Thank you very much! That was perhaps one of the most intelligent, even-handed and rational overviews I have ever read on the subject.
I am going to ping pfony1 on your post beause I think he ( as opposed to she, I presume) will appreciate it too.
If you haven’t encountered him yet, you should. He is one of the sharpest FReepers I have encountered amid the echos. Of course it is more fun and educational to disagree with him.
ERF,
Thanks for the “ping”, the compliments and the introduction to ModelBreaker.
I hope to be able to add a comment to the discussion this evening.
I appreciate your kind words. I wish I had the time to look at this issue more carefully. But I don't. So I kibbitz from the sideline about just modeling issues.
ERF,
I apologize for this late reply. We have houseguests this weekend.
Anyway, I think you have raised two interesting questions.
The first question relates to whether Science tells us that “AGW” is a hoax— a hoax based on the “convenient” coincidence of an increase in CO2 in our atmosphere and an increase in the temperature of the atmosphere.
The science of Botany provides all the proof I need that “AGW” is a hoax. That proof is provided by the evolution of photosynthesis in plants. C-4 photosynthesis evolved to allow plants to survive in an atmosphere where CO2 was relatively SCARCE.
Scarce?
Well, what else but scarcity could result when peat bogs “sequester” atmospheric CO2 in deposits that turn into coal, year after year for eons? What else could occut when algae “sequester” CO2 dissolved in the sea to make deposits that turn into petroleum over eons? From a “Botanical” point of view, increasing CO2 concentrations signals a return to a more normal atmosphere than we have now.
And simple Logic provides just one answer to this question:
“Which would have a greater impact in the temperature of the atmosphere of the Earth:
(1) A small change in the temperature of the Sun, which provides 99.99% of the heat of the Earth’s atmosphere or
(2) A large change in the concentration of CO2, an inefficient greenhouse gas, from 0.0350% of the atmosphere to 0.0500%of the atmosphere?
The second question is really a question of Ethics. That question can take many forms. For example,
(1) Is it “moral” for a person to seek to profit from the ignorance of others, rather than seek to educate them?.
(2) Is it “moral” to allow the costs of that Luddite-like ignorance to become a “legacy” of our children?
(3) Is it “moral” to promote ignorance, because that is so much easier than studying the scientific question, and also much more “socially acceptable”?
(4) Who were more “moral”? The “cooperative” Jews of Berlin, who went peacefully to their deaths in Hitler’s “concentration camps”? Or the brave Jews of Warsaw, who did not go peacefully?
Well, I hear some stirring upstairs. I think it’s time for my wife and me to cook up some “brunch”...