A digression, the Piers Corbyn Story

I'm active on the internet, commenting and responding to responses.  Once in a while a dialogue comes along I feel needs to be shared over here because of it's text book quality example of disconnect and climate science denial.

Although I didn't have time for this, especially not today, I'm a sucker for chasing such bones and since the name Piers Corbyn rang a bell but I couldn't place him.  I found myself googling him.  Oh yeah, that guy, Mr. the CO2 story is over Corbyn and his mini ice age machinations.  Eventually, I found myself listening to his YouTube "Weather Action Meeting 27/2/12" video which turned out to be an epic example of Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

Since I wasted so much precious time on this joker I'm going to get something constructive out of it by posting my findings over here.  I'll begin with P.M.'s phenomenal 700 word gish gallop dodge of the Earth observation sources I was sharing, such as NASA's summation of the evidence.  Following that I look at Piers' "Weather Action Meeting 27/2/12." 

Then I share a most excellent documentary that looks at our global heat and moisture distribution engine's various components and how they interact, followed by a couple video shorts from a real expert on greenhouse gases Professor Richard Alley as he explains the reality of CO2.

This in turn is followed by a score of links spanning 2005 to a couple months ago - for those who are interested in learning more about this example of Unidirectional Skepticism Piers Corbyn.
  
M.P. wrote:

Why do Global Warming "Skeptics" Reject Rational Debate?

I’ve been reflecting on my past few years worth of futile attempts to engage various “climate science skeptics” in a substantive debate.  An exercise that began with Letters to the Editor and that has evolved into my modest blog that has visitors from around the world.

Besides learning a great deal more about the substance of the various lines of increasingly solid evidence, I’ve learned about the human ability to hide from the uncomfortable and scary.

I’ve also learned that the loudest deniers of anthropogenic global warming consistently turn out to be cowards who will bluster and insult and threaten, but in the end, they always run away from defending their various claims in an objective manner. 

In a way that’s not surprising since there is no substance to their various claims.  But, what’s shocked me is that rather than learning from their failures and mistakes, they erect ever weirder intellectual contortions and blind-spots while becoming increasingly hostile, some bordering on the vicious.
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I don’t pretend to be a learned intellectual, but it seems to me there are basically two kinds of debates:

The one would be your political debate, where winning your argument is the only thing that matters.  This style of debate is a ‘no holds barred’ exercise where rhetorical fancy dancing, misrepresenting facts, and personal attacks to distract, are all considered fair-play towards the goal of winning for one’s personal agenda.

The other, I would call a constructive rational debate where each side remains focused on the facts, explaining those facts, the evidence, or lack thereof, along with their implications. 

In this style of debate learning and arriving at a constructive consensus is more important than “winning,” since arriving at a solid realistic understanding is of paramount importance. 

A constructive rational debate requires a certain level of respect for the known facts along with your opponent’s integrity - which is not to be confused with liking your opponent, or accepting what they are proposing. 

Thing is, both sides agree that the weight of objective evidence must carry the day, even when that means admitting ones own assumptions were mistaken.

Unfortunately the neo-Republican/Libertarian’s desperation to protect their political and business status quo has obliterated their notions of personal intellectual integrity, respect and honestly -
which in turn has reduced our ‘global warming education dialogue’ to a dog fight where one side sticks to the rules of rational constructive engagement and the other side acts as though they were in an alley brawl.

Tragically it’s not the chorus of strident climate science deniers but our children who will be paying the price for our unforgivable failure.

science "skeptics" #1 examining dishonesty

{edited 2/10/2014 mornging}

I'm constantly reminded that science sceptics say the darndest things.  But there's so much of it.  There's no keeping up.  However some remarks do deserve a closer look.  For instance...

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G says:  Oh please do discuss the differences between the so-called “earth sciences” and the hard sciences. I’d love to know why you feel that the earth sciences should be held to a much lower standard in their data handling. Especially since you stated that expecting honesty, accuracy and transparency in the handling of data is somehow “dishonest”.

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To begin with, in a constructive dialogue, it's important to understand what each person is saying.  If one misunderstands the other, we should try clarifying what we mean and the other should try to listen to that clarification. 

For instance, G claims:  "since you stated that expecting honesty, accuracy and transparency in the handling of data is somehow “dishonest”."

Oh no!  I never said there was anything wrong with expecting "honesty, accuracy and transparency."  

It's the scientist's creed.

The thing you miss Mr G is that I believe ALL sides should respect that a creed.  

In this dialogue you folks have shown zero interest in those standards of behaving "honest, accurate or transparent" regarding the articles and tactics youz guyz use to mislead and suppress discussing the real issues.  Check out my recent "dialogue" with ScottishSceptic for an example of what I'm writing about.

As for "dishonest" you joker...

... it is dishonest to misrepresent what scientists have said or written - 

... it is dishonest to attack the individual conveyers of information in order to ignore the valid information and messages they are trying to convey.

... it is dishonest to ignore the fine print on scientific graphs/studies, because that's where the accuracy of said study is discussed in detail.  

... It is dishonest to expect perfect accuracy - particularly when said studies/papers already explained the reasons for achieving whatever accuracy level it achieved... 

... It is dishonest to ignore the fact that scientists include suggestions for refining future observations because they are dedicated to achieving the highest attainable accuracies.  {It's the human process of discovery, learning and mastery.  Nothing about it is perfect - so pretending it's supposed to be - is a supreme and most contemptible dishonesty.}

... It is dishonest to imply that Climatologists need to explain every little "natural variation" before we can trust them to understand the important situation.

... It is dishonest to claim that "natural variation" somehow nullifies humanity's injects of gigatons of CO2 into our thin atmosphere every month.

... It is dishonest to ignore that by increasing our planet's greenhouse gas insulation medium we will energize natural variability to levels never experienced by humanity.

... It is dishonest to be smug and unconcerned about situations such as the California drought, or the recent UK west coast catastrophe {or the many others these past few years} because somewhere in dim time, there were also extreme weather events.  

... It is dishonest not to learn the lessons from past climate fluctuations and the lesson that we have a global heat distribution engine that needs to be handled with care.

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G asks: "I’d love to know why you feel that the earth sciences should be held to a much lower standard in their data handling."

Think about this rhetorical sleight of hand.  

It's like this fella never worked in the real outside world.  It's one thing to do a lab experiment where everything can be controlled.  Or to build a bridge/building where all components are finite and well understood.  But when dealing with the actual geophysical planet out there, come on, give us a break.