I thought I'd start this thread on Skeptical Science based on Ajax's preferred sources for climate information.



Ajax wrote on Jul 28^th, 2013 at 2:18pm:

Raeding Mr.Cook over at skeptical science is like reading science fiction.

Personally I had never read anything over at Skeptical Science, but they quote a few graphs and data from published articles, so they turn up in Google searches.



Quote:

John Cook John is the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. He originally studied physics at the University of Queensland. After graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honours year. In 2011, he co-authored the book Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand with Haydn Washington, published by Earthscan. In 2013, he co-authored the college textbook Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis with Tom Farmer, published by Springer.

He's actuallly in pretty good company. Many, but not all of the contributors are quite well qualified to comment on climatology.

Another contributor is Dana Nuccitelli

Quote:

Dana Nuccitelli is an environmental scientist at a private environmental consulting firm in the Sacramento, California area. He has a Bachelor's Degree in astrophysics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Master's Degree in physics from the University of California at Davis. He has been researching climate science, economics, and solutions as a hobby since 2006, and has contributed to Skeptical Science since September, 2010. :

These are two of the regular contributors to the Skeptical Science Blog.

In contrast, Ajax prefers to get his information from Joanne Nova's blog. The two major contributors are Joanne and her partner David Evans.


Quote:

Joanne Nova aka JoNova (real name Joanne Codling), born circa 1967, is an Australian right wing communicator who mainly writes to promote anti-science views of climate in books and a denialist weblog, joannenova.com.au. She has no evident academic background in climate science; her degree (B.Sc.) is in molecular biology.[1] Nova is based in Perth, Western Australia.

Obviously she is not qualified in the field of Climate Science and has no peer-reviewed articles on climate change.

David Evans has a PhD in Electrical Engineering. He worked at one stage for the Australian Greenhouse Office designing a carbon accounting system (a computer based database)

Research database entry on David Evans:

No peer-reviewed articles on climate change

According to his own resume, Evans has not published a single peer-reviewed research paper on the subject of climate change. Evans published only a single paper in 1987 in his career and it is unrelated to climate change.

Now regardless of their qualifications and understanding of atmospheric physics, Ajax prefers to dismiss anything they post at Skeptical Science as "science fiction". This is probably because they disagree with his central paradigm.

Ajax - please explain to me why you prefer to read the blogs of unqualified people such as Joanne Nova and Dave Evans rather than peer reviewed literature or posts by qualified commentators?

Skeptical science is anything but skeptical like all religious AGW blogs it promotes and herarlds the views of Al Gore and the IPCC.

Its obvious to anyone who reads it that these guys are pushing the religion of AGW and that skeptical science is a blog of alarmists scaring the be-jesus out of the unsuspecting.

Honestly muso can you really tell me that these guys aren't promoting the global warming religion?????

Here are some things to consider,


Quote:

Skeptical Science: The Partnership with Al Gore In March of 2012, the climate alarmist website Skeptical Science had their forums "hacked" and the contents posted online. In a forum thread titled, "Got a call from Al Gore's people today" John Cook proudly posted, "This morning, had a long skype call with a guy working with Al Gore's Climate Reality Project. [...] He brought up the possibility of a partnership. [...] an exciting opportunity and another vindication of what we're doing" - John Cook [Skeptical Science], September 27, 2011 populartechnology.net/2012/09/skeptical-science-partnership-with-al.html

Ajax wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 9:09am:

Skeptical science is anything but skeptical like all religious AGW blogs it promotes and herarlds the views of Al Gore and the IPCC. Its obvious to anyone who reads it that these guys are pushing the religion of AGW and that skeptical science is a blog of alarmists scaring the be-jesus out of the unsuspecting. Honestly muso can you really tell me that these guys aren't promoting the global warming religion????? Here are some things to consider, Quote: Skeptical Science: The Partnership with Al Gore In March of 2012, the climate alarmist website Skeptical Science had their forums "hacked" and the contents posted online. In a forum thread titled, "Got a call from Al Gore's people today" John Cook proudly posted, "This morning, had a long skype call with a guy working with Al Gore's Climate Reality Project. [...] He brought up the possibility of a partnership. [...] an exciting opportunity and another vindication of what we're doing" - John Cook [Skeptical Science], September 27, 2011 populartechnology.net/2012/09/skeptical-science-partnership-with-al.html

It isn't a religion. It's Atmospheric Physics 101.  Al Gore is a communicator. That's all he is. The information he communicates is based on basic climatology. If he made some mistakes while doing that, then that has nothing to do with the science.

As a scientist myself, I don't take kindly to people saying that I am just swallowing Al Gore's line. Most of what Al Gore says is irrelevant to me, and I haven't even read anything much that he wrote, because most of it is too simplistic and watered down. 

Risk communication generally involves communicating science to the layman. It's a field that has to be handled properly.

John Cook is employed as a communicator, and he's much better qualified than Al Gore.

muso wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 1:01pm:

It isn't a religion. It's Atmospheric Physics 101.  Al Gore is a communicator. That's all he is. The information he communicates is based on basic climatology. If he made some mistakes while doing that, then that has nothing to do with the science.

