Because the only response to an absurd ideology is rebellion which appears as absurd to the Pharasees of AGW.

Cf.  TOS, S2E12, "I, Mudd"

When I see AGW supporters make comments like this, I always like to ask what you believe the most credible pieces of scientific evidence are that support anthropogenic global warming.  All too often, debates within the blogosphere are reduced to ad hominem attacks.  I have to admit that I'm guilty of that from time to time.  I would welcome your answer to this question.

Monckton is quite smart.  If you take the time to view his film Apocalypse now, you'll find that the Cambridge students thought they were going to eat him alive with highly technical questions.  I feel quite sure that his answers shocked them.  Not because there was anything shocking about them, but because they didn't expect him to be able to answer the question.

You might also review his paper on the 35 errors in An Inconvenient truth.  Again, you'll soon see why he's in high demand as a speaker on this topic.

Your accent comment is actually rather funny.  American's do tend to attach a certain amount of brain power to a British accent whether it's deserved or not.  In Monckton's case I can assure you that it is.

As for Houseman, hell I'd take financial advice from anybody right now.  Can't be any worse that the advice I've already received in this area...LOL

I'll ask you the same question that I asked SINDARK.  What do you believe the most credible pieces of "scientific evidence" in support of anthropogenic global warming are at this time?  No ad hominem attacks I promise. 

I mean the flat-earthers have a consensus do they not?  Isn't that howscience is settled these days?  No?  Really?

That's the type of ad hominem stuff I'm talking about.  The mud slinging going on by both sides needs to stop.  You can compare me to a flat-earther or holocaust denier, but that still doesn' mean that GW is CO2 driven.  So Godfrey, what did it for you from an evidence standpoint?  I'm not talking about which groups agree or disagree or what Monckton or Gore said, but actual scientific evidence.  When I ask this question, I often receive a long list of things being caused by global warming.  To be clear, I'm interested in the evidence you believe makes anthropogenic global warming a sure thing?

You're are only the second UN IPCC contributing authors I've met.  Would you mind if I asked you at some future point a few questions about how the report is prepared?

As for your comment on weather vs. Climate, how could anyone disagree.  While Skeptics get a chuckle out of cold weather seemingly following Al Gore around (come on, admit it, it's funny) it proves nothing.

Another source of confusion is that AGW supporters often confuse the results of global warming as being proof of of anthropogenic global warming. Your comments?

While you research the IPCC report, lets get back to the reason for commenting on this story.  The story shows a perception that Republican witnesses to hearings on climate change do not lend credibility to their argument.  One argument is that God is smarter than us and we can't screw up his domain.  I thought 2 people in a garden did that a while back, but I don't have a theological degree or pertain to be an expert.  A second argument from a Republican witness was that "green jobs" equals unemployment and that California is experiencing a mass exodus.  Kate supplies data on the latter.  I know that it surprises some people to find that comments on news pieces include unsubstantiated attacks on say- government, politicians, etc.  Such is the comment section of the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal, and a little bit further on NewsCorp, but i don't think the use of "ad hominem" is justified as it isn't going after your character or any other commenter or appealing to prejudices instead of intellect.  I assume by your undecidedness on AGW that you do agree that there is plain old GW?  If so, do we have a responsibility to ensure that America plans to protect its citizens into the future?  Is your argument that if we didn't cause it we can't change it?  I'm confused as to what your standpoint is...

Thank you for commenting.  The "ad hominem" comment was aimed at the flat-earther remark.  Whether those who fully support AGW like it or not, those who disagree on scientific grounds should not be compared to flat-earthers, holocaust deniers, and those who are still so foolish to believe that man never landed on the moon.  It's insulting, arrogant, and uncalled for.  To be sure, the ad hominem attacks have gone both ways, but I was not implying that Kate's article fell into this category.

She is guilty of employing a bit of a double standard with regard to the importance of scientific credentials or lack thereof.  Gore, who as you know has testified as well, is also quite lacking in scientific credentials.  It's brought up frequently on Skeptic (actually we prefer the term realist) sites, but I don't know that Kate has called Mr. Gore out for the same criticism she has of Lord Monckton.  I sent her an email posing that question.  So far, no response.

As for the religous remarks that became part of the record, I don't believe there is a place for that in this arguement.  We have separation of church and state for a reason.

You are correct in your assumption that I do believe GW has occured at various points in the earth's history.  As for your arguement regarding the need to do something to protect our citizen's future, hopefully you'll agree that moving ahead too quickly on environmental issues can cause problems as well.  That's a bit of lengthy arguement, but I'll gladly enter into a full discussion with you on this if you wish.

