Some using the Nom Nom Nom De Clavier of "Thinking makes a comment I wish to repond to, but doesn't fit inside the 4k limit of Blogger. This response is a more or less off the cuff reply, not a carefully constructed argument. I may post one of those later:
Working for a lighter touch on the environment SHOULD be a conservative position. Working for a cleaner world SHOULD be apolitical.
However HOW we implement that "lighter touch", how we get to that "Cleaner world" is INHERENTLY political.
There has never been an overwhelming body of scientific EVIDENCE, because generally as soon as some evidence was created (the hockey stick graph) it was knocked down (Steve McIntyre demonstrated that the code used to generate the hockey stick graph would produce the same results if fed random numbers)
Mr. McIntyre (www.climateaudit.org) has been very active in doublechecking the work of climate scientists as it relates to statistics. It seems that while many people working in the sciences have good grasp on the various topics that make up their field (biology, chemistry, physics, whatever) they tend to lack knowledge and understanding in statistics.
Of course in the process if checking some of these papers and datasets he's uncovered some irregularities that could charitably called extreme laziness. Check out is work--he's not some lone wacko.
Another problem with is with the various surface stations used to collect temperature data. One of the original criticisms of Hansens original work was that there was "heat island bias" in his dataset. He claims that he went through the surface station dataset and "cleaned" that bias by removing some of the "bad" stations. Anthony Watts (wattsupwiththat.com) started the Surface Station Audit project (www.surfacestations.org).
The latter has demonstrated CLEARLY that not only are their problems with a few temperature stations in major cities, in fact a HUGE number of weather stations have problems that can lead to enormous bias in their data.
One of hte odd things Hansen did in his "cleaned" dataset is that he assumed that some number of US stations were bad based on some criteria (I don't know, but let's be charitable and assume it was good). He didn't assume that the weather stations in China, Russia/USSR, India or any of Africa faced similar or relevant problems. In otherwords,
I it hard to believe that China AND the rest of the second and third world would be able to maintain better readings than the US through two world wars, civil wars, depressions, recessions etc.
Another problem with the datasets is documented here:
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/91613.pdf
Notice when the temperature REALLY starts to take off on most "global warming charts".
There could be lots of other reasons for an upward trend around that time, like a shift in the pacific currents etc.
Note another thing here:
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/03/in_search_of_the_perfect_therm.html
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The problem with the National Weather Service temperature data sets (and world data sets too) is that they are full of biases and errors that I'm not sure have been accurately accounted for. People such as Jim Price, from CSUC who is on the IPCC say they have been, yet nobody has shown me any hard evidence of such. I'd be a lot less skeptical if I could see how the IPCC accounted for temperature measurement biases. But they won't share.
"""
That's "won't share" thing is a HUGE problem. Science--real science--relies on four things:
1) Falsifiability of the premise
2) Documentation of methodology, process, inputs and outputs, and data.
3) Reproducibility of results.
4) Skepticism
Watts and McIntyre have had a HUGE problem getting access to the data sets and the algorithms used to generate the results. This is BAD SCIENCE. And we've also seen what happens when they do get access--the scientists have often made statistical or sampling errors. Sometimes these errors are so egregious that they approach deliberate, but you can't be sure.
The opinion of other scientists is driven by peer pressure, by funding pressures, by sheer weight of these papers demonstrating Global Warming. And if we have global warming what causes it?
Well, we have these very sophisticated computer models that show it's all because of Carbon Dioxide.
Yeah, computer models.
There have been a LOT of people over the years who are directly involved with Climate Science who have raised serious objections to the process. Some have resigned from the IPCC because of political and bureaucratic pressure.
Some have simply been ignored. Others have been called loons, or accused of being in the pocket of Big Oil.
You also say:
But if the global warming deniers are wrong and we follow them, then we encounter disaster.
This is not a given. Some of the disasters that have been popularly ascribed to AGW are nonsense--there is NO evidence that AGW drives Hurricanes. AGW doesn't drive the increase in sea levels, it only exacerbates it. Sea levels have been rising since the last ice age ended 10000 years ago.
Even wide spread droughts (global droughts) as a function of AGW are bullshit. As the air heats up it's carrying capacity for water increases--the amount of water air can hold doubles every 16 degrees F. (roughly 8 degrees C). When the air cools, and the amount of water passes the carrying capacity you get some sort of precipitation, either as dew, rain, snow or whatever else there is. This indicates that in some areas you'll get MORE rain (which can be bad too, but we can adjust).
Increased CO2 and increased rain means MORE growing things. More food per acre etc. In fact we've already seen this. From 1979 to 1998 (the biggest temperature increase) the growing season in N. England increased by 29 days (according to one report. I never saw a retraction). With the cooling of the last 4-5 years, I wonder how much that shrank, and what that did to the costs of food?
We DO need a cleaner planet. Burning coal for energy in 2010 is a REALLY REALLY STUPID idea. It's not the CO2, it's the Uranium left behind in the coal slag (not just the radioactivity, Uranium is also a nasty heavy metal). Then there's the other radioactive particles that go up the smoke stack. Then there's the mercury. And etc. And etc.
So yeah, a lot of conservatives DO care about the environment, we're just skeptical of people like Algore how are CLEARLY being insulated from serious questioning (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Society-of-Environmental-Lapdogs-protect-Gore-63969842.html)
Unfortunately we (as humans) tend to respond as tribes. If your tribe makes itself my enemy, then ANYTHING your tribe does is suspect, and I have to oppose it.
The AGW/CO2 issue hasn't helped that--almost all of the "fixes" for GW have been Americans (and some Europeans) taking it in the shorts while the rest of the world gets to pollute. That's clearly NOT a prescription for "cleaning up the environment", so we get skeptical of the motives. We're also skeptical because "we" present solutions (e.g. safe nuclear power) that get shot down time nad time again by people--who have NO understanding of the science--claiming they're unsafe.
We're also skeptical because of the breathless reporting and the over exaggerated claims of the neo-Malthusians. From acid rain to mercury in the water to plastics aggregating in middle of the pacific ocean to fertilizer runoff from large farms to claims from well before I, or anyone reading this were born. Claims of EMINENT DOOM get a little routine, and don't get paid any attention to.
One last link:
http://www.maccompanion.com/macc/archives/November2008/Greenware/GlobalCooling.htm
