Off-Topic

Thank God we have multi-billion dollar industries like the petroleum industry to protect us from the lies of climate scientists. If only somehow they could find a means of getting their message out to fair-minded scientists like the Walls Street Journal and their own scientists.

SO you are saying that having a financial stake in the argument makes Al Gore a liar? Which is why we need more love for the fossil fuel industry... interesting.

We also have big govt handing out billions to their buddies to continue their industry and tickets to wealth and fools like Al Gore making up everything he can to keep his name in the press and himself rich.

Sadly the issue will always probably be too political for what needs to be done....at the same time I'm just glad those who swear by AGW continue to be exposed left and right and have to change their whole view every other day it seems

Carbon credits for a billion says 09 article.....

Totally. Just like that damn airline industry that has required subsidies every step of the way. People should stick to traditional gas motor vehicles and boats for transportation. And that damn oil industry, with their subsidies. I mean, if you can't make gas without subsidizing it at every level, then we should just rely on horses.

Then we should be in substantial agreement - I believe in science, too. But any movement that says there is a "consensus" about something, then tries to paint those who disagree based on equally valid scientific data as "deniers," sounds more like theology to me.

And off topic, your screen name brings back a lot of memories, as well as some blank spots.

What makes you think that we old people don't actually believe in science? I've been following the Green Revolution since I was in college a hundred years ago, and in truth, the economic realities of a Global Economy has done nothing but increase the demand for and use of fossil fuels.

I object to charlatans like Obama and Gore who have enriched themselves and/or their cronies by forwarding an agenda that the USA is responsible for this global problem and also responsible for paying for cleaning it up. Follow the money.

I agree with you. But none of this changes the reality or science of global warming. And I don't know what qualifies as old people around here, I'm 46.

No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion regarding AGW. Not one.

An energy infrastructure that has what, 92% of the market and has been in place for decades should not need ANY subsidies to be able to compete.

I don't know where that chart came from, so I don't know what specific tax breaks and spending it's talking about, but I suspect that most of the "subsidies" granted to the American fossil fuel industry are designed to help it compete against fossil fuel producers from other countries or replace imports of fossil fuels from other countries, not compete against renewable energy.

Funniest quote for February.

Love "subject to market forces." Don't forget to check in every once in a while to let me know how life is in SATerp Wonderland.

If you don't think that the petroleum industry is subject to market forces, well, I don't know what to tell you.

We live in a complicated world where we rely on experts to get through our lives. When something is wrong with us phyiscally we consult with a doctoe not a lawyer. When we have a legal issue we see a lawyer not an engineer, and so forth. I've never seen a black hole but I believe they exist because astrophysicists say they do. I'm not a climate scientist, I haven't studied ice core samples or done temperature reconstructions nor analyzed solar radiation. All I have to go on is what the experts have to say.

To answer your question, 25% or researchers do not disagree with AGW. In fact 97% agree with it unless you think Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is some rag pushing a left wing agenda. Here is a link to the peer-reviewed paper:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html

Here is the abstract: "Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC. A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to agreeing researchers, and the level of agreement among top climate experts has not been conducted and would inform future ACC discussions. Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers."

The experts have an unambigous position on this subject and I have no expertise to challenge it. Folks who disagee with this either think they know more about the climate than the world's climate scientists or believe there is a world-wide conspiracy where 97% of the climate scientists are selling a lie. I find both positions equally whacky.