Entire libraries of "evidence" exist that allegedly demonstrate the genetic inferiority of certain darker-hued "races."  See THE MISMEASURE OF MAN by Stephen Jay Gould.  

Such psuedo- scientific tomes, far from being fringe phenomena, were widely circulated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The researchers who authored them were at one time taken seriously as scholars, not as being kooks or racists.

Once these theories were proven wrong, we didn't ban their proponents' free speech, but we DID largely stop listening to them, according them respectful attention, giving them the benefit of the doubt as to their good will, or granting them prominent public platforms.

Perhaps following Mr. Sowell's logic, instead we should now accord these latter-day dissenters to the scientific mainstream respect, listen to them with an open mind, & not shout them down nor denounce them as charlatans. Otherwise, we are guilty of liberal "political correctness," "intolerance," and "close-mindedness." Balderdash.

We don't give equal time to flat earth theories, or to the racist eugenics theoreticians, nor should we now give equal credence today to the denial of the human impacts to climate.

However, unlike eccentric, idiosyncratic psuedo-scientific beliefs that are essentially harmless -- like belief in a "flat earth" --  some false beliefs actually have power to kill, if they are not exposed and decisively rejected.

They are not just scientifically wrong, but morally wrong as well.  This is as true today of anti-science propaganda about climate as it was of racist eugenics yesterday.

The question of how to confront certain false beliefs therefore should not be limited to dispassionate defenses of the truth. The disputes at their roots are not merely academic.  They are cover for powerful interests and evidence of stubborn social prejudices, and should be exposed as such.

The basis for the dueling claims is a last-minute change by state school officials to a document drafted by an advisory committee made up of scientists, educators, and the public. In lieu of evolution, the standards now refer to "the scientific theory of evolution." State education officials say the new wording was intended to appease conservatives without compromising on accuracy. To be consistent, officials applied the same wording to every other scientific concept mentioned in the standards, for example, changing "photosynthesis" to "the scientific theory of photosynthesis."

Politicians have to be given firm direction. Relying on them to stop global warming on their on recognisance is not going to work.

Coley issued a press release soon after the board's vote "applauding" the decision "to teach evolution as a scientific theory, not a scientific fact as had been earlier proposed."

Not that the ignorance is limited to Florida either:

....the Seattle, Washington-based Discovery Institute, which advocates teaching students to question evolution, called the new wording "an impotent change." An analysis of the new standards posted on its blog carried this headline: "Florida State Board Tricked Into Meaningless 'Compromise' to Retain Dogmatism."

 

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

See:
http://edro.wordpress.com/collapsing-cities/  
http://edro.wordpress.com/failing-ecosystems/

Hi Odograph!

Here is a link to Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture Blog giving the agnostic smackdown to the climate deniers.

That includes the resident Gristmill climate denier.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/03/global-war ...

Sunsetbeachguy

It is just as sensical as the denialist claptrap.

Check out the posts over at the Big Picture.

Sunsetbeachguy

Again, since it wont be seen in the "Mainstrean"  news with "mainstream" 'science':

"Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming"
February 26, 2008 12:55 PM

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously."

And also if you want to look at past history trends this is a good site of actual record temperatures in the U.S. and nothing political it's record fits with the 35- 40 year natural change periods.

Naturally Im Right!

Responding to this comment:

There's been a greater than 50 percent increase in the amount of atmospheric CO2 since the Industrial Age began.

There is little reason to deny that burning fossil fuels put this excess there. There is no other reasonable explanation.  And asserting the contrary -- exactly where did the carbon released by combustion go, if not into the air?

CO2 is a small fraction of the overall atmosphere -- true--yet there has been a demonstrably very large addition to this very small part. all added in a geologically very short time period, caused by human beings.  Does this extra carbon dioxide in the air have provable effects?

Conclusive proof that the atmosphere traps heat:

The Moon & Earth are at the same distance from the sun -- yet the moon has an average zero temperature while the earth averages 70 degrees.  Air traps heat, just like a blanket.

But, not ALL gases trap heat. The greatest bulk of the atmosphere -- more than 90 percent--that is nitrogen and oxygen does not. Their greenhouse effects are neutral or absent.  

