

Japan's boffins: Global warming isn't man-made - laika4000
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstor_climate_report_translation/

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Spyckie
From what I understand, these scientists are merely saying that there is not
enough evidence yet to instantiate the hypothesis of man-made global warming
into fact. And by evidence, these guys are looking accurately descriptions of
several known phenomena that affect our climate that are not yet well
understood.

The scientists bring up 2 good points for science's sake - first is that
scientific models need to be 'tuned' because its impossible to deal with all
of the complexities of nature - this makes them susceptible to selective
tuning to make them support the hypothesis. They also imply that this
hypothesis is unscoped, meaning that solar, aerosel, or other factors haven't
been adequately taken into account. If you want to prove the link between
carbon and temperature change, prove that that observed effect isn't caused by
anything else.

I also think this title is completely link-bait, because they aren't
suggesting that Global warming isn't man-made. They are merely saying that the
scientific evidence is not conclusive, and won't hold up in a scientific forum
if there was no humanitarian agenda attached. I think its healthy for the
scientific community, frankly.

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dejb
Some excerpts

> The report by Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) is astonishing
> rebuke to international pressure...

> JSER is the academic society representing scientists from the energy and
> resource fields

I think in this case it is relevant to consider the source.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
It's always relevant to consider the source. I like to keep in mind that the
material arguing problematic anthropogenic warming all comes from public grant
funded researchers, who would like to keep getting grants. "Impending
Catastrophe" scares up money, I would think.

~~~
dejb
I think it is probably most relevant to consider where the funding comes from
- 'He who pays the piper calls the tune'. You really would have to involve
those who fund the research in your little conspiracy theory for it to make
sense. Publicly funded research money generally comes from the government. I
don't really see enough incentive for the governments of the world to be
paying for biased research in favour of global warming. In fact I would argue
that the previous US administration demonstrated a significant bias against
the global warming case.

In the case of private organisations the incentive to pay for biased research
is obvious and it is an expected tactic.

When proposing a conspiracy theory such as the one you are with respect to
global warming it can help to point to a previous examples of where a similar
thing has occurred. As an counter conspiracy theory example I'll put up the
debate over smoking. Although public research started to show signs of health
problems, the smoking industry fought with their own paid 'research'. Millions
of lives have probably been lost as a result of the delays in changes to
public policy because of the FUD spread by the smoking lobby. To me the
incentives with global warming seem to be the same as with smoking was and I
see every reason to believe the situation is the same.

~~~
jrmurad
> I don't really see enough incentive for the governments of the world to be
> paying for biased research in favour of global warming

The incentive seems obvious to me but correct me if I'm wrong: increased taxes
and regulation resulting in more power for politicians.

~~~
Tichy
Doesn't regulation limit the power of the politicians, too? And the taxes
would have to be increased for specific spending, not for stuff the
politicians might prefer to spend the money on.

~~~
anamax
> Doesn't regulation limit the power of the politicians, too?

No. Regulation is an opportunity to pass out favors.

> And the taxes would have to be increased for specific spending, not for
> stuff the politicians might prefer to spend the money on.

No, spending doesn't have to be for specific things. (What fraction of alcohol
taxes goes to alcohol treatment?)

Moreover, controlling more spending is typically more interesting than
controlling specific spending.

To put it another way, dollars are fungible wrt political power.

[http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/climate-
debate-...](http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/climate-debate-
creates-lobbying-boom/)

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jsdalton
Boffin: "...scientists, engineers, and other people who are stereotypically
seen as engaged in technical or scientific research. American equivalent is
'egghead.'"

Just in case anyone had no idea what a "boffin" was and figured it was some
kind of flightless bird or something.

Not that this happened to me or anything like that.

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jwesley
This is an idea that's given rise to many conspiracy theories about the
politicizing of science, many of which make a lot of sense when you look at
them objectively. I recommend reading Michael Crichton's essay on second hand
smoking and some of the content on Green Agenda to get some background
information:

[http://veritasvincitprolibertate.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/mi...](http://veritasvincitprolibertate.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/michael-
crichton-on-the-unproven-dangers-of-secondhand-smoke/) <http://www.green-
agenda.com/>

It's scary to think that powerful people might justify using science as a
political tool, just because they believe the ends justify the means. If
you're willing to manipulate the truth for what you perceive is good, it opens
the door for many dystopian scenarios.

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panda88
If you research this issue even as a layman you will come to the same
conclusion. Global warming caused by man made CO2 emissions is a total farce.

Here is some scientific proof for you to start your research..

<http://www.discovery.org/v/30>

~~~
blackguardx
Is that a joke? The discovery institute is in no way a reliable source. They
advocate creationism!

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Tichy
I suspect they came to that conclusion by studying the guts of whales.

~~~
patio11
This is about as knee-slappingly insightful as a Japanese person saying "Trust
Paul Graham on startups? Pfft. What would Americans ever accomplish with a
startup, invading somebody?"

~~~
Tichy
They are from maritime research, and they compared computer modeling of
climate changes to astrology, so the step to reading guts of whales doesn't
seem so far fetched to me. Japan is famous for needing whales for scientific
research, so I just put 2+2 together.

I must admit I missed all pages of the article after the first, though (bloody
pagination). Now reading, I can at least sympathize with the notion that man
made global warming is only a hypothesis. However, that holds for anything
science says, doesn't it? There are still varying degrees of belief based on
the known evidence.

Overall the whole article did not have much content, or did it? The only
content is basically that there are 3 japanese scientists who don't believe in
global warming and 2 who do (or something like that - in any case the real
information content is close to zero).

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TweedHeads
An honest question: how do we know we are not in the opposite of an ice age?
So temperatures will get warmer and warmer till they reach a peak and then
start dropping till we get to the next ice age?

How do we determine that peak and when was the last one?

~~~
Tichy
Climatologists know about the ice age cycles. The talk is about deviations
from the expected temperature changes.

~~~
jibiki
It would be nice if more people acknowledged that we should be seriously
addressing the problem of natural climate change as well as man made climate
change.

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Allocator2008
What about Man-Bear-Pig? Man-Bear-Pig poses a huge threat to this planet. I'm
serial, people. I'm totally serial!

~~~
Allocator2008
Listen people, I'm serial. Man-Bear-Pig is a huge threat, and if you can't see
that, and you continue to down vote this thread, I will demand a recount of
your down votes. If I don't like that recount, I will appeal to the Imperial
Senate and keep appealing until Palpatine gives me a count I like. I'm serial.
I did not invent the internet for you just so you could ignore Man-Bear-Pig.
You people are about to experience an inconvenient recount. This is serial
people.

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alecco
Japan: ... and those whales are going to suicide at the beach anyway, so we...
Ehm, _study_ them and prevent contamination of beaches with decaying whale
corpses.

