>The more than 2000 scientists who worked on the Assessment reports came from
>many disciplines -- including HUNDREDS, I daresay, in meteorology, climate,
>physics, etc., etc. It included others for good reason: their assessments
>are supposed to predict not only climate but the potential impacts of a
>changing climate. Think about that for a second. The whole point is to
>provide policymakers with the best science possible, so the IPCC includes
>all kinds of scientists. It's possible that fewer than 50% call themselves
>"climatologists"
Yes, but that rather indicates what the value of the petition was. It did not represent scientific enquiry, but opinion, like all petitions. It is of interest what scientists think outside of their discipline, but hardly decisive. In any event, questions of fact are not decided by weight of numbers, but by reference to the subject matter.
>And speaking of motives ...
>
Well, this in itself speaks volumes. When one tries to win the argument by characterising your opponents motives rather than addressing the content of what they say, then we are plainly in the realm of a political controversy, not a scientific enquiry. Where verifiable results are at issue, motives are not. Not I but Guardian environment correspondent John Vidal writes, anthropogenic global warming is an unproveable hypothesis.
>As for his friends
I've never met them, so take this as the sneering rhetoric of the armchair radical.
>Patrick Michaels and Robert Billings (sic: it’s
>"Balling"), they are not only both of them considered scientific
>lightweights,
Considered by whom? The universities of Virginia and Arizona where they hold their professorships. One presumes that Michael DiPaola has raised this underqualification with the colleges concerned.
>they’ve also been thoroughly exposed as well-paid mouthpieces
>for coal and oil interests.
Here Mr DiPaola descends into unethical behaviour. Neither of the two above mentioned are subscribed to the LBO list, and are in no position to reply to this accusation of having prostituted their scientific credentials.
One presumes that DiPaola has exercised the elementary human courtesy of putting these charges to Billings and Michael before he raised them here. It would be interesting to know what their reply was.
Alternatively, it might be the case that DiPaola considers no wrong in spreading malicious charges behind someone's back. It would be rather as if in response to Liza's post, I had written:
'Oh, isn't that the Michael DiPaola who served time for robbing a gas station?'
without telling him that I was going to make these accusations. -- James Heartfield