Just adjusting my foil kayaking hat here... Why would a broad swath of scientists grit their teeth and wink at the AGW game ? Simple answer is that selling a sky-is-falling research grant application is made easier if you can suggest that the likely cause is human and therefore possible of 'correction'. If, by contrast, changes are caused by (let's say) solar fluctuation - then the research is a bit less worth funding, since you can do diddly squat about the cause. Research funding doesn't grow on trees and the competition for it makes Olympic run-offs look friendly. If, as well, there is a group of 'really dubious apples in the barrel' - conspiring actively to denigrate your work, to freeze you out of the very Journals you need to advance your work and your career, to replace editors that might not play the game - then there may be ways you can come to terms with your conscience as you play along with the modern form of McCarthyism. Having lived through the swing of the 'climate disaster pendulum' towards the 'next ice age' of the 70's and then the shrill claims of AG-warming, it seems inevitable that the terminology now moves towards the more widely useful 'Climate Change'. After all, fudging the data all in one direction (cooling or warming) is much harder than simply calling attention to every once-in-a-thousand year local event and presenting it as a pattern of evidence of unprecedented climate 'variability' (still human-caused, of course). It all fits so well with the needs of our modern media - long departed from any pretence at being a professional 4th estate - and now blatantly in the entertainment game. In the absence of any journalistic ethics, the 'bad news sells papers' credo has reached its logical conclusion. Report on 'unprecedented' glacier-melt without questioning the emerging human remains, talk about Polar Bears without mentioning population sizes, shiver with dread about hurricane event stats - being careful to select the 'right' span of years. Faugh! Way too many reputable scientists who are just saying 'no'. For now, I'm with them. I've survived an engineering career by working at being 'open-minded' and I'll certainly listen to good science that CO2 is the Armageddon - I just haven't seen any yet. Best Regards Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Nov 25 2009 - 03:54:25 PST
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