Jim, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.

Please explain, under that assumption, why Venus (atmosphere: 96.5% CO2) has such a high mean temperature (462 C).

If you say that it’s because Venus is closer to the Sun than earth (0.72 AU vs 1 AU), please calculate its solar irradiance and show how this accounts for the difference in temperatures between the atmospheres of Venus and Earth (14 C).

Rupert, can you clarify your question by explaining what relationship there is between the ideas of economics and the laws of physics?

Also, seeing as how raw capitalism and unadulterated conservatism got us into this mess, how can you be so sure that liberal spending politics will not get us out of it?

A consensus of scientists? No John…a consensus of self-righteous bible thumping control freaks. it was the scientists who…at great personal risk…managed to convinced them otherwise well after the evidence was long established. Sound familiar?

I must say I never fail to be positively impressed here. For example John Fairplay commented:>

*500 years ago, all the smartest people in the room were absolutely convinced that the universe revolved around the Earth. After all, a consensus of scientists said so.* Said comment elicited a sharp response.

before I go on let me lay some background. Everyone knows that when Columbus sailed to America in 1492, Christians at the time thought that he would fall off the edge of the world. Its taught is school.

Its what everyone knows. BUT what everyone knows just ain’t so.

“St. Thomas Aquinas, who was made a saint because of his genius, *wrote that the world was round almost 250 years before Columbus made his journey.* Medieval universities, which were Christian institutions, used a textbook entitled Sphere to teach astronomy. *Two hundred years before Columbus,* Buridan, Rector of the University of Paris, *wrote a long discussion proving that the rotation of the Earth on its axis produced night and day,* assuming, as did all his fellow Christian scholars throughout Europe, that the Earth was round. No serious Christian thinkers thought that the world was flat, as Edward Grant notes in his 1971 book, Physical Science in the Middle Ages (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971.)”

Now to the sharp response. *No John…_a consensus of self-righteous bible thumping control freaks._ it was the scientists who…at great personal risk…managed to convinced them otherwise well after the evidence was long established. Sound familiar?*

Well, uh yes, familiar and what we know that just ain’t so.

“Stillman Drake, the world’s leading Galileo scholar, demonstrates in his book “Galileo: A Very Short Introduction” (Oxford University Press, 2001) that *it was not theologians, but rather his fellow physicists* (then called _”natural philosophers”_ ), who manipulated the Inquisition into trying and convicting Galileo.

The “out-of-the-mainsteam” *Galileo had the gall to prove the consensus view, the Aristotlean theory, wrong* by devising *simple experiments that anyone could do.*

Galileo’s fellow scientists first tried to refute him by argument from authority. They failed.

Then these “scientists” tried calling Galileo names, but this made no impression on the average person, who could see with his own eyes that Galileo was right.

Finally, Galileo’s fellow “scientists” called in the Inquisition to silence him.”

It was the self-righteous bible thumping control freaks of the Church of Rome that were required to quiet the waters.

Soooo, John Fairplay, right on, go getem guy.

Uh, and Dean (Spam) you forgot to add gun toting to the Christian tirade

Actually, reducing greenhouse emission should be a crime as it is denying plants the vital food that they need to feed us.

Bob, I believe the Washington plan to reduce cap-n-trade to voluntary is still in the legislature, though the version passed in Committee does indeed make it voluntary. But this isn’t a done deal yet, I think.

Dean (Spam) I will grant that newspeak seems to come naturally to you. Just the same you are far from the master, more about that later.

> *repeating an experiment does not prove a theory true*

This statement is fallacious on several levels.

First. The combustion of hydrogen in the presence of oxygen and detecting water vapor in the resulting gas is an assertive demonstration that the theory that the components of water are oxygen and hydrogen is true.

Second. Repeating an experiment tests the description of the experiment and accounting for variables within an experiment. Repeatability tests the experiment and not the theory. Inability to repeat an experiment and get the same results invalidates the experiment as a proof and not the theory. Failure to repeat simply means that experimental proof no longer exists.

For example the experiment underlying Fleischmann / Pons. When the experiment was not repeatable the experiment was invalidated as a proof of Fleischmann / Pons. That is experimental proof of the theory of cold fusion no longer existed.

Did this prove cold fusion false. Not exactly, a new more carefully constructed and controlled experiment could be constructed which demonstrates cold fusion could be found repeatable. However until such time the theory remains undemonstrated.

However your selective use of both sides of the same discussion is remarkable. On the one hand you assert that Galileo could / can not demonstrate his observations by experiment. All the while you also hold that AGW theory can not be demonstrated false by experiment.

One thing is true, an experiment can not be conducted by randomly dialing in world wide levels of CO2. Indeed its not clear that were such possible that doing so would be wise.

However there is one experiment of sorts available. Several experimental models have been constructed and “validated” by past observation. According to the makers all are demonstrated valid. The fact that several such models all claim to describe the same physical system is suspicious in and of its self suspicious.

But ignoring that, the real test is do any accurately predict moving forward into the future. That answer is no. The after the fact explanation for the failure is the observations are due to this variable or that condition. The failure to account for some variable is at the heart of invalidation by lack of repeatability. The screeching of Gore and Hansen about tipping points and death trains not with standing. Proof of the AGW theory remains undemonstrated.

Dean I said earlier you are not the master of newspeak. That honor belongs to President Obama.

Yesterday the media noted Obama announced the lifting of the ban on stem cell research and the banning if cloning. I have heard his statement and it is remarkable. I can see why Obama needs the teleprompter, the statement is intricate and complex.

So lets disassemble Obama’s announcement.

1] Obama lifted President Bush’s ban on stem cell research.
— False, President Bush’s order only dealt with embryonic stem cell research, not adult stem cell research.

2] So Obama really meant that he lifted the Bush ban on embryonic stem cell research.
— Again false. The Bush order did not apply to existing cell lines, only new research lines.

3] Then Obama probably meant he lifted the Bush ban on new embryonic stem cell research.
— False again. The Bush order did not apply to private research, only government funding of new research lines

4] Well Obama must have meant that he lifted the Bush ban on government funding of new new embryonic stem cell research lines.
— Correct, so why didn’t Obama say that?

There is more;

1] Obama banned Human reproductive cloning.
— False, the order only applies to Government funding.

2] So Obama really meant he banned Government funding of Human reproductive cloning.
— False, President Bush’s order had addressed that.

3] Then Obama must have meant he restated the Bush ban of Government funding of Human reproductive cloning.
— Again false. President Bush’s order addressed all cloning.

4] Well then Obama must have meant he lifted the Bush ban on cloning funding and only kept the ban on funding of cloning for reproduction. All other cloning funding would be permitted.
— Correct, so why didn’t Obama say that?

Also, Obama framed the debate as science verses ethics which is fallacious. The debate is between ethical science verses unethical science and deciding which actions are ethical science and which are unethical science. Science does not stand above ethics as Obama said. Science is a tool that can be used in both ethical and unethical ways.

*getaclue:* Sea levels are predicted to rise twice as fast as was forecast by the United Nations
*JK:* Predicted by who?

*getaclue:* Rapidly melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica
*JK:* No they aren’t. Don’t get suckered by Al Gore’s lies.

*getaclue:* Yesterday’s urgent wake-up call . . . came from four scientists from the US, Australia, France and Germany, who gave a press conference at a scientific meeting on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.
*JK:* It is a meeting designed to panic politicians into unwise action. GW is only an excuse to give vast sums of money to favored groups.

*getaclue:* The Greenland ice sheet, in particular, is not simply melting but melting “dynamically”
*JK:* It is NOT.

*getaclue:* Dr Church said that the most recent satellite and in situ data showed seas were now rising by more than 3mm a year – more than 50 per cent faster than the average for the 20th century.
*JK:* You probably haven’t bothered to look at any data or facts beyond the hucksters like Al Gore, but the oceans have been rising since the end of the last ice age. The last century we rose 8 inches. This prediction of 12 inches (3 mm/yr) is just a little more than the present rate and is *only a prediction.* The reality will probably be 8 inches or less.

*getaclue:* These startling new predictions
*JK:* Notice the word: *Predictions* Like Hansen’s failed prediction of warming issued 20 years ago. It didn’t happen. See: sustainableoregon.com/theon.html

Hey fellow: you’re being played for a sucker by AL Gore and his fellow hucksters – Get a Clue!
Thanks
JK