I respect that.  Neither of us buys the proposed political solution and that's a good thing.  As long as the science is an academic debate, harm is not likely to come to us.

I decline to buy the proposed political solution principally because the AGW evidence is too thin to tip the balance of the risk/reward calculation in my head.  The risks to our personal freedom and standard of living are huge and immediate; the rewards are entirely uncertain, distant and based on too soft a scientific foundation.  Too many appear too eager to seize control over too much using AGW as pretext.

What are your reasons for not buying the political solution if you 'believe the science?'

I am an environmentalist and I can tell you that Global Warming is real. Coincidentally, I am wearing a Global Warming t-shirt right now. 

This statement really highlights the basic logical fallacy within the global warming movement.

Being skeptical that humans are causing measurable impacts on worldwide climate does not require the belief in some sort of cabal.  

It's not like there are millions or even tens of thousands of climate scientists who do this research. There's a handful of people who take the actual readings or write the computer algorithms in question.

The reason people like you fail to convince such a large portion of the population is because you're insulting to those who don't share your views.  

Have I written something in this discussion that you honestly think an objective person would argue sounds like that of a right wing kook or a tin foil hatted conspiracy theorist?

Yet, here you are, trying to strawman my skepticism or the conclusions of a handful of scientists as requiring me to believe there is a "conspiracy" of some sort.  People are wrong all the time.

Case in point:

In October, sites like ClimateWatch.org proclaimed that October was the warmest month on record.  Do you remember that?  It was announced at the start of the Cophenhagen conference.

The data came from the same data as your charts, the GISS stats at NASA Goddard.  

Unfortunately for them, some evil nasty "denialists" looked at the data and low and behold, the data they used to calculate the "mean temperature in October" included temperatures from Russia that were simply carried over from previous months (aka SUMMER).  

As a result, October, rather than being one of the coolest October's in recent memory was suddenly proclaimed by the very sources you keep using in your posts as the "warmest in human history".

Here's an article about it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3563532/The-world-has-never-seen-such-freezing-heat.html

Does this prove there's a cabal or conspiracy? Of course not.  It just means that people make mistakes.

All it requires to be skeptical of AGW is the belief that there is not sufficient evidence to warrant the conclusion that humans are having a measurable impact on global temperatures.

However your point is still taken although I don't believe I've blatantly called people idiots, at least not without substantial provocation, and in general I tend to be dismissive only in response to having been dismissed myself, but I make no claim to sainthood.

Plus you’re no angel yourself. I assume that if you can dish it out you can take it and vice cersa.

Speaking of the Cato Institute, I had previously mentioned a number of conservative think tanks that are prominent in the anti-AGW movement; the Cato Institute is yet another one with demonstrable connections to both tobacco and oil however the Cato Institute is also against healthcare reform and for privatization for Social Security. Sort of like one stop shopping for all your conservative lobbying needs. At least it’s convenient.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cato_Institute

However if you object to the argument then fine, I withdraw it.

But as far as insulting it goes both ways fairly equally. Not from yourself per se but if you don't see the insult coming from your side of the argument towards my side of the argument then you're just not looking. In reality it's not that big a deal or at least it shouldn't be. I've taken my fair share of abuse and feel reasonably justified when I respond in kind. In some cases I may even have responded in kind pre-emptively but that doesn't change the fact that insult is by no means the exclusive property of just one side of the argument.

I still maintain there is a continued upward trend evident in the temperatures of the recent past. Do you not admit that global warming, if it does exist, is a long term trend that our short term weather patterns fluctuate about? Given that do you not also admit that lack of monotonically increasing yearly average temperatures do not in themselves necessarily disprove at least the GW part of AGW?

I would have to look at the graphs. ClimateWatch.org is about as unbiased as the CATO institute. I could go over to ClimateAudit.org and post over graphs that show that the temperature is on a downward trend. What would that prove?

My response, was to show that ClimateWatch.org uses Goddard data which is pretty sloppily put together.

Well I'll leave that between you and he.  The JoeUser stuff tends to get intermingled across all the communities from time to time.

But in terms of convincing, it's the American voter who has the power and right now, they're not convinced.

As for proving or disproving, I don't have to "disprove" AGW.  The onus is on those making a claim to make their case compelling. I don't find their case compelling. I find it, at best, circumstantial.  

Similarly, I don't have to "prove" that there's no magical super being watching over me to be agnostic. The difference, of course, is that religious Christians aren't trying to force me to pay a God tax.

I had a little debate with myself about whether or not to predict such a response in my last reply.  I expected it to be words to this effect.  At bottom, it boils down to the meaning and significance of the word 'substantial.'  We both accept GW/CC.  You think, since the weight of the scientific consensus tells you so, that man's impact on GW is 'substantial' - I don't.  'Blowing smoke' about the tobacco lobby is irrelevant and lessens what respect I have for your arguments, as does deriding skeptics as idiots.

Provoke away.  You're nothing but an anonymous nobody on a blog, just like me.  Do whatever makes you happy.

Not really.

A conversation is give and take. That's my problem with JU, it's all take and no give. Be magnanimous on occasion and grant a trivial point, or in the end all you'll be left with is a bunch of yes men which as far as I can tell is pretty close to what JU has become.

How hard is it to grant the idea that lack of monotonically increasing yearly temperatures over a relatively short period does not preclude global warming? Or that picking the warmest year on record as the starting point of any future comparison is in fact cherry picking the data?

I remember hearing the alarm about the Maldives getting swamped over clear back in the late '80's.   Their plight got overwhelmed by another church:  the Church of Money Worship.   Their membership is bursting at the seams.

Just as you are not convinced about the "science", I am not conviced that the issues you pose are all that "serious." I'll grant that you raise some legitimate issues, we just differ on the weight we give them.

A sandbar is one thing, an actual island formed by volcanic activity is something completley different.

http://www.waisdivide.unh.edu/about/ has a nice 18 minute video that describes ice core methods.  What surprised me was that the cheeky film maker included the famous hockey blade appended to the end of a graph that could in no way be part of the data developed from the ice.

I liked Michael Chricton's State of Fear even though it was very soapboxy and the main character was impossibly stupid and naive. RealClimate addressed Chricton's arguement developed in the story on GW.  Although I think RealClimate got the intention of the book wrong.  Nothing in the RC blog relates to the title of Chricton's novel and that I think was the main thesis underlying the almost inept fiction of the book.  A good book nevertheless although in fact it does fail to demonstrate the idea that government with the participation of the media may seek to rule a free people through the inculcation of fear over unlikely catrostophic occurences. 

What I do not get is the connection between GW advocates and paleoclimatology. Global warming and proxie studies of past weather conditions have no connection. 

CO2 either acts as an infrared reflector or it does not. 

CO2 is either increasing in concentration in the atmosphere or it is not.  

The increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere either alters the earth's blackbody radiation or it does not. 

What has happened in the past is not related to this.  These ice core researcher's opinion on global warming is totally unrelated to the science they are engaged in.  It is a mistake to conflate the two.