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Glad to hear you are not refuting the basic science that he presented. The article was obviously written for a non-scientist audience, especially those with scientific background weak enough to fall for AGW's almarmist predictions such as disaster in 40-50 years due to man-made CO2. It's would be pointless to fault him for not making the paper presentation more scholarly in that context; and more academic papers from which the informaiton was gleaned were also listed in the article . . . btw, also his own scientific credentials.
Peer Review is not what defines science, any more than Breakfast is: sure, Breakfast is useful (if not necessary) to people spend the rest of the day in the lab, on the computer and even in committee meetings, but that's not what defines science. AGW's penchant for Peer Review instead of real scientifically "falsifiable" proofs is making it indistinguishable from religion and, frankly, cult. Scientifically "falsifiable" proof is not just about a theory that can meet some observations, but also having observations that would invalidate the theory consistently being absent.
If you apply the same standards on "opinions" and reject all paper with opinions, I doubt any pro-AGW paper would be left. After all, everyone has an opinion, especially after spending time researching a subject. The pro-AGW camp has the additional problem of cooking numbers. I don't know how familiar you are with government grant proposals nowadays.
Why is efforts to curb CO2 any more reasonable than efforts to increase CO2 level? After all, Greenhouse effect is beneficial to humanity; if not for Greenhouse gases, day time vs. night time temperature fluctuation on earth would be 200 degrees C/K (like on the moon), making the earth uninhabitable to all but subterranean and deep ocean life forms. Total greenhouse effect from all gases (overwhelmingly water vapor) however is quite irrelevant to the discussion of CO2, which only accounts for a tiny tiny proportion of all greenhouse gases and their effects. Luck would have it that we have planet Mars to show us exactly how much greenhouse effect a much higher concentration of CO2 does: CO2 partial pressure on Mars is nearly 15 times higher than that of earth; i.e. nearly 15x CO2 molecules per volume of space. In terms of atmospherical concentration (percentage of local air by molecular count), Mars CO2 concentration is 2450 times as high as that of earth. Mars air is 95% CO2. Exactly what has that much CO2 done for Mars surface temperature? It still has a diurnal temperature fluctuation on the order of 100-150 C/K! That's despite 15 times as much CO2 per volume of space near the surface as earth has! That's not much greenhouse effect, and nobody is postulating that earth's atmospherial CO2 concentration will go up by 15x any time soon.
Curbing CO2 is not free of cost, any more than setting setting up new tolls on busy highways would be free of cost. Sure, the toll collectors' jobs will be created, but they will be directly at the expense of people who strive to improve their lives through peaceful voluntary exchanges and division of labor. What has made the world a better place in the last 300 years is the gradual removal of unnecessary toll booths and constraints that had been restraining people from realizing their own potentials. It would be tragedy indeed if harmless CO2 becomes another game of blaming thy neighbor for bad weather. Warming is good for human prosperity, and plants would love more CO2 (consequently as well for all who can not carry out photosynthesis on their own and have to eat).
posted by 76.118.39...
, Fri, 4 Feb 2011 17:11:03, Sat, 5 Feb 2011 07:10:28, Sat, 5 Feb 2011 11:50:28
, Thu, 3 Feb 2011 18:27:38
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