Because you've shown repeatedly that your opinions are not merely opinions, they are uninformed opinions. Worse yet you equate the spouting of these uniformed opinion with the presentation of facts.

Yet despite the complete vacuousness of your position you ask to have your opinion respected as equal to those who've actually bothered to learn something about the topic so that they can draw informed conclusions.

Legitimate skepticism is welcome. Those who work to understand a topic and respect the facts that are available are always welcome. I remind you that I was a climate skeptic myself until a few years ago. I did the hard work to more deeply understand the issues and the facts. I asked questions and didn't simply dismiss answers I didn't like. I wanted climate change to be false. I still do. But the facts aren't consistent with my wishes, they are consistent with climate change.

As ken pointed out, many of the "facts" alleged by those who deny warming are simply wrong--they are the climate equivalent of claiming that 2+2 = 17. They may be misunderstandings or outright lies, but either way they are wrong. But people keep repeating them as if they were true. Such people are not skeptics, they are either lazy or they are liars. Which are you CF?

Show how the facts can be interpreted in a different way, then I will take you seriously. Show that you've bother to learn even a tiny bit about the workings of science and I will take you seriously. But continue to spout unscientific and anti-scientific nonsense as if it were fact and you show yourself to be either lazy or lying, neither of which deserves any respect.

Ask legitimate questions in an effort to understand the complexities of science generally, and climate specifically, and I will appreciate your effort and may even praise you for it. But you won't. You are not only ignorant, you take great pride in your ignorance. You wear it as a badge of honor. As if being ignorant somehow makes you smart. How incredibly sad.

Interesting. You posted a link a few days ago that was generally supportive of the scientific view of warming. I didn't realize you were uncertain.

It is also odd that you feel that there are two sides to this "issue." (Issue in quotes because scientifically there is no issue to speak of--what is happening is much more about politics and human fear of change than it is about climate science. And I am totally sympathetic to the fear of change notion. I don't like it myself. That's what concerns me about climate change...it involves change. I'd rather live in a world where stability rules.)

What facts are there that make you believe the basic fact of warming is unsettled? I was looking at global temperature records this morning--over the past 200 years the trend is up. Gets worse during the most recent hundred years. Ken has provided links to the data...go look at it yourself.

Or are you questioning the regulation of CO2 as a pollutant? That does seem odd at first glance, isn't CO2 part of the atmosphere? Well certainly it is. But salt is a necessary component of the human diet. No salt and you will die. BUT too much salt and you will die as well. Why should CO2 be any different? Some CO2 is necessary--too much will kill.

Someone tried to convince me that an upper atmospheric chemical process would keep CO2 levels in check. I do hope they are right, but I doubt it. After all, if the process worked as advertised we shouldn't have the highest atmospheric CO2 levels this planet has experienced in nearly a million years.

It is true that climate changes with or without human activity. But the rate of change in the past century is unprecedented in the records we've been able to put together. But, after accounting for all the natural forces that effect climate there is still change left over that cannot be accounted for without factoring in those record levels of CO2. And there is no explanation for that extra CO2 other than human activity.

As I said legitimate skepticism is welcome. I'd really prefer to believe that the climate is basically stable and that I needn't worry about it in my childrens' future. The challenge is that there is precious little to support the denial position that hasn't been demonstrated to be factually erroneous.

spock, maybe your state senators have their eyes on statewide and federal offices. Ambition can have a powerful sobering effect.

Ditto.

Uniformed opinions about science are not respected. Your opinion on a subject you know nothing about has no value to others.


Prove him wrong. Follow the example of Paul and study.

Could very well be. I know of one for sure who has announced a run for a statewide office. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more.

Another possible factor is that those who run for the house are typically in a 4-way race for one of two seats (each voter has two votes) while the senate is a two person heat for a single seat. I have seen some interesting results from discrete mathematics when multi-way votes are involved. Could be the "less sober" candidates can get enough votes because of the way people split their votes in this type of polling.

That's true. It's been known for a long time in political science. But that's for the Politics thread.

And maybe here is one of the reasons why--i.e. they lie. A bit of a background to just some of the recent fabrications and made-up quotes seen in the media in the last month. You want more do a search for "Leakegate", and "Rosegate".

Maybe, maybe not. Dr. Phil Plait has broken out his Doomed poster and written about it in "You can't resolve away climate change". And look at this sentence in the resolution--I had missed it completely because I got stuck on the "just a theory" sentence.

Astrological! Mars in the 7th house means warming, does it? I must have missed that science class. Perhaps they want to introduce legislation teaching balance in astronomy using astrology?

And another article here. Both have links to representatives that you can write.

btw, when I read the comments on those posts, the relatively few 'nonsciencsical' comments made me think we can change your quote above to

An interesting concept: the Bloom Box power cell. The 60 minutes video looks encouraging, but I couldn't find any technical reviews.

Ken alerted me to Inhofe's witch hunt plans for climate scientists.

The world is full of people with enough hubris to believe their limited understanding of a subject exceeds that of the experts, but Inhofe has the hubris to believe that his misinformed opinions are sufficient for bringing criminal charges.

McCarthy LIVES!

Can a U.S. Senator be charged with defamation of character? I hope so and I hope those named file suit.

The list of people he wants to prosecute for alleged violations of U.S. Law includes citizens from other countries. Doesn't this create a defacto world gov't, something the deniers claim to be fervently opposed to?

Apparently Inhofe favors a world gov't as long as it is the U.S. gov't that rules the world.