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richard

20 December 2007 - 10:27pm

Well, hi Courtney! I was wondering what was keeping you. You raise good points.

Courtney Hamilton wrote:

...has not even occurred to most believers of AGW that if you have a consensus, that does not mean you have 'The Truth'. In fact, consensus is not science; its politics. Scientific understanding is not achieved by voting.

You're right on "consensus is not the same as Truth". In fact science can never arrive at truth, only at ever-closer approximations. The scientific consensus has been wrong on numerous occasions, notably over plate tectonics. Usually it is the old consensus that is wrong, resisting and denying the new ideas, as happened with plate tectonics, and the pharmacology of mushrooms. In fact it is the old story of conservatives resisting change. The old consensus was that the world is a very big place, and we are so small, so we do not make a difference. The incoming consensus is that by using the earth's capital store of energy, laid down over millions of years, in a couple of hundred years, we gave altered the heat retaining characteristics of the planet, and if we do not invest big time in transfer to income (renewable) energy, we could face Big Trouble. It is not true to say that consensus is not part of science. Thomas Kuhn is one of the two great philosophers of science, and he believes that scientific truth is established by consensus. He has a point, but I prefer the other idea, that a statement in science must be subject to disproof. So the outcome is that the denialists are the remnants of the old consensus.

Quote:

Why do environmentalists have this obsession with the reduction of CO2 emissions? In any case, CO2 is not a pollutant, we need it. It's a natural part of the atmosphere; it's vital food for plant life. Indeed, commercial farmers and growers use CO2 to enrich their greenhouses so that their fruits and vegetable grow bigger and better.

Yes, sure CO2 is good for growth. Vegetation = CO2+H2O+SUN+MINERALS. But the proportions have to be correct. Just as too much water or sun can be bad for you, so also too much CO2 is bad for the planet. Life has evolved in conditions of low levels of CO2, not high levels. I have put answers elsewhere about the influence of the Sun cycles. Yes, they have an influence, but not as much as CO2. Have you looked at the Wager video (see above) Regards Richard