Comments on: A Good Example why Politics/IPCC Matters

By: Mark Bahner

Mark Bahner — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 03:18:34 +0000

“What if my choice is for the goverment to take action on global warming and other problems? The CEI is taking away my freedom in the name of freedom.”

What if my choice is for the government to take action to make women cover their faces? Are you going to take away my freedom in the name of freedom?

No one at CEI is asking the government to make laws prohibiting you from getting all your photovoltaics, or driving a hybrid vehicle (or riding a bike).

By: Carleton Wu

Carleton Wu — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 16:34:09 +0000

Furthering Jim’s point, how would the CEI react to the IPCC if it insisted that global climate change skeptics were barred from any participation bc of their ‘political’ stances?
Id rather allow both in, unless it can be demonstrated that their objectivity has been compromised or that their work for the IPCC is biased in some way.
Admittedly this does create the opportunity for nonscientific political activists like the CEI to distort and malign the IPCC itself, but I think that the damage is relatively limited vis a vis the more fundamental problem of limitng the IPCC to only those who follow a certain orthodoxy.
Furthermore, such a limitation would itself be a reason for challenge from groups such as the CEI. In the final analysis, nonscientific groups which inject themselves into scientific processes will not be satisfied until the conclusions fit their preconceptions, no matter what artificial pre-conditions we create to insure a balanced working group. So why kowtow to their pretended outrage when it can only disatvantage the scientific output?

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 15:15:53 +0000

What if my choice is for the goverment to take action on global warming and other problems? The CEI is taking away my freedom in the name of freedom.

By: FuturePundit

FuturePundit — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 04:08:05 +0000

Hockey Stick Climate Temperature Trend Theory Challenged

A pair of Canadian researchers, University of Guelph Canada economist Ross McKitrick and Toronto-based mineral exploration consultant Stephen McIntyre, have a paper…

By: Peter J. Wetzel

Peter J. Wetzel — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 03:49:06 +0000

You remarked recently (and I take it entirely on faith that you have a correct understanding) that Dr. Robert Watson was replaced as IPCC Chairman because the current US administration objected to the policy position which he took.

Now, in the best spirit of “the paranoids are out to get me”, I’d like to propose that Dr. Pauchari, who you seem to have identified as a hand-picked US-administration-approved replacement for Dr. Watson, is deliberately attempting to sabotage the IPCC’s credibility. Can anyone prove that this is not true?

More to my point, can the world of political machinations actually override substantive reality in the end? Don’t bet on it. If and/or when a clear anthropogenic climate signal emerges (or is currently emerging), and reaches the point that it becomes obvious to the general public, we’ll find our politicians obediently towing the line — no, we’ll find them pathetically tripping over themselves to be first to claim leadership toward this new paradigm.

By: Sound and Fury

Sound and Fury — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:16:18 +0000

Scientists and the Public Square

The only “honest broker” available, then, is science itself. And so long as fallible scientists, of whatever ideological persuasion, take care to limit their political statements to the current scientific consensus in their field, I see little harm, an…