Are there Full time/"professional" climate deniers?

I agree, but there are also posters who seem to have a lot of time to rebut the deniers. I think some of us just have unique personal/professional situations.

 

I wouldn't be surprised it that was the case.

 

Icky,
Who do you really think in going to reply to this nonsense? Sounds like your guilty of your own accusation.

 

Icarus youre not being paid by the nuke industry are you?

 

I recently listened to an interview with Michael Mann (I know, skeptics may automatically reject anything he says) where he claimed that RealClimate had traced the IRL's of some of their frequent skeptic posters to fossil fuel companies. I have no independent verification of that and can't at a moment's notice provide a link to the interview, but that's the closest I can come to any sort of hard evidence of truly professional deniers.

Even if it's true, it could just be deniers employed by fossil fuel companies who have taken it upon themselves to devote countless volunteer hours to making their case.

But I have certainly noticed that in any forum where climate change is discussed, whether here, various blogs, in comments to news articles, or even in the forum section of an internet dating site I frequent, that there always quickly emerge a handful of vehement deniers who for the most part sing from the same hymnal.

Of course from their side, they might argue that that's because they're the ones who are 'right', so of course they'd all make the same points. And there certainly is a large group of people out there with a healthy distrust for anything related to government, so condemning all government scientists isn't too much of a stretch if that's the basis you build your world view from.

It does seem odd to me that there are so many people who so strongly reject sound science. I sure would be interesting to learn their motivations.

 

Dave, there is good reason we label them 'denialists'. The psychology is the same, whether one is talking about religion, approaching death, or what have you. Reason is the enemy. Reality is ignored. Fear and greed rule.

In the election that Bush beat Kerry, 50% of the public who voted republican said in an exit poll that WMD had been found in Iraq. Lots of people hear what they want to believe.

Icarus, there is a *huge* FUD campaign surrounding climate change financed by special interests, abetted by politicians in sensitive states. Just ask Dave Bassage. You don't think our forum denialists come up with this crap by themselves do you ?? It's cut and paste, which lets them post "efficiently".

 

Ha, you are funny. Say, have a great field season, all the best.

p.s don't feed the bears.

 

The entire basis for promoting the AGW movement is fear.
You are fear mongers.
You mention greed?
Theres is a vast amount of money backing the AGW movement.$2 billion a year from the USA alone.
How much from the rest of the world?
How much from Goldman ,GE, Exelon?
AGW is a huge big business .
That money perverts objective science.

 

Extra - WSJ.com

"So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear."

"Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers."

 

I'm a GW fence sitter. Up near our MT house , it's pretty obvious that the Glacier in Glacier National Park has gotten tiny comparred to olden days:



Heck there are camera shots 40 years older than the circa 1940, that are even more 'warmer temps" telling. But then again, it's accepted that 1/2 the U.S. was ice covered 1,000's of years ago. So it's not a question of IF climate is changing. That's a given. It's the cause thingie at issue. Now (and finally ... after that preface) for my question.

The greed of (man made) GW ... what exactly is that. It's a serious question raised out of my ignorance. I mean, I'd LOVE to see tons of people be able to go solar ... wind ... public transportation etc. People DO make a living off those kinds of new/green constructions. Is that the greed being referenced? Bio fuels etc? What is the greed.

.

 

The glaciers have been melting naturally for 18,000 years.Now there is ALARM because they continue to melt.
Also the glaciers have melted in the same manner dozens of times over the past 2 million years.They always grow back.
But now you are supposed to be afraid of this occurrence.
Goldman Sachs is going to make $100s of billions brokering carbon credits.
Enron originally devised the CO2 cap and trade scheme in the 90s.
They bought scientists ,and this bears the fruit of their greed.

 

Been to Glacier NP many times. By 2040 they will have to change the name, No More Glaciers NP. so sad...


The greed...???....the motivation....??? Many people have a lot at stake...making big money AS things are...Do Not Change the Status Quo!!! From big oil companies to a huge percentage of the middle class that has alot of money invested in trucks and suvs that get 10 mpg and oversize houses that that leak fossil fuels.

No, don't tell the majority of Americans that they are invested in obsolete technology and infrastructure (some are even voters and taxpayers). Trust me!!! We are much better off not upsetting the apple cart!!!

 

Easy solution: No carbon credits, no cap and trade, no brokers of anything. Just a simple carbon tax that encourages US free enterprise to become the global leaders in energy efficency and renewable energy.

