Yep, Lodown, because a single sentence of an email, or maybe two at best, gives you
ALL the perspective you need, doesn't it? Here's an extract from an email I sent to someone a while back:
I'm gonna kill him....
Should you:
a) report me immediately to the police on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder?
b) perhaps ask me about the context of the rest of the email and what it was referring to before you report me to the police?
Of course, if you happened to be a reasonable person and chose answer b), you might discover that the statement was not in fact a murder plot, but an initial reaction just after I found out I'd been ripped off by a tradesman who performed substandard work. Wow! Who'd have ever guessed that the 2 second sound-bite from my email makes it out to appear much worse than it actually is? On the other hand, if you don't like me anyway, you might not be bothered researching the surrounding context and just send your accusation straight to the police, together with that snippet from the email. Then you run the risk of being made to look a little like a fool after the police have finished their inquiries.
Well this is exactly what happened to climate scientists, and the fake-sceptics indeed looked a little foolish, though this didn't discourage them from alleging ever greater and more elaborate conspiracies after each subsequent inquiry cleared the scientists. And you can read the results of the "police" inquiries here:
The 1st inquiry clearing climate scientists - UK House of Commons Science and Technology committee
The 2nd inquiry clearing climate scientists - The Science Assessment Panel chaired by Lord Oxburgh
The 3rd inquiry clearing climate scientists - The Penn State University Investigatory Committee
The 4th inquiry clearing climate scientists - The Independent climate Change Email Review chaired by Sir Muir Russell
The 5th inquiry clearing climate scientists - The US Environmental Protection Agency investigation and response to petitions claiming the emails undermined the science (see comments 2-37, 2-38, 2-39)
And the piece-de-resistance, when the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation announced an
inquiry into the inquiry by Penn State Uni, the sceptics
finally erupted in cheers and applause, stating that it would be the first "truly independent" investigation, and because the Inspector General himself was a climate change sceptic. And guess what? Come on.....bet you can't guess what he found! Come on.....have a guess.......
The 6th inquiry clearing climate scientists - Closeout Memorandum from the Office of the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation
THEN try explaining this very inconvenient recent event:
Retiring to lick their wounds, the fake climate-change sceptics held on tightly to their last bastion of hope: A sceptic himself, Dr Richard Muller, a physicist, had formed a group of eminent scientists (well, all except one, Judith Curry) called the "Berkley Earth Surface Temperature Project" to reanalyse all the temperature data. It was even blessed by the infamous "sceptic-without-any-science-qualifications-at-all" Anthony Watts, who personally vowed to "accept its conclusions", even if his allegations that the temperature record was fudged and manipulated were wrong.
And guess what? Come on again. Bet you can't guess what results the sceptical BEST group came up with!
Berkley Earth Surface Temperature Project - 20th October 2011 - Global Warming is real
Well golly. Whoever would've guessed? The absolute funniest thing is that now the sceptics have turned on Berkley Earth and Muller viciously. They used to love the sceptical Dr Muller. Now they hate him, wondering how the Government managed to implant the mind-control "global warming alarmist" chip inside his head. Of course, the truth is that he simply analysed the raw data, and it shows what it shows, and
there is no conspiracy except inside the tortured minds of those who desperately want to believe that there is one. And you can sit at home in your rocking chair sucking your thumb and mumbling how it's all a conspiracy as much as you like, but it isn't going to change that.
Originally Posted by konstantin
PS Comparing Earth and Venus brings to mind the "apples and oranges" adage. Have certainly seen lots of he said/she said on that one!
Well to be fair I never said they were the same (though they do share a few similar characteristics). You can see what a runaway greenhouse effect is like on Venus. However I specifically said that is
not happening on Earth, though it is possible if the conditions were right in the more distant future.
If you frequent the "sceptical" blogs, as some here obviously do, you can see lots of allegations from fake-sceptics, particularly one Steven Goddard, that Venus isn't really a runaway greenhouse effect. This view is treated with near universal contempt by real planetary scientists, astronomers, etc, because there's simply no evidence to support it, and a lot of evidence to support a runaway greenhouse on Venus.