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RE: Climate change vs BANDits
Thanks Tom.
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. [mailto:tholtz@umd.edu]
Sent: 12 February 2010 19:11
To: john.bass@ntlworld.com; dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: RE: Climate change vs BANDits
> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu]
> On Behalf Of john hunt
>
> I don't think the science of man made global warming is as
> settled as birds are dinosaurs.
Sorry, but it is. Get over it.
> Too many ex vice presidents
> and environmental loonies involved for a start.
Two entirely separate issues! On the one hand there is the basic science:
the stuff that gets published in Science & Nature & a few dozen other
journals. Then there is the politics. Forget the politics.
It is like saying the science of plantetary astronomy is political because
the U.S. government is involved with NASA.
> The recent withdrawal by the IPCC of some of its most
> outrageous claims has not helped,
Actually, not as outrageous as claimed (see
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/the-ipcc-is-not-infall
ible-shock/#more-2773) and actually a good example of science as a
self-correcting process. (That is, it was peer-reviewed research that caught
the error, not reporters or politicians).
> and the carbon footprint of
> climate summits; there were so many private jets at
> Copenhagen they had to park some of them in neighbouring countries.
Indeed. That sucks. But that is politicians doing what they do, and not
science.
> Then there are so called scientists refusing to publish their
> data and refusing to comply with freedom of information
> requests.
While there are some troubling issues here, it turns out that at least some
of the claims in the blogosphere about this are fallacious, and the data in
question were already publically available as supporting online material in
the peer-reviewed publications in question!
> Not to mention the coldest winter for decades.
It is not. We have, in fact, had few record cold temperatures in recent
years than in past decades. And don't forget that weather does not equal
climate! For the latest on the trends, see
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/
> Its enough to make a denier more reasonable than a bandit.
>
Required reading:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20091216_TemperatureOfScience.pd
f
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661
Faculty Director, Earth, Life & Time Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/
Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843
Mailing Address: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Department of Geology
Building 237, Room 1117
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA