and money. They want a permitting system for most equipment powered by carbon-containing fuels, and those permits will be approved and audited by political appointees. Your pizzeria competes with a Senator's nephew? The application for its oven gets "lost". You organize a political rally against the incumbents? Your home furnace gets audited that winter, and its thermostat locked to 50 deg. F until the "discrepancies" can be explained. 2. Because the necessary remedies would result in severe productivity destruction, probably exceeding WWII (including fatalities). Energy is the life blood of economic activity. The present depression is mostly a result of an approximately 2% decrease in energy consumption for part of 2008. The AGW reduction targets are 5% a year in perpetuity, which by linear extrapolation leads to economic apocalypse.
- Zarkonnen 17y ago
  1. Sounds frankly paranoid. There are lots of ways of "screwing with the little people" already. Carbon output reductions can be done by tax incentives instead of a permitting system. And why would a scientific panel be interested in giving power to a bunch of political appointees? While we're speaking of money, how about the motivations of the people with the large stock portfolios they don't want to see devalued? The people with the kind of money to hire PR companies to, say, astroturf a conveniently timed "AWG is a lie" campaign? 2. You do realise that we are going to run out of resources on this planet eventually, right? Saying that we must keep on increasing economic activity at all costs lest disaster strike is a surefire way to guarantee disaster, not just via climate change but via overfishing, deforestation and the resulting land loss, pollution, etc. Also, the decrease in energy consumption is clearly not the cause of the depression, but rather one of its effects. Things can be done in a much more energy-efficient manner.