A Gathering of “Skeptics”

Meh – well meaning to pretend there are not politics involved, but the fact is the ENTIRE THING is politically motivated. The alGoreans are absolutely in love with using the club of AGW to beat the average person senseless… and take their money.
Either way, there are many things we “assume” are true that are quite simply not true. One of them involves second hand smoke. As repulsive as smelling tobacco smoke is to a non-smoker, using fabricated data to “prove” a danger where none exists is 100% wrong. The WHO’s gigantic study showed ONLY ONE statistically valid correlation: children of smokers actually had BETTER lung health than children of non-smokers.
I still hear people hold up that report and claim that it “says” things that it simply does not. They tried very hard to find scientific evidence that second hand smoke is harmful, but they failed to do so. So the fallback tactic worked perfectly – they hold up the report and TELL US WHAT IT SAYS. Nobody reads it. Nobody studies or checks results. People tend to be stupid that way and give an unreasonable amount of trust to the UN and “science”.
This exact same principle works fine for AGW, too. Can’t find real world evidence of AGW? Fabricate it! Can’t correlate that theorized heat signature at the tropics? No problem, do some number-fudging and make pretty graphs! Weather not cooperating and planet cooling? No problem, change the averaging method on your charts! Then just lie about the whole thing. Unprecedented! Worse than feared! Panic! Doom! Send Money!
Again: the big lies of my time include: global cooling. global warming. DDT destroys eagle eggs. secondhand smoke proven harmful. Freon destroys the ozone layer. Population explosion! California will slide into the ocean “soon”.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason…. is wrong.

New York… sigh….
Isn’t Heartland centered in Chicago? If this were lcoal, I’d hop on the Metra, and try to meet Anthony for coffee and donuts!

Leif Svalgaard (09:33:13) :
“The conference is sponsored by the Heartland Institute, which has been actively involved in debate over tobacco policy, opposing restrictions on smoking and criticizing science which documents the harms of secondhand smoke. The institute is funded by ultra-conservative foundations, individuals, and ‘Big Oil’.”
Leif, the most outstanding feature of the American culture has been its emphasis on individual freedom, although now severely limited when compared to the halcyon days of my youth. Tobacco products are still a legal product. If the Heartland Institute is an advocate for the rights of tobacco users, what is their crime? If a citizen wants to use tobacco, he has every right to do so. I am a non-tobacco user, by the way.
“Heartland campaigns against what it refers to as “junk-science”; supports “common-sense environmentalism”, such as opposition to the the Kyoto protocol aimed at countering global warming…”
“It seems to me that the Institute has its own political agenda and it is a bit sad that they can fool well-meaning people to do their bidding.”
Heartland sponsors real science in refuting the AGW hoax. How were scientists fooled by the stated mission of Heartland? Why do you display a contempt for well-meaning people?
“The institute is funded by ultra-conservative foundations, individuals, and ‘Big Oil.’”
Are you saying that this disqualifies Heartland from sponsoring The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change?

Global Warming Crisis: Canceled
Absolute lack of credit (not have money …).
Where will a scientist AGW unemployed?
Certainly: The arrogance …..lose impact.
I will continue … 10 U.S. dollars
Sir Anthony Watts … good luck

It is so very interesting how the tobacco card can be incredibly divisive, even between two people (let alone groups of people) who otherwise seem to agree almost 100% about everything else.
If we look to recent support for AGW proposed control mechanisms we would probably find most of it in the financial trading marketplace – the impetus and funding for carbon tariffs and related trading had clear support amongst the investment banking majors before they imploded.
I wonder why?
In the case of smoking and a few other activities it became possible for scientific observation and analytic methods correctly applied to prove the potential for harm, for many but interestingly not all, outweighed any measurable potential benefit (theoretical or otherwise) by a degree that could not be disputed reliably.
Since those points were reached many pressure groups with their own reasons for making a statement have endeavoured to spread the effect of the original agreement about risk into peripheral areas where definitive ‘proof’ was much less likely to be scientifically available even if there was indeed some strained connection.
This we see people drifting into acceptance of the ‘precautionary principle’, though strangely not for some evidently ‘dangerous’ activities. for example based on fatality rates by percentage of participants and the costs of making rescue facilities available it is extremely difficult to understand why, by way of an example, climbing mountains is not a proscribed activity.
Or to look at it another way, the average life expectancy in some countries is less than (or little greater than) the age at which, in the developed countries, disease related to smoking (or whatever) are diagnosed. This makes it somewhat difficult in a purely scientific sense to define the point at which a negative health outcome becomes ‘early’ rather than naturally timed.
In the case of the banking industry I guess it will be a while before we begin to fully understand the underlying motivations that resulted in such an unstable situation and to the bankers being so keen about moving in on the ‘green’ arena.
Ultimately we will, individually or collectively, believe what we want to believe.
For example consensus suggests that exercise is a ‘good thing’ and that one way of getting useful exercise is to use a bicycle.
To some extent that is indeed true and one can feel fitter and more energetic through such exercise. However the accident and injury rate (both on and off road) for bicycle riders is quite high compared to other methods of transport. That factor is not so good when one tries to combine exercise and, say, commuting to work.
The only serious injury I have suffered in my life (so far) was the result of an inadvertent and rather minor low speed tumble from a bicycle as a result of riding into some unidentified mud. In real terms a complete non-event in a very low risk situation but one that created a measurable cost to society and a significant personal cost to me in both the short and longer term.
Quite why people propose that everyone should take to two wheels is, to me, mystifying. But they do, even at the same time that workplace Health and Safety laws are introduced banning the use of 3-step ladders without having been suitably trained.
In summary the most dangerous assumption that we can make these days is that as humanity, en masse, we make sensible, reliable and justifiable decisions about our lives and the world around us. By extension of that thought any attempt to introduce new ‘rules’ about the way we live should always be considered in their specific context then questioned, questioned and then questioned some more, continuing until they are no longer found wanting or they fade from view.
If second hand smoke is truly such a danger can I sue California for not preventing so many fires this past few years? So much smoke, irrespective of its source, must have damaged my health, even from several thousand miles away.

Unfortunately this conference will get little or no coverage by the ‘Pravda’ like news media as it walks in lockstep with the AGW crowd. Academia no longer produces journalists but basically produces social change activists that engage in propaganda style “news” to promote their political dogma. This is quite apparent with the current election and AGW coverage. The Fourth Estate is dead!

If the Northern Hemisphere winter is really cold, then oil use will rapidly increase. The global warmer brigade cannot then say (logically) that global warming had had the effect of a reduction in oil use!

Dr Svalgaard. Every time I read a post under your name, it is full of sarcasm and scorn bordering on utter contemp for anybody who dares to refute you. Now that I see your opinion concerning this forthcoming conference, it has suddenly dawned on me that you could be an enemy in the camp slipped in by the global warmers. A legitimate refuter would never let their emotions be revealed; they would just present their science arguments. I shall ring up Mr Gore and inform him that next time he should send someone who has more self control!

I have to say that Leif Svalgaard’s post is illogical.
From wherever sponsorship emanates is irrelevant. What the speakers at the conference say is either scientifically right or wrong.
By inference, Mr Svalgaard is implying that the source of finance will affect the validity of the science discussed. If that is so, then why hasn’t any speaker at the 2008 Conference been exposed as a scientific liar, bought off by conservative industrialists?
I’d rather hear the truth from a smoking drunk than a lie from a sober preacher.

Lief,
err, not exactly your best thread this one.
Your true colours springs to mind.