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Posted by Steve Sweeney on Monday, June 16, 2014 8:22 AM

Gentlemen:

This thread devolved quickly during the last weekend. The Moderators have received no fewer than 14 complaints about this thread in three days. It is now locked.

As a reminder, these free forums are for unencumbered discussions about railroads and railroading.

Best,
Steve S. 

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Posted by Norm48327 on Monday, June 16, 2014 5:47 AM

DwightBranch

MP173

Scientific theory is all well and good, but is it possible the data can be either manipulated or certain data withheld?

Look closely DwightBranch and there are very serious allegations of that occuring with Mann and others.

The entire basis of the 97% could be called into question.

I really appreciate this thread and the moderators allowing it to run.  It has forced me to do a little research.

Ed

Conspiracy theories never hold water. I have worked in academics with other college faculty and I can tell you that most of us hate each other after being around each other for very long., and that is true of those in the physical sciences as well.  There is no way any of us would let any other get credit for a theory if it could be disproved. The testing and scrutiny each new theory goes through before being accepted is absolutely intense. Add to that scientists all over the world also scrutinizing it, in different countries, that we have never met,  rivalries between universities ("we're better at Physics than MIT!"), etc, and for 97% of them to come to the same conclusion is overwhelming to the point of being unshakable.  

Very adept and totally evasive answer.

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Posted by Norm48327 on Monday, June 16, 2014 5:43 AM

schlimm

Murray
Its definitely being manipulated by governments and other organization with politically driven agendas.

Once again you reveal your politically driven agenda.  The notion that hundreds of scientists in many nations in the field of climate research are in a conspiracy with various governments is so ridiculous as to make most outsiders reading this laugh.   Most scientists are pretty much non-political for one thing.  They are dedicated to their field of research and usually detest politics.   If you had ever spent any time with them in academia you would know that.

Here is an example of one researcher, a physicist, who had received funding from the Koch brothers, and who had seriously doubted the validity of AGCC.  

I suggest that your agenda is politically driven since you insist on making reference to those with whom you disagree.

He undertook a more extensive review involving a dozen other scientists and concluded:  "that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."

So, you are in effect saying there is no way that could have been caused by natural phenomena? Remember that in that time frame things were not yet as mechanized as they are today. What part did CO2 play over those years?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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Posted by erikem on Sunday, June 15, 2014 11:15 PM

DwightBranch

Again, the theory of AGW is not a theory of all weather at all times, it is an explanation of a specific phenomenon, the warming of the atmosphere due to increased CO2, now. An all-encompassing theory is what religions do, generally not science.

There's a lot more to "AGW" than CO2, such as particulates, other GHG's, etc.

The effect of varying concentrations of CO2 on the radiative heat balance is pretty straightforward if all the other atmospheric constituents with high far IR absorption cross sections are well known and remain constant. Clouds are a bit of a joker in this discussion as no-one has come up with a good model for when and where clouds form. Clouds are strong blockers of IR, though low clouds will lead to net cooling due to increasing albedo plus radiating more IR due to low clouds being warmer than high clouds. High clouds are typically net contributors to warming due to minimal increase in albedo versus increased attenuation of IR and lower thermal emissions due to lower temperature (radiated energy goes up with the fourth power of absolute temperature). One very common type of a high cloud is a CONTRAIL.

At the moment, the majority of the climate models are doing a poor job of predicting global surface temperatures. This implies that the models are missing a lot of the physics going on with climate.

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Posted by BARFlyer on Sunday, June 15, 2014 10:51 PM

1. For Co2 reduction folks,the CARBON tax was tried for many years in Australia. It was tracked very closely. IT made no difference in levels measured. Last year the people there Elected a new Prime Minister,Tony Abbot, Booting out the Socialist Julia Gillard, who had her thumbs on the "carbon tax". Carbon tax can and does hurt everyone, while giving money to governments ( or the UN) who are about 30% efficient.

2. The Heat on earth from the Sun tends to be Latent. Its possible the Earth can have effects from solar flares for a year after one occurs, if its large and close enough.

