Best Straw Man Argument. Ever.

[pjclarke]

Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.

Roy Spencer.

Spencer, of course, is a sceptical lightweight. Tamino gets to the meat:

Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out leprechauns as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record.

And the admirable DenialDepot picks up the baton:

Besides the most absurd thing about his post is that he even for a second entertains the preposterous idea that Leprechauns could have had a warming influence on climate. Everyone knows Leprechauns have had a cooling effect on climate in the last 60 years. In fact Leprechauns are the only cooling supernatural radiative forcing known to blog science.

Quite. As with all the best sciency websites the point is proven with a graphic:



Moving the debate forward, as ever. Eat your heart out, Watts.

[amcdonald]

Everyone knows it's down to increased pirate activity

[EternalOptimist]

So you agree that there is not one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record ?

which is what a lot of people have believed for a long time.


As far as people who believe that there might be a supernatural cause, well I will leave them to their own devices

[doodab]

Leprechauns might be little but their farts are very methane rich, because of all the Guinness. So I wouldn't rule it out, personally.

[EternalOptimist]

Nor will there ever be such a paper, science comes with error bars. But you knew that. The more interesting question is are we sufficiently certain to justify action. On this the national science academies of the world have been in agreement since at least 2005

for someone who does not rule out the use of violence, in the persuit of your beliefs, you need to be a bit more specific about which organisations you are ready to follow down this road to action

[shaunbhoy]

On this the *national science academies of the world * have been in agreement since at least 2005

*August bodies, all in great need of Government sponsored funding to continue their "research" it should be said.
Governments that can universally see an ongoing cash-cow of guilt-inspired taxation provided the right "science" in trumpeted as being unequivocal.

Pull the other one..................

[pjclarke]

Logical Fail. If the aim was to increase the research funding, the scientists would report that they don't yet know if the problem was severe enough to justify action, announcing that 'the jury is in' is a direct hit in the foot, funding-wise.

So let's apply a little common sense and see how the argument fares.

First, consider that the scientific community has been saying for several years that our understanding of the climate system is quite good. Not perfect, mind you, but good enough that many scientists feel we should be taking action now to reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions. Based on the strength of this conclusion, many politicians have started saying "the science is settled."

Does that sound like a recipe for getting lots of research funding? Saying that we have a pretty good understanding of the climate system?

In fact, it should be obvious that the scientific community would be better off saying we're not sure that climate change is caused by humans: "It might be human-induced, but it might not be. What we really need is more money for models, satellites, and analysis." I can imagine a bipartisan groundswell of support for massive funding of climate science. That's the way to maximize funding. You don't say that the science is settled. You say it's unsettled.

And what would happen if the scientific community said definitively that humans were not to blame? I don't think funding would go down much, for the following reason. The climate is still warming, and if it is not human, then what is it? Obviously, we need to do a lot of research to figure out what is driving the climate, and how the climate will evolve over the next century. Enormous amounts of research on geoengineering and adaptation will be necessary, regardless of whether the cause is human.

So, it doesn't appear that the scientific community has done itself any favors by concluding that humans are responsible for climate change.

It should be clear that, like most skeptical arguments, this one doesn't stand up to an application of common sense.

Andrew Dessler.