Monday, October 01, 2012

September Panics and Smurphy’s Law | Watts Up With That?
In any case, it seems we live in a time when some scientists are working under the thumbs of benefactors and patrons who desire results presented with a certain political “spin.” If it is possible to present data concerning the melt of the Arctic Ice Cap in a way that makes it look more extreme, because this may make a carbon tax more possible, the scientist will be under great pressure to do so.

The scientist is in essence working with a frowning boss scowling over his shoulder. The only way we can counter-balance this effect is to also look over his shoulder, and give the poor fellow the sense that “the whole world is watching.” This will likely make scientists miserable, and also make them yearn for the days when they were ignored and could work in peaceful obscurity, however it will also keep them honest, which is for the best for all, in the long run.
Climate Change Deniers Challenged by a TruthMarket Campaign Offering a $5,000 Bounty for Proof that More than 5% of Credible American Scientists Dispute Global Climate Change
A funded campaign asserting that over 95% of American scientists believe that global climate change is real and is most likely caused by humans has been launched with a $5,000 bounty on TruthMarket, the site that enables grassroots, crowd-funding of challenges to political, commercial and science misrepresentations
Campaign Detail - TruthMarket
Provide verifiable evidence that significantly less than 95% of American scientists believe in the reality of Global Climate Change and that humans are a likely cause.
Researchers Report Rapid Climate Change in Coastal Areas
Research led by the University of Southampton and its Venetian co-workers has shown that there is 10 times more rapid increase in the sea surface temperature (SST) in the coastal regions when compared to the global average of 0.13° per decade.

Researchers consider this to be a part of the urban heat island effect’s outcome.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't particularly want to register myself on the "TruthMarket" site, but evidence is at hand: the famous Doran and Zimmerman paper http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf found that only 82% of the 3,146 scientists they surveyed believed that "human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures". Of course, I don't have their raw data, so I can't provide the verifiable evidence. Perhaps the $5,000 should be sent to them.