3. The Earths ecosystem is a thermodynamic system and  it exists in a particular global state.. A Thermodynamic cycle happens  when a  Thermodynamic system is put through changes involving its State, and finally returned to its initial state. In the process of going through this cycle, the system may perform work on its surroundings, thereby acting as a source of heat, or heat pump. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics all processes will tend towards the creation of entropy. In other words NO process can take place and return its system AND the surroundings back to the ORIGINAL state. There will always be something lost to the surroundings, some "disorder" that will be created.( Entropy)

4. This means that Climate change is NATURAL in cycles, but can be affected by things  that are actually IN our thermo system, the Sun and Solar flares, all animals in the system, and all matter in the system.

5. Back to Heat and Replacing coal. A tier 4 locomotive engine gives off a much higher temp to burn diesel than stack temps on coal steam engines. How much is heat worth in this throwing Coal against global warming??

6. There is ROCK, Peridotite that absorbs excess Co2 on earth... Imagine that??

7 Lastly, there are massive amounts of Methane released 24/7 just off the coast of California, bubbling up from the shallow ocean floor. Its natural...IT IS considered a greenhouse gas..... Can we control nature? Tax the Pacific ocean??

 Building better quality items so we don't live in a throw away society may be the best thing we can do. Taxing Carbon only hurts economies and feeds the govt more money.

 - People believe what they WANT to believe, Galactic change is everywhere

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Posted by schlimm on Sunday, June 15, 2014 9:57 PM

Murray
Its definitely being manipulated by governments and other organization with politically driven agendas.

Once again you reveal your politically driven agenda.  The notion that hundreds of scientists in many nations in the field of climate research are in a conspiracy with various governments is so ridiculous as to make most outsiders reading this laugh.   Most scientists are pretty much non-political for one thing.  They are dedicated to their field of research and usually detest politics.   If you had ever spent any time with them in academia you would know that.

Here is an example of one researcher, a physicist, who had received funding from the Koch brothers, and who had seriously doubted the validity of AGCC.   He undertook a more extensive review involving a dozen other scientists and concluded:  "that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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Posted by Boyd on Sunday, June 15, 2014 9:40 PM

Please let me finish work and get home to print this thread before it's deleted. 

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:56 PM

DwightBranch
Does the entire history of fires in the world (from lightning, volcanoes, etc) matter when we are talking about YOUR house burning down?

Yes, it does.  The cumulative experience is what determines the outcome.

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Posted by DwightBranch on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:52 PM

MP173

Scientific theory is all well and good, but is it possible the data can be either manipulated or certain data withheld?

Look closely DwightBranch and there are very serious allegations of that occuring with Mann and others.

The entire basis of the 97% could be called into question.

I really appreciate this thread and the moderators allowing it to run.  It has forced me to do a little research.

Ed

Conspiracy theories never hold water. I have worked in academics with other college faculty and I can tell you that most of us hate each other after being around each other for very long., and that is true of those in the physical sciences as well.  There is no way any of us would let any other get credit for a theory if it could be disproved. The testing and scrutiny each new theory goes through before being accepted is absolutely intense. Add to that scientists all over the world also scrutinizing it, in different countries, that we have never met,  rivalries between universities ("we're better at Physics than MIT!"), etc, and for 97% of them to come to the same conclusion is overwhelming to the point of being unshakable.  

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:46 PM

DwightBranch

Again, the theory of AGW is not a theory of all weather at all times, it is an explanation of a specific phenomenon, the warming of the atmosphere due to increased CO2, now. An all-encompassing theory is what religions do, generally not science.

What you and others are doing here is known as "sandbagging". A classic example of sandbagging is the retort common when I was a child "what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" to any point being made. Its purpose is to remove attention from the subject at hand.

You know Dwight, your arguments would possibly be received a little more positively if you weren't so condescending.

I asked a valid question and you completely sidestepped it.

Perhaps you'd like to try again.

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Posted by DwightBranch on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:43 PM

Murray

DwightBranch

Not true, and I think that you do not understand science if you believe that.

 
I will suggest to you that the decade of the 1950's was drier, hotter and had more instances of extreme weather than anything we have seen in the last 10 years.
 
How do you explain that?

 

Again, the theory of AGW is not a theory of all weather at all times, it is an explanation of a specific phenomenon, the warming of the atmosphere due to increased CO2, now. An all-encompassing theory is what religions do, generally not science.

What you and others are doing here is known as "sandbagging". A classic example of sandbagging is the retort common when I was a child "what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" to any point being made. Its purpose is to remove attention from the subject at hand.

