An Inconvenient Truth

Not "people", leaders. Multiple specific public figures directly appointed by Bush forming a pattern of scienctific conclusions ignored because they didn't jive with the conservative Christian line.In your case? One unnamed, anonymous manager of an unnamed, anonymous organization with unspecified ties to the government, who was not, I gather, directly appointed by Gore to fudge the data. Just some asshole who took it upon himself to do that.Can you understand why I don't see these two situations as symmetric? In Bush's case, there's a repeating pattern from the top of science manipulated for politics. In your case, one middle manager who did it for one issue, at the bottom. You know, the funny thing was - I was pretty sure that Gore actually did give a timeframe for the projections in his movie. I don't remember what timeframe it was, though. Mentioned by who? I'm not impressed by assertions of anonymous corraboration. Most of us saw it months ago, and didn't take notes. You're simply not going to get an accurate picture of what was presented in the movie unless you see it yourself. I'm sorry if you can't seem to figure out a way to do that.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Wow, what a... I'm not sure which to deal with first, the strawmen of my position(s), or the rather bizarre notion that people would, much less should say... Let's review. I did not say people should not go see his movie. I said I did not have faith it was going to contain any more science than I have seen coming out of his camp before. This is backed up by:1) having worked in a sci org under his administration and seen what policies he wanted as far as science data went.
2) having seen him use hysteria in other matters.
3) having seen misrepresented (or miseading) data from paleoclimatology as well as speculative modelling from people that support GC in general and have seen his movie.
4) having seen people support his proposed policies which do not have any basis in science for solving the problems he is claiming.And since the beginning of this second thread on his movie...
5) having seen the website with ABSOLUTELY NO DATA, but plenty of hip merchandising and totally inaccurate statements which are not in consensus (which makes me wonder if they are in the movie or not?).
6) having seen Gore give his PP presentation on which the movie is said to be based. As I said maybe crash (and now maybe you) can go to Wiki and download his presentation and tell me if that is like the movie.Given all the above I feel confident in saying I don't have much faith his movie is going to provide accurate understanding of data, much less what should be done about issues we face. All I recommended to people was to liberally salt their popcorn with skepticism. That doesn't mean disbelieve everything he said, it means check up on the data so you can understand it better yourself. Just quoting Gore and saying "see his movie" is NOT adequate.Claiming that Gore is actually helping give you a cleaner planet is so insulting to my intelligence that I just can't believe you said that. This is just as fanatic as people claiming Bush is helping keep America free. Who needs Gore? There was an environmental movement before him, and there will be one after him. He IS SIMPLY USING THE MOVEMENT.You know whose helping give you a cleaner planet? The hard working people who actually go into science and make changes in industry and technology and policy. The ones who take the time to puzzle through data and deliver understanding such that we can identify real problems and figure out how to address them realistically. Mmmmmm, it's been 10-12 years since I taught physical science. It seems to me that what I am getting in this thread is a bunch of people telling me how stupid they feel the average American is. Man if all you guys are right, then why on earth should I care about what Bush and Co do or say? It seems to me that when the right takes this same attitude they get slammed, now the left is getting a huge pass on the same thing.Heck, if people are this stupid, why on earth should I care if natural disasters wipe people out? This is EXACTLY the kind of BS hysteria I'm talking about. What good is this level of misunderstanding, and low expectations?Let me ask you something, if we cannot solve our problems through technology what on earth are you proposing we do? Let's pretend for a moment that we stop all CO2 accumulation and other artificial impacts on the environment. THE CLIMATE WILL CONTINUE TO CHANGE!As long as humans are still alive (don't wipe ourselves out in war), we are going to see the same temps and higher, as well as massive dips in temp. We are going to see the very same rises and dips in the sea level as you are discussing here. THEY ALREADY HAPPENED!So if your little tantrum is true, what are we going to do anyway? 100 to 1000 years has itself resulted in massive changes in geography while humans have been living with LESS technology. Why can't we deal with the same in the future... especially sea level changes?The end is not nigh and climate change does not in itself spell doom. It represents CHALLENGES that we are GOING TO FACE ANYWAY. Yes, get real. Which is the baby and which is the bath water. I'm really confused by your analogy to my argument here. I suggested not just believing all you hear and see and instead try to understand the data better.My GUESS is that it will be like a Michael Moore movie. Enjoyable. Viscerally convincing, yet not 100% accurate. In fact potentially misleading in many areas. Have fun and enjoy what you see, let it get you thinking, but then remember its just a movie and you have to actually PUT IN SOME WORK to understand the issue.Yeah, I'm really a wild-eyed crazy man suggesting that people think about what they are watching, noting that there certainly are some misleading statements he makes, and that people try to deal with the real data and science, rather than relying on statements like "see his movie".