Wouldn't it be great if we were the gobal leaders in something???

And before someone says "those damn progressives just want to tax everything", you do realize it was tax policy that gave fossil fuels and automobiles the monopolies that they have today?.

And one more thing...it does not matter if our fossil fuel addiction is causing GW or not.
I can think of twenty reasons to cure our addiction...the first two are: the economy and our national security. It absolutely amazes me that the deniers can not connect the dots!!!

...end of rant...for now

 

Im not convinced one bit that carbon is a pollutant.
Taxing imported oil is fine with me.
But domestic oil,coal and natural gas are getting screwed if the CO2 theory is wrong.
All consumers will be screwed as well.
Enron screwed California by manipulating electricity markets.
Goldman Sachs screwed the world by manipulating oil prices a few years back.
Goldman caused $4 gas.
Goldman also was the beneficiary of the bank bailout ,collecting hundreds of billions in credit default swaps backed by US bailout money.
We are going to entrust them to run a Cap and Trade program?
Why trust scientific studies ,when the results are very likely to be distorted by this greed?

 

I am going to bed, but it seems I remember reading at the visitor center(20 years ago) that the glaciers began their retreat in middle of the 19th century. Can anyone verify this? I can look it up tomorrow. Hill you have a house near Glacier? Beautiful area.

 

NBC Twists Facts, Again, About Glacier Park (Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D. Climatology)

Receding Glacier Park Ice Not Due to Global Warming (The Heartland Institute)

Yes there has been warming since the little ice age but CO2 was not the cause,

The only way they make a living is because the government subsidizes them. Green jobs are not economically self-sufficient. The problem with the green movement is a lack of basic understanding of economics, energy and markets. If you want skyrocketing energy costs then you want solar, wind and other "green" energy sources.

As for Greed,

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Wow. In a few short lines you captured a large chunk of the attitude a whole bunch of us find so puzzling.

Whether you call carbon a pollutant or not is just a matter of semantics. You might not think of water as a pollutant either, but get too much of it in one place and we've got a problem that has to be managed. Likewise with carbon.

As for fossil fuel, are we making any more of it? For the past couple of centuries we've been living like trust funders off of the planet's energy savings account. Obviously at some point we need to start paying as we go. What is there to fear about accelerating our inevitable transition to greater energy efficiency and utilizing renewable energy?

We get accused of fear mongering. I'm not trying to scare anyone. I share the vision of a sustainable society. That's a positive image, with a healthy economy and environment combining to improve living conditions for all of us. What's so scary about that?

So $4 gas was a bad thing? You'd rather we kept gas really cheap so we could encourage everyone to use up the oil all the quicker whether we're ready to move to the next generation of transportation energy or not?

As already suggested here, I'm a fan of a straight carbon tax, with a fair chunk of the revenue steered toward sectors most heavily impacted by the transition away from fossil fuels, such as retraining displaced coal miners here in WV. But our government is not known for simple solutions to much of anything. Cap and trade has a proven track record with acid rain, but the version stalled out in Congress has been subjected to so much sausage making that I'm just as glad it looks like brand new strategies will take its place.

In a capitalistic society like ours, the best incentives are financial incentives, so whether cap and trade or carbon tax, I doubt we'll make serious climate progress without some sort of monetary incentives.

That said, many communities and corporations are realizing that shrinking their carbon footprint also has economic advantages. Congress may end up being the LAST to act considering the number of cities and states already taking positive steps.

As for greed, if that's a factor in this issue, it's the greed of fossil fuel advocates trying to prop up their industries that seems a far greater motivator than advocates of so far untested new carbon footprint strategies.

But what actually fascinates me is how otherwise reasonable people can split themselves so far apart on their world view. I've long felt that we all choose our own realities to live in. But I'm still amazed at how very different those realities can be.

 

The planet may be,

Easier to find oil (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden)
Hydrocarbons in Deep Earth? (Carnegie Institution)
New Evidence Supports 19th-Century Idea On Formation Of Oil And Gas (American Chemical Society)

And we certainly can,

Anything Into Oil at $80 a Barrel (Discover Magazine)

Increased energy efficiency simply increases energy usage,



The Efficiency Paradox (Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
The Virtue Of Waste (Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT)

Then you want free market capitalism free from government control. Because only in the freer economies do you see what you are seeking.

Basic economics, when the price of one source of energy goes over the next cheapest one, that energy source will be adopted on its own. Whatever happened to peak whale oil?