Earth: The Climate Wars Fightback. Episode 2.

Dr Iain Stewart investigates the counter attack that was launched by the global warming sceptics in the 1990s. At the start of the 1990s it seemed the world was united. At the Rio
Earth summit the world signed up to a programme of action to start tackling climate change. Even George Bush was there. But the consensus didn't last. Iain interviews some of the key global warming sceptics, and discovers how their positions have changed over time.

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Science & Technology

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[OshZosh]

@MrJivePirate Isn't "science" and "mere consensus" ...the same thing?

No, the latter is a type of classical fallacy, here used by an advocate of the Greenhouse Scare, a movement of the late 20th C. started by offsets & renewables hucksters.

Appeal to authority:

"...by the way, I'm a physicist and I think..."

Argumentum ad populum:

"...98% of scientists have agreed..."

@MrJivePirate ...point me to your source...

Try the book, or the author Donna Laframboise's nofrakkingconsensus blog.

[MrJivePirate]

@OshZosh What do you go on if not the scientific consensus? What is this "science" that's different from the "mere consensus" that scientists agree upon? Isn't "science" and the "mere consensus" basically the same thing? Oh and, as I'm coming into this discussion late, I'd be grateful if you could point me to your source which is invalidates the "mere" 98% agreement, which you no doubt have on hand.

[OshZosh]

@FiremanTyme 98% of scientists have agreed...

Even if that were true, (it may not be as Laframboise's The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World's Top Climate Expert showed, a third of the IPCC citiations were non-peer-reviewed, often activist-sourced) then you have a mere consensus, not science.

[FiremanTyme]

@OshZosh The funny part is that 98% of scientists have agreed that global warming is happening. That's a real figure. Oh, and by the way, I'm a physicist and I think global warming is happening and is a very bad thing.

Feel free to go back to the 15th century if you want. You don't get to pick and choose which bits of science you like and dislike.

[OshZosh]

Wasted twenty minutes through the apparently fair-handed first half to be met with a second half that omitted crucial parts of the sceptical critique, such as absence of lower tropospheric warming, McIntyre's work deconstructing hockey stick, proxies that confirm MWP. Presenter treats attack on alarmist arguments as an attack on all (climate) science. Sceptics asked silly questions by even sillier host, then dismissed. Classic straw man. Deep-Green sleight of hand raised to new level. Be warned.

[hujo9000]

@MrBbuds @ 6:25 there is the distorted grainy imagery, after all the edited brief sound bites from "the holocaust deniers" So two minutes of cut up footage followed by grainy distortion says, fair and balanced to you? You a fox news fan?

[hujo9000]

@MrBbuds You didn't notice the hosts eye rolling during the two minutes "the other side" had "their fair say"? 30 years of solid evidence is nothing to a 4.5 billion year old variable system! Its really just good politics, on both sides of the debate. Just sick of hearing tax the people or down with corporations, when the true answers come from funding science for cleaner energy that will actually meet needs, like nuclear fusion. Guilt tripping people wont accomplish this.

[MrBbuds]

@MrBbuds PS The film seeks to show why we know man-made Global Warming is true and in that sense has an agenda - explaining how we know the truth through the scientific method and more than 30 years of solid research (30 years!!!!) but to suggest that the critics have been filmed differently to characterise them as evil is laughable. That's how they look. The reason they look like figures of fun is because their arguments don't stand up to scrutiny.

[MrBbuds]

@hujo9000 Yes, I'm 100% certain. I don't know how damaging the impact is likely to be but the fact that it is happening I'm 100% certain about. There's no scientific argument here that hasn't been resolved. The effect of greenhouse gases is proven, and the quantities being produced are unquestionable. This is not M-Theory or Quantum Mechanics, it's relatively simple science and there really is no debate.

[MrBbuds]

@hujo9000 You're ridiculous.