OFF: UK's premier green awareness festival under threat from police and local council.

[Paul Mather]

On 14 Aug 2009, at 6:51 PM, Jonathan Jarrett wrote:

> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009, Paul Mather wrote:
>
>> Well, sod the IPCC and its uncountable legions of scientists with  
>> their so-called scientific consensus!  If Mike disagrees with them  
>> then I'm backing Mike because he always has the Straight Dope and  
>> that's the truth!!* Besides, he states things so forcefully, like  
>> his facts are like axioms and so not to be quibbled with, that it's  
>> hard to disagree with a chap like that.
>
> 	The trouble with the IPCC's uncountable consensus is that (a) it  
> includes Al Gore's particular brand of excession and (b) there is a  
> countable but growing consensus *against* their consensus too.

Sure, it's countable, but it's a small minority compared to the  
consensus for climate change.  Nobody said everybody has to agree with  
everyone else.  That's how science works.  You stick with the best  
theory until something better comes along, even if the theory doesn't  
explain everything.

> At which point, the cynic like me starts looking at who funds the  
> relevant people, on either side, and wondering about agendas.

Yes, like the literally millions of dollars ExxonMobil alone has  
funnelled into climate change denial "research" and various astroturf  
front groups.  They and their ilk are far outspending the scientists  
in the propaganda war.

>
>> [*] May not be the truth in all localities.  Void where prohibited.
>
> 	Not just that truth, it seems. But such is the way of knowledge  
> based on incomplete evidence.

But evidence is always incomplete.  So far as I understand it,  
physicists can't account for the lack of observable matter that should  
be in the universe and so theorise about "dark matter" (which, AFAIK,  
nobody has ever observed) to make their equations balance nicely.   
But, despite such lack of evidence, we don't damn all physicists as  
charlatans and write off physics as a load of bunkum, do we?  Medicine  
doesn't have any rigourous scientific laws about disease, but that  
doesn't stop us from going to the doctor, does it?  Look at any  
scientific discipline and you will find flaws.  It is the nature of  
science: it is evolving and ongoing.

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
  deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
         --- Frank Vincent Zappa