Are you kidding me, its a hypothesis based on computer simulated models.......and thats all it is.......?!!!???

Al Gore is a representitive of those who would tax us all on the air we breath.


Quote:

As a scientist myself, I don't take kindly to people saying that I am just swallowing Al Gore's line. Most of what Al Gore says is irrelevant to me, and I haven't even read anything much that he wrote, because most of it is too simplistic and watered down.

Al Gore's movie is riddled with mistakes so say the british courts, he has set up his own company to sell carbon credits to the world, he is the salesman of AGW.


Quote:

Risk communication generally involves communicating science to the layman. It's a field that has to be handled properly. John Cook is employed as a communicator, and he's much better qualified than Al Gore.

I always thought that Al Gore was the AGW messiah and John Cook was the AGW pope....... ::)

Oh yes and about it not being a religion?

How canyou even contemplate that the whole greenhouse effect here on Earth is due to antropogenic CO2 emissions.

That is faith not science 101.

Ajax wrote on Aug 7^th, 2013 at 10:13am:

... How canyou even contemplate that the whole greenhouse effect here on Earth is due to antropogenic CO2 emissions. ...

The vast majority of the best qualified agree that global warming is probably anthropogenic. I'm not qualified to say otherwise.

What are your qualifications again? Linking to a few of your peer reviewed papers would establish your credibility.

Ajax wrote on Aug 7^th, 2013 at 10:11am:

... I always thought that Al Gore was the AGW messiah ...

For the beginning, you'll probably need to go back at least as far as Svante Arrhenius: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/. Of course, the Greeks pondered effects of human activities on weather around the fourth century B.C.

What are your qualifications again?

Ajax wrote on Aug 7^th, 2013 at 10:13am:

Oh yes and about it not being a religion? How canyou even contemplate that the whole greenhouse effect here on Earth is due to antropogenic CO2 emissions. That is faith not science 101.

It's also a strawman. The whole Greenhouse effect??  Who told you that?

muso wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2013 at 1:01pm:

John Cook is employed as a communicator, and he's much better qualified than Al Gore.

John Cook, is a cartoonist who has no relevant qualifications to be discussing climate science.

"I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist" - John Cook, Skeptical Science

muso wrote on Aug 12^th, 2013 at 3:43pm:

Ajax wrote on Aug 7th, 2013 at 10:13am: Oh yes and about it not being a religion? How canyou even contemplate that the whole greenhouse effect here on Earth is due to antropogenic CO2 emissions. That is faith not science 101. It's also a strawman. The whole Greenhouse effect??  Who told you that?

Thats called FAITH my friend because no one knows how much of the CO2 in our atmosphere is manmade or natural.

The Earth as an organism is much more complicated than what the IPCC and Hansen are making it out to be, thats why their computer simulated models are a joke.

Plus if the earth was so finely tuned that man's poultry few CO2 emissions could cause all this catastrophy.

We would have gone the way of the dodo when nature spewed out 20 times the CO2 we have today.

Poptech wrote on Aug 13^th, 2013 at 7:10am:

muso wrote on Aug 2nd, 2013 at 1:01pm: John Cook is employed as a communicator, and he's much better qualified than Al Gore. John Cook, is a cartoonist who has no relevant qualifications to be discussing climate science. "I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist" - John Cook, Skeptical Science

Too true dude, he wants on the gravy train right next to Al Gore himself, the messiah of AGW.

# wrote on Aug 12^th, 2013 at 3:33pm:

Ajax wrote on Aug 7th, 2013 at 10:13am: ... How canyou even contemplate that the whole greenhouse effect here on Earth is due to antropogenic CO2 emissions. ... The vast majority of the best qualified agree that global warming is probably anthropogenic. I'm not qualified to say otherwise. What are your qualifications again? Linking to a few of your peer reviewed papers would establish your credibility.

So What? In other breaking news the vast majority of Credit Rating Agencies gave Lehman Bros a AAA Rating just prior to their collapse......

Hard data, makes fools out of experts everyday  ;D

Poptech wrote on Aug 13^th, 2013 at 7:10am:

muso wrote on Aug 2nd, 2013 at 1:01pm: John Cook is employed as a communicator, and he's much better qualified than Al Gore. John Cook, is a cartoonist who has no relevant qualifications to be discussing climate science. "I'm not a climatologist or a scientist but a self employed cartoonist" - John Cook, Skeptical Science

Quote:

Skeptical Science is maintained by John Cook, the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. He studied physics at the University of Queensland, Australia. After graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honours year. He is not a climate scientist. Consequently, the science presented on Skeptical Science is not his own but taken directly from the peer reviewed scientific literature. To those seeking to refute the science presented, one needs to address the peer reviewed papers where the science comes from (links to the full papers are provided whenever possible).

Regardless of the fact that he's not a practicing climate scientist, his qualifications are highly relevant, unlike those of Dave Evans or Joanne Nova.