Looks like you and Melissa have something in common.

“Do you mean to tell me you believe if these sorts of groups came into power, their criminal behavior would suddenly stop?”

I can’t say, but government office-holders are sworn to uphold the law. I don’t condone law-breaking in the pursuit of ‘higher’ ends, especially if it is violent, but this stunt appears to be of the milder sort. (The play on ‘Gordon’ is amusing for those who know their Thomas the Tank Engine.)

And one of the iconic events of the founding of your system of government was a major act of vandalism.

As I pointed out, she didn’t allow me to continue to present other CO2 related facts. Being that you continue to press me on this, I conclude that you believe I should have forced them upon her. As I disagree with that sort of behavior with children (I would call it indoctrination), I think this part of the conversation has run its course.

Greenpeace has done worse actions than Kingsnorth and here in the US, EarthFirst and The Animal Liberation Front have destroyed 100s of thousands of dollars in private property making the Kingsnorth Six look like boys shooting spit balls in Sunday School.

Do you mean to tell me you believe if these sorts of groups came into power, their criminal behavior would suddenly stop? In a way it would stop, of course. It would become legalized behavior. Exactly as I implied with the reference from vandalism to kristallnacht.

You know what they say about statistics, Dee. The relevant point about AGW is the year-on-year accumulation of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere. Since only about half of man-made emissions are reabsorbed, the total value of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has accumulated to the point where it is now around 30 per cent of the total.

That is why scientists are concerned. The annual contribution is an important fact, but only within the wider context of the total amount accumulated. In that sense, choosing to highlight only the 5 per cent figure is a misleading cherry-pick.

“They join Greenpeace, Earth First, Animal Liberation Front, etc…
First it is vandalism, then it is kristallnacht. True Believers are always a danger waiting for a leader.”

Kristillnacht was state-sponsored terrorism which occurred within a nationalist framework. To justify a link between the Kingsnorth vandalism and kristallnacht you would need to show that the British government thinks it has something to gain from instigating a nationwide orgy of violence against its energy industries.

5% annual anthropogenic CO2 contribution is supported in mainstream science. Furthermore, had I the opportunity, I would have more fully explained the big picture from all points of view but she closed down the discussion. Are you suggesting that I should have forced her to listen?

At the risk of repeating myself, you are seeing two bats tugging at each other when the inkblot is really just a butterfly. Citing a fact is not indoctrination.

Had I coupled the fact with a warning that reducing anthropogenic CO2 would cause a global cooling cycle which would eventually cause the return of the glaciers and a real ice age, you would be justified in your accusations.

It is not the pool of indoctrinated kids I worry about, it is the pool adult rainbow warriors who were indoctrinated as children that worries me. They join Greenpeace, Earth First, Animal Liberation Front, etc…

First it is vandalism, then it is kristallnacht. True Believers are always a danger waiting for a leader.

No problem with challenging childish errors. It can lead to fruitful conversations. But you attempted to correct the child with a view that is at variance with mainstream climate science. So who’s indoctrinating who?

My reaction in similar circumstances is to encourage the child to consult the relevant authority in whatever subject. Effectively, in the case of science, that means consulting the mainstream scientific view, and the mainstream view today is that man-made climate change is happening.

“…childhood indoctrination is permissible under the right circumstances.”

We’re on the same page there, but of course people will strongly differ in their interpretation of “the right circumstances”.

“There are a lot of wannabes, people who think they know what is right for everyone else on the planet.”

Yes. Two of them are currently vying for the world’s top job. Other people write op-eds to move the masses.

“Do we as a society take the risk that if some extreme green demagogue begins a rise to power that he (or she) will find a ready-made pool of indoctrinated eco-warriors…”

I think you’re being alarmist and not a little paranoid. But if you’re concerned about pools of indoctrinated kids, you need to include Sunday School and the Boy Scouts, which have masses of youth imbibing adult doctrines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2689996/Children-aged-eight-enlisted-as-council-snoopers.html

Unfortunately your link discussing climate sensitivity to doubled CO2 is equally wrong. (Example: WV does not contribute 95% of the greenhouse effect. This number is never mentioned in the scientific literature and has been thrown around only on internet sites.) Once again, stick with the peer reviewed literature and you can learn a thing or two.

Reply – My recommendation of the other discussion was not to prove anything to you, but to suggest a more fitting thread for the continuation of this discussion. Since you seem to have run out of arguments based on facts and are are now resorting to personal jabs, I forced to say adieu. Best of luck to you in all your endeavors and all that. – Dee Norris

So this article is just a “pile”?

