who said they were MY rebuttals? The material point is he isn't interested in reading widely about the subject. He appears to be more interested in reinforcing his own viewpoint by continually visiting websites and reading articles that support that viewpoint. Then he becomes more entrenched in his position. Then he goes back on line and people support his viewpoint, further reinforcing his beliefs. Then when someone questions those beliefs by saying "but someone said this" he can't reply to it as he hasn't really read about AGW beyond his own viewpoint.

So to discuss any aspect of AGW with him is basically pointless as his mind is already made up. He has listen to facts that back his viewpoint, rather than creating a viewpoint based on the facts.

You might want to read this about Copenhagen:

1. Socialist involvement:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/poli...-1225829865899

“The rich-poor rhetoric infected the Copenhagen negotiations to an extent shocking to an outside observer. When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez roared that socialism was the way to save the planet and capitalism was the road to hell, negotiators gave him a standing ovation.”2.


2. China and India don’t want any part of an agreement:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...nge-mark-lynas

“To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China's representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can't we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil's representative too pointed out the illogicality of China's position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord's lack of ambition”.

"Probably" and "most likely" have no part in a rebutal.

There is nothing scientific about probably and most likely. They are the sort of feel good comments that belong in bar room conversation.

Will we give those who do not support AGW the same lattiude?

This is the problem I have with the Nature deniers. Every single time you ask them a specific question about their theory they come back with an evasion, or a cry of heretic, or a vague statement about all scientists being in agreement therefore the issue needs no further discussion. You response to my questions is a typical example of the first of these.

I am a scientist. When the AGW hypothesis was first mooted I thought to myself, well, it's interesting and I'm sure they have good reason for their ideas. After all they are climatologists and they must know what they are doing. Fair enough I thought.

Suddenly the whole thing become a major global issue and I think, hang on a second, we've gone from hypothesis to proven fact in a complex system in the blink of an eye? This can't be right, I said to myself.

Then when other scientists, like me, ask the climatologists (now represented by a UN bureaucracy called the IPCC), for science that backs up their claims they are faced with evasion, cries of heresy and derision, and no science, just a vague computer model.

If there is one thing that has caused me to reject the AGW hypothesis more than any other it is this behaviour from those who propose it, in addition to the lack of scientific debate on the issue. This is not how science is conducted, and it only leads me to conclude that they are hiding something.

and I study the uses of propaganda and these charges come from both sides of the debate. So both sides must be hiding something . . . What I find interesting is why so many people question in line with some of the propaganda out there?

By the way - you have assumed that I am a nature denier. Strange, because I'm not, and I never claimed to be. I just questioned your arguments, but it doesn't make me a denier, alarmist or sceptic. It just makes me inquisitive.

because scientists don't use definitives in that way, they like caveats?

Quick side question for you Iolande:

Would you agree that post Copenhagen much of the western media have turned slight more sceptical about AGW.

The newspapers are now reporting every error they hear about, the head of the IPCC is regularly attacked etc.

Any idea why this happened? This time last year everything was blamed on GW. Now the bubble seems to have bust.

(Note – I mean it terms of reporting and propaganda, rather than in AGW/GW itself)

Absolutely - but there are plenty of issues going on here.

One of the key problems is that this is a scientific debate that is being played out in the political arena. Scientists tend to avoid this kind of debate as they rely on the scientific facts, and there are plenty of instances of discussion over the last 15 years or so as to how they address this issue. Science tends to point to the facts, where as politics is more intangible (e.g. is often based on your personal belief and value systems). Sometimes he who shouts the loudest wins in politics. That doesn't necessarily work in science.

News agencies have also been downgrading their scientific reporting over the last 20 years or so - mainly in response to the growth of the internet and cable news networks. Print journalism has been going steadily downhill and there are less dedicated science reporters, and more journalists who cover a variety of beats (and thus have a lesser understanding of the science in the stories they have been covering). As an example, CNN sacked their entire science team at the end of 2008. This has, it can be argued, meant that the quality of information about science has been going downhill.

You also have the traditional reporting technique of "balanced debate" as in - find someone on both sides of the argument to input into the story. Journalists can fall into the trap of falling back on that tactic when they don't know enough about a topic to shape the story appropriately. That means that although there was plenty to show that there were climate change was a concern, the sceptics (who are thought to have been a minority view) were given even airplay as the climate scientists were.

