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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (115643)	7/16/2009 11:53:55 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541791

Hey I'm not the one bitching about "polarizing"- that would be you. And while you may know a lot, you don't present credibly. So what good is your knowledge if it is poorly presented and suspect? We can't tell you have any knowledge- and pretending Lindzen is some sort of representative of a vast cadre of scientists is just silly. He's more of a crank. He's a well educated crank, and that's always nice, but he seems to have ignored some pretty obvious problems. From your own Wiki: "What is surprising—even shocking—is that Lindzen assigned no chance for warming beyond 1 degree C, a clear radical departure from the normal uncertainty range expressed by the vast bulk of knowledgeable climate scientists. Although his peers were sufficiently concerned about uncertainties to include some chance for both mild and catastrophic outcomes, only Dick Lindzen assigned no chance for serious warming. Ironically, despite the many uncertainties that Lindzen himself likes to point out, he still assigned only a narrow range of possibilities (a few tenths of a degree warming from a doubling of CO2)—in my view a clear absurdity given the many remaining uncertainties that led all other interviewed climate scientists to offer a broad range of possibilities as a recognition of the still many remaining uncertainties." I can see why Lindzen appeals. "In 2005, the UK House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs produced a report on climate change.[31]The Select Committee took evidence from a number of experts, including Richard Lindzen[32]and Sir John Houghton.[33]Houghton was formerly Co-chair/Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Scientific Assessment Group. [34]When asked about Lindzen, Houghton said: I know Richard Lindzen quite well. He is not always consistent in what he says but he is a good scientist [...] [Lindzen] argues and has argued for a long time that the water vapour feedback [of the Earth's climate system] is negative rather than positive; he is I think the only credible scientist in the world who argues that, but he has argued it for a long time. Houghton went on to explain that this feedback has a large effect on how much climate change would be expected to occur in the future. Houghton was critical of Lindzen's portrayal of the future impacts of climate change, saying: [...] He [Lindzen] says "Well, what is 1 or 2 degrees? It is only an increase in temperature, and it is not large in terms of temperature change in a room", but in terms of global average temperature it is very large, and the impact on the world of that sort of increase, the impact in terms of climate extremes, in terms of heat waves and floods and droughts, is very large, and Lindzen does not know anything about that, does not talk about and does not appreciate what it is, because he likes talking in a negative way about global warming. Lindzen's own evidence[32]to the Select Committee was criticised by IPCC author and climate scientist Gavin Schmidt.[35]" I can't say he's any more convincing that you are. I wish it were true that there are a lot of credible scientists out there discovering things that might make us feel better about climate change. I'd actually like that. But your man Lindzen? Not the climate change scientist a rational person could put much store in. There simply isn't voluminous research on your side. It's sad, But there it is. That you would pretend the facts are otherwise is kind of sad. I like when you get all satirical and try to mock me :-) That always means you've reached the limits of your evidence and you don't have anything more. So thank you. I appreciate the concession speach, such as it was. FWIW I still hope for some moderation from the skies, cloudwise- but you man Lindzen and his inability to admit uncertainty on possible average heat increases? That kind of denial makes him seem a poor scientist.