Friday, November 16, 2012

False equivalency. 24 out of 13,974, did the media fail 4th grade math?

World temps for 2012 are almost 2°F above historical norms.  Another year that will be ranked as one of the top 10 hottest, of which 7 or 8 are within only the last 10 years.
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The Army is going to congress today to complain about their hectoring  them on sustainable energy projects and biodiesel.  Logic says reduce  vulnerable supply lines by taking energy efficient equipment, portable solar and wind units to outposts and deployments.  If they can stop moving caravans of fuel into hostile situations they can save millions of $ and hundreds of lives.  Of course, Congress works for oil, these things are poison to their owners.

Congress has tried to block them from testing new engines and fuels in tanks and trucks, they have made it harder to add solar, wind, new lighting and insulation to existing bases in the US, in short "oil" needs the Pentagon to stay hooked.
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Just in case you don't know what peer-reviewed articles are, these are papers submitted to publishers.  None of the publishers pay for these articles.  There is no $ gain from being published, but it helps the field and is a feather in the cap of the writer.  In this case the publishers focus on science, often on single fields, for example geology has it's own set of publications, aerodynamics theirs and so on.  People with great interest and knowledge, and who are educated in these fields research something, gather data, make experiments and so on and share their ideas and findings with others in their field.  The whole field benefits.  The submitted article is reviewed by at least 3 people who have significant knowledge related to the subject.  They pick the thing apart looking for flaws, they do the math or make the formula (if any was used in the conclusions) evaluate the strength of the data, hunt for mistakes, plagiarism, grammar and writing skills, and it's overall importance.  This process takes weeks to a year, often they ask for a revision then the whole thing starts anew.  For every one that is accepted, many have fallen short.  This is peer-review, and it is how science progresses, if you found a planet the others have to be able to see it following your instructions. These are not normally written for the public, for most of us they are dull reading with charts and calculations and terminology specific to the subject.

Only 24 papers have ever been published that would suggest some aspect of global warming is not occurring.  Most likely they focus on some aspect or data set, and it was found to be valid, but please know that none prove once and for all the thing is a hoax, for if one did the GOP, Massey, BP, or Kochs would have had it printed and mailed to every house in the nation.  The septic sceptics claim thousands of papers published, what they do is write articles for small town papers, for "for profit" magazines sometimes for a fee, on blogs, for right wing media, and more and more for the mainstream media who have no one and no interest in vetting these pieces as they lay off and dumb down reporting staff.  These articles don't stand up, are often written by people uneducated in the field, reuse false info off the internet.  No review is needed, no facts, just get us something for December.

Do the math.  Or as Clinton says, the arithmetic.  Also........watch the PBS series on the Dust Bowl starting Sunday night, the dust bowl was the first large scale man made ecological disaster in America.

2 comments:

  1. Here this is an imparative to see, I watched it this morning and can be rented at itunes or net flix.http://www.thebigfixmovie.com/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Pops, here is a trailer anyone can watch in 2 minutes.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg_fpr6XBFM

      Delete

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