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:35 PM

MP173

Scientific theory is all well and good, but is it possible the data can be either manipulated or certain data withheld?

Its definitely being manipulated by governments and other organization with politically driven agendas.

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Posted by MP173 on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:32 PM

Scientific theory is all well and good, but is it possible the data can be either manipulated or certain data withheld?

Look closely DwightBranch and there are very serious allegations of that occuring with Mann and others.

The entire basis of the 97% could be called into question.

I really appreciate this thread and the moderators allowing it to run.  It has forced me to do a little research.

Ed 

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:28 PM

DwightBranch

Not true, and I think that you do not understand science if you believe that.

 
I will suggest to you that the decade of the 1950's was drier, hotter and had more instances of extreme weather than anything we have seen in the last 10 years.
 
How do you explain that?

 

 

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Posted by Norm48327 on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:21 PM

DwightBranch

 

Not true, and I think that you do not understand science if you believe that.

What I believe we understand is that scientists can be corrupted and they will provide the results their benefactors wish. Data has been seriously manipulated to produce those results.

Sorry, but just because you say you are a professor doesn't make your claims gospel.

Norm


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Posted by Boyd on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:13 PM
The last two winters here in Minnesota were brutally cold and snowy. And I've lived here all my life of 47 years. What warming?

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Posted by DwightBranch on Sunday, June 15, 2014 7:05 PM

BaltACD

DwightBranch

BaltACD

DwightBranch

 

tree68

Climate change indeed exists - and has for billions of years.

It is a human conceit to assert that the current edition of climate change is due solely to the influence of man.  That's not to say that many hasn't had an effect, but he isn't solely responsible.

One Krakatoa and all the temperature increases of the past 20+ years will be but a fond memory...

Larry, don't you get it that the entire history of temperature variations in the world doesn't matter? Does the entire history of fires in the world (from lightening, volcanoes, etc) mater when we are talking about YOUR house burning down?

Can you imagine a Krakatoa type volcanic eruption somewhere along the New Madrid fault line in middle America?????  Or eruption of the Yellowstone caldera?

Yep, I can imagine it, I can also imagine an asteroid wiping out 90% of life on the planet. If so it will burn down a lot of people's houses. But I am not going to let a fire burn in my house now becasue I can't stop a volcano from erupting, and it is equally ridiculous to avoid dealing with an evil we know exists now becasue of the hypothetical possibility of an evil in the future.

The arrogance of man to think Old Mom Nature can be changed one way or the other.  Mom does what Mom wants to do when Mom wants to do it.

Not true, and I think that you do not understand science if you believe that.

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Posted by chicagorails on Sunday, June 15, 2014 6:53 PM
aliens from outer (or inner) space may be putting pressure on our government to cut down on pollution cause they live visit here too! I live in fla. ill be the 1st one under water if this is true,but thank jesus ihave relatives in Illinois I can live with if it floods.. but the ice caps are growing in size not shrinking... remember the chineese ship stuck in south pole that had 2 other ships stuck trying toget it out.? THE SHIP WENT THERE IN THE WARMEST TIME OF YEAR WHEN NO ICE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PROBLEM. I WILL STOP NOW
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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, June 15, 2014 6:32 PM

DwightBranch

BaltACD

DwightBranch

 

tree68

Climate change indeed exists - and has for billions of years.

It is a human conceit to assert that the current edition of climate change is due solely to the influence of man.  That's not to say that many hasn't had an effect, but he isn't solely responsible.

One Krakatoa and all the temperature increases of the past 20+ years will be but a fond memory...

Larry, don't you get it that the entire history of temperature variations in the world doesn't matter? Does the entire history of fires in the world (from lightening, volcanoes, etc) mater when we are talking about YOUR house burning down?

Can you imagine a Krakatoa type volcanic eruption somewhere along the New Madrid fault line in middle America?????  Or eruption of the Yellowstone caldera?

Yep, I can imagine it, I can also imagine an asteroid wiping out 90% of life on the planet. If so it will burn down a lot of people's houses. But I am not going to let a fire burn in my house now becasue I can't stop a volcano from erupting, and it is equally ridiculous to avoid dealing with an evil we know exists now becasue of the hypothetical possibility of an evil in the future.