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I'm sorry, what were you saying? Leaders? You mean managers. And in some cases not even managers. Uh, I gave one example that involved one person. I did not say only one person. Yes they will remain anonymous as I am not about to start some huge political thing at EvC. The organization is very large and very prominent. That's another reason I'm not about to start naming names.You can take it or leave it. What it won't change is the fact that it happened, that more than just me are aware of it, that it was being mentioned when the issues with Bush's tampering with science came up, and that it gives ME a very valid reason not to trust much of what Gore says. He didn't give one in the PP presentation. IIRC he said it probably WOULDN'T be less than 100 years, but then said something which seemed to imply it could be more or less. Can you see how this looks to me exactly like what ID people say?They say they know something is true because they were convinced by reading book X by DI. The info is there. When pressed for data, they are not forthcoming or when they do say something and are called on some portions, refer back to the book and say its been a while and they aren't experts but the people that wrote it knew what they were talking about.If you have been enlightened with evidence, can you speak to it or no? If not, what use is it? Okay you didn't take notes, but as you are seeing he is not exactly forthcoming with it outside someone having to but his book or movie... which is EXACTLY what DI does with ID.Gore did not invent the wheel here. He didn't even come up with the concept of CC. Other people more dedicated than him work in this field on the data, and are going to have to come up with realistic solutions. If he's got something to share, maybe he should take his millions of dollars and get the information out there for free.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

There is no question that the Bush administration is bad for science. I have been astounded at the amount of control his office has achieved and how he has used that power.If you want me to say that C/Gs administration was less intrusive into science than Bush, I would be more than willing to agree. But that does not mean that it did not happen. Both directly and indirectly. We rightly hold Bush/Cheney accountable for things that occur under their watch, and it is a double standard to say Clinton/Gore were not responsible for what went on under their watch. Here is an article on science manipulation under Bush. It is in a sense a defense of the Bush administration by Marburger. I don't really agree with that guy's philosophy and I'm not interested in addressing the entire article. What is important is a short excerpt about science manipulation in general... Now this is from a person who is antiBush and clearly trying to draw a line between what went on during C/G versus B/C. Yeah, I can totally buy that the amount and nature of interference is much worse with B/C. But that does not make what was noted above disappear or mean something less. To do so is like saying the czar was okay, because you know Stalin was so much worse. It doesn't work like that.I have already told you, and you can see in the quote above, that PEER was recording complaints under C/G. And I can tell you it sucks, whether there is a little or a lot of it going on.Another interesting quote... Yeah, I agree with that analysis. As I said, this was one of the largest reasons I left gov't science. It is devastating. But it was going on before B/C. I came into a section where people were leaving, and continued to leave for such reasons. It was a focal point for "policy" attention due to its priorities. Believe me or no, morale has been plummeting at certain orgs much longer than the last 5 years. I will note that BOTH administrations seem to be behind the idea that scaring the American public to push agendas, is the best policy. To me its bad for science and its bad for Americans.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

