[lbo-talk] climate change denial

James Heartfield Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
Sat Aug 11 01:36:06 PDT 2007


Lenin's tomb, substituting rhetoric for argument

"This is absolutely typical, and absolute nonsense. The empirical validation for the basic thesis (that the man-made increase in carbon emissions is causing an unsustainable increase in global temperatures) is overwhelming."

But this statement is the nonsensical one. Since the event you describe is in the future, it cannot be verified, only estimated. The estimates vary. 'Sustainability' is not a scientific but an ideological category.

None of the urls that you toss in as a substitute for an argument show any measurement of a temperature change greater than one degree. That is because there has been no change in temperature any greater than one degree.

What they do show, is models, which are only as good as the data put into them. Strangely they all omit the telling fact that the IPCC's computer models have all been reconfigured since the first predictions of temperature made from them proved to be wrong.

Like a demonstration of the problem of attackign your opponent's credentials rather than his argument 'Lenin's tomb' says

"If you know of a good piece of work that is scientifically validated and *doesn't* originate from an industry lobby or an untrustworthy 'maverick', then why don't you go ahead and name it."

But who does he cite in his favour? "the *Royal* Society"; and what name comes up first on their website? Sir Ron Oxburgh, former chairman of Shell.



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