

World may not be warming, say scientists - jamesbritt
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026317.ece

======
m0th87
Regardless of your opinion on climate change, The Times is not a reliable
source for such matters: [http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/12/14/how-the-
times-distor...](http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/12/14/how-the-times-
distorted-opinion-on-global-warming-poll/)

The Times, by the way, is owned by News Corp (Rupert Murdoch). Depending on
your political affiliation, that might either be a very relevant or a
completely irrelevant point :)

~~~
CWuestefeld
_Depending on your political affiliation, that might either be a very relevant
or a completely irrelevant point_

It shouldn't be relevant to anyone.

Logical fallacy: _ad hominem attack_

"Arguments of this kind focus not on the evidence for a view but on the
character of the person advancing it; they seek to discredit positions by
discrediting those who hold them. It is always important to attack arguments,
rather than arguers, and this is where arguments that commit the ad hominem
fallacy fall down." <http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/ad-hominem/>

The article itself does not appear biased to me. In particular, it does
caution "His study, which has not been peer reviewed...", and " 'It’s not just
temperature rises that tell us the world is warming' ", etc.

~~~
camccann
Many logical fallacies are actually good quick-and-dirty heuristics for
deciding whether something is worth considering. "The source is biased,
therefore the argument is wrong" is clearly incorrect, but "the source is
biased, therefore the argument has a high likelihood of being wrong, therefore
reading it is not a good use of my time" is not just correct, but also a very
useful rule.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_"The source is biased, therefore the argument is wrong" is clearly incorrect,
but "the source is biased, therefore the argument has a high likelihood of
being wrong, therefore reading it is not a good use of my time" is not just
correct..._

No, your reformulation is also incorrect. A correct formulation might be "The
source is biased; therefore I would be wise to be skeptical and subject any
claims to greater scrutiny."

The overarching problem is that _everyone_ with expertise has a bias. It's
crazy to claim that those skeptical of AGW may be biased, but those backing
the notion -- like the British scientists who found themselves in hot water
last year -- are somehow above it all.

Everyone in this game is biased. Why would they have become involved if they
didn't have some passion for the subject? Thus, we're left with needing to
subject the ideas of _all_ to great scrutiny, _on both sides_.

~~~
camccann
_No, your reformulation is also incorrect. A correct formulation might be "The
source is biased; therefore I would be wise to be skeptical and subject any
claims to greater scrutiny."_

A nice thought, but naive and impractical in application. Engaging in a proper
skeptical analysis for a technical subject requires a thorough knowledge of
the subject being discussed and a great deal of time and dedication. In short,
it means acquiring personal expertise.

Most people don't have time to become an expert in everything; relying on
other people's opinions is the only practical policy, and heuristics for
deciding whose opinions are most likely to be trustworthy are valuable--even
though said heuristics tend to sound an awful lot like logical fallacies.

 _It's crazy to claim that those skeptical of AGW may be biased, but those
backing the notion -- like the British scientists who found themselves in hot
water last year -- are somehow above it all._

Did I claim that?

 _Everyone in this game is biased. Why would they have become involved if they
didn't have some passion for the subject? Thus, we're left with needing to
subject the ideas of all to great scrutiny, on both sides._

Well, I wasn't talking about the one topic specifically. But, generally
speaking, everyone in the entire world is biased, crazy, and wrong about most
things. So it goes.

Complaining about how every participant in a debate is biased is technically
correct but useless, and tends to obfuscate clues about who might actually be
worth listening to.

------
pedalpete
I think we need to change the discussion regarding climate change. For every
scientist who says the world is warming, you'll can find another who says it
isn't.

This just continiously leads to people trying to figure out if this species or
that species is in danger, etc, etc.

If instead we focus on the amount of pollution, and reducing that, I think we
change the argument. I don't know that scientists or anybody else can argue
that pollution is good.

Is there a 'pro-pollution' argument?

~~~
jacoblyles
>"Is there a 'pro-pollution' argument?"

Yes. Cost-benefit analysis. Civilization is built on pollution. Humans have
been hurting the environment for their own good since before the days of
agriculture. The question wise leaders should ask is "how much pollution is
okay given the vast benefit we get from polluting activities?" not "how can we
get pollution down to zero?".

~~~
cgranade
In some ways, that's even a reasonable argument, but it completely ignores the
long-term effects. A large part of the trouble is that we don't ever tend to
account for the cost of large-scale environmental damage. For instance, under
many climate change forecasts, the coffee growing industry is going to be
much, much less profitable
([http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2009-0...](http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2009-02-19-brazil-
coffee-climate-change_N.htm)). Beyond just the economic costs, though, we
don't tend to evaluate the quality-of-life costs of environmental damage.

Of course, there's also people like me who see environmental conservation as a
moral imperative, beyond any economic motives. My only point here is that even
from a purely economic standpoint, there are many good reasons to spend
immense amounts of money fighting pollution. Even 1% of the Iraq War budget
would be hugely beneficial.

~~~
jacoblyles
>"In some ways, that's even a reasonable argument, but it completely ignores
the long-term effects."

Not if you do it seriously. The thousands of scholars who study these kind of
issues for a living have thought of such simple objections a long time ago.

~~~
cgranade
It's not a simple objection at all. Of course there are scholars who do so,
but in practice, the costs are largely ignored, just like any externality
tends to get ignored by individual agents in an economic system. That leads to
an argument that environmental effects must fall under the umbrella of
governmental responsibility, since those calculating cost/benefit ratios are
rarely those who will pay the brunt of the costs of climate change and other
such effects. This is especially evident if one considers the quality-of-life
concerns, which are by their very nature cross-cutting, and thus hard to
account for at the level of an individual or single corporation.

