Paul and Ed, backtracking pedantically a bit, to clarify: one may refute that the sunspot link had not already been investigated (point proved, thanks), but not actually refute anything else - yet.

Ed: quote
"Seret, yes, I was pretty direct there. But it's not an esoteric subject - it's something which is widely discussed with major implications for the future of our society and there are multiple sources of information. If you're mislead by one person when it's well known that many hundreds or thousands of people who've studied the subject a lot have come to a different conclusion by multiple chains of evidence, and it's been reviewed internationally over a period of decades probably more thoroughly than any other scientific theory, then I'm sorry but you really do risk making a fool of yourself."
Seriously, Ed, you're holding on too tight. Please relax about all this. The world is safe.

Marktime, psychic friend is real, and an electronics wizard who earns more in a day than I earn in a week. Unusual, yes,in every way. However, not relevant here, so why did you pull it from another thread?
Oh,I see... since psychic = nuts, having psychic friend makes me a nut. You're trying to smear me!
Maybe election fever is getting to you

Just a view from the outside here but it really does make the sustainable/green movement easy for the mainstream to dismiss and discredit when so many of it's adherents seem to also have a mix of beliefs around things that are little more than magic (psychics, diviners, we'll be onto levitation by the end of the week)

There seems to be no question about scientific method when it comes to the merits of one type of insulation over another but all that goes out the window when something 'mystic' comes along.

Eddo
Have you looked into the physics of why CO2, and other green house gasses, are causing the mean global temperatures to rise?
Also do you believe that the temperature records are correct?

Tony
Shall we call it 'climate variation' to add another term into the mix?
Also what do you mean by 'skeptics' and 'majority' view.

do you mean dont want to hear? -- but that is true of both sides!

Posted By: Simon Stillit really does make the sustainable/green movement easy for the mainstream to dismiss and discredit when so many of it's adherents seem to also have a mix of beliefs around things that are little more than magic

and so many others of its adherents feel the need to defend so furiously their rigid belief in the absolute truth of present 'science', as if that's all there is, and as if 'science' doesn't radically change its mind quite regularly.

Both extremes offend the everyday experience of 'the public', who are neither true-believer scientists nor woowoo hippies.

Posted By: marktimethe bipolar or bistable nature of conscious thought

That's very good - I can use that!

Posted By: marktime"science", regularly changes it's mind

and so it should - so how come so many scientists and scientifically-minded supporters (but not all by any means) so furiously and venomously defend science's current understanding as if it's the immutable truth. That infant-arrogance, of some (not all) 'scientists', is what gives science a bad name. Some humility and awareness of the fundamental uncertainty and ambiguity of the cosmos, would be much more realistic, and human.

It's very useful (and realistic) to be able to hold a 'bipolarity' of ideas in mind simultaneously - aka 'keeping an open mind'. It is arrogance to get snarky at people whose authentic life experience challenges the polarity that your authentic life experience has led you to. You could justifiably get snarky at them on grounds that they (like you?) can't be bi-polarly 'open minded'. That would their offensive arrogance.

Really, science is only at best a partial view of the truth. If you relied solely on science for your everyday life and relationships, you'd soon lose your friends and probably die. There is far more to life, the cosmos and everything, than science as presently defined (" that's not 'scientific' - even if it apparently happens"). Those 'other things', and science, most encouragingly converge continually - but not thanks to the attitudes of those scientists who come on as justified 'true believers'.

Steamy Tea, I have looked at the physics, a long time ago. Things may have changed since, though. I am not up to date right now. I was most impressed by my friend's original assertion that nothing mankind does to contribute to climate change/global warming is more than a drop compared to what nature alone can do. It kind of put it into perspective for me - but I don't have data to back that up!

Tony, the "Greenhouse Effect" is a well established scientific fact - it's not difficult to calculate it given the known composition of the atmosphere. Since the CO2 level is now much higher than it was 250 years ago, it's not difficult to calculate the change in the equilibrium energy flows. The harder part is to account for storage (such as in the ocean). That we can measure how much CO2 is emitted per year makes it rather straight forward to see if the current CO2 level is in any way correlated to our emissions. Overall CO2 turn-over is much higher than human emissions, but there's little doubt that current levels are purely due to our emissions. What is harder to compute is what will happen next as there are many unknowns (such as clathrate methane release from melting permafrost and so on - and methane has a much higher greenhouse effect than CO2).

I was at a recent presentation and the current imbalance in energy received versus re-radiated is now equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima bombs per day! It's like keeping your heating at the same output but adding thicker curtains or triple glazing ... the equilibrium position will be warmer, as the measurements confirm (modulated by the usual random variations). I don't understand why people are so reluctant to believe we can change the ecology of this planet - it's one of the things we've been most successful in doing over our short history.

Paul in Montreal.

Posted By: EddoI don't see any difference between science and esoteric - somewhere they do meet. And if they don't, it's because we don't yet have a good enough machine to observe, obtain and evaluate the data.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
Especially No. 3, i.e.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[Edit: The following is a response to a post above which Bot has deleted while I was initially posting this. Accordingly, it seemed polite to delete the text I quoted from his post. Still, I'll leave my response here for reference.]

On a previous thread you quoted a supposed pause since a date of your (or somebody you were quoting's) nomination in a data set of your (or …) nomination and I showed that actually temperatures have been warmer since then than would be expected even with direct extrapolation of the previous trend and definitely not consistent with a pause. Unfortunately the forum software problems have resulted in that graph being lost but here it is again.

And another one that refutes the "pause for 15 years" assertion

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/is-earths-temperature-about-to-soar/

Paul in Montreal.

That's too high a bar to set. It's a nifty ruse to disqualify all but paid-up members of the science sect. Ordinary folks can have opinions too, and may source valid insights from the 'other' sources of wisdom that exist in real life. It's up to scientists to respect such ordinary opinions, engage, enlighten etc - not froth at the mouth in righteous indignation, as is so sadly prevalent.

Remember, one by one the respected instiututions and professions of society have discredited themselves in ever-more cynical public perception - politicians, journalists, bankers, captains of industry, police ... The arrogant way (some) scientists carry on, they'll be next to fall.

Posted By: SteamyTeaYou say that there is a barrier to entry because of the cost of getting hold of these journals

Nothing to do with cost.

Posted By: SteamyTeaWould you expect me to have a valid opinion about needlework if I had never bothered to do any research.

I would listen to your opinion with respect; as an 'outsider' you might well have some insight or perspective, which 'insiders' notoriously lose because of their immersion in received knowledge.