my upcoming popular book on nuclear power (co-authored by Ian Lowe)

Say what? This is the same Ian Lowe who wrote the Quarterly Essay Reaction Time: Climate Change and the Nuclear Option saying, amongst other things, “Promoting nuclear power as the solution to climate change is like advocating smoking as a cure for obesity. That is, taking up the nuclear option will make it much more difficult to move to the sort of sustainable, ecologically healthy future that should be our goal”?

Should be interesting. I can’t wait.

Wow – That was intense. The prejudice is amazing. You have no idea who I am or where I live or what color I am. O kung suplado o mabait ako. Do you always impugn the color, religion and motives of everyone you have a discussion with? What gives you the idea that I am protestant? Or own a gun?

Do you have any idea how many ways that culture impacts communication? This was my simple point. I thought it was a common one. I am not denying scientific information. I am not wealthy. You have no idea of my income level.

I watched people not able to purchase rice last year when the price of fuel raised to the point where the poorest people I knew were not able to purchase food for their families. High fuel / energy costs impact the poorest people in the most poverty ridden countries. It was a heart break for me to watch. Friends of mine lost their small family businesses making about $500 dollars a month for a family of 9. The flour was too expensive to keep making donuts to sell.

So, am I concerned that we get the science right? YES! Am I deeply concerned that we are rushing solutions that have the deliberate aim of raising the costs of energy. Yes I am deeply worried.

You see, I don’t want my friends to die at the altar of AWG.

I don’t know who “As a Monckton-Bellamy-McIntyre worshipper” is. I wont take the time for a google search either.

Denier? Just don’t kill my friends to save the planet.

I am wondering if you know what a LFTR is?

No, Benedict Arnold, you omit the prerequisite for such scientists to debate against opponents of goodwill who share a respect for scientific method, so as to bring Science forward. But your ilk has neither goodwill nor any science. Because statistically, climate change denier criminals are white US Republican voters earning above-average money and “M16-frantic” to deny what is going to happen to their intra-US stock portfolios as the isotherms move steadily north up the USA (do you know what an isotherm is? do you begin to understand even a popular-style climate blog? )

Never mind your attempts at Protestant Biblical Revelation to us all on this blog, it is your spelling, NRA gunlover spin and obscurantism which place you firmly as heir to the US Know Nothing tradition of the 1840s. You have merely replaced 1840s immigrant Catholics to the USA with empirical scientists as your enemies, that’s all.

As a Monckton-Bellamy-McIntyre worshipper (you forget the Biblical injunction: “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no false gods before me…”), you have demonstrably no idea about what peer-review in science means.

And releasing raw data to elements like you who are deeply hostile towards empirical facts merely allows your kind to lie, twist and fake in US media articles placed through the PR agencies paid for by your fossil fuel lobby paymasters. There are at least 3 books by US authors detailing this already.

Raw data given to liars and benders wastes invaluable climatologist research time in having to deal subsequently with people like you who, far from even rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, keep shouting aggressively that there is no iceberg anyway.

So check out either the Real Climate website or the current issue of New Scientist, http://www.newscientist.com for evidence of the data forgery, data distortion and lies on which you rest your risible “case”, dishonouring the noble word “sceptic”.

In conclusion, get up to Alaska to check out the dwindling ice and talk to a few Inuit. On second thoughts, don’t: your presumed heroine S. Palin is up there.

“Trust in God and Jesus Christ by all means but if you do, why would you need to bear arms anyway? Jesus Christ preached peace, turn the other cheek and love thy neighbour – not make sure you have a right to a gun so you can impose your will on others if God and Jesus let you down.”

When the life in danger is my own, I can turn the other cheek and even die if necessary. When it is your life in danger, I have a duty to defend you, with my own life if necessary. This is an imposition of my will on others to the degree that I refuse to let them harm you. I hold your life sacred.

“Oh – and I reckon much of the Right in America would be in prison too for threatening behaviour – Klu Klutz Klan members to name just one group! I suspect the negroes didn’t have guns to defend against, and save themselves from the tyranny, of those who did. Total HYPOCRISY David!”

No, not hypocrisy, just a note of reality that people of all political persuasions in the USA use threats as a verbal attack. Including the left. While I wish this were not the case, I recognize that it is a verbal tactic and not a planned action.

The actions of the KKK have been roundly rebuked in the USA. You have no idea what my life experience has been or the price I have paid for friendship with Blacks. I wish that the Negroes of that time were able to defend themselves. Guns would have been a mercy for them at that time. They were kept in fear and subjugation through intimidation. Horribly wrong and unjust. If they had been armed would the KKK have been so free in lynching them? I think not.

When faced with a person determined to kill you – defense is a reasonable response and a Christian one.

In the context of this blog, scientists need to exercise a conversational defense. As I suggested above. The best defense for a scientist is openness, transparency and the willingness to allow contrary voices. Until I can see true openness in peer reviewed journals, I will doubt the motives of those publishing.

Thanks for an interesting conversation and for challenging me. It is fun to think through how to respond clearly. Have a great day!

Thank you so much for your deep concern.

If it was illegal in the USA to say someone should be killed much of the American left would be in Jail after the last presidency. It was fairly common for someone to suggest that George Bush should be killed.