The arrogance of man to think Old Mom Nature can be changed one way or the other.  Mom does what Mom wants to do when Mom wants to do it.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Euclid on Sunday, June 15, 2014 5:54 PM

DwightBranch
I would add this quote on the scientific method: "The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false...Scientific inquiry is intended to be as objective as possible in order to minimize bias."

That definition is okay, but that does not mean that science is infallible or “settled” in a permanent manner.  Settled science might be settled one day and upset the next.  It is fine to let reality speak for itself, but the message still needs to be interpreted according to human values, attitudes, beliefs, and other science that happens to be considered settled at the time.  As reality speaks, it offers things that appear to be beyond intellectual reasoning such as infinity of time and space.  This conundrum suggests that reality may not be exactly what it appears to be.   

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Posted by DwightBranch on Sunday, June 15, 2014 5:21 PM

Randy Stahl

schlimm

A more accurate defintion as related to science:

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method, repeatedly confirmed through observation and/or experimentation.  As with most (if not all) forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories are inductive in nature and aim for predictive power and explanatory force. The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it can explain, and to its elegance and simplicity.  Examples of theories:

  • Biology: cell theory, germ theory, evolutionary theory
  • Chemistry: kinetic theory of gases, molecular theory, valence bond theory
  • Physics: atomic theory, theory of relativity, quantum field theory, Big Bang theory
  • Other fields: climate change theory, plate tectonics theory 
All of the above are strongly accepted.

Strongly accepted and from time to time either revised or disproved. It is also a theory that intelligent life exists on other planets... who are we to judge ?

Schlimm nailed it. I would add this quote on the scientific method: "The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false...Scientific inquiry is intended to be as objective as possible in order to minimize bias."

The stuff a lot of you are positing is full of political bias through a changing-of -subject.. I am biased also, but I wouldn't put my biases forward as equally valid to an objective,  peer-reviewed article in a science jornal.

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Posted by DwightBranch on Sunday, June 15, 2014 4:41 PM

BaltACD

DwightBranch

 

tree68

Climate change indeed exists - and has for billions of years.

It is a human conceit to assert that the current edition of climate change is due solely to the influence of man.  That's not to say that many hasn't had an effect, but he isn't solely responsible.

One Krakatoa and all the temperature increases of the past 20+ years will be but a fond memory...

Larry, don't you get it that the entire history of temperature variations in the world doesn't matter? Does the entire history of fires in the world (from lightening, volcanoes, etc) mater when we are talking about YOUR house burning down?

d

Can you imagine a Krakatoa type volcanic eruption somewhere along the New Madrid fault line in middle America?????  Or eruption of the Yellowstone caldera?

Yep, I can imagine it, I can also imagine an asteroid wiping out 90% of life on the planet. If so it will burn down a lot of people's houses. But I am not going to let a fire burn in my house now becasue I can't stop a volcano from erupting, and it is equally ridiculous to avoid dealing with an evil we know exists now becasue of the hypothetical possibility of an evil in the future.

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, June 15, 2014 4:36 PM

DwightBranch

 

tree68

Climate change indeed exists - and has for billions of years.

It is a human conceit to assert that the current edition of climate change is due solely to the influence of man.  That's not to say that many hasn't had an effect, but he isn't solely responsible.

One Krakatoa and all the temperature increases of the past 20+ years will be but a fond memory...

Larry, don't you get it that the entire history of temperature variations in the world doesn't matter? Does the entire history of fires in the world (from lightening, volcanoes, etc) mater when we are talking about YOUR house burning down?

d

Can you imagine a Krakatoa type volcanic eruption somewhere along the New Madrid fault line in middle America?????  Or eruption of the Yellowstone caldera?

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by DwightBranch on Sunday, June 15, 2014 4:33 PM

Several years back, the major threat was considered to be Methane gas from the digestive tracts of cattle herds. This year, it's CO2. What will be the next line the alarmists (read agenda driven liberals) ask us to believe?

I botched the quote.

If you go back to page seven I linked to this. Why aren't we worrying about methane from cows (or volcanoes, or asteroids, or clouds)as CO2 from burning fossil fuels? Because all of those are either roughly constant now (until the methane in the ocean is released with global warming as the article says, in which case we will be in trouble) or only occur irregularly. When there is a fire started in your kitchen that is spreading to the rest of the house you worry about putting THAT fire out, you don't worry about ALL fires, everywhere on earth, nor do you throw up your hands and say: "well, my fire department can't stop ALL fires so I won't bother calling them" (and we shouldn't bother paying for a fire department in the first place).  That's how ridiculous the "we can't stop ALL sources of global warming like volcanoes or asteroids that appear every 100 million years so why bother cutting back on CO2 production" is.