Further compound into that issues such as scientists being barred by their organisations from entering into debate in the media. Whereas sceptic scientists are often paid (or encouraged) to enter the debate in the media.

Another concern is technique of purchasing of comments in the media. Although there isn't proof positive of this occurring in Climate Change (that I know of - although Fox News in the US is quite vociferous) we have plenty of examples where media have been paid (the cash for comments scandal between banks and commentators here in Australian is an excellent example of this kind of propaganda).

There are also several pseudo-journals, lobby groups and websites that have been set up to look scientifically rigorous to the lay-person that perpetuate myths in this debate.

However (as I can just here voices saying "environmentalists are just as bad") Yes, some environmental propaganda is out there. Watson (of the Sea Shepherd) is on record as saying that environmentalists should lie to the media as it isn't an even playing field. That is just one of many examples.

However, to get back to trends in the media. Attempts to map out the pro and anti trends in the media have been made. For example, the media got quite concerned about AGW after Hurricane Katrina and there was a spike in stories that supported the pro-AGW view. One of the reasons for this is that news tends to be event-driven. So an event that seems to prove AGW will attract reporting on AGW, an event like the glacial error seems to prove that AGW is not occurring and the stories tend to be more towards that. And camps on both sides will amp up their PR when the trend is towards them. Doesn't mean it is necessarily scientifically proven - again it is more of a political debate.

Everyone who has been inquisitive has been called a denier for ages now

It now seems to apply both ways, instead of just one way...

Even I have to admit to being staggered by this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...organised.html

• Professor Jones of the CRU apparently has conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
  
• He has also conceded that that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
  
• He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998,
  
• He also said: ‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.
  
• Finally he apparently admitted he had lost the vital “hocky stick graph” data that started all of this AGW theory….

The key points at the top of the article aren't really consistent with the story. They sound indignant and unbelieving (this is called framing) and this affects how you read the who story:

* Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing ‘his office is piled high with paper, fragments from over the years, tens of thousands of pieces of paper, and they suspect what happened was he took in the raw data to a central database and then let the pieces of paper go because he never realised that 20 years later he would be held to account over them’. Who keeps papers for 20 years - maybe in science you have to? But to me it sounds reasonable
* There has been no global warming since 1995 He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming, although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend. He doesn't really say there has been NO global warming since 1995, he says there had been no 'statistically significant warming, and he puts it into a context.
* Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes ‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.

‘For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.

‘Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today, then obviously the late 20th Century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm than today, then the current warmth would be unprecedented.’

Again, kind-of like the headline, but with more context. Especially as the headline seems to tie-in nicely with the sceptical argument that warming has occurred naturally before and will again. Strange that they are able to say that warm periods have happened before as if this is the first scientist to admit it!


So, where exactly is the U-turn that the article promised???

But then I guess the Mail are looking for an angle. Hence the input of the mysterious Dr Benny at the end who is allowed an un-rebutted soundbite calling into question the integrity of Jones and making grand demands that aren't going to be fulfilled.

To be fair Iolande:
He talks about “paper” because it sounds plausible. The data isn’t in paper format. It is all digital – anyone who has worked with bulk data would know that. I have never known an IT department that hasn’t backed up data, unless the owners didn’t want it to reappear.

'statistically significant (evidence) warming goes to the crux of the matter. Replace the words “statistically significant” with “measurable” and the AGW argument vanishes in a flash.

This isn’t the first scientist to admit to MWP, it is the first time the CRU have openly admitted to it (they did so in the hacked emails).

In my opinion he knows that the inquiry is going to point a large grubby finger at him, and he wants to keep his job.

Publicly funded scientists are required by law to archive all their research data. In the UK at least, not sure about elsewhere.

Framing goes both ways. We hear comments such as "warmest year on record" when the records only go back as far 1890. We hear things like "Every decade has been warmer than the last" but that rather depends on whether a decade goes from 1990 to 2000 or from 1965 to 1975...

It is not up to everyone else to prove that the current warming is natural. The scientific standpoint is that it is natural until proved otherwise. It is up to the IPCC and their cohorts to come up with acceptable rebuttals to perfectly good questions. Which they continually avoid doing.

One slightly tongue in cheek point:

Can the West claim ethnic/indigenous/cultural rights to burn fossil fuels, just as other peoples claim the right to catch and kill endangered species?

We have been doing it since Roman times, and we built an entire culture on its use (the industrial revolution).

What a cop out.