Finally a Little Action Around Here

In a comment responding to this post regarding global warming on Mars and questioning if climate change on earth might be from the same source, Gun Toting Liberal had this to say:

You're right. You're not an astrophysicist. Not that it would matter, since climate science is a completely different field.

I'm curious. What exactly is your standard of proof? At what point, what needs to happen, before you say, "Maybe all these scientists who devote their life to studying this issue actually know what they are talking about?"

Not a single peer-reviewed paper has been published contradicting the science of global warming, or claiming there is controversy whether it's not man-made, and all that jazz the energy industry trots out for you.

Which prompted a lengthy response from my cousin Don. So lengthy, he had to break it into 4 separate comments. There is so much information, I decided to turn it into a complete post. With some modest editing to create hyperlinks, Don wrote:

Dear Gun-Toting Liberal,

Well, I'm not an astrophysicist but I do hold a Ph.D. from Cornell University's Lab of Plasma Studies' High Voltage Laboratory. Here's a paper for proof.

And I think over reacting liberals like yourself whether they be gun toting or not over simplify the global warming argument.

By the way, I've published peer reviewed papers and let me tell you something about the peer review process. It is used to push agendas, and therefore most contradictory views of the popular hypothesis get supressed. This was even true in my own work, and many of my papers IMHO went from actually saying something significant to pure mush b/c I couldn't get them published w/o toeing the line. And trust me after living on a grad student stipend for a few years you just want to publish and make enough money to buy a used car. Real interesting controversial science is found on the web nowadays for example here, here, and here.

At those sites you'll find papers and comments in their raw and truest form.

No denying humans have an effect on the atmosphere (just visit LA and try to breathe), but the amount of the effect is very uncertain. Here is a nice website from Bucknell University that presents a nice "fair and balanced" view of the debate. Here's something else about the sun getting hotter from those un-peer reviewed quacks at NASA

In addition, last time I checked Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler were all still correct and Mars and Earth still orbit the same ball of fusion at the center of our solar system.

Now the fusion reaction in the sun is changing and goes through cycles. Much work is being done on detectors for solar studies.

So before you go hauling off quoting "facts" that you learned on Oprah, do a little research. All the data is definitely not in and the debate will continue until Fusion, hydrogen power, and solar power come of age.

Sincerely,
Libertarian Ivy League Enginerd

Well done. I think I should give Cousin Don the keys to the blog so he doesn't have to slum it in the comments section.