No, but your contribution seems to be as your ‘conclusion’ does not follow from the ‘connections’ you cite.

Boris, I believe all three methods also assume that man made CO2 is equally likely to be exchanged with sinks.

The purpose of my essay was to get people to think. And judging from the reaction and comments here as well as the fact that it hit the number two spot on top posts here at WordPress (BTW, the number one spot is always occupied by the WordPress announcement of the moment) , I am please with it.

However, you are projecting an awful lot into my two-minute conversation with Melissa when you state that I provided “a child with a half-truth about the human contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere.” What I was doing was challenging her received notions about CO2 (that a lot ‘maybe 75%’ of the atmospheric CO2 concentration is anthropogenic). She clearly didn’t want to continue to discuss CO2 after that and switched the conversation to Polar Bears where I again challenged her received notions at which point her language clearly indicated that she wanted me to stop challenging her convictions.

Now, had I forced her to listen to me pedantically drone on and on about how wrong she was or about the necessity of taking action to prevent a cooling world, you might have a point.

The antiquity of the practice of childhood indoctrination was established by the quote from Proverbs. Hitler and Stalin were then linked to draw attention to the danger of childhood indoctrination. It was left open to the reader to decide if AGW childhood indoctrination is comparable to to the above examples. If the reader believes in the goodness of the Jewish, Christian or Islamic faiths, then the quote from Proverbs says supports that the childhood indoctrination is permissible under the right circumstances. Certainly in the hindsight of the 21st century majority, under Hitler or Stalin, the practice of childhood indoctrination is now considered a bad thing.

Once again you are projecting when you claim to understand my reasons for writing as I did. It was not until after you triggered the long forgotten fact about the creation of the Hitler Youth that remembered that Hitler began his youth indoctrination programs before the creation of the NAZI state and I realized the parallels to the rise of AGW indoctrination and the grab for control of the population through carbon restrictions. Certainly the parents of the 5 million boys in the Hitler Youth prior to the mandatory membership didn’t consider the indoctrination a bad thing.

Before I am accused of seeing the next Hitler lurking in some Earth First cell, let me say this: There are a lot of wannabes, people who think they know what is right for everyone else on the planet. Do we as a society take the risk that if some extreme green demagogue begins a rise to power that he (or she) will find a ready-made pool of indoctrinated eco-warriors and climate cops ready to give life and limb to defend Gaia from unbelievers who are destroying her?

Maybe. But all three methods also come to the same conclusion, which is why the evidence for human contribution of CO2 is so strong.

Reply - All three methods conclude that humans have contributed to the total atmospheric CO2 load, but they differ in the amount of the contribution.

Anyhow, the real debate is not over the contribution but if the contribution has any meaningful effect. All the studies show that CO2 effect on temperature decreases log rhythmically as concentration increases and that at this point any increases in CO2 concentration, natural or otherwise, have only a small impact of global temperature.

I refer you to Even doubling or tripling the amount of CO2′ will have ‘little impact’ on temps if you wish to further discuss this topic. – Dee Norris

There are several ways to arrive at the anthropogenic CO2 load in the atmosphere. One is to assume that at some point, there was a dynamic equilibrium between natural CO2 emissions and natural sinks, then assume that any increase in CO2 concentration after that date is attributed to humanity.

The second involves adding up historic estimates of anthropogenic sources and subtracting anthropogenic and natural sinks to compute a total anthropogenic CO2 load.

Third involves analyzing the ration of C radio-isotopes to determine the ratio of natural C in the atmosphere to the anthropogenic C.

All three methods are their proponents as well as detractors. All are have assumptions that can be falsifiable as sound science uncovers additional information and all three appear logically sound on the surface

Of course, many of the various adherents to one of these approaches have picked their favorite method to support their desired outcomes & belief structures and then have rationalized why their choice it the best and the others are invalid.

In a nod to Leif and his oft-repeated mantra, this is also true of the various adherents to one solar forcing theory or another and I respect his desire to stay agnostic to the results despite his desire to see a particular outcome.

So this article is just a “pile”? A blog post will not usually consist of a set of syllogisms, but nevertheless some sort of argument is often being made, as is the case here. Otherwise, there is no point to the article. The writer is attempting to connect the actions of Hitler and Stalin with those of supporters of AGW.

“All the article said was that Hitler & Stalin showed us how effective childhood indoctrination is.”

No. All it says is they practised it. Nothing about its effectiveness.
The irony of the anecdote presented in this article is that rather than appealing to a reliable source, the writer attempts her own form of counter-indoctrination, but only exacerbates the situation by providing a child with a half-truth about the human contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere.