I quite liked Avatar, by the way, which was simple-minded but in a nice way. Cameron's good at some things, such as telling a story, concocting pretty fantasy worlds. Not so good at reason and evidence, apparently. Or maybe, as Allahpundit says, he was just "busy".
UPDATE (Aug 26): Another report.
UPDATE (Aug 26): Another report.
Metamorf's a....climate skeptic?!? Wow. You really want to upset the Crooked Timber frat boys ...proclaim your doubts of AGW and Al Gore/IPCC. They'll probably ..ban you, curse you, take you off the CT par-tay A-list. (as they did me a few years ago). That loud hack Puchalsky starts frothing at the mouth when anyone dares to question the authority of big Al Gore.
ReplyDeleteHaving read a bit of material on the topic over the last few years I'm fairly convinced temperatures have increased slightly over last few decades--tho' reliability of the data an issue the AGW fanatics overlook. GHG probably had something to do with it--yet I don't think that means approving of Al Gore's alarmism or the IPCC's spin. The man-made CO2 to warming claim especially seems a bit tenuous. That said, I favor some of the measures taken against the petroleum and coal corporations.
Temps have actually been cooler over last decade as well. There are other signs..the ice-melt ratio, droughts, and supposedly some ocean rising--yet I don't think it's as much as an emergency as the Gore-bots or Camerons claim (I wouldn't pay hard earned shekels to see his latest space-cartoon).
I'm a kind of a "climate skeptic" I guess, but mainly just skeptical, as you are, of much of the hyperventilating over it (and I've already upset the CT "frat boys" a few times about that).
ReplyDeleteHere's the start of a three post series that I put together a while back on it.
You're correct on the uncertainty of some aspects of AGW (such as the man-made CO2 claims)--that's not necessarily in the skeptics' favor, though it does suggest Gore's approach was premature. He certainly sounded confident that all of his models (and those of the IPCC) were the "facts" when that wasn't the case exactly. Mann the hockey stick guy has been charged with bias as well. However I do think that the facts support the basic claim about warming --not sure what that really implies. Is it man made or not? Mostly or only in part? The AGW people made it seem like everything had been confirmed when that wasn't the case (ie the time lags, etc): at times CO2 increased greatly (30s and 40s, due to industry, etc) with no corresponding increase in temps (as leftist fiend Alex Cockburn noted...another writer detested by the CTsters). Even if the IPCC models turn out mostly accurate, it was bad science. And if they are not completely accurate...millions (if not billions) have been thrown away.
ReplyDelete