Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Be Reasonable: See It My Way!

An interesting post at Rabett Run contains two videos. One is a short coaching session on how to be reasonable and contains sound advice. The other is a short and amusing example of what an unreasonable argument sounds like. Well worth watching.

A History of Global Warming

With the recent leaking of documents from the Heartland Institute, by the deSmogBlog, and consequent muddying of the waters of AGW debate, it is timely to remember that the whole topic has a long history, predating any of the current protagonists.

Here is an excellent resource for those interested in how the AGW debate arose and where it may be headed. It is an on-line reference book, which may also be downloaded as a zip file and unpacked on your computer, so the whole site can be accessed at high speed, off-line.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Let There Be Misinformation

Skeptical Science has published a blog post revealing the sources of funding behind the Heartland Institute, a USA so-called 'Think Tank', which is really an advocacy group opposed to any science or policy admitting that AGW is real. On that page are documents showing the big picture of where the money comes from and where it is spent.

It is ironic that the anti-science conspiracy has been so clearly unmasked, considering it is that side of politics which has long accused the entire scientific establishment of conspiring to falsify AGW research, in order to secure funding from left-wing groups and governments. It would be funny, if it were not so serious.

Unmasking Professional Attacks

There is a very interesting video of a lecture "The General Public: Why Such Resistance?"(lasting 1:46:20, so have some free time to spare) by Ben Santer, a research scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, discussing problems with the (mis?)use of the freedom of information act for non-US citizens to demand complete records, including emails, on scientific research projects.

It is an eye-opener, exposing the dangers of working in the front lines of climate research. There is clearly a movement interested in suppressing science, when it conflicts with some ideology. Only a totalitarian regime could do a better job of attacking the discoverers of inconvenient knowledge. The USA is teetering at the top of a slippery slope and the Tea Party seems more than willing to provide the final push. So much for "The Land of the Free".

Thursday, February 9, 2012

How To Hijack The Internet

If anyone was wondering about the tactics used by the Radical Right (eg: Tea Party in the USA, Liberal Party in Australia), have a look at this short video. In it, a speaker is encouraging his audience to fabricate ratings of books and movies at such sites as Amazon. Not surprising that it happens, but surprising that the cat is out of the bag.

Friday, February 3, 2012

The New York Times has published an interesting article entitled "Two Nobelists Offer Views of Human-Driven Global Warming", describing our current state of knowledge of Climate Change ( or Global Warming, if your prefer). They include a telling graphic which speaks a thousand words.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Guardian strikes again

This has little to do with Climate Change, but is funny in its own right. The Guardian newspaper, the last bastion of the Left in a sea of Murdoch papers, just published an interesting expose on the weather forecasting reliability of rival The Daily Mail et al. It seems the forecasters they relied on do not actually exist. Perhaps Murdoch really does have access to the Dark Side, where nonexistent weather forecasters weave their evil spells!