Besides water vapor, only a few trace gases --  principally CO2 -- have this heat-trapping effect. How do we know this?  Scientists have made artificial atmospheres in a laboratory and varied the compositions of the gases to find out which trap heat and which do not.

So yes, shifting the composition of the atmosphere  by just a few fractions of a percent towards more greenhouse gases logically will have large effects.

Then, of course, the 'denial' argument shifts to the impacts -- not whether climate change is happening or not.  What's wrong w/ a little bit of warming, they say.  I would like to be able to go outside in January in Albany w/o a coat, they say.

Turns out quite a bit is wrong w/ the general warming trend -- starting w/ the huge sea level rise, then continuing on to more and more severe weather extremes like droughts and hurricanes happening more and more often.

we can probably adapt to incremental climate changes though (we will have to, b/c this human-caused climate change is very likely to be irreversible over the time frame of the next several centuries).

To me, the real threat is NOT a gradual and steady change that we can adapt to -- instead the emerging threat is a discontinuous, rapid and unpredictable change.

Beyond that, it doesn't seem impossible that there could come to be complete climate chaos, which would be a severe problem indeed.  

Imagine not being able to plant crops on any kind of predictable schedule whatever, and then you will comprehend the kind of severe risk we are running by continued inaction against anthropogenic climate change.

But climatologists, archeologists, university researchers and others are in general agreement that climate in a worldwide context (not just USA stats) is currently in a warming trend.  Some of them see that human intervention is one of the direct causes and new information supports that contention.

For instance, current visitors to the Mayan pyramids find them surrounded by jungle.  Research, including silt cores from various Mexican lake beds and the Yucatan sea-bottom confirm that they were originally built after the land was clear-cut for crops, and served as reservoirs holding water during droughts caused by human habitation.  

Earlier, European forests were almost universal over that part of the continent, gradually being removed by human expansion in the late Dark Ages and early Medieval period, and resulting in drought and starvation again.  Genghis Khan began his depredations because his people exhausted the farmlands where they had lived for generations and expansion into Europe was his solution.

In our times we are doing the same thing, though we have chemical fertilizers and pesticides to increase farm yield, and fast transport to move food into our cities.  As global warmth increases, there is more drought experienced in marginal areas like Australia, the sub-Saharan desert, the American southwest, et al.  Starvation is a real threat as urban population grows.

Cold weather (temporary and seasonal) increases in sub-polar areas like China, like Canada and the northern U.S., because evaporation from the exposed Arctic Ocean waters provides more moisture for the atmosphere to move south from the north pole and a similar chain of events occurs in the Antartic,  but at a different time schedule because there is land there as opposed to open water in the Arctic.  More snow from the increased moisture is natural but this snow is more evanescent than the snow which used to begin falling in the autumn and accumulating over the winter months, gradually releasing the water in the spring to provide growth for the summer.  Snow now falls thickly, melts rapidly, and is replaced frequently.  In the U.S., the Mississippi rivershed covers most of the continent and drains that snowmelt, ice and sleet, into the Gulf of Mexico, moving heat from the north to the south, making the north seem colder but in reality leaving more room in the arctic for warmer air to move in.

I'll admit it is far easier to deny our part in climate change than to advocate for intervention, but only an awareness of the problem will enable us to do something about it.

 

Des Emery

  I have a question, do you all still believe that Mt. Kilamanjaro snows "melted" off a few years ago?


Naturally Im Right!

So yes, shifting the composition of the atmosphere  by just a few fractions of a percent towards more greenhouse gases logically will have large effects.

Really?  Why is this logical?   Water vapor is the number one greenhouse gas.   By far...

Scientists have made artificial atmospheres in a laboratory

Numerical Models, Integrated Circuits and Global Warming Theory
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/02/numerical_models_i ...

Almost all semiconductor manufacturing processes occur in closed vessels.  This permits the engineers to precisely control the input chemicals (gases) and the pressure, temperature, etc. with high degree of precision and reliability.  Closed systems are also much easier to model as compared to systems open to the atmosphere (that should tell us something already).  Computer models are used to inform the engineering team as the design the shape, temperature ramp, flow rates, etc, etc, (i.e. the thermodynamics) of the new reactor.