You seem to really like the strawman defense. What is “strawman” about what I said? To me, it is an accurate summary of your position. And this is what confuses me about your position. You make it sound as if Al Gore and company are running around like chicken- little, claiming that the sky is falling. As it turns out, it is my understanding the Al Gore was a part of the environmental movement prior to becoming a politician. And how do you discern between those in the movement and those using the movement? You have a crystal ball or something. Look he promotes environmental responsibility, so doesn't that make him somewhat of an environmentalist? But he is (so what does that say about your intelligence?). I'm not saying he's doing it alone Holmes. But for Christ sake, if we pay heed to even a few of the ideas suggested in the movie, how in the fuck can he not be credited with having played a role. What, doing as suggested in the film somehow discredits the presenter. I don't follow your logic here. Let me see if I got this straight. Al Gore suggests that we act responsibly and do things the decrease the amount of global warming gasses we release into the environment and this means, of course, that in reality the opposite is what will happen. Nice, thanks for clearing that up for me. No, that is not what I am saying. What I am telling you, is that many many Americans are scientifically illiterate (for lack of a better term). And who would that be, making changes in POLICY. Wouldn't that be politicians? And as I understand it, quite a few of those "hard working people who actually go into science" are the very some people that supplied the data Al Gore is using in his movie. What BS hysteria are you talking about? Again, WTF are you talking about? I never said we couldn't solve our problem through technology. Actually, you seem to be doing more of that than I. You seem to be saying "Let's wait and see, and if indeed the ocean levels rise we can simply build a dyke". No shit Sherlock. What's your point?But hey, while we're in fantasy land, let's pretend that "Al Gore" is correct and by reducing CO2 and other green house gasses emissions we can FAR MORE EASILY deal with NATURAL climate changes. Doesn't that sound like the better of the two options? Again, I'm confused here. What do you mean by "same temps and higher"? Are you saying that CO2 (and other green house gasses) are playing no role in the increase temperatures we're seeing? Wow, talk about BS. Does it make you feel superior when you state the obvious? But we can likely prevent these particular changes Holmes. THAT'S what I'm saying. You seem to think its ok to just sit around with our thumbs up our asses and HOPE we can solve the problem later. Define "doom". I think quite a few people would strongly disagree with you. But then again, no one made this claim. Sure, we may be able to deal with some of the problems, but to say that they are challenges we are going to "face anyway" is pathetic. You complain about a lack of science yet make claims that we're basically fucked none-the-less. After all of your ranting about how Al Gore is misleading everyone and scaring people into (God forbid) acting responsible, you basically state that what people should really do is see the movie but attempt to verify the information. How utterly brilliant Holmes. Boy, I for one am sure glad you cleared that up. Christ almighty, I swear, if you had gotten into a debate with Gandhi you could probably have made him punch his mother in the face. and by this I get the impression that what you mean is..."Put in some work so you can agree with Holmes cuz he's correct and everyone else is full of shit". But hey, that's just me.

The guys at the top, sure. The director of the FDA. Bush's chief science advisor. That snot-nosed kid they appointed as communications director of NASA.In most cases, direct Bush appointments into positions at the top. In your case? Who the hell knows? You've given nothing at all! Just anonymous assertions that Gore was as bad as Bush. Fables about some unspecified manager of unspecified appointment fudging data for unspecified reasons. Conspiracy theories don't become you.Nonetheless, you need to understand that your desire for anonymity means your example is all but useless. You're going to have to weigh your desire not to name names against the need for specifics to determine the credibility of your assertions.It's a sticky wicket, make no mistake. I'm sure you're in quite a bind about it. But you don't get to have your cake and eat it, too, in this case. If you find yourself unable or unwilling to provide any of the sort of specifics that would allow us to judge the credibility of your example, then you simply cannot have any expectation that we'll find your example credible. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Take your word for it? So what? So, if an "ID person" says "I hate cancer", we're all supposed to come out in favor of cancer? Can you see how what you're doing looks exactly like all those conservatives who demonized Michael Moore without even seeing his movie? You've never supported your arguments with a journal article behind a subscription wall? Gave print references for material? Used, as a reference, materials that weren't avaliable on the web? Look, sometimes the materials that support an argument aren't easily avaliable over the internet. It's a fact of life. Is it a forum rule somewhere that every single subject we talk about has to have a source easily avaliable on the web? I understand the utility of having one's sources be easily avaliable - at the least, it prevents your opponent from having an excuse to dismiss your source.But the subject of this thread is a specific film. You refuse to see it, even after having been pointed to specific means to do so. (If there's no distribution rights for the film held in your country, it probably isn't illegal for you to download it from the internet. I'm not a lawyer, of course. If there are distribution rights held, then somebody's probably distributing it, aren't they?) Or what regular science does with its results. Pay for play is nothing new here, Holmes. Like you, I agree that it's probably anathema to the spirit of open scientific collaboration, but let's not act like the subscription fees to the legitimate scientific journals aren't far, far more than what it costs to go buy a copy of "Pandas and People" or whatever.

