Raise the Hammer

Zanis,

You wrote, 'I had to guffaw when the IPCC was presented as a source of "facts - cold, hard, unreassuring facts".'

Are you saying that the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report contains no facts? Or do you have some evidence that their calculation that "human activity is a warming force of about 1.6 watts per square meter, while increased solar activity is responsible for a warming force of about 0.12 watts per square meter" is incorrect?

You also wrote:

"About Lawrence Solomon - before you dismiss him as just some big-oil, right-wing crank, consider that he's the director of the Urban Renaissance Institute, which is an off-shoot of Energy Probe (http://www.urban-renaissance.org)."

I never dismissed Mr. Solomon as anything. The words 'oil' and 'right-wing' do not even appear in my article. I simply disagreed with Mr. Solomon's interpretation of events on Mars.

Mr. Solomon's credentials and his aims are besides the point. It's what he said in his article, not who he is, that matters. That's something that Mr. Solomon should take to heart in the article I referenced, where he quotes Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, "one of the world's chief critics" of climate change theory, as saying:

"Mars has global warming, but without a greenhouse and without the participation of Martians. These parallel global warmings -- observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth -- can only be a straightline consequence of the effect of the one same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance."

Ignoring Dr. Abdussamatov's no doubt distinguished career and focusing simply on what he's saying, is it possible to find fault with this statement?

The statement can be summed up as: Earth and Mars both show signs of warming, so the reason for the warming must be the same.

This conclusion is leaped to, not demonstrated. There are all sorts of reasons why Mars might be getting warmer (such as seasonal variations). However, I have yet to see any real evidence that Mars is in fact getting warmer.

Science is about looking at the evidence, not taking statements at face value because they come from distinguished sources. So I think the term "anti-science" I have used is fair.