As for California, I'll wait for the next census to make a decision on population trends.  The states lets throw money at problems until they go away mentality has caught up with it.  I'm not sure it's the people you lose that will be noticed first.  It is more than likely jobs that will be lost first, followed by population.  More than a few businesses have left CA for states friendlier to business.  It did not go unnoticed by the State of California.  At one point sinking to the point of running television commercials making fun of Texas and encouraging business to stay in California.  So while I'm not a census taker and can't speak to Monckton's comments on this either way, the ad run by the State of California speaks for itself. Obviously the state knows that jobs are departing for states that are percieved to be friendlier to industry. 

Finally, as to the reason for my joining grist, the posting here seems to be more factual.  There does seem to be a higher degree of respect among the posters here than one might on DK or HuffPo or desmogblog. 

The fundemental question to be asked JWebb is whether or not GW is anthropogenic.  Either the amount of CO2 and a few other GHG produced by man are exacerbating perhaps I should say contributing to this problem or they are not.  Gore's film was full of errors.  In some cases he seems to be intentially toying with the truthl  The degree to which he infuriated many who were expecting a completely honest even-handed report from Gore is very high.  You can count me among those who became angry by it.

For now, I've decided to put my feeling regarding the world's most famous AGW cheerleader aside.  The question I've posed to several posters here is an honest one.  I'd like to know, when it comes to AGW, which piece of evidence in your opinion bats the ball out of the park.  President Obama has suggested that he science is indisputable.  Frankly I'm not seeing it.  Evidence based primarily on  incomplete surface data or less than accurate computer models doesn't leave me fully convinced.  I've arrived at Grist, an olive branch in my hand, sincerely asking the posters here what they believe the most impressive piece of AGW evidenceto be.  Please feel free to respond to that question yourself.

Sincerely,

Dash

As for Dash RIPROCK III, perhaps he might get someone to edit his/her copy. He/she is an embarrassment to the movement.

If he/she is using English as a second language, then the editors should help this person out.

I'm not a scientist.  But frankly, whether one believes that the GW is A or not is immaterial.  If the water level was rising around your house, would you not act?  Maybe you act by buying sandbags, maybe you act by buying a new house, or maybe you act by paddling upstream to figure out how to slow down the water.  Is there any scenario where you don't act unless you can first satisfy yourself that the problem is man-made?

I will tell you that I find the ice core evidence compelling, and - as a person who was first trained as a biologist, but haven't worked as one for years - see the folly in anyone who sees exponential growth curves and presumes that they are perpetual.  (There is no biological or physical cycle I'm aware of that doesn't look like an S or bell curve over a long enough time cycle.  To look at the exponential increase in CO2 concentrations and our exponential rate of fossil fuel combustion and presume that is sustainable is folly, regardless of whether or not one can confidently articulate the consequences.)  A world in which 50% of all the natural gas humanity has ever burned has been burned since 1990 is not a world that is planning for optionality and flexibilty in the wake of an uncertain future.  You may not see that failure as an ecological crisis - but limiting options and constraining possible futures is certainly a financial crisis in the making.

But I turn the larger question back to you: why would you not act to reduce our rate of CO2 emissions and ameliorate the risk?  Or, if you prefer, answer a purely economic question: what possible reason is there for us not to burn less fossil fuel?

I think I represent a lot of people posting here when I say that you can take your elitist attitude to another site.  I'm sure you'd be welcomed at the Huffington Post or DeSmogBlog.

Another idea might be to find a posting board sponsored by the Modern Language Association where you might enjoy the opportunity to converse with other pedantic individuals like yourself.

What takes consensus climate science into Huxley’s realm of absurdity is its dogmatic insistent that all other hypotheses are not just wrong, but so wrong that they should not be debated or, better, not even heard by the public or other scientists.

Moreover, the consensus climate science alarmists, and their environmentalist supporters, refuse to leave the rest of us alone. Instead, they wish to impose economy-crippling measures based on a global-warming hypothesis that becomes more and more surreal with each year that warming does not occur.

David Evans | July 18, 2008

Article from:  The Australian

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.

Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.

3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.

The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.

Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming.

So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.

In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.

If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?

The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.

What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.

The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.

There is no single piece of evidence that leads me to the conclusion that global warming is very probably anthropogenic, but if I had to narrow it to as fine a point as possible, I'd say that the IPCC 4th Assessment, Working Group 1, Chapter 9 contains the most persuasive links in the chain of evidence.  In a nutshell, it shows that the increase in temperature since about mid-20th century is not explainable except by factoring in anthropogenic forcings.  This is not proof, obviously, but shows that the probability is very high that GW is AGW.