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"many scientists have been personally enriched by promoting global warming": Can we name concrete names of those rich scientists, please? I'm pretty sure Jim H
by lutorm 18y ago
"many scientists have been personally enriched by promoting global warming":
Can we name concrete names of those rich scientists, please? I'm pretty sure Jim Hansen's gains have been limited to the risk of losing his job and of not being allowed to publish his results.
And saying that "it used to be 75 years but people didn't care so now they say the world will be destroyed in 10 years" is spectacularly dishonest. First, scientific facts change. If you follow the research you'll know that evidence is accumulating that effects like deglaciation are happening faster than models used to predict.
When better data become available, scientific predictions will change. Arguing that this proves that science is flawed or scientists are dishonest is like calling people changing their mind about something with more information "flip-floppers" -- but it's the only rational thing to do.
Second, who is saying that "the world will be destroyed in ten years"? As far as I know, reputable scientists are saying things like "unless changes are made within ten years, we will reach a point where it will be too late to stop climate change from reaching a point with likely bad effects". That's a very different thing. Those bad effects won't happen for a long time, like 50-100 years, because of the thermal inertia of the planet, but that also means we must start slowing down now. It's like driving a car, you'd better start slowing down before you get to the curve, trying to do it when you realize you're heading off the road is too little, too late.
Oh, and Al Gore is not a politician. He holds no office, and does not work for a political party. I guess it would be fair to call him a lobbyist, but his financial gain is much less than that of other "lobbyists" like the wall street people. In my eyes, he has way more credibility in his current position than any of those who have large financial stakes in influencing people.
- viggity 18y agoI don't have time to research all of the people that call themselves "scientists" that have invested in carbon credit companies. But, according to this: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54528 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=545... Al Gore "buys" his credits from a company he owns a financial stake in. You're right, these predictions are going to change. They are going to change forever because there are infinitely many variables that go into the climate. For someone to take guesses at what the values are for 70 of them and call that model "science" is bull crap.
- gaius 18y agoAnyone doing anything with even a small connection to climate change would not have got funded without the bandwagon. Lots of scientific careers hinge on this gravy train.
- emmett 18y agoBy that logic, cancer is a myth. Do you have any idea how many careers hinge on trying to cure cancer? It's a scientific conspiracy! They have to keep the cancer gravy train going.
- gaius 18y agoThe evidence that cancer exists is pretty conclusive. The evidence that the climate is changing in an unusual way isn't. I live in England, wet, dark miserable England - yet in Roman times there were vineyards and olive trees here. Are you going to tell me next that the bad old Roman Empire was emitting clouds of toxic waste?
- emmett 18y ago"The evidence that cancer exists is pretty conclusive. The evidence that the climate is changing in an unusual way isn't." I don't agree with that statement, but it's a valid argument for a climate skeptic. "The scientists are just trying to keep the gravy train going" is not a valid argument, because it applies equally to all heavily researched areas. So please, don't use that specific argument again, and understand why it is incorrect. Any debate on England and Rome is entirely beside the point.
- gaius 18y agoScientists are not a single homogenous group. If a tenured meteorologist says the climate is changing, then we should listen. If someone tacked "effects of global warming on..." to their study on "the mating habits of water voles", something that would not otherwise have been funded, then we should be skeptical if that person's name later shows up as one of the scientists supporting the global warming theory. Channel 4 did a documentary on this phenomenon not long ago.