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Posted by DwightBranch on Sunday, June 15, 2014 4:24 PM

 

tree68

Climate change indeed exists - and has for billions of years.

It is a human conceit to assert that the current edition of climate change is due solely to the influence of man.  That's not to say that many hasn't had an effect, but he isn't solely responsible.

One Krakatoa and all the temperature increases of the past 20+ years will be but a fond memory...

Larry, don't you get it that the entire history of temperature variations in the world doesn't matter? Does the entire history of fires in the world (from lightening, volcanoes, etc) mater when we are talking about YOUR house burning down?

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Posted by DwightBranch on Sunday, June 15, 2014 4:18 PM

Murray

I assume you didn't actually read this article becasue you are an AGW denier, and becasue: 1) Mother Jones is a Progressive publication where among others Michael Moore got his start; 2) the article strengthens the link between human behavior and global warming. Here is the article you posted a link to::

"Far from undermining the scientific consensus on climate change, then, the new study could be said to strengthen it, by defining who's a relevant expert in the first place. "You listen to the scientists who really know the field in question," says George Mason's Neil Stenhouse, a Ph.D. student and the study's lead author. "And previous studies show that if you ask the scientists who really know climate change, there is high consensus on human causation.""


To quote another article on the topic of why Meteorologists often disagree with real scientists (i.e. those with a PhD who are peer reviewed in scientific publications), here is another story (also in a center-left pubblication)::

Meteorologists are notoriously reluctant to accept climate change. Why so? Theirs is a profession that studies the weather, which is akin to what climate scientists do by studying the weather over relatively long periods. Of course, they are not as educated as climate scientists who have PhD's in their field, while many meteorologists have college degrees unrelated to meteorology. Meteorologists know the pitfalls of being wrong when making a forecast, however, they do not seem to realize that the conclusions of climate scientists are not the same as saying there is a 50% chance of precipitation tomorrow. The International Panel on Climate Change or IPCC put a probability that it is more than 90% likely that man is causing climate change. Do meteorologists, weathermen to use a more prosaic term, just feel inferior to climate scientists or just why are they so dismissive about climate change?

That about sums it up (my red).

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Posted by schlimm on Sunday, June 15, 2014 3:45 PM

Murray

Thanks for citing an article that bolsters climate change, even if accidentally.

"And there's more bad news for skeptics who want to cite this AMS survey to bolster their case. You see, the study also showed that conservative political ideology is a big factor behind the denial of climate science by some meteorologists—ideology was a consistently bigger influence on meteorologists' views, in fact, than their level of scientific expertise."

"The irony, then, is considerable. Even as climate skeptics cite the new AMS survey to claim there's no scientific consensus on climate change, the survey itself calls into question whether disagreement among meteorologists has much to do with purely scientific considerations in the first place."

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, June 15, 2014 2:57 PM

Climate change indeed exists - and has for billions of years.

It is a human conceit to assert that the current edition of climate change is due solely to the influence of man.  That's not to say that many hasn't had an effect, but he isn't solely responsible.

One Krakatoa and all the temperature increases of the past 20+ years will be but a fond memory...

LarryWhistling
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Posted by Randy Stahl on Sunday, June 15, 2014 1:32 PM

schlimm

A more accurate defintion as related to science:

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method, repeatedly confirmed through observation and/or experimentation.  As with most (if not all) forms of scientific knowledge, scientific theories are inductive in nature and aim for predictive power and explanatory force. The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it can explain, and to its elegance and simplicity.  Examples of theories:

  • Biology: cell theory, germ theory, evolutionary theory
  • Chemistry: kinetic theory of gases, molecular theory, valence bond theory
  • Physics: atomic theory, theory of relativity, quantum field theory, Big Bang theory
  • Other fields: climate change theory, plate tectonics theory 
All of the above are strongly accepted.

Strongly accepted and from time to time either revised or disproved. It is also a theory that intelligent life exists on other planets... who are we to judge ?

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