I firmly believe that bearing arms is a right. Both to defend your person and to quell the tendency toward tyranny. Freedom is more valuable than life. As Patrick Henry said “Give me liberty or give me death!” The question of history is not how tyranny arose – it is common, the question is how did liberty arise?

The massacres in the USA in the past few years have been tragic. However, after 200 years of the right to bear arms, why now is there a spate of killings, and not just in the USA? For over 200 years we did not have this kind of killings. There is a different and deeper reason for this than the simple possession of weapons. Banning weapons will not remove that reason.

It is also recent that people make a past-time of saying they will kill someone they disagree with. I am deeply saddened by this. For most it is hyperbole. A horrible way to deal with people but mostly just words. I am praying for my nation to change. May God give us a great awakening as he has in the past. I trust in the God who is with us – Jesus Christ – to transform people – not politics.

Have a Joyful Christmas!

Are you seriously worried about physical threats of violence? Because people own guns?

The people who are frustrated at this are worried about their freedom. They are not blindly striking out, but are totally frustrated at a manipulation of their lives in the name of “science.” The hyperbole in the letters is retorical. Some real guestures of openness would go a long way toward calming things down.

1. Rebuke the people who are producing movies and articles saying that the world is going to end in 5 years unless we all return to the stone age.

2. Publish the raw data, including the source code for computer models.

3. Allow descent in peer reviewed journals. And Wikipedia.

There are more but these would go a long way toward establishing confidence in the general public toward the science used.

The delusion that there are political solutions to every problem is a reality of our modern society.

The delusion that a modern lifestyle will destroy us is being strongly propagated by most segments of political life and news media. Media lives by promoting fear, politicians live by seeming to solve problems. In this context scientists have the capacity to feed the fear or to rebuke it.

Preparing for climate change… Well, if the rise is CO2 is NOT capable of increasing temperatures …. or if the rise is due to Pinatubo, Mayon, or Mt St Helens to name a few. Changing our use of CO2 will not effect any change in climate.

What I am seeing is not an attempt to change our use of CO2 but an attempt to control our lives through micromangement and taxes. This is the reason that so many on this article are mentioning the use of Nuclear power. Just this month the Environmental Protection Agency listed human produced CO2 as harmful to human health.

Sooo…. Replacing Coal burning electricity? Why we need Natural Gas!! (Still emitting CO2) Cap and Trade? Why now! You get to pay your neighbor so you have the privilege of breathing. You CO2 emitter you..

If the solutions being offered were closer to the actual stated problem I would be more likely to listen.

I was deeply impressed with a reply by Kirk Sorensen to a comment. He took the time – in a few lines – to show the case for thorium being more energy dense than a barrel of oil so that you can get about 100 times the energy out of the same volume of rock.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=26752655&postID=8134505749075759084&isPopup=true

This was impressive, concise and to the point with clear numbers backing up his statement. THAT’s what I am looking for. Show me the numbers.

Frankly, temperature readings that are adjusted to cover 1200 mile radius or so don’t impress me. Especially when these numbers are being used for political reasons. Hanson is complaining that posting raw numbers brings complaints. He wants a few days to take out the errors first. But how do we know these are errors? If all we see are adjusted data how can we ever cross check what he is concluding?

He probably is an honest man and a good scientist. However, in this climate it is best to take the slings and arrows and demonstrate your conclusion.

I like Prof Karoly’s current stand: If we reduce CO2 right now then we have a 50:50 chance of averting Climate Change. Whilst the Prof sounds like a fence sitter would it be better off to just prepare for Climate Change….as thoughout history it has?

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/activists-should-stop-talking-about-global-warming-and-start-acting-20091222-lbpp.html?posted=sucessful

It seems to have confused Andrew Bolt.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/greens_dont_do_sweat/

p.s. As for physical threats of violence I don’t support or condone those.

“we know that CO2 is a potent heat trapping gas, we know that the planet is visibly warming, we are unable to identify any other possible causes of the increase. While “everything” is not scientifically legitimate, no one claims 100.00% certainty, we do know with better than 90% certainty that this is the probable explanation.”

I am sorry, but being unable to identify any other possible cause… CO2 is a potent heat trapping gas? Water vapor? Sun? Cyclical changes in ocean biology? Can you back that up please?

I still don’t understand how a change from 250 parts per million to 360 parts per million can cause a large change in temperature. I have taken basic chemistry, physics, and don’t have an axe to grind here. On the other hand, I am very cautious about solutions that force the cost of energy up and transfer wealth from the poorest to governments. Especially when it is sold as a crisis that needs to put us back in the stone age.. or before.

I am very very suspicious of the article that constantly claims that “deniers” are simply political while the “science” is clear. The measurements he uses for temps in the southern hemisphere cover up to 1200 miles. I find that simply incredible. What are the potential errors in that?

I guess I am willing to listen to the science but I am wanting to make sure that those who have different points of view are clearly heard. Not shut out of the process. All I hear is correlations – CO2 and Temps our rising – it’s our fault. I actually hear very little science. “A rise of this % in CO2 levels in this volume of air will absorb X joules”

Show me the science.

Finally, it is sad to see someone harp about the politics of people opposing a position rather than the politics of those who want to take advantage of the “science.”