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Justin Gillis reports at the NYT that in the long-running political battles over climate change, the fight about what to call the various factions has been going on for a long time with people who reject the findings of climate science dismissed as “deniers” and “disinformers" and those who accept the science attacked as “alarmists” or “warmistas". The issue has recently taken a new turn, with a public appeal that has garnered 22,000 signatures asking the news media to abandon the most frequently used term for people who question climate science, “skeptic,” and call them “climate deniers” instead. The petition began with Mark B. Boslough, a physicist in New Mexico who grew increasingly annoyed by the term over several years. The phrase is wrong, says Boslough, because “these people do not embrace the scientific method.”
Last year, Boslough wrote a public letter on the issue, "Deniers are not Skeptics." and dozens of scientists and science advocates associated with the committee quickly signed it. According to Boslough real skepticism is summed up by a quote popularized by Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” "[Senator] Inhofe’s belief that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” is an extraordinary claim indeed," says Boslough. "He has never been able to provide evidence for this vast alleged conspiracy. That alone should disqualify him from using the title skeptic."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by gman003 on Monday February 16 2015, @04:12AM
There are multiple parts to global warming.
First, there's the data. The world IS getting warmer. If you refuse to accept this, you are, quite simply, a denier. You can't look at the numbers steadily increasing and then claim that they aren't going up.
Second, there's the hypothesis that it is caused by human release of CO2 and CH4. This is extremely well established, enough that, unless you have evidence support for your own alternative hypothesis, I'm going to have to call you a denier instead of a skeptic, particularly when you lack scientific training in the field.
Third, there's the proposed courses of action. There are problems with most plans (I do not like cap-and-trade, seems like rent-seeking to me), but every climate scientist agrees that we need to do *something*. Arguing against *specific* plans to combat global warming is within the bounds of skepticism, although just barely since it's more an issue of economics and law than of science (no, economics is not a real science).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16 2015, @04:28AM
What about water vapour? Water vapour is the largest green house gas. If man made global warming is happening, then why not include water vapour?
How many man made pools and damn's have been erected in the last century? Each one providing extra additional water vapour to the 'green house' effect.
Why arent we banning pools?
(Score: 1) by BK on Monday February 16 2015, @05:41AM
Agreed. For some data sets. Certainly true for the entire period where satelites have been available and equipped for measurement of 'global temps'. But that isn't as long as you probably think.
I should call you names then as well. My hypothisis is that CO2 etc. cause some change and are among the influences on climate leading to change. One of the reasons why climate modeling is so unreliable at present is that the values and significance of all of the inputs have not been settled. Any other conclusion, including yours, is unsupported by the data.
You'll think I'm beng unfair and that what I said is what you really meant. But you're wrong. There is real debate as to the magnitude of the variables and their overall influence. The conclusion that AGW is real but (still now) insignificant compared to other factors is legitimate and explains the systematic failure of predictions that assume otherwise.
Only the priesthood may interpret the holy works. I hope there's a neat latin name for that fallacy. But, it so happens that my degree is in atmospheric science (even though I do something else now) and I deem myself worthy.
I think you've mistaken the political scientists (who know never to let a crisis go to waste) for the climate ones. Climate scientists spend most of their time collecting and analyzng data and trying to learn about the climate and how it works and to make predictions. Their predictions are almost always wrong and they know it. It's an inside joke that they (and meteorologists) are uniquely positioned in society such that they still get to keep their jobs even though they are wrong more often than they are right.
The climate scientists you hear / see / read in the news have embraced advocacy over science. Both are full time jobs and they've chosen... Whatever their training, they, like me, now do something else.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday February 16 2015, @06:24AM
Only the priesthood may interpret the holy works. I hope there's a neat latin name for that fallacy.
Argumentum ad sacerdos? Don't find that one. Just a variant of argumentum ad verecundiam, appeal to inappropriate authority. But it does beg the question. The question is: why is the authority an authority? Well, it must be because they know what they are talking about. But to know that, we would have to know what they know, and thus would not need to appeal to them as an authority! So this is where the deniers are, they are rejecting authority because they do not understand what the authorities are telling them, and it goes against their own financial interest. In other words, they do not know what they do not know. Socrates said some things about such people. They killed him for it. Then they all died from _global warming_, I mean, Romans.