Nonetheless, despite the fact that 1) the chemical reactions are highly studied, 2) there exists extensive experience with similar reactors, much of it recorded in the open literature, 3) the input gases and materials are of high and known purity, and 4) the process is controlled with incredible precision, the predictions of the models are often wrong, requiring that the reactor be adjusted empirically to produce the desired product with quality and reliability.

The fact that these artificial "climates" are closed systems far simpler than the global climate, have the advantage of the experimental method, and are subject to precise controls, and yet are frequently wrong, should lend some humility to those who make grand predictions about the future of the earth's atmosphere.

Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture blog, posts another smackdown of the denialists.

I am coming to the opinion that (as some other poster described) there is a boiler room inside the Beltway that has a bunch of H1B visa holders cranking out denialist dreck.

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/03/sciencerul ...

Barry Ritholtz is a market trader and pretty much politically agnostic.

Check it out.

Sunsetbeachguy

"There is little reason to deny that burning fossil fuels put this excess there. There is no other reasonable explanation."
 Try 6 billion people breathing out Co2 !

JonBoy you shouldn't stop looking for another reasonable explanation just yet, and maybe you should rethink using the breathing line - it destroys the credibility of all your other super duper AGW killer ideas.

Where do you think the carbon atoms you're exhaling come from?  Unless the rest of your bodily functions are as messed up as your thought processes, it comes from your food.  And your food gets it directly, or indirectly from plants, which get it by removing CO2 from the atmosphere.  Biologically speaking humans are pretty much carbon neutral.

Six billion people farting out CH4 might have an impact on the climate, but their exhalations of CO2 almost certainly do not.  

  If you can't make the connection, I'll spell it out.  It doesn't matter how high temperatures go, or how low they sink, they are increasing globally - globally, that is - on average.

 The same way the stock market has increased, on average.  The variability of the stock market depends upon individual decisions to hold or to sell, and global warming depends upon individual decisions to buy an SUV or walk, to turn the thermostat either up or down, to leave all the lights on or to turn them off.  

And have you checked out Kilimanjaro recently?    The top of that old volcano used to be covered in snow and ice, many metres deep.  The cup of the cone is now exposed because of melt, and villagers at the foot of the mountain are experiencing drought conditions where abundant water used to flow.  And the last glacier in the mountains of Papua New Guinea is almost gone; the equatorial island used to count several glaciers hidden in the mountains and recorded in the 1800s by explorers.

Science has known about glacial retreat for many decades, but is now alarmed at the rapid increase in melt everywhere in the world.  Do yourself a favour and check out 'glaciers' on Google.    

Des Emery

Firstly, do you think Kilamanjaro has had snow on it since it erupted?
Wow....Do you know where the melted water went if the people below can't find it?
 It didnt melt and you said it yourself ...it evaporated! Evaporation from drought conditions. This is because of a change in precipitation. Not a temperature change at all.
 The one of the fathers of Global warming Claude Alegre went against the whole GW hoax because of this false story about the snows there melting by warmer temps...

Read Claude Alegre's words
"Claude Allegre, one of the most decorated French geophysicists, is a former government official and an active member of France's Socialist Party, and is a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences. Allegre has authored more than 100 scientific articles, written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States. "

Naturally Im Right!

Al Gore's Decree on Global Warming is Not Our Only Crisis

Our Energy Conservation Dilemma

All winter I hear real people saying its too cold and they wish it was summer. I dont hear too many enjoying a nice summer day with a bbq ..saying "I wish it was winter with 6 feet of snow right now".
 Do you liberals, democrats, socialists, and communists all wear big winter coats all summer?

Why is it you dont worry about it getting colder for the next 35 years? It might kill a bunch of creatures if it stays as cold as it has been.
  Im serious and Im not trying to be a jerk ... I really wonder...can anyone answer this?

Naturally Im Right!

