Cornwell: "so the remaining two thirds of us can party on and got on with the sciencing"

See, but they envy the weight and legitimacy of science. Hence they wrap their religion in the slick veneer of science by plagiarizing from what it tells us about our universe and integrating it into their theology as though it were part of it all along.

But if you accuse them of being anti-science they'll balk, and say "But I can't be anti-science, I accept evolution and therefore mine is a religious view fully compatible with science!" as if they want a medal for joining the 19th century 200 years late. Not that I don't appreciate the concession, but there's more to science than evolution, and when you bring up things like abiogenesis, cognitive neurobiology and its implications for the 'soul' (i.e. there isn't one) and what particle physics has told us about big bang cosmology (it requires no creator), they begin to waver. Suddenly they're not so accepting of science. It's as if conceding evolution was as far as they were comfortable with going, and they feel as if that should be enough to consider themselves men of both science and God.

But then how is the charge that they are anti-science ill founded? They are doing exactly what we've accused them of, selectively accepting those parts of science which they don't feel conflict with their beliefs, and rejecting those which do. They're no different in this regard from the creationists, they've just conceded evolution and are now obstinately holding their ground on the issue of the big bang and the source of human consciousness.

As Carl Sagan pointed out in my profile quote, science is kind of a package deal.

cirby: "...and then goes on to push the point a LOT farther, claiming that Bad Things Will Happen well above and beyond anything that could reasonably be expected from their own computer models, and using that as an excuse for massive social engineering that harks back to the less-successful socialist movements of the last hundred years."

But it doesn't, this is disturbingly common Freeper paranoia. The reasoning is that if some new scientific finding has implications that would support a school of thought that they hate, then it's a plot by that group to push forward their agenda. An appeal to consequences in other words, "Global warming can't be true because the commies and hippies would love that, it would fit in with their views and they could use it to advance their goals." Try to spot what's wrong with that reasoning.

The changes proposed so far don't actually reduce our quality of life, they drastically enhance it. Newer transportation tech using lithium batteries, ultracapacitors and one day hydrogen fuel cells will be superior in many ways to existing internal combustion engines, no to mention the promise of projects like Ultra PRT and BetterPlace. Large scale investment in renewable energy means domestic electricity production with no overhead costs past the initial one and subsequent maintinence, which will mean an initial rise in taxes that everyone and their grandmother will cry bloody murder about but an eventual financial boon for the United States as it will greatly reduce the amount we must spend on imported fuels.

This movement to curb global warming has the potential to offer cheaper electricity, a healthier economy, a reduced national debt, independence from foreign oil, rapid progress in battery/fuel cell technology and a number of other ancilliary benefits. Yes the Starbucks Socialists will clap their dainty hands with glee, fully expecting the worldwide Communist revolution to occur. The anarcho-primitivist dropouts will thrill to the notion that we'll all return to living in mud huts and eating grubs. The Whole Foods hippies will flail their stickbug bodies in delight, expecting centers of industry to be abandoned and overgrown with forests of hemp. But guess what? None of that is gonna happen, any more than the world is going to come to an end because of an artificially exacerbated natural warming trend. Everyone's taking shiat to extremes along their own ideological lines. The bottom line is that an environmental imperative that catalyzes rapid technological development is a fantastic thing for everyone, and neither the McCarthy era neocon dinosaur nor the barefoot bearded bolshevik are going to have their way when all is said and done, because there's proportionally equal resistance to either agenda and the science itself is, believe it or not, neutral in the matter.

/My $3.50

cirby: "You can pretend it's all "science," but a few minutes of talking to anyone who seriously believes in global warming brings out the True Religion, and you get preaching instead of honest science."

Likewise, a few minutes of talking to anyone who seriously denies global warming brings out the conspiracy theorist.

cirby: "Destroy Creation?" He's saying we could DESTROY THE WORLD. In a Biblical sense."