Thanks for providing an article that completely undercuts your point and supports mine.

quote:

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''The principal difference stems from the Bush administration's near-obsession with information control,'' Ruch says. ''Under Clinton, it was like the old Will Rogers joke, 'I'm a member of no organized party; I'm a Democrat.' Under Bush, control has been centralized to an extent that's almost unheard-of. And that control has migrated down the chain of command and manifested itself in the form of political interference.''

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But that's exactly my point, isn't it? That, under Bush, the distortion is the product of a top-down dictum to do exactly that.Under Clinton? Merely the inevitable result of disorganized government and people acting on their own without oversight.Honestly, Holmes, do you think we can't see what's going on? This is nothing but the disgruntled grousing of a former employee. Your boss was an idiot, got it. Therefore you're convinced that everyone above him is an idiot, too.

I didn't say he meets the same degree of intrusion. I'm saying the policies he backed were of the same nature and involved people dedicated to his mission of undercutting science, to advance policy.I realize you are responding to a post before I gave you some evidence. But check it out, I have now supplied evidence that there was such going on. Yes, you must take my word that that is my experience and so why I don't trust the guy. What's funny is that isn't what I said everyone else has to use as the measure of the data in the movie. In fact I keep recommending people look at the data more closely. No actually I don't. I see me as a person having come from a paleoclimate background being told by laypeople how much Gore's movie is filled with data, and then proceeding to make claims which aren't in the data. This makes me skeptical of the movie and the level of knowledge people are getting from the movie.I didn't tell anyone not to go see it or invent any false accusations of what is in the movie. I have said to be careful while watching it and to make sure to look into the facts afterward. Whoa! I also asked people to show me some of the data.But back to my analogy, I didn't say if ID people said something you should do the reverse. I was asking about use of data and knowledge of a field. If people are telling you they have read a book and it says X, and you doubt X is true and their best response is "read the book", isn't that troubling? I totally grant you that a person can refer to things that are offline. Sure. But that is for original material. Are you telling me that Gore has some original study data or something? Heck I'd accept someone giving the study refs and they are offline.And by the way you can stop with trying to make me look like I am dodging the movie. It ISN'T HERE, and IT'S ILLEGAL to get a pirate copy. I'm not about to apologize for that as it is not my problem. I have done more than meet you halfway. I went looking for his data anywhere else and found and watched his PP presentation on which the movie is based. I want to get this straight... you are comparing a book, movie, and soundtrack merchandising website, to a science journal? He said the facts are there and they are undeniable. If they are so important to the future of mankind why is he only making it available if you give him money, especially when the data involved is actually from other people?The irony of this whole thing kills me. Rampant wasted energy use and deforestation are hurting the planet, make sure you know the facts by buying a book, seeing a movie, or buying a soundtrack! Razzberries.But I am not blaming you for that, and I recognize you recognize the cheesiness of this.You said that this thread is about the movie. The movie is about facts and policy endorsement from those facts. I have not seen the movie but I can very well question its validity if I see its promoters (including statements at that website) misrepresenting facts and suggesting questionable policies. And I do believe it is okay to ask what data people got from the movie.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

