| I'm over sixty years old, I started in applied mathematic and geophysical modelling (gravity, magnetics, radiometrics) over forty years ago and have read along to the climate debate in scientific literature and the popular press all that time. Claims of "data manipulation" are smoke and leaves tossed in the air by people that either don't get into the weeds or the very few that have reasonable points to ask (are stations affected by urban heat islands?) that have been addressed in detail. > There are literal quotes of the mails sent back and forth. And? Does any of that chatter amoung a few people at one institute in change any of the actual hard data and the interpretation tens of thousands of other qualified people about the globe have reached? There's plenty to read about the Climategate fiasco, the breathless pearl clutching by AGW deniers screaming "Look! Look! See the way people have tried to bend the PR to warn us deniers! It's a smoking Gun I tell you!!", and the cold calm collected analysis pointing out that a bunch of cherry picked emails means fuck all against the actual case. > Not only that, there have been periods with 5 to 10 times more CO2, Sure .. a very long time ago .. and once the Earth had a largely molten surface also. Right now in the timescale of humans spread across the planet raising crops and having numbers over a billion .. that all came about in a comparatively stable climate - and it is very clearly human activity that has changed the current atmospheric makeup causing mean trapped energy levels and the land|sea layer to rise. > But there is nothing close to consensus as far as my understanding goes, even from experts. Incorrect. There is overwhelming consensus within the community of people that can read the papers with the exception of a very few outliers who also largely "agree" but with weird issues (Lindzen (Sr and Jr) et al). The consensus within those qualified is covered here: https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-conse... And then there's a whole body of self declared "experts" that flounder but otherwise make good money blogging and denying while being paid to do so by the usual suspects. You can follow that money outwards from the Koch brothers, Lord Monckton, et al. They've been successful in creating a "consensus gap": https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=78 which you're experiencing first hand. Its understandable that people are confused by all this, there's been a good 50 years now of actively running public media campaigns to sow confusion and to question the science. |