Yes, that's correct. However it has no bearing on the truth value of the theory itself.

cirby: "...and no, that's not in the computer models. You have to go to the non-credible extreme side of the worst-run simulations to even get effects that are truly bad. With the more-probable warming and effects, you have to go out nearly a hundred years to get results that most people would even be able to detect. Under current predictions, sea level rise at the beach will be almost enough to make it to your kneecaps in 90 years or so - if they're right. They haven't been right so far. Angels dancing on the head of a pin..."

In what sense haven't they been correct? Because last thursday it was really cold where you live? Nobody credible ever said that The Day After Tomorrow was a farkng documentary, I don't even know where you got the "up to our kneecaps in 90 years" business, but based on the most conservative interpretation of the data it's still something worth worrying about. We definitely won't suffer measurably for it within our lifetimes but if you don't give a shiat about what happens to the species after you're gone, then the rest of the species should disown you.

cirby: "Hansen isn't some nobody, either. He's the point man for the sciency side of Global Warming. If Gore is the High Priest of the religion, Hansen is at least an archbishop."

So next are you gonna tell me that the government was behind 9/11 and staged the moon landings under orders from the secret jewish new world order, before linking me to your "Ron Paul in 2012" blog?

cirby: "On the other hand, some of the folks who question Anthropogenic Global Warming (no, it's not "Climate Change," it's global warming, since that's what it actually predicts)"

Climate change isn't a term meant to obfuscate or misdirect. It's an attempt to clarify for idiots who think that record snowfall in their bumpkin town means that the entire theory is a crock. Irregular weather all over the globe is part and parcel of what the theory predicts.

cirby: "have some good, provable alternate theories. Like "the Sun got hotter, now it's getting cooler, we predicted it, now it's actually happening." The CO2-based global warming predictions tanked (we're about a half degree cooler right now than the predictions claimed we would be - no, you don't get to use the current post-dictions, look up the unedited ones from the 1990s, and don't forget the Hockey Stick), but the guys who pointed out that the Sun is a variable star and made actual testable predictions were, well, right."

Let me guess, next you're going to drudge up the 1970s articles about "Global Cooling". You've been getting your information from partisan sources with an ideological agenda, sources which misrepresent the data to support an erroneous conclusion. This is a good place to start setting yourself straight.

cirby: "NOTHING in actual AGW theory accounts for almost a decade of steady-to-cooling global temps. Sure, you can expect local cooling or heating, and you should expect one or two years of global variation, but once you pass four or five years of not-warming, the AGW numbers stop working. Seven to ten years? Your model isn't just incorrect, it's broken."

Once again, I'm inclined to take the word of climate scientists over that of a random guy on the internet who thinks AGW is a communist plot.

JollyMagistrate: "If Global Warming/Climate Change is, in fact, human caused, then once there is enough data to prove it(beyond reasonable doubt) change will occur. "

I just don't understand the mindset of people who deny it outright. They always concede that we're in a natural warming trend, and they must agree that human pollution contributes to warming to some extent. Provided these two concessions, it's no longer an argument over whether or not humans contribute to global warming, it's just a question of how much they contribute.

LouDobbs: "No. Irregular climate all over the globe is what it predicts. Weather is by its nature irregular. Anyone who points to record snowfall as evidence for or against climate change is an idiot."

That's what I meant to convey although you're totally correct that I could've done a better job. Thanks.

KerwoodDerby: "Seriously, though, I was rather disappointed by Zamboro's attempt at responding to cirby's points. It seemed to me that cirby wasn't here to do a Rush Limbaugh blovation spiel, but just to raise some few points, which are opposite to conventional AGW, and which seem worth asking."

You're free to be as disappointed in me as you like, but realize that his "points" are raised in every AGW thread.

KerwoodDerby: "But rather than address them, the best Zamboro can do is speak dismissively of cirby as layman. Not exactly the best way to represent yourself to people who are trying to learn about these issues."

There's not much else I can do. What he's telling me flatly contradicts what I've heard from legitimate climate scientists. I'd do up a nice six page wall of text megapost but it'd just be copy and paste from climate science sites, besides which Jon Snow is the resident AGW expert so we generally leave that to him.