This is hilarious. First of all the article did not undercut my position. I agree that the level of control is more pervasive and widespread with Bush and Co. It is much more disturbing. But that doesn't effect what I said.The person commenting did not say there was NO control. He was drawing a difference between the two and suggesting that in general it was more undirected, chaotic then the Bush administration. But let's for sake of argument say that is exactly what HE said. There was more than just that quote! There were others who found that the style of interference was similar between administrations. Where is that quotein your reply?And that ignores the basic evidence that people were complaining of it under their administration. I suppose they must have all been "disgruntled employees" with bad managers.Here's the corker. I didn't say the person was MY manager. None of the people involved were MY managers, at least not in any sort of direct sense. I left because of what I saw happening in the agency, just as others had been and continued to do whether they or their data were directly effected or not. Would you stick around an agency that you knew to be handing out base propaganda to support administration initiatives?Disgruntled employee. I wasn't fired and I wasn't cheated. Boy I sure love seeing how much you can talk about me and my life, and dismiss what I have to say, while giving pass to some other guy you also have no knowledge about other than that he's rich and made a movie.And once more I never said any of them were idiots, I said they were intentionally dismissing scientific data and processes in order to promote policy. They didn't say "I don't understand", the comment was that they understood what they were being told and did not want it around or disseminated because it would stop certain campaigns Clinton/Gore had ordered the agency to promote.I am willing to drop this anytime you want. You want to not believe what I say, fine. But don't try and tell me what went on in my life. I'm telling you why I have a reason to be skeptical. There are plenty of other reasons for people to be skeptical taking scientific conclusions from a movie.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I'm asking you to substantiate the mission, not simply assert it. If you refuse to do that you need to understand that none of us are going to take that assertion very seriously. No, you haven't. See that reply. Well, I don't take your word for it. You don't have any word, as far as I'm concerned. I don't view you as an honest person. Ah, right. Your vaunted "paleoclimate background." You haven't said, as I recall, specifically what that background is, or what you did, exactly, besides watching your manager order people to fudge data and turn out the lights when they all left. I guess we can conclude that you were the janitor, then? Why would it be? I mean I guess it's troubling if, like you, one is a person who couldn't possibly countenance the possibility that they might actually not know everything.Me? I've actually handed out enough reading assignments of my own, to people who didn't even know enough about the subject to effectively communicate their questions or understand the replies, so I can understand the tactic employed in my direction. I can hardly answer the challenges of a book I haven't read. No, I'm telling you that the topic of this thread is Al Gore's movie, which you might have noticed considering that the title of the thread is the title of the movie, and so his movie is the source material. Well, sometime after the 12 of October, when it officially opens in the Netherlands, we'll expect your review. Who? What? What money? A lot of places I've seen the movie are showing it for free, or at cost. And it's not like his presentation doesn't draw from public sources.But that's a very interesting question. You might ask that of Nature, or of Climate Dynamics, or anybody else. If science is so important, how dare they charge to be able to read it? This is the data I remember getting from it, in part.

He is somewhat of an environmentalist by: not providing the data, and instead running a merchandising website where he sells books, and soundtracks?Color me less than impressed. By forcing people to buy books to get refs and also selling soundtracks? Perhaps he missed the "reduce" part of environmentalism. He doesn't quote the same hardworking people that raise questions about his statements. They are shunted into the pro Industry section. You discussed the possibility of rising sea levels, by painting hyberbolic portraits of cities becoming like Atlantis, and then questioned what the people were going to do, and shot down the possibility of coastal engineering. You want me to post your quote back to you?By the way I didn't say we should wait on anything. We should see what needs to be done and do it. As it is, what is wrong with a dyke? You will now demonstrate how lowering CO2 will help us deal with the result of NATURAL climate changes. This ought to be fun... No, clearly I never said such a thing. I am on record as saying quite the opposite. What I said is that without human contributions (and sometimes based on OTHER factors than CO2) the planet has seen many temp swings, including much higher and vastly lower temps. Hence whether humans effect their environment or not we will still be faced with the same challenges at some point. No, we can prevent manmade contributions to that change. Given the history of the earth's climate we could just as easily end our contribution and have temps hike enough to see the same effects. We simply don't know what is going to happen once humans remove their own contributing factors.I agree it makes sense to start cutting back on manmade factors. I've also said that here and in other threads. I am FOR reducing CO2 emissions as well as activities such as deforestation which aid its accumulation. I just don't need to make false claims about the nature of data and science to argue that same position. Uh... I didn't say we're fucked. I said we are going to face the same challenges anyway. You said that claim was pathetic? You will now demonstrate how ending human factors will alter the change the nature of our climate so that it does not fluctuate as it has in the past. Or is it that natural fluctuations have no effects, only manmade ones do because we are bad? No, just so that they can support their position better than "go see the movie".