"We don't give equal time to flat earth theories, or to the racist eugenics theoreticians, nor should we now give equal credence today to the denial of the human impacts to climate."

  So only you know how hot or cold it really is. One has to be a mentally liberal creature to check a themometer to say its warmer today or colder?
 Your flaw about comparing "flat earth" to climate is your liberal mind thinking you are god and you can't learn the truth if it isn't "your" truth.
  It is simply accepted from all sides that the earth is not round or flat. Its shape has been seen and well determined. If it changes shape to flat we will not call it round or eliptical. And act like it hasnt changed to a differnt shape.
  You compare that to a natural changing climate that we all know has changed a million times before man ever used sea-bottom oil for anything... and even before man walked the earth.
 Yet now you and your ilk think it can only get warmer? , because YOU said it will?
Even when it is cooler you still say it is warmer.
The climate has and will change as it has forever.
Nothing we do can change that.
  I suggest you reprogram to let some facts into your minds.
  Or be honest and stop the silly "global warmng, the sky is falling" bunk and just call it what it is..."eco-centric idealism" Or also known by its creator Carl Marx as Enviro-mentalism
  You bought into this warming too late, we have been at the end of the warming for years. But you bought the wrong ticket and took the wrong train... so now you have to explain how the same Co2 you said caused warming is now causing a global cooling!
  I dont care if we have the majority of 2,000 or 10,000 related field scientists on our side...if we just had one who was telling the truth and showing the real facts and going against all the others political propaganda machine and Al Gore. I would find that truth and grab unto it.
   Now show me how Co2 is causing this cooling?

Naturally Im Right!

the Earth is warmer than the moon b/c it has air;

the only parts of the air that trap heat are water vapor, CO2 and other trace gases;

the amt of CO2 has gone up since the industrial revolution b/c of burning fossil fuels;

so why can't you infer that increasing gases that cause warming wouldn't also increase average temperatures?  Where have you proved the contrary? It's simple logic.

because there are anomalously cold months does not disprove a general warming trend.  In fact, the opposite. Because the warm season lasts longer and is hotter, the timing of the seasons is thrown off.  The cold season starts later and is more severe.   All of the computer models show not a uniform warming, but rather more severe and frequent episodes of wind, rain, and drought, because extra heat is the fuel that drives the weather "engine."

But even so, there will always be seeming exceptions, explainable by the fact that they are single episodes, not generalized trends.  The burden of proof should be on those that deny the predominant theory of anthropogenic warming to explain how increasing greenhouse gases don't result in the predicted effects.

no one could "prove" the Earth was round by direct observation until we went all the way around it and/or were able to observe it from space. what seems like common sense today was not directly observable in most persons' everyday experience.

Similarly, we won't be able to "prove" manmade warming by observation directly in the manner you seem to demand until we've already done it -- when it's too late to correct the damage.

We don't have a second 'control' Earth we can manipulate and compare against an unmanipulated Earth, in the manner of a laboratory experiment.  Thus, we simply have to accept reasonable inferences based on the available observations.

Sure, climate changes continuously in small gradual ways by natural forces. Sometimes the change is relatively rapid, but generally nowhere near as rapid as we are observing.

but let's just say that you're right (far right) and that I'm wrong -- let's just assume for sake of the argument that there is no reason to reduce carbon combustion in order to deal responsibly w/ rapid climate change.

in that case, gee, we get side effects from this 'unnecessary' policy I advocate of shrinking carbon emissions of also at the same time reducing: oil imports, exposure to Mideast wars and terrorism, oil spills, acid rain, strip mines that destroy hundreds of square miles, cancers from petrochemical plants, and increased morbidity and mortality from water and air pollution.  

So if I'm wrong, what happens as a result is good stuff that we ought to be doing anyway.  And if you're wrong, disaster gets wrought upon future generations.

you seem obsessed w/ imaginary "liberal" plots which you further equate to communism, socialism, 'whatever-ism.'  But science is neither left nor right.  Why should there be a conspiracy amongst thousands of scientists including climatologists, biologists, paleontologists, etc.?  

If you have any evidence of such a conspiracy then prove it instead of name-calling.  I don't believe you can.