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I didn't see those quotes. "For the past five years" in an article written in 2005 would still refer only to the Bush administration. The assertion that it had actually begun before even that was nothing but your own assertion.And this?

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Such interference, Ruch admits, is unavoidable in a system as vast as the federal government, in which scientific work swims in the same pool as political interests, but, he maintains, it has never occurred so frequently. During the Clinton administration, PEER's Washington office received three ''intakes'' -- complaints of interference with environmental work -- per day. That number, Ruch says, is now up to five, and the professional status of the complainants has risen markedly.

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This is just a polite way of saying "under Clinton, the people who complained about interference were just cranks; under Bush, the people who are complaining are actual professional scientists." Again I don't see how that substantiates a massive campaign from Al Gore to suborn science to a political agenda.And this?

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Is the Bush administration truly a worse science offender than its predecessors? According to Daniel Sarewitz of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, the degree of abuse is difficult to quantify, since the very notion of ''misuse'' of science is ideologically freighted. In 2003, for instance, the Hoover Institution, a conservative policy institute affiliated with Stanford University, published ''Politicizing Science,'' a book that outlined instances in which policy makers had manipulated science for their own political ends, nearly always in the name of increased regulation. ''The two sides simply bring to the table different ideas of what science is and how it should be used in regulating policy,'' Sarewitz observes.

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Nothing more than journalistic fake balance. "Oh, it's impossible to say who is the worse offender, because it's too hard to judge what counts, so we'll say that they're equal offenders." Fox News-style reporting, in other words. "Clinton did something like it, once, so Bush isn't any worse." Suprised to see you fall for that, I guess.Honestly it's amazing how you can read an article about scientists who think that the Bush Administration has the worst record in regard to honesty in science issues, and try to tease out the most tenuous hints that maybe, once, Clinton and Gore did something bad once, what, we cannot say, but they did, believe me...It's ridiculous. There's nothing in this article that supports your position. I don't know, Holmes. Not all of us have the financial freedom to take that kind of a stand. Holmes, I apologize. It was arrogant of me to pretend like I know what happened in your life. No matter what I guess, I'd almost certainly be wrong; and I certainly won't believe you when you tell me what did happen. I'll attempt to content myself from this point on with the simple recognition that your reported life experiences, absent all corroborating detail, are all but irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

I'm so sorry...thanks for enlightening me that any one claiming to be an environmentalist must be a dirt poor derelict.And you keep saying he's not providing data. Hmmmmmm, I wonder what all that stuff was he showed and discussed at the movie then. Forcing people? How strange...but it must be true cuz "Holmes" said it. I guess I just didn't notice the gun at my head when I went to see the movie. Really? Who are all of the shunted people? You do have a list prepared...correct. And could it be that many of them ARE pro-industry? Oh for fucks sake Holmes, get down off your high horse. Yes, you're correct, I did discuss the possibility of rising sea levels. And guess what, some cities will be under water when it happens. So how, exactly, did I paint hyberbolic portraits? Or are you saying that there's no evidence supporting the claim that ice sheets are melting, and that if allowed to continue will result in rising sea levels?The point, Holmes, is that perhaps we could avoid the costly (and highly unlikely to actually happen) “coastal engineering” thing you seem to want to do so much.We seem to have differing points of view about this whole issue.
Mine is like: Hey, it looks like a cement truck is about to pour its load in such a manner that my car will become embedded in it, so perhaps I will NOW go move my car.While yours is more like: Hey, it looks like a cement truck is about to pour its load in such a manner that my car will become embedded in it, so perhaps I will wait until the job is done, the truck has left and the cement has hardened and then I get a pick and shovel and hire about 20 guys at $35 hour to work on chiseling my car free for the next two weeks. Or it’s also possible that this man-made problem can be avoided, but in all likelihood my car is going to slowly sink into the ground anyway so what the fuck, I guess doing nothing is the easier option. and you will now do a rectal-cephalous disengagement and re-read what I wrote.Here, let me help you out: Notice the part where I mention how it would probably be easier to deal with the Natural climate changes than to have to deal with the more drastic changes that are more likely to occur if WE DO NOTHING? Hey, it's just a hypothesis, but it sure seems pretty logical to me.
So yes, Holmes, I know the climate is going to change but since it will be a "natural change" there is, by definition, really nothing we can do about it. Quite to opposite from what we're talking about here. You see, we CAN do something about greenhouse gas emissions, so why not do it? Yes Holmes, I know that the climate has varied through out geologic time. But what caused the "much higher" temperature swings? What caused the "much lower" temperatures?
Now, why should be just say "oh well, fuck it, the temps gonna go up anyway so we might as well just hasten it along", cuz that is the message I am getting from you. WTF? Honestly, I am completely baffled by this. We can prevent man-made contributions to climate change...you agree. Ok, then WTF are you arguing about? Are you saying it'll make no difference, so why bother? Are you saying the regardless of what we do, the temps are still gonna climb the same amount? Really, help me out here.To my eye, we have two choices. We can accept that we are contributing to global warming and the consequences are going to be severe, so why not do the simple thing now...reduce greenhouse gas emission. Or we can look at the data and see that we are actually going to have no effect whatsoever on the path climate is going to follow, so let's pop open a beer, turn on some NASCAR, and get drunk. You are, if nothing else, simply amazing with your ability to turn anything into a pile of shit. I really could not care less about natural fluctuations. They're natural Holmes...meaning we can do nothing about them because once we do, then they are no longer natural now are they? Why do you repeatedly (and quite annoyingly I might add) insist with your "now you will demonstrate" line of reasoning. We're not talking about natural fluctuations. We're talking about the Al Gore movie and the implications of global warming as a result of MANMADE contributions to the system Those are things we CAN DO something about. I don't get you at all. Are you just pulling this stuff out of your ass or are you reading what I wrote? Who said natural fluctuations have no effect. Not me, that's for sure. But why should that have any bearing, at all, on what we CAN DO about the manmade ones?

He's distorting you, probably on purpose. Like he does everybody else.He doesn't have any other way to argue, usually.Does that make it any clearer?

I'll deal with both your last two posts in this one reply.That you choose to deny my educational and work experience does not effect me. Why would it? It just makes you that much lower and ignorant by wishing away facts.If you don't want to believe what I say, that's fine. It has very little bearing on what I have been saying so far anyway, except for telling you the reason I don't trust Gore. The above does NOT mean... But your pretending it does reveals the nature of your bias. People complaining about interference under Gore are cranks, under Bush actual scientists. Yeah, that's beautiful. Its amazing, but not honest, how you read my posts which wholly admit that Bush is a worse offender and then pretend as if that's not what I said, as well as just dismissing clear statements in an article that things did happen under Clinton/Gore.YES, Bush is worse. That does not make C/G completely sqeaky clean. And I'm not even trying to argue that because C/G did something that it lets B/C off the hook.But I guess this is the length one must go to see the emperor's new clothes huh? Didn't Lundtz say that? Well I'll CERTAINLY agree to that! Even with corroborating detail, they would be practically irrelevant for ANYONE else. I told you what happened under his administration